Vanuatu: Port Villa; Old Friends, WWII, & National Museum

After Port Resolution we sailed North to Port Villa on Efate Island. Here we met up with Liz Kelsall. The Kelsall's used to live across from the Mante's in Hale, England in the 1970s. Liz, being a teenager at the time, would sometimes babysit the Mante children. Liz stood on the dock as we arrived and we saw her almost daily. Ewout's hopes that she'd kept the same rates for babysitting were disappointed. She did make some wonderful new logo's for Bravado (A hibiscus flower and a gecko).

 

Liz, who used to babysit Ewout in England in the 1970s, and Ewout.

On Efate we hitch-hiked around the island once again. One of our drivers took great pride in feeding us lots of seeds, roots, and shrubs from the jungle.

 

Hitchhiking around the island.

 

Jean-Claude, our driver, prepares us some lunch.

The goal for the round the island trip was to visit some of the World War II relics. Vanuatu was an important base used during the battle of the Coral Sea and Guadacanal. These battles stemmed the march of the Japanese towards Australia. Efate (and the more Northern Islands) are riddled with airstrips, former bases and abandoned/wrecked WWII equipment. On the boat, we watched several movies (Australia, and Bridge over the River Kwai) to talk about the war in Asia with the children.

 

WWII Map of Efate showing various bomber, fighter, and sea plane air-strips and bases.

 

A low-key WWII Museum containing lots of parts of several crashed Corsair fighter/bombers used by the U.S. Marine's.

 

Duck! Stray bullets coming your way!

One day in a local market, Hein was approached by a young girl who thought she heard Dutch. The two of them decided they wanted a "play-date", which resulted in us getting to know the Hoyaux, a Belgium-Uruguayan family.

 

Almost across the Pacific, we have our first trip in an outrigger canoe. The owner is from... ...Belgium!

 

Mante and Hoyaux children performing a short skit

The remainder of this blog consists of some schoolwork the children did whilst we were in Vanuatu.


The National Museum of Vanuatu
Yesterday we went to the Vanuatu National Museum. It was my second visit. Vanuatu is made up of eighty-three volcanic islands. I will now tell you how the people of Vanuatu, the Ni-Vanuatu, treat pigs.
In Vanuatu pigs are sacred animals and considered pets. If a Ni-Vanuatu went to England then he/she would be surprised to see that people there have dogs or cats as pets. Here in Vanuatu dogs and cats are scavengers. Pigs are part of daily life. For example, houses are divided into a section for humans and one for pigs. Pigs even are playmates for the children and practically members of the family. Parents love their pigs as much as their children and their garden. It is usual for a family to hand feed pigs for many years. Sometimes they even chew the food before they feed it to the pigs.
Pigs are also money. Male pigs are worth more than female pigs because male pigs have tusks. The pigs are kept until there is a certain ceremony and the the pig must be sacrificed or given away. When a new chief comes to power he must hand kill five hundred pigs. If there are not enough pigs to make the number five hundred, then as many pigs as possible must be gathered and killed. To make a place sacred you must pour pig's blood on the ground. A very valuable pig is the hairless pig, found on the island Tanna. The hairless pig is worth seven tusked pigs. Another valuable pig is the bisexual pig. In front it has the tusks of a male pig, but in the back it is all female. Fewer and fewer Ni-Vanuatu own pigs because pigs spread disease.
The Ni-Vanuatu are trying to protect their culture and try to live the way their ancestors did before colonization. They are doing this by hunting in the old way (with bow and arrow) and wearing traditional clothes.
I loved the museum.

 

Sand drawings: Hein learns how to draw...

 

..a stylized ant.

Hein Mante Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Museum of Vanuatu
By Eltjo Mante

Yesterday we learned about the culture of Vanuatu in the National Museum in Port Vila, the capital. In the Museum there was an interesting instrument made of hollow bamboo pipes hanging down from hooks. It was a crossing between a piano and a xylophone. The museum guide played the national anthem on it, and twinkle twinkle little star. I tried it too and I had fun, but I could not do it as well as the guide.

Eltjo with Bamboo xylophone

The guide also made beautiful sand drawings with his fingers. He taught me how to do it, but it isn’t as easy as it looks. I made the number one. The drawings have a lot of special meaning. You can not leave them on display for too long, because every minute the magic and meaning wear off a little.

 

Sand drawing of sea-turtle

The traditional clothing of the men is very different from our clothing. They wear almost nothing, but it is very hot here so that is OK.
When they perform traditional dances they wear nice masks with pig tusks. The pig tusks are important to the Vanuatu people, because pigs are their pets. The pig is the national animal. The male pigs grow tusks. The bigger the tusks, the more valuable they are. The pig tusks are on the Vatu (money) and on the national flag.

I loved the picture of a boy doing cats cradle with grass strings and the wooden boats, which looked like outrigger canoes or sailing boats.

Cats cradle using natural fibres

We learned that homes in roots of banyan/vine trees make the best hurricane shelters...

...a large tree can provide shelter for an entire village.

Eltjo Mante, Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

A few more pictures

 

Jet feels very welcome

 

Liz took us to a charity fundraising event at a local resort. Afterwards we enjoyed the pool.

 

View from our "Balcony" (aka cockpit)