Monday 04/01/2010 - Erakor Island

This morning we walked down to the Vanuatu Public Hospital yet again, this time for my ear ache, the ENT specialist told me that my eustation tube was swollen impairing my hearing and giving me a sense of vertigo. He prescribed some multi-vitamins and anti-histamines, he also told me that I was not supposed to submerge my head in water for the next 4 weeks. There was no way, with 3 days left in beautiful Vanuatu that I was not going to swim, I figured that worse case scenario, I could continue treatment once returning to Aus.Hubby called Moses to catch up again. Moses took us to Erakor Island.


Moses used to chef on Erakor at the resort. We drank cocktails on the beach while Moses taught me some sand drawing 'Number One'


and 'Butterfly'


and yes Moses if you're out there reading this I do still remember them - quite well, when I come back to Vanuatu I'll have to get you to teach me 'turtle' and 'sunflower'.



Moses told us about bush medicine, including a plant that is supposed to be great for ear ache, but alas we couldn't find it on Erakor. he told us about fireworks / soccer fruit / nut. The insides of which are removed, the husk is used as a soccer ball by the local children, the nut from within is heated on a hot rock before being touched with water and thrown into the air. We were told it almost explodes and looks like fireworks - very cool. He also showed us a very waxy nut that the indigenous peoples use somewhat like a candle.


Moses had drawn a sand drawing turtle on the footpath. A tourist came by, took a look and commented on how gorgeous the art was. Moses told her that it was a sand drawing. The poor woman obviously got confused with his accent and commented that she'd never heard of a sandurine turtle. Moses didn't correct her, instead I told her it was a Sand Drawing of a turtle, she was very apologetic and embarrassed. Hubby had brought the cheap guitar we'd purchased so that him and Moses could jam on the beach.


A flock of birds flew overhead and one landed on the turtle sand drawing, Moses was intrigued. He later told us that the bird walked the sand drawing then flew to the other side of the island, Moses said that it was the birds way of approving of the drawing and in return for it's beauty he was showing us that the other side of the island was the place to be, so we followed the bird to the other side of the island and watched the sun set as hubby and Moses played music into the late afternoon.


Moses played us a song that was very touching, some of the lyrics are as follows:
Cha chariot, Cha chariot,
Rollem ...
Through, the promised land
Don't need no passport
Don't need no visa
All you need is a strong and loving heart


This song was sung with such raw emotion as I'd never before seen, it brought tears to Moses' eye singing it. He later informed us that this was the first song of the new year, that it held a special place in his heart because we'd written it together with us (so to speak).On the way back from Erakor we decided to walk instead of catching the bus, it was a good move, we walked as the sun rested peacefully beyond the horizon. We learned to walk Vanuatu -style, stopping every few hundred meters to chat with friends of Moses and sing them the new song of the new year. Most of the people we played and sang for were quite impressed especially (I'm thinking) to see white-fellas singing along in harmonized parts with a local lad. It seemed, as we walked back to the resort that everybody knew Moses, he's clap his hand twice and broadcast his name, and low and behold the response would be shouted back "MOSES!".

Sunday 03/01/2010 - Hideaway Island Dive

Today we had nothing planned so we decided that after a leisurely breakfast and a stroll into town to get medications for the ear ache I had, after walking around town, bought more DVD's and priced some traditional carvings for our last shopping day.


The above carvings are located all over Vila, they're a nice little unexpected piece of culture.

The streets are adorned with decorations of cultural significance, including the spiral-type pattern representative of a boars tusk - a sign of a chief.


We noticed this correctional facility. In typical Vanuatu relaxed style there wasn't much security to speak of.


A bit further down the road we noticed the Australian High Commission which had what seemed (compared to the correctional facility) and excessive amount of security measures.


We thought we'd head over to Hideaway island and see if we could book in some dive gear hire and go out for a dive.


We thought that we'd be able to just hire the dive gear and go on our own dive, but when we went to hire the gear the lady sold us a guided dive as well, so we ended up diving Hideaway 1 - The Wall. It was weird diving with someone other than our usual dive crew so soon after getting our dive ticket. Upon 'stepping into the water' it became clear that I didn't have the neutral buoyancy I was used to. I stayed calm and continued to use my flippers to maintain my position in the water. As I signaled to the boat that I was in trouble, with the 'so-so' hand signal, some of the more experienced divers approached me to give assistance. To minimize the discomfort caused to them trying to assist me I stopped kicking (stupid idea) it was then that I started to sink, one hand on my weight belt ready to jettison it to the depths, people were shouting to me giving me instructions I couldn't hear properly as I was still partially deaf from the ear ache I was recovering from. Panic started to set in when hubby came to my rescue and manually inflated my BCD. I was so embarrassed making my way back to the boat where the dive master examined the BCD inflation device to discover that the inflation button had become dislodged from it's housing. After this minor panic, the rest of the dive went relatively smoothly. Towards the end of the dive hubby was having problems obtaining underwater neutral buoyancy, the dive master transferred all of his weights to hubby's BCD. Once we surfaced he told us that the solution to hubby's flotation problem was to get a steel tank as the weight wouldn't vary as much from a full to an empty tank. Once we'd returned to the island we were informed that we could have just hired the gear and gone out on our own from the shore. I was disappointed that we didn't get to dive just hubby and I, but by the same token I was happy that we were guided as the buoyancy issues I experienced early on may have panicked me.

Saturday 02/01/2010 - Chinese for Dinner

Today we spent the day in recovery at the resort, for the most part.
We did venture into town and did some shopping. We found that many shops in Efate sell cheap DVD's, so we bought one planning to get James from the resort to put it on the DVD player at the resort.


We noticed this palm formation on a local oval, we were later told that these were residual features from a recent music concert. We figured that no matter how much they looked like toilet cubicles that they must have been stalls for selling goods of some description.


The further we looked we noticed the written language variation of Pigeon, it's sort of cute in a way. This sign tells us how if you recharge with this company you get double your money worth and available now here (naoia).


The Ministry of Health "Ministri Blong Healt"


And this no trespassing sign brought a smile to our faces.


There seems to be an abundance of fruit in Vanuatu, it seems that everywhere you look there are fruit trees of some description almost begging to be harvested.


Tonight we decided that we'd do what seems to be a B&B tradition. To dine at a Chinese restaurant no matter where in the world we were. We picked the Chinese restaurant a couple of doors up from the resort, a good decision. The restaurant was THE cleanest Chinese restaurant we'd ever seen and we've been to China. The food was great and the company (my dear hubby) was even better. We inadvertently bought too much food, so we ended up taking it back to the resort for tomorrow.
I think it was this night that we watched the DVD we'd bought, hilarious fun. It was subtitled, obviously by someone whose first language was not English. In one part of the movie a woman says "I'm a forensic scientist, that means I'm a glorified librarian" the subtitles however told a different story - "I'm a forensic scientist, that means I'm a barbarian".