I am writing on Sunday night. We've just had a lovely dinner of pasta, vegetables, BBQ chicken and pasta sauce, with bread. Pretty tasty. (Thanks Ali for your cooking prowess!)
Let me dial it back to a day ago though. Our flight was from Sydney to Brisbane and then Brisbane to Port Vila. On Saturday morning we had to catch our flight at 7am, so we had to be at the airport 90 minutes beforehand. At 4am I was already awake - in that very annoying "gotta get up soon" mindset. I had a quick shower and made it down the stairs in time to see the Smiths parking their car. They drove me to church, and from there we all got on Bob's bus. Despite the early hour the atmosphere was quite playful, a good atmosphere to begin. Our bags all weighed in ok. Mine was 22.3 - reasonably close to the limit of 23kg. David's exactly on the limit of 23 kg, and Adam's was the winner with 23.1 (we had stuffed it full of equipment from Bunnings).
Anyway, flight took off late - 40 minutes late, so our plans to shop and sit around for leisurely coffees in Brisbane international were quashed a bit. Having said that, I was reasonably impressed that we got through customs so easily - I would have thought it would have been a bit more difficult on the first day of school hols! We got to our flight on time - and it was a great flight. I seem to remember it being a 3 or 4 hour flight from Brisbane last time, but I must have been mistaken, it was only just over 2 hours.
When we landed there was a bit of a bump, soon enough though we emerged on to the tarmac into the joyous humidity of the Vanuatuan countryside, It makes a fantastic change from the cold Sydney weather last week. Can get a bit draining though. After we emerged from customs, we were greeted by Elder Johnny and some members of Seaside Paama church, we were given leis around our necks which had been handcrafted from some local grasses. Pretty special. Interesting point - the airport in Port Vila was a gift from Japan in the 90s.
We checked in at our hotel and headed up to see the church. Elder Johnny gave us some education in the coconut tree - which they call the tree of life. When the fruit is green you can drink it, when it is brown you get the desicated coconut out of it. With the palm fronds you can weave baskets, hats, mats, bags, clothing, toys and even a whistle which Harv tried out. And then we had some fruit for afternoon tea including some beatiful grapefruit which isn't quite as sour as it is as home. It was a great intro.
We headed back into town and checked out the supermarket which is right across the road. Some things are more expensive than home, but lots of it is cheaper. We bought water supplies and headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.
We had our first experience of "Vanuatu Time" before dinner when we were waiting for Jocelyn, Johnny's adopted daughter, to come and walk with us. We waited around for half an hour ... I think I am already used to it - for some it is a bit trying though. I wonder whether the rest of the team will come to understand it (and almost love it) like I do now. Johnny lives really close to the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu head office which is just up the hill from our hotel. We had a few introductions and a really nice dinner. we had some instructions from our UnitingWorld training that you should only take as much as you will definitely eat - as wastage is bad. I find I am taking a decent amount, but not heaps, and some of the foods I am loving - but some it has been a bit of a challenge to finish.
Some of the cultural norms around here are a little difficult to understand, but one definitely wasn't. We noticed that Elder Johnny was wearing shorts yesterday, and the boys wanted to confirm what they had to wear today. We were informed that long pants were acceptable - and that some "crazy Ni Vans" might wear shorts. Ni Van is to Vanuatu what Australian is to Australia. So yeah, long pants on Sundays.
By the time we arrived back at the hotel I was just about ready to crash, but being only 7pm we sat around and played UNO for a while. We gathered at 9pm and went through some Butterflies and Cockroaches, which is basically where you say one good thing that happened during the day, and one bad thing. My butterfly was the weather, and my cockroach was that we'd been delayed in Sydney. Not a big cockroach though, and so far I've only seen one cockroach in my room, so not bad all round.
I was awoken during the night with some loud noises on the road, which my room backs on to. I am hoping that was just a Saturday night thing. If it happens every night I shall be ... tired. Woke again at about 6:30 and got up. Got all the painting equipment and school presents out of my bag. It now closes quite easily! (Can't wait to fill it with sarongs...) Nami and I went searching for some coffee and found some up the road. Bit lucky to find it as nothing much opens on Sundays here. It is good that everyone takes a break.
We were asked to be at church at 9:30 on the understanding it was "Vanautu Time" so church started at 10:30. In the meantime we practiced the song we were to do in the afternoon, and also met some of the kids, and looked around the church. The "call to worship" is hitting a heavy metal pole against a giant gas cylinder - I think if I heard that on a Sunday morning I would most certainly be curious enough to check it out :)
It was a special day for the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu (PCV) - 164 years since it was inaugurated. As such we had a flag raising ceremony, and sang both the Vanuatu National Anthem, and the PCV Anthem. A bit of Bislama for you - "yumi" means "you and me" or "we", and since Vanuatu has a very community oriented culture, you hear that word about every second sentence. We sang some songs, and then Elder Johnny did a sermon. I was trying to hear what was being said, but it was a little difficult. I think he was talking about King Solomon, and I heard him say "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also", so ... I think it was a good message. The service was quite long compared to the services at Wesley in Castle Hill, (which are for the most part 1 hour on the dot). Finished up about 12:15 ... Probably the most "un-Wesley-like" thing I saw though, was during the offering, which was all the different cell groups bringing forth their offerings for PCV, the church would start singing, and then the cell group would be singing a different song, and one song would ... almost organically take over from the other song. I thought it was beautiful. we had a bit of a panic attack as we figured out we would need to sing a song as we brought our offering forward. We chose "Love the lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul and your mind ..." - and it went ... ok. After the service we split up into groups of two to sit and have lunch with our cell groups. All of which are named after ... I guess you'd call them suburbs ... of Port Vila.
- Jono and Harvey are with Lutah.
- Ashleigh and Nerida are with Alma.
- Nami and Kaye are with Beverly Hills.
- Ali and David are with Seneali.
- Ben and Adam are with Oelep & Hingal.
- Thomas and I are with Luli.
So we sat down to a great lunch with everyone. From the kids I learnt a fun new twist on Scissors Paper Rock which is followed by what looks a bit like a chick fight. It was great to see all the team using their strengths. Adam was particularly good with the kids - they took him behind the school and climbed a cliff ... taking photos with his camera all the while. We chatted to the ladies and basically just sat around a bit, drinking in the atmosphere. After a while the musical concert happened ... we were half way down the programme.. David sang a lovely rendition of Amazing Grace, and most of the other songs still had words like "praesem God" in it, so I felt that the team's item "10-9-8 God is Great" was pretty appropriate. We were asked to sing one more, and we didn't have another one, but we managed to get a whole bunch of the Ni-Van kids up with us to sing and do the actions. So much fun.
My number one favourite moment of the afternoon though was when there was some lovely music being played and Ali said to me, "let's get up and dance", and all my theatre sports training kicked in when I accepted the offer and said, yes of course, let's go now, and then we danced for two dances and a few more of the team got up. I think the moments dancing in that small crowd will easily be one of my highlights. OMG. Thank you!
The musical afternoon over, we wandered down the hill back to our hotel, had an icecream, some of us had showers and we planned for dinner. We did butterflies and cockroaches again. And then I wrote a blog. And now you're up to date.
Probably have to do this more often. Tomorrow we start working with the preschool and with the computers we brought over. We're also going to be painting the church at some point. Given that my day job involves drawing pretty diagrams, typing and talking to people, this is definitely going to be a challenge!!!
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