Part of the Family

It's the end of Sunday night and the team are gathered around in one of our hotel rooms after having dinner at the restaurant.

Yesterday most of the team arrived at Wesley for a 5:30 trip to the airport together on one of those airport buses. Nerida and David are travelling with their infant daughter Alira so they went in separately.  We arrived at the airport on time despite not taking the M2 or Lane Cove Tunnel - which to be honest has made me think about how much I use the toll roads in Sydney.

The flight Sydney to Port Vila direct arrives late on Saturday night, so we had chosen to catch a flight to Brisbane and then Port Vila - which would have us arrive in the afternoon.  The people at the Virgin Australia desk were lovely - and it wasn't long until we got on the flight to Brisbane.  Given the news stories this week about massive lines at airports I was a little apprehensive about the transfer in Brisbane, but we got a good transfer between Domestic and International, and customs was pretty quick actually.  David, Harvey and I were called to go up to the desk but despite hoping that we had been moved up to first class, they just needed to shuffle our seats a bit. :(  Our flight to Port Vila was uneventful - I think we were all impressed and just a little bit proud that Alira did very well on the flight - she was a bit cranky by the time we got to the hotel, but that was probably the same for all of us.

We were greeted at the airport by Elder Johnny, the minister of Paama Seaside church, and Daniel, the principal of Paama Seaside school.  I had just remembered that I hadn't brought any jewellery so I was delighted to receive a shell necklace from Daniel's daughter.  Some of us had booked official transfers (not sure that we knew we had) and some hadn't, so Daniel and Johnny organised to take our luggage in a ute, and ourselves in a bus.

We had arrived.

The smell when we got moving in the bus was a lovely combination of smoke and dirt.  And I'm not being facetious.  Having come from the cold of Sydney that morning, all of us noticed the difference.  We arrived at the hotel and were assigned our rooms.  The team said - "ok we're meeting at the reception at 5pm" - to which I said - "yep that sounds great" - thinking "that's almost 90 minutes away!"  I tried not to let my disappointment show when it was revealed that we'd lost an hour and I only had 25 minutes.

We walked across to the town to have dinner - found some nice Chinese.  I'm only recently vegetarian so every meal seems to be an argument with myself whether I should stay vegetarian while I'm travelling. Seems Vanuatu is pretty vegetarian friendly though - some really nice food over here!

We noticed that on the main street there seems to be a lot of new gutter work, and it seems to be quite a bit cleaner since the last time I was here - but it's still pretty dusty.  We went to the supermarket and stocked up on water and snacks, and caught a bus back to Poppy's (our hotel).  Buses cost 150 vatu for each person - a little less than $2 AUD.

We went back to our hotel rooms and I don't think it took us a long time to get to sleep.  8:30 the next morning we were having our included breakfast at Poppys.  I was wearing my Mother Hubbard dress which I had received from my bible study the last time I was in Vanuatu.  It's orange, green and purple and it has bows on it and puffy sleeves and little bits of extra material hanging from the side.  It might not be the most flattering dress, but I did feel a part of the family as I walked down the road towards church.  Lots of people said good morning to us as we walked along the road.  Several had met us before - some of which we knew their names, but most of which not...

We arrived at the church at about 9:30 which was time to set up before church.  There was a team singing in the church - I'm not sure if they just enjoy singing or whether they were practicing.  It sounded lovely though - and I could roughly understand some of the words - I can definitely understand when they sing "Jesus" - sounds a bit like "Geee-zass".  Nice that that's a word that pops out.

When the church service began, Johnny invited us all up to introduce us, and the women's fellowship had made us all leis which the little kids put around our necks.  They smelt great! Alira's went directly into her mouth of course.  We all sang "We are one big happy family" - which I remembered from the first and second times I've come - it has got actions!  I vaguely remembered some of the bislama for it too "Yumi one falla, big falla family".  We sat down after that and listened to the rest of the service - there was some singing done by the Men's fellowship which included a guitar, and then there was singing with the whole congregation which was a capella.  It's a beautiful sound - no microphones, lovely harmonies. I'm not actually sure how they do it but it's already worth the trip.

Alira was getting a bit fussy at this point and David popped up and took her outside.  I was standing at the back of the church taking some photos and after a while I took a look outside to see that with David there were several young girls who were asking to hold Alira.  With Alira's big eyes looking all around it seemed they were as interested in her as she was with them.  Very cute!

After the service we shook hands with everyone.  Again there were lots of people we recognised, most of the names I had forgotten - hopefully I will learn more during the week and I'm hoping to make some Facebook friends too - that seems to be a good way of remembering everyone from trip to trip.

We went back to the hotel to change and then wandered over to Port Vila centre.  I missed wearing my Mother Hubbard dress - when I smiled and greeted the locals I no longer felt like part of the family - I looked like a tourist.  After lunch I bought a hat which ... well it's purple - so that's good - but it makes me look even more like a tourist!

A snooze this afternoon and then down to the waterside for a chat and some dinner.  We did "Butterflies and Cockroaches" around the dinner table - which is basically where you say one good thing and one bad thing from the day.  I really appreciated David showing that he's an involved father and taking Alira outside during the church service.  I'm not sure whether that would be the done thing here but the roles of men and women in the church will be something I'm interested to learn more about during the week.

We're currently preparing for tomorrow.  We know we're going to be painting the inside of the church.  We know we're going to be helping out at the school. We've got a meeting to discuss health with a team at the PCV.

There seems to be some controversy brewing over the best to paint the church.
Will keep you posted.