Life in the Ring of Fire Part 45: Visitors

This week's Tautu language word is “natanbong,” it means “evening.” You can combine it with “ares” from a few weeks ago to say “ares natanbong,” meaning “good evening.”

The first stop when coming into Vila from the islands is, without fail, Jill's Cafe, the only American food restaurant in town. It also doubles as the American embassy. Well, kind of. You see, Vanuatu is too small to merit its own American embassy, so we're a satellite of the embassy in PNG and Jill, the owner of Jill's Cafe, is the embassy extension worker. She doesn't exactly inspire confidence as, say, someone to go to if you've lost your passport, but she does make a pretty good burrito and once you get a couple bites into one I image whatever trouble you've managed to get yourself into wouldn't seem as pressing. We arrived in Vila after The Ship Ride From Hell (SRFH) on a Saturday, which was fortunate because Jill's has cinnamon rolls on Saturdays. We'd been fed on the ship, plates of rice topped with canned fish and vegetables, which was good because we hadn't brought nearly enough snacks to last us for the 48 hours we were on-board. The first day, the portions were generous and I had trouble finishing a plate by myself. As the journey wore on, however, we received less and less food each meal (as, I assumed, the kitchen was running out of supplies), and so I was absolutely starving when we sat down to breakfast that Saturday. I ate two cinnamon rolls and a breakfast burrito. It was glorious. The cool thing about going through an absolutely miserable experience is that it makes everything else seem wondrous by comparison. While I'm sure that a Jill's cinnamon roll or breakfast burrito would taste only mediocre when placed alongside similar fare from Austin, I exaggerate not in the least when I say that the cinnamon rolls and the burrito that I ate after disembarking from the ship were the best I've had in my life.

Wednesday was the thirtieth of July, Vanuatu's Independence day. We decided to spend the afternoon in Pango, a village just a little bit north of Vila that's home to a volunteer from our group. There was a big field in the middle of the village where a number of food and craft stalls had been set up. This is pretty standard practice for celebrations in Vanuatu. A day or so before the holiday in question, everyone realizes that they need to get their acts together and organize some sort of event, so a bunch of stalls are hastily erected using mostly coconut leaves. It's actually kind of impressive to walk by a field one day and see it completely empty, but walk by it the next and see it absolutely covered with homemade stands. Despite how long everything usually takes in Vanuatu, Ni-Vans can jump to when the situation calls for it. Anyway, it was around lunch time when we arrived, so we went in search of tuloc, a sort of Vanuatu style tamale. Usually tuloc is a cylinder of manioc lap-lap with meat stuffed in the middle (as always, the best ones have pork in them, but beef can be pretty good as well), that's wrapped in a banana leaf and then baked. I love a good tuloc, however, unfortunately, tuloc is quite variable. A lot of people that make it try and save money by skimping on the meat, thus making it turn out like particularly dry and tasteless lap-lap. A nice greasy one with plenty of meat can be quite heavenly though. After a bit of wandering around the food stands, we located a tuloc vendor with passable wares and headed to the beach. Pango is known for having the best (actually, I think the only) surfing on Efate thus, in stark contrast to my village in Tautu, the ocean was crawling with Ni-Van kids clutching anything even remotely resembling a surf board and trying to catch waves. Shortly after we sat down, however, a man with a bull horn ordered the kids out of the water and a crowd gathered on the beach. A group of women formed around the man with the bull horn, who all seemed to be waiting to participate in some sort of competition. Then a man emerged from the village clutching a live and squealing pig. Pig in hand, he waded out into the surf. He walked out until the water was almost chest height and then plopped the now terrified pig in the ocean. The bull horn man screamed “GO!” and all the women splashed out into the water. It was a race of course, the first one to swim out and recover the drowning pig got to keep it. After a few minutes one of the women started shouting and raised the pig, who was definitely having one of those days, over her head. After all the women made their way back to shore, a group of men gathered, another pig was brought out, and the process was repeated. This time, however, the guys splashed around for a while but no one emerged with the pig. Some more people from shore wandered out in what now had turned into a lost pig recovery mission. Finally, they found the pig. The men competing headed back to shore and lined up again at the starting line. They chucked the waterlogged pig back in the ocean and the race started again. This time, one of the competitors was able to locate the pig and carried it triumphantly back the beach (surprisingly, it was still alive). Towards the end of this spectacle my cell phone rang. It was my parents, giving me one last call before boarding the plane for Vanuatu.
“So, what are you up to now?” They asked.
“Well... it's a little difficult to explain.”

On Friday afternoon, my family flew in. I headed to the airport and arrived just in time to see their plane pull up the tarmac. I watched people disembarking until I spotted my Dad, Mom, and brother and then headed down to the arrival terminal to greet them. I walked through customs and passport control and settled onto a bench in the baggage claim area. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a group of Ni-Van airport staff huddled in conversation. Occasionally, one of them would glance or point my way. Twice, one of the guys took a few steps in my direction and then scuttled back to the join the huddle, causing the group to dissolve in giggles. I was hoping that my family would come through the arrival door before one of them managed to work up the courage to ask me leave, but I didn't quite make it. One of the guys finally found the backbone to come talk to me and inform me that I wasn't allowed in the customs area. I moved to a seat outside in the arrival lounge with everyone else.

Seeing the family was great. My brother had gotten a lot bigger in my absence (although, fortunately, I was still able to pick him up), and my parents each promptly informed me that I needed a haircut. We caught a bus back into town and checked into one of those nice hotels in Vila that I could very much not afford on my own and had only been in before to illegitimately use the pool. We all got settled and they showed me the various things that they'd brought for me. Unfortunately, an assortment of sausage and beef jerky had been confiscated at customs (probably so that the customs officials could eat it), but they did manage to bring though an impressive collection of American foods and beverages, including a couple bottles of tequila, powdered margarita mix (who knew?), and Cheez-Its which, according to my Mom, had been sitting in the pantry untouched since I'd left. There was some confusion caused by some items as well, as I tended to get excited about absolutely any US products.

“Wow! Jif peanut butter! And it's only half eaten!”
“Uhh, Daniel, actually, that was just for us to eat on the plane ride over.”

Or...

“Chicken packets! Awesome!”
“Umm, I think we just forgot to take those out of our luggage after that road trip.”

On Sunday we boarded a plane for Malekula so that my two families could meet each other at last. Duncan had been calling me more or less hourly throughout the weekend to straighten out last minute details about their welcoming meal, so anticipation was high. I kind of felt like I was introducing my family to a fiancee or something. As instructed, I led my family to my house first to wait for Duncan to come and get us. When he showed up, he led us all to his house where my entire Vanuatu family was lined up, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, everyone. There were probably about thirty to forty people in attendance. They hung flower necklaces on us and we all sat down to eat. Duncan had gone all out. There was one roast pig, straight out of my uncle's oven, two lap-laps, three different stews, one bunia (a collection of sweet potatoes and taro wrapped in banana leaves and baked underground), and enough rice to feed all of China. I'd warned my US family beforehand that food would be overabundant and that they would probably be judged on their ability to pack it away, and they performed admirably. After lunch we adjourned to my house so we could all pass out until kava time. This was also a moment I'd been awaiting with some anticipation. Duncan poured shells for both my Mom and Dad and I recruited one of my friends from the village to take their picture while they were drinking, hoping to catch them in mid gag, grimace, or disgusted spit. Unfortunately, they were able to take it down like (semi) pros, so I was out of luck.