Are we nearly there yet?: Thursday 6 October Loltong, Pentecost Island

Loltong village is the administrative centre for the unique island of Pentecost. Pentecost is renowned for land diving. This is the original bungee jump when each April and May young men prove their courage by leaping head first from a tower made of wood bound together by vines attached by a vine to their ankle. A successful dive and custom ceremony is thought to ensure a good yam harvest. Would first world farmers do something as extreme if they didn't have fertilisers?
North Pentecost isn't a land diving centre, it's done in the southern villages. Here they have custom villages and a strong community. In Loltog we were met on the beach by Matthew, the son of the local chief, who introduced us and gave us a tour of his extended village. He may have taken a better shine to us when we told him we'd caught a dorado which we wanted to present to the chief. If they had any vegetables to trade we'd be happy. I wrote a list of items which we would like and the council leader went off for the afternoon to collect what he could from the gardens.
Matthew was a good guide. He showed us his family house, known here as a nakamal (not to be confused with the kava bars which are also called nakamals). The family house is the council house, meeting room, social hall, court room and a store room. It's similar to a long house with sides and an entry from front and back. Within each nakamal there is a sacred pile of coral stones that have been anointed with the blood of a freshly killed pig. If anything, including money, a child's schoolbook, etc is found, the finder places it on the stones and only the chief then may touch it and return the item to it's owner. If an enemy attacks a villager can run into the nakamal and stand next to the stones to claim sanctuary and the enemy must withdraw. There are definite parallels to be dran between a church and it's altar and the nakamal and it's sacred stones.
Matthew also showed us a pair of young fruit bats in a cage. Our first time to have a really close look. They were awake and eating papaya; pretty animals with cream fur on their backs, big eyes and hands for feet and a single claw for a hand at the end of the wing. Onwards from the bats and an botanical tour. There's a tree which if planted in barren soil puts goodness back into it either by being planted or with the leaves scattered over the ground. Land is very fertile here. As we walked along he found us fruit berries to eat off the trees, nut kernels which tasted like sweet chestnuts. There were avocados and mangos which will be ripe in a couple of months, lime, orange and grapefruit trees, the ubiquitous papaya and fields of taro, manioc and cassava.
Where Polynesians are towering warriors, the Melanesian peoples of Vanuatu are small and neat. Interestingly, and we;ve seen this throughout the islands, children have blonde hair. It must darken as they mature but as children they have dark roots and sun bleached thatches which stand in a straight shock upwards.
There are lots of children. Lots of children with lots of head lice in their bleached locks. We kept a healthy distance – further than a louse can jump. Football is the favourite game and the inventive youngsters make a tennis sized ball by carving the soft core of a palm tree. We picked one up and were surprised by it's lightness and sponge like texture. An organic football!
The children's school bags, gardeners tool bags and ladies shopping bags are woven baskets made of pandanus. Shaped like a bucket with a shoulder strap of two or three plaited bands they are multi functional. We met some ladies making mats and I was able to buy my very own Pentecost handbag for some vatus and a pair of reading glasses. We gave a younger lady clothes for her children which we'd brought from NZ and she insisted on giving us peppers as a return gift. It's the Vanuatan custom that if you give someone a gift they must reciprocate or feel guilty for taking without giving. We have more children's clothes to distribute which might mean a ready supply of bananas and papaya.
Our tour with Matthew took a couple of hours and walking through the linear village (the houses and gardens fill the flat space between beach and high cliffs behind) we were impressed by the cleanliness and pride the people take in their gardens. Gardens are planted with shrubs, hedges are neatly trimmed variegated bushes and rocks are draped with trailing plants. Houses are made from locally sourced material and when a house wears out they pull it down and plait a new one; walls of bamboo, roofs of palm leaves.