The Bumper Birthday Blog

Okily dokes. It's my birthday, and I'm now laid up in bed (in the UK), with a foot wound, so I'll use the free internet, courtesy of Bernard Bourdillon and Frieda Schicker, to complete the massive update.

Right, we'd left it in Bwatnapne, on the second night of our walk. The next morning, we set off again, this time with Kilv, but pretty much straight away, as we were scaling a steep muddy path, one of my flip-flops broke, and I had to slow down quite a bit. I let the others go off ahead, and I trekked, barefoot through the jungle at a frankly embarrassing pace. I saw the guys once more that day when they waited at a junction, to make sure I saw the sign they'd made to show which way they'd gone... It started to rain at some point and I stopped in a village called Namaram. I kept hearing reports that Jack and Kilv were in another house, so I'd go to that house, only to receive a new report. I later learnt, from them, that they had been in the church. Nobody had even mentioned the church.

Out of Namaram, I got accompanied by a guy called Chris, who called me brother, and kept telling me at hourly intervals that we were nearly at the top of the hill. Eventually, nearing dark, we reached Singmwel, a village pretty near to Nambaranguit, and it was here I decided to spend the night. I was tired. My flip-flops had been fixed by Chris, but they were now tighter and dug into the gap between my toes. Singmwel was also the first sight I had of people I knew. A lot of the kids Jack and I had taught had come from Singmwel, our school servicing the whole surrounding area, and it was genuinely one of the biggest reliefs of my life to see them at that point. It wouldn't have felt right, stopping for the night anywhere before this point. We'd originally set ourselves the goal of reaching Nambaranguit this evening, and, from what I understood, Jack and Kilv had, or were about to, achieve this. But Singmwel was enough for me. I had the feeling of having returned, I had the familiar faces, changed by three years, swarming around me, cheering at my ever-strengthening Bislama, and I felt I had the criteria filled to take off my absurdly large counterweight of a rucksack and sit the fuck down.

The evening was spent in the nakamal, a sort of mix between a town hall and a kava bar, although kava is free here. I had some kava, and spent about an hour talking to an ex-student, Amon, about how the school had changed, He was no doubt bored shitless, but the kava and the fact that so much had actually seemed to have changed made it the hottest topic on this weary walker's numb lips. It turns out a lot of the teachers we'd taught with had now left, including the infuriating but dependable head-teacher, Alfred, and his wife Vivian, probably the most sensible Ni-Van we ever encountered, who were at the head of our support structure back in '07. I also learnt for certain what I'd been hearing scattered rumours about on the walk up: there were two new Gappers in Namby. Joshua and David. Fucking David. What an arse he would turn out to be.

The next morning, after a night in some random Ni-Van's house (this is also how Vanuatu works), I set off for Namby. I spent about an hour reaching the hill above the village and another hour struggling down it. It was very rocky, and i now had to go barefoot, my flipflops having entered the rare space in my mind reserved for things I genuinely HATE (as they are also the reason I can't really walk now, they still occupy this space, and I doubt they'll be evicted soon). But I reached the bottom soon enough and a large-scale repeat of yesterday's welcome was staged. Children everywhere. Some I recognised, most I didn't, but pretended to. They didn't care that it didn't make sense that I apparently recognised them, as they'd only moved to Pentecost from another island last year, and had never met me in '07, because I recognised them. I was Mr Wells. I could do anything.

Oh, yes, in Vanuatu, I'm Mr. Wells, because of a general and widespread inability of native Ni-Vans to hear me pronounce Will and not subconsciously alter the vowel sound and add an 's' on the end. I love it.

But then, wading through this crowd of excited, recognised children, came two white people. Joshua and David. We shook hands and they tried not to look too annoyed we'd shown up. Jack and Kilv showed up just after, and we retired to an empty dormitory that would become Jack and my house for the next few days. Kilv set off pretty soon after, to go and stay in his old village Labultamata, which was a couple of hours walk further north. So much of this trip involved us not spending time with Kilv. We don't even hate him or nothing.

We stayed in Nambaranguit for a good few days. Those days comprised an almost perfect revisit for us. There had been a bit of worry about going back for too long, or not enough time, or realising that coming back had just ruined our memories, but none of this turned out to be the case at all. The village had changed just enough. It still definitely felt like Nambaranguit, and that was important, but what was also equally important was the fact that there were new additions, or things missing, that meant that this new experience didn't impinge on the old one, which was in danger of becoming extremely fragile.

One of the things that had changed so dramatically was the fact that EVERYONE had mobile phones now. I mean, like, even the kids. Back in the good old days, nobody had them. Alfred, the head, got one once, and he kept asking us how to use it, and would spend hours walking along the beach whenever he wanted to make a call searching for reception, which I don't ever remember him finding. Also, we're not really sure who he was calling. Maybe he didn't either. Maybe he thought that people with mobile phones called each other every so often, whether they knew one another or not, and he could join this technological elite, this telecommunicational freemasons, if only he could find that elusive signal. He was probably plagued by nightmares of high-society get-togethers where everyone would sip cocktails and compare Snake scores, and to which he wasn't invited!

But now, EVERYONE had them, because of some company swooping in and setting up loads of aerials all over the place, then the original company getting annoyed at losing their monopoly and realising they'd probably have to start providing the service they promised. So now, the new company, Digicel, and the old company, TVL, are in an eternal struggle to have the most coverage (charmingly spelt 'kaverej' in Bislama). This struggle doesn't actually affect most Ni-Vans though, as a lot of them seem to have a Digicel mobile and a TVL mobile, because why not?

Something that happened while we were there was a kastom ceremony. This ceremony involved some dancing (for 12 or 13 hours) by local women, before two men due to ascend in the ranks of chiefdom, came and battered a load of pigs to death. It was graphic, and brutal, and I didn't particularly enjoy it. Jack, Kilv and I had all killed pigs on our previous stay, to receive honour and respect, and become chiefs. But there was something about this ceremony that was too harsh, too savage, too gratuitous. I watched one of the actual killings, so that afterwards I could say I had seen it, then refrained from watching the others, because what I said afterwards suddenly didn't seem as important. I heard them all, though.

One of the best parts of returning was getting to see my family again. We each got an adoptive family back in 2007, and mine were my mother Geneva, father Silas, brother Stewart and sister Sonia. They were a fantastic bunch (Jack was on slightly shakier ground with his), and it was a bit of a shame that it was actually only my mum and bro who were actually still around. My sister had gone to the next level of education, on another island, and my dad had gone to New Zealand. To pick apples. Without telling my mother. This, unfortunately, is also how Vanuatu works. But Geneva and Stewart invited us up to their house, and we had some cockerel for dinner, and played pick-up-sticks, and Stewart invited us to mess about and take photos all over someone's grave.

The original plan for leaving Pentecost was to catch the Tina I, a cargo ship, out on Tuesday, headed back to Vila, the week after we originally arrived. However, throughout our stay, we'd been getting reports that the Tina I had had it's schedule conveniently rearranged, and it wouldn't actually be going down to Vila until the following Friday. That was okay, but not great. We had business to attend to on another island, Tanna, and given that the cargo ship would take a few days to reach Vila, it was cutting it a little too close. It was around this time that Vanuatu stopped accommodating for us. On Monday, the day before our original departure date from Pentecost, we'd decided to go to Labultamata to see Kilv (Kilv was actually with us, as he'd brought some kids to play football against some of our kids. I'm not going to tell you the score, because I'm not someone who actually cares about football, and, hence, this isn't a blog about that. If you care you can ask Jack (search for Jack Noble on facebook and his profile picture will probably be of him wearing sunglasses in an indoor setting)). So, we set off on the two hour walk up North we'd done plenty of times back in the glory days. Part (most) of the reason for going back to Labultamata was to do this walk again. Labby's not a great place. There are too many hills and the water tastes like soap.

The town just next to Labultamata is called Loltong. It's something like the administrative centre for the area. It's a pretty big place. They even have semi decent roads (though not to Labultamata: that's a muddy path). We got chatting to some old guys, and they told us that the Tina I was probably coming next Monday. Shit! That was far too late. The agent for the shipping company walked over, with a baby, and confirmed the story. Then the baby pissed all over him. Then he looked down at the baby, and the piss. Then he just stayed where he was, and continued to talk to us. Afterwards, the three of us had a bit of a summit with some cheap Vanuatu fizzy drinks (Splashe!) and cheap shortbread (Scotch Fingers!). There had been a mention of this ship called the Alice, that might be coming on Wednesday, headed for Vila. It was potentially our salvation.

So, we continued on to Labultamata, a bit worried. We decided to go down one of the many hills, to the beach. Halfway down the hill, we managed to get though to the shipping company (we'd been trying for the last hour or so). The news was promising. The Tina I would be passing Pentecost the next day. It would be heading to Santo, so all that chat about a messed up schedule was right. But Santo was okay. We could get a plane from Santo. Santo, we could work with.

The downside of all this was that Jack and I had to go back to Nambaranguit that same day, to pack up and get ready. So, we went down to the beach, had a good wallow around, found out Kilv was a bit of a 'player', Jack wanted us all to cut each other's hair, and I can't throw for shit. We then set off back. And here it's probably prudent to mention another thing about Vanuatu: if you're doing a lot in a day, going to many different places, and spending time with lots of different people, you sometimes forget to eat. This is what happened that day. Remember those Scotch Fingers? Well, them, and some (like 1 and 1/2) scones in the morning were basically the sum total of my food intake since I'd woken up many hours previously. I'd also been walking a lot. Four hours worth of walking. Basically, when we got back, I went to bed, feeling absolutely knackered. But then, Jack came in and told me there was a leaving ceremony for us. Well, this was a quick turnaround. We hadn't even known we were leaving 'til a few hours before, and we hadn't told anyone in Namby 'til a few minutes ago. But hey man, they do sort of love their ceremonies. It all got a bit awkward when we got to the classroom and it turned out it was a leaving ceremony for Joshua and David... But, we were invited to join, and were given half the gifts that were meant for them, and I probably didn't feel quite as guilty as I should have done (David really was a cock). Afterwards, there was food, and it was good, and I felt alright, and I went to sweet, sweet beddikins.

The next day was a day of walking about the village, saying our farewells, taking photos of people, and things, like these weird ducks they have there that look like their wearing Mexican wrestler's masks. There was football with the boys and gossiping with the girls (yeah, that's right), and sooner than we thought, the boat arrived. It actually arrived. Thank god. We were getting off Pentecost. Not that we don't love Pentecost, but, you know, we'd said our goodbyes now, and it's like at a party, when you say goodbye to everyone and its all sweet and nice and you say, oh, we must catch up soon, and I'll call you, and we should go for coffee down at the Nunty Rooms, and you've walked out the door, and then you realise you've forgotten your coat. And you have to go back in. And it's awkward. We didn't want that.

But it came, and that was good. But oh. There was some chat from the boat boys. The chat was that they were full up. But we told them we booked, and Norah, our sort of grandmother got all imperious and terrifying at them, so they agreed to take us as far as Loltong. Now, we didn't really want to go to Loltong. We could walk to Loltong. We'd done so the previous day, twice. But we got on the boat, because then at least we'd be on the boat. We got to Loltong, and thankfully, not only did we not get off, but Kilv also managed to get on. This was going well.

We found some space on the corrugated iron roof, had one of our cigars, and lay down, in quite uncomfortable positions for the nioght. When we dozed off, at about 11, we were just at the northernmost tip of Pentecost...and when we woke up, at about 5, we were still there. Hmmm. We sort of thought the ship would keep going overnight, because that's what all previous ships had done, and that's what ships were supposed to do. Lazy, lazy crew. But no matter, we were on the ship. Jack and Kilv went to sleep, and I stayed up. It was at this point that the Sabrina was pointed out to me. It was coming down from Maewo, the island north of Pentecost, and it would proceed along Pentecost, down to Vila, i.e. the exact route we originally wanted. I sort of thought oh well, we're okay now, why bother worrying what could have happened if we'd waited. Given what happened afterwards, I decided not to mention this to Jack or Kilv, and if they actually bother to read this admittedly gargantuan blog post, this will be the first they learn of how we could have got to Vila a lot quicker than the actual six days it was about to take us.

This is because before going to Santo, we stopped at an island called Ambae. And at Ambae, they got everybody off, but it was okay, they said, because we'd be able to get back on, when they'd unloaded the relevant cargo. And after they unloaded the relevant cargo, and pulled up their anchor, and sailed off, we felt pretty lied to. So we were stuck on Ambae. The ship, apparently, had been full up. There were some new fines and regulations going about. It was nobody's fault really. They had told us, originally. But we were still stuck on Ambae, which was like being stuck on Pentecost, except we didn't have anywhere to sleep.