Port Vila

We arrived down (or rather bumped down) in the tail of Cyclone Jasmin.
It was a busy time of closing bank accounts, saying good bye and preparing to fly to Fiji.

 



We called in to see the great work Emma (VSO nutritionist) had done at Wan Smolbag www.wansmolbag.org. Amongst other things she has created this canteen run by young people learning catering with appropriate wall messages.

We said goodbye at VSO office. They had bought us a chocolate cake and remembered Annie's Birthday was soon.

Unfortunately VSO is withdrawing from Vanuatu and they have said it will close by 2015.
A great pity and we hope AVA takes up the work.





   

We wonder whether we will ever have another chance to visit.
We certainly will not be able to recreate the life we led!
We feel we made a small difference and helped to consolidate the work that was already being done. We have met some wonderful people.
We are very grateful to have been given the opportunity and are very glad to have spent a year in Vanuatu.





This rainbow came out one morning just before we left. I was filled with awe and ..........

Departure

It has been a busy time. We are trying to imprint some of the wonderful experiences on minds.

                                                                                                                   

Morning time on our balcony.
The traffic has not started and some people are walking to work.
The sun is rising to the left and catching the trees on the right.
We have been wonderfully lucky.

We have been saying goodbye to friends, sometimes several times over, and giving things away. Here are a couple.

Pepe is a Samoan Kiwi and has been going great work with preschool teaching as a Kiwi volunteer with VSA. This is just outside the Post Office. She has beautiful lilt in her voice which we later found was typical Samoan.

Tony and Sue are an inspirational couple who have been in Santo for over 20 years. They are of the Baha'i faith and started a school for a few children and now have over 300 pupils. They teach the children respect and tolerance. if only the rest of the schools of the world would follow their example. Tony is solid Yorkshireman who still has a passion for cricket.

Cyclone Jasmin was doing its worst out in the Coral seas but our last morning was beautiful. They had flown all the planes to Santo and we spent all day in the airport before eventually leaving at 5pm.

 

 This gave Annie an opportunity to nip back into town to say goodbye to those she had missed!



A contingent of loyal supporters came from NCYC to see Annie off.

The last few days

It is time to go, our 12 months are up and we leave on Saturday 11 February.
It has been a time of tidying up, getting reports written and arranging handover notes for the next volunteers.
We sold the 'truk' on the wettest day so far. The day before, I drove through a puddle and the central locking went into overdrive clicking on and off randomly. A change of a fuse and drying out in the car port cleared the problem.

The weather is cyclonic with very heavy rain followed by clear sunny days. There are three lows in the region at the moment. Today was a beautiful sunny day but suddenly at 7pm the wind arrived and we will be in for a noisy night. just seen the tracking map
http://www.meteo.gov.vu/TropicalCyclones/TCTrackMap/tabid/173/Default.aspx
which predicts it to arrive at Vila on Wednesday, the day we fly! Ho Hum!



















There has been a farewell evening with Vanuatu Family health and a lunch with Wan Smolbag youth centre with lots of emotional speeches about why are you leaving us so soon and showing their appreciation of the help that Annie has given. The banana (plantain) laplap was cooked at home and brought in wrapped in its banana leaves parcel with a few hot stones inside. It was unwrapped to show the spinach/cabbage and chicken inside and Jeven squeezed the coconut milk on. It was delicious.

 We had a lovely 'bring and share' farewell supper with our friends. There was a huge plate of sushi from the Natangora cafe (run by a Japanese chef), a massive home made pizza, vegetable curry and a mountain of profiteroles supplied by Francois of Le Jardin de Saveur. A good time was had by all and we were given a splendid send off.