Life as a Vanua-Tai

By Erica Louise

Waiting for the boat to Moso Island

Tasiriki Primary School

This is Donald

The 'Kids Club' allows for all the family to enjoy themselves

My first day in Vanuatu

I woke up early to the sound of the roosters and birds in Port Villa.  My flight arrived in late so I didn’t get much sleep.  I stayed at a budget hotel run by a Korean family.  The rooms were clean and pretty spacious, and breakfast was great, prepared by the family each morning.  The views over Port Villa harbour really made up for weariness.  The turquoise and green of the Coral Sea beneath me was a fantastic introduction to the beauty of Vanuatu awaiting me; a great start to the day.

I took a short stroll through Port Villa to get my bearings; it’s quite small but has all the amenities.  There are a number of tour operators, restaurants, a few bars and a lively market which bursts with life on Saturday mornings.

The people of Vanuatu are known as Ni-Vanuatu or Ni-Vans.  Ni-Vans are incredibly welcoming people.  As I walked the narrow streets of the nation’s capital, I would receive a ‘hello’ or ‘good morning’ in return, from locals on their way to their daily duties  

By late morning, it was time to head off to our turtle monitoring destination; the village of Tasikiri on the island of Moso.  We hired a pick up truck which is one form of public transport on Efate Island.  En route, we collected Kalo; Moso’s Turtle Monitor (known as a Vanua-Tai) of the Tasikiri village community.  The roads around Efate are bumpy and potholed outside of Villa, and really just long strips of dirt track.

We stopped via a small roadside community turtle education centre, run by another Vanua-Tai, Donald.  

I asked Donald a few questions about his turtle work, and like many Ni-Vans, I found him to be quite shy, but he soon grew enthusiastic when sharing his knowledge and passion for his shelled marine friends.  As a Vanua-Tai, it is Donald’s responsibility to educate others of the importance in conserving turtles, as well as taking part in nesting survey work. Donald has around 20-30 hatching turtles which he keeps at his education centre to educate passing tourists of the work he is doing.

We left Donald’s community for the waters edge on Efate, directly opposite the Tasikiri village of Moso.  Whilst waiting for the boat to arrive, I had the opportunity to talk to George from local NGO Wan Smolbag Theatre, whilst other members of the Tasikiri community started to arrive for the boat.  George is extremely knowledgeable about turtle conservation, and has been lucky enough to travel the world and educate others of the work of the Vanua-Tai turtle monitors.  

Around sunset the motor boat arrived from Moso Island, and approximately 20 of us climbed aboard along with a wheelbarrow of coconuts, boxes, buckets, and other food commodities - certainly a tight squeeze - but nice to be surrounded by smiling faces of the Tasikiri community. 

During the short boat journey, one of the children started playing with something I can only describe as an oversized maggot.  It must have been about the size of three fingers in length and width.  After a few giggles, the maggot was passed amongst our fellow passengers, as we were told by the village Pastor these maggots were usually roasted and eaten.  The maggot didn’t reach as far as Michelle or I, as George had already taken a meaty bite, much to my dismay!  The rest of the community laughed at my crumpled facial expressions which made me laugh too.  

I am pleased to say shortly after the maggot eating incident, we had arrived at the Tasikiri village.  We couldn’t see much as darkness had converged and the community didn’t have electricity, but the villagers we did see were full of smiles, and we received a few welcome hand shakes.

We settled into our bungalow, and sat down outside with the light of an oil lamp.  We had a chat about the turtle monitoring work ahead of us whilst dinner was served; a selection of meat and fish dishes, fresh tomato, rice and paw-paw.  

After an early night, this was a perfect introduction to life as a Vanua-Tai.

Tasikiri Village

We woke early again with first light and very active roosters.  

After breakfast (fresh bread with peanut butter and tea) it was time for the community meetings, held once a month, head by the village chief.  Community meetings are quite formal, but with basic settings.  After an introduction in Bislama, I was asked to give a speech to the community.  

I didn’t really know what to say so I spoke in broken English about myself and my work as a volunteer with GVI.  I seemed to get a few nods of comprehension, and smiles from my audience.  Michelle and George also gave a small speech in Bislama and English about Wan Smolbag’s turtle survey work.  

Subsequently the villagers were given a one hour ‘interview time’ with Michelle and I.  We sat on one bench, and in turn, individuals or two people together would sit opposite, introduce themselves and shake our hands.  We received the usual timid approach from our ‘interviewers’, but gradually the community started asking questions (in the local language of Bislama) about the turtle monitoring work, or how volunteers would be helping with the community.  The women were particularly interested in hearing about the turtles gender development; dependant on the temperature of sand in which the eggs are positioned.  

Welcome ceremony

After a quick guided tour around the village by Kalo, we stopped at the village school.  School teacher Paul had prepared a welcome ceremony with his students.  Our welcome ceremony began with five girls holding freshly picked flowers.  One by one we would receive a handshake and a flower behind our ear, accompanied by a few giggles.  We were seated in the classroom for a few welcome songs with Teacher Paul strumming on his guitar.  Ni-Vanuatu children love singing, and smiling! 

Tasiriki Primary School

After a group photo outside the school, it was time for a snorkel before lunch.  The sea was quite rough that day, but we still had pretty good visibility.  I did get a bit anxious at one point being surrounded by jelly fish.  These jellies had no tentacles, but this didn’t stop me jumping out of the water shouting ‘jelly fish everywhere’ to a rather puzzled Canadian Marine Biologist - Michelle!  It is a good thing however, that jelly fish are one of the turtles’ favourite foods, all the more reason to conserve these beautiful marine creatures I’d say.

Children with new toys

After lunch we were given the opportunity to have ‘smal spel’ (time for a nap).  I didn’t feel tired so decided to go and mingle with the children.  I sat down with a few kids, smiling and speaking a few words ‘my name is..’ ‘I have one brother…’, ‘I have a cat..’  It wasn’t long before I became surrounded by an array of excited children, with grubby knees, no shoes, but big cheeky grins.  

I gave out a packet of clip-on Koalas and Australian flag stickers which the children clipped to their hair, noses and anything else possible.  I had four postcards from Australia that I passed around.  The kids knew the ‘Koala’ and ‘Kangaroo’ images, however, the picture of Melbourne’s skyline amazed them, particularly when I said that’s were I lived.  One child even rushed excitedly over to his mother to show her the postcard, and she in turn looked equally fascinated.

One way to gage interest with the children is to sing songs.  First I would hear a few songs by the kids, and I would be asked to sing one in return.  I gave my rendition of ‘Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree’ and ‘I like traffic lights’.  It’s all I could think of at the time but the children loved it.

Erica’s dinner

By late afternoon it was time for us to make our way across to the turtle nesting beach on the other side of Moso Island.  Kalo, Michelle, two other members of the community and I walked for about an hour through the forest.  It wasn’t too steep or difficult, and not too hot being close to sunset.  When we reached the nesting beach, we marked sections every 50 meters, in which we would count turtles if seen.  We had to wait until high tide, so had a few hours to rest. 

Kalo asked if I wanted fish for dinner, 'why not' I thought.  Kalo and associates disappeared off into the sunset, and arrived back within half an hour, with three fresh fish caught from the sea.  Kalo started a fire, and put each fish on a stick to roast.  So that was my dinner, toasted fish on a stick!  We didn’t have any plates, cutlery, or condiments, so I didn’t quite know what to do with it.  I saw that Kalo used his fingers to get into his, and had some roasted banana to go with it.  I put my fish on a rock, used a head torch as candle light, and tried very hard not to make eye contact with my dinner!! 

Turtle nestings

At high tide, we started our walk along the beach for the turtle nesting survey.  We would look out for new markings to see if any turtles had made their way up the beach to lay their eggs.  The walk lasted a few hours, across sand and rock.  Sadly we didn’t see any turtles on this occasion, but we did see a number of flipper marks from possibly the night before or two nights before.  If we had seen a turtle, we would have waited for her to lay and bury her eggs which would take approximately 40 minutes.  We would then take her measurements, and tag her flipper if not already marked so she could be tracked in future. 

After an hour walk back through the forest to the village, it would have been around 11pm.  Exhausted, tired, but content, I slept very well that night!

Links:
GVI Volunteers - Global Vision International (UK)
GVI Volunteers - Global Vision International (USA)