Vincents in Vanuatu Hotel

We have our first booking, Nicola and Jai are arriving on the 29 June (at midnight) . They will be in Vanuatu for a 12 day holiday visiting  Efate and Santo islands.  We are looking forward to their arrival and the time with us.  Nicola has already given us instructions to clean our stuff out of the spare bedroom.

Saturday Cleaning Day

Saturday at the Vincent's starts with a sleep in to 6.00 am. We then get breakfast, then walk to the supermarket Au Bon Marche, about 15 minutes walk.  We get back home around 9.00 am.  Then start cleaning.  Today I cleaned our water filter unit.  The water out of the back flush system had become quite brown, and the water did have an unusual taste. 

This is the unit, the upper tank holds 3.5 litres of water.  

This is some of the water that came out of the unit.  There were also floaters in both the upper tank, where the unfiltered water goes, and the lower tank that is filtered.  I suspect that the floaters were just scum buildup on the inside of the tank due to the Vanuatu heat.  I hadn't given the unit a good clean since we arrived.

The unit in dismantled on bench

Then I thoroughly flushed the unit, soaked the parts in water with white vinegar.

Here is one of the floaters, not really sure where it came from, but it was in the sink while I was flushing the filter. We are hoping it just dropped in from somewhere. (see the small wiggly worm), Not sure if the video will come through on the blog lets see what happens.

 All back together and filtering its first post-clean water.

One (well just me actually)  cannot come to Vanuatu without getting a bush knife. I might have to put this into the checked in luggage on the way to New Zealand :-)

It cost 950 Vatu about NZ$12.50.  I can use it around our flat, and also to keep the grass away from the path we and the neighbours use as a shortcut to the main road to Pango.

Social Nights on Thursday and Friday

On Thursday night we got taken out for dinner by Chris and Lynn Dillon. We went to the Golden Port Chinese hotel and had a lovely meal, sharing a variety of dishes. It was very generous of the Dillons to pay for our meal as well as Gloria and Neville's seeing as they had only just met us, but they are very encouraging and supportive of the work of volunteers in Vanuatu. 

Friday night we went to the Australian High Commission, to the social club called Banjos (named after the poet Banjo Patterson). We were invited by Deb Allen an Australian volunteer, who works in the PCV Dental .  We had a great evening, we met up with Barrie Malloch ex CAA now working as a Aviation adviser around the world, who also attends our ICC church.  He is currently working in Vanuatu with the Vanuatu Aviation Authority helping then get IACO accreditation ( big job, much work). He also had come with Phil Horn also ex CAA (from Jan 2017) While I don't know Phil personally I knew a lot about him with my days with Eagle.  So we had a lot to chat about.  In the photo below from the right Barrie, Annette, Martyn, Deb and Trish (Debs friend).

Rongdale School

Continuing on around the island, we called in at this little school started by one man, named Max, to teach his 3 daughters. It has grown from there, and now has 4 classrooms, all with just crushed coral floors and corrugated steel walls and roofs.

 Most of these children wouldn't be able to get to a school if not for him.

 Chris, Lynn and Neville chatting with Max.

 Max's plans also include a small restaurant under construction,

 so that visitors can come and stay in these bungalows. Volunteers at the school can stay free, but he hopes to open it up to tourist accommodation eventually.

His family farm and donations are all that keep this little school going, no government funding at all. The parents are subsistence farmers and they pay no fees, but they come and work together on Thursdays on the farm as their contribution to the school.

Round the Island

On Thursday I had a meeting with the Principal at Onesua College and Neville needed to do some work up there too, so we did the round the island trip. We were accompanied by Chris and Lynn Dillon from Wairau Valley near Blenheim. They are visiting Vanuatu for the first time, for about 2 weeks.

The Jones and Dillons know each other through support for the Ni-Van seasonal workers in their area over many years. On the way we stopped in at Havannah Harbour to get a shot of the lovely morning sun on the water.

At Takara village, Chris and Lynn were given a warm welcome by the villagers as several of the men they had enjoyed Christian fellowship with in NZ come from Takara.

 After Cyclone Pam in 2015, the seasonal workers in Wairau Valley had put on a fundraising concert with assistance from Chris, Lynn and others in the valley. With the money raised they were able to buy two generators for the village.

Some of the seasonal workers use the money they earn to build a new house like this one.

 There had been some heavy rain over the last week on the north side of Efate that we didn't get in Port Vila.

Traffic Jam in Port Vila

At 8.30am on the way out of PV. Note the string of vehicles into the distance.

Upper Floor Slab

Got a surprise yesterday morning when a digger pulled into our courtyard.

 It was there to check whether or not it could lift the concrete up onto the first floor level. Tony told us a concrete pump is too expensive.

The concrete arrived today and is all in place. Unfortunately we were out at work and didn't get any photos of them doing it.

Not so Incy Wincy

We had a visit from a local resident last evening - found it wandering around our flat when we came home from having dinner at Neville and Gloria's (a lovely tasty meal). Martyn managed to catch it in a box and then threw it over the fence across the road.

It was completely harmless to us - no poisonous spiders in Vanuatu, but not something we want in the flat thank you!

ANZAC Day in Port Vila

W got up early (4.30am) and walked to the dawn ceremony at the cenotaph this morning. There were quite a few Kiwis and Aussies there. Both NZ and Australia have a High Commission in Port Vila. 

 The Clerk of PCV, our boss Pastor Allen Nafuki, is also the head of the Vanuatu Council of Christian Churches, and so he lead the prayer during the service.

 The two women in the centre are the two High Commissioners, the NZ one on the left.

After the service there was a wonderful free breakfast put on by the NZ and Australian High Commissions for anyone who had attended the service, at the Warwick Le Lagon resort, paid for by NZ and Aus tax payers no doubt, so we thought we had better make the most of it. This was our first full cooked breakfast in over 6 weeks - so good!

Visit to Samuel and Cindy

Yesterday afternoon we went to visit our Ni-Vanuatu friends Samuel and Cindy Katipa and 3 of their 4 children Vita, William and Christopher (their 3rd child Ariv lives with Samuel's Mum Annie on Tanna Island). There are 2 extra boys in this photo, but William is the one on the left and Christopher has the red T-shirt on (I think! They hardly stopped moving down on the beach so it was hard to tell, they love being in the water and playing in among the trees and rocks).

 They live at Pango, a village on the outskirts of Port Vila, and it's only a 10-minute walk from their house to the beach. It's a rocky beach not sandy, but we still had a lovely swim to cool off. We definitely appreciated our Aquasocks!

 I was pre-occupied with photos just before we got in the water and so I took my watch in for a swim by mistake. It's not waterproof, but fortunately it's still telling the right time. We forgot to take photos at their house, but we'll be going back again so we'll take some then.

We got to know this family when Samuel was studying at Waikato Uni and started coming to our church, Knox Christian Centre. Cindy and the children came out to join him after a few months, and Christopher was born in NZ. All the children, especially the two littlest ones, were the darlings of the congregation!

In an earlier blog post, we referred to providing aid and help for people in Vanuatu. Should you feel a calling to either provide financial assistance or personally visit Vanuatu to assist in projects already underway,  or news ones planned, the appropriate person to contact to co-ordinate it is Phil King of Global Missions, Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa NZ. His email address is Phil@presbyterian.org.nz

If you feel God's calling but you are unsure of how you can help, contact Phil and he will assist you. He has many projects and opportunities in Vanuatu for your giving. For example, he can arrange for groups of labour from NZ to undertake building work or maintenance work, or channel a donation to a particular need.

Productive Meetings

On Wednesday, Martyn attended his first Senior Management Team meeting. It was mostly in Bislama so he didn't understand much of it. 

We have downloaded lessons from the Peace Corps so we'd better start doing some serious learning this weekend. Such phrases as "wanem nem blong yu?" (what is your name?), "olsem wanem?" (how are you?) and "lukem yu" (see you later) will only get you so and no further. By the way, all vowel sounds are the same as in Maori.

I had a meeting with a local Civil Engineer who's contact details I had acquired through dropping into the Hawkins Construction office which I discovered by chance. I had a favour to ask him even though I had no reason to expect his help, so I asked the Lord to go ahead of me. 

The PWMU (Presbyterian Women's Missionary Union) have plans drawn up for up for a small 2 storey hostel/training centre, drawn by a draftsman and lacking structural detail. Cyrille my new engineer friend agreed to get one of his staff to draw up the structural design properly, for free! What a wonderful answer to prayer! The PWMU have been fundraising for this building for 8 years! I really hope I can help them get a step closer to getting it built.

Then I had another meeting with the accreditation officer for the Vanuatu Qualifications Authority to find out more about getting a course accredited with them for Onesua Presbyterian Technical College. That also went very well and I came away much more confident in being able to help on that project. 

After School Class

Today Annette helped Gloria again with the extra reading class for some boys from Seaside Primary. It was pouring with rain and we thought the boys might not come, but 2 out of 3 did so we held the class.

 However, the rain followed us inside the small room where we hold the class and Gloria keeps all her teaching resources. It was pouring in around the light fitting and G and the boys were trying to catch it in cups.

 It was also coming in through the ceiling in several places and some of the books were getting wet.

Poor Gloria had to rescue all her resources after the class, and will have to re-organise the room before the next class on Thursday afternoon.

Other Easter activities - just normal weekend sort of stuff.

We did a bit of cleaning around our flat - washed the curtains, which were very dirty because the windows stay open most of the time so they get dusty. This is the water that was coming out of the washing machine.

 Annette weeded the path up to our front door.

 We watched people coming and going on our road - after the rain you have to pick your way carefully around the edge of the lake.

 The rubbish was still collected on Monday even though it was a public holiday.

We also went for a walk down to the waterfront where lots of people were out enjoying Fatumaru Park. The tide was out but it was still lovely. Had ice creams on the way back to help us get up the steep hill.

EASTER WEEKEND

 The Good Friday service at ICC was on the words Jesus spoke from the cross. It was simple and powerful. The flowers at the front of the church were quite dramatic.

 Speaking of drama, Easter Sunday morning was a real celebration of Christ rising again. A big marquee was put up in the car park, there was a puppet show,

a talk by 2 of the children, and a drama about some of the witnesses to the crucifixion:
the centurion,

 Joseph of Arimathea,

 and Mary Magdalene.

The tomb was scraped out of a natural stone wall in the hillside. It was very well done and very thought-provoking.