Fun Time with Kirsty

We've been having lots of fun showing Kirsty some of our favourite places over the last few days, and exploring some new ones we hadn't been to previously.
But one of her highlights has to be her visit to Mt Yasur on Tanna Island which she did on her own. As a geologist it was a very special experience for her.

We visited Secret Garden, a cafe and garden complex with lots of cultural static displays. The cafe is jungle-themed, very cool, very quirky. They have a swimming pool and some bungalows for hire out the back. They do a kastom demonstration too, but we didn't get to see it that day.

Martyn got a tamtam from Ambrym for his birthday, not as big as ones we saw at the garden.

A new place for us was the Activ Centre, a very dynamic French woman's initiative to provide product development and a market for local produce, particularly cacao, spices, coconut oil, carvings and basketry. She works with local growers and artisans to bring their products to the attention of the world. One cacao grower has just been to Paris to compete in an international competition because he won an award for his product being ranked in the top 50 in the world.

We did a tour of their chocolate factory, which involved significant sampling of very nice chocolate!
Here the beans are being husked, powered by what looks like a commercial vacuum cleaner.

 The beans are partly dried in an oven and partly outdoors.

 Aelan is Island in Bislama. (ae sounds like I, not A, same as in Maori). Of course we had to buy some of their chocolate! It was very soft by the time we got it home and it's in the fridge now. It should be available in NZ soon in Oxfam stores.

Here a lady is scraping coconut with a motorised grinder, so the oil or coconut milk can be extracted for culinary or cosmetic uses.

 Next stop was the Reef -Vanuatu Zoological, where we have taken several visitors before. Here Kirsty gets to touch a green turtle - yes it was green with slime because it has been floating too much, but that's not why they are called green turtles. Actually I don't know why they're called green turtles, will have to find out. She is carrying the very colourful bag she bought at the Mamas' Market earlier.



These Fijian iguanas are very friendly.

 This Giant Petrel has been blown off-course, he should be down in NZ waters. If he is released here, someone will catch and eat him, but it is too expensive for The Reef to transport him home, they are only just getting their enterprise established. Ian the owner has dubbed him Happy Feet as whenever Ian approaches his cage, the bird gets very excited and slaps his feet on the perch.

Hideaway Island is one our top spots. The snorkelling wasn't that great that day, but the Mango Tango mocktails were perfect!

In the evening it was Fire Dance time at Mele Beach Bar. The sunset was beautiful and Kirsty really enjoyed the performance.

We went to Cascades the next morning and had a lovely cool swim in a natural rock pool. Unfortunately the only photos of Kirsty enjoying the waterfall and pool are on her camera back in NZ now, but here we are at the lookout over Port Vila Harbour.

That evening we went out to the Melanesian Resort for a combined birthday dinner for Martyn and me - we had a lovely meal, sorry no photos.

On Sunday afternoon, we went with Tony, Mary, Chris, Mahana, 2 of Chris's friends and the family's pigeon to Eton Beach for a swim and beach BBQ. As you do. The pigeon has been raised in captivity, along with 4 siblings which successively died, and young Chris has been saying for a while that it should be released. We agreed, although whether it can fend for itself is a moot point. Here is Martyn with said pigeon, Chris touching it and Grek just behind. Grek is one of the boys from the after-school reading class, so we know him well.

We tried releasing the pigeon on the roadside out of town, but there were too many other people around there, and also it couldn't fly well. We tried again at Eton Beach, and left it sitting on a branch across the road from where all the people were, but where we could see it. It seemed completely overwhelmed and just stayed on the branch. So it ended up coming back to the flat with us. Oh well, we tried. 

Monday involved devotions at work in the morning, where Kirsty was officially welcomed to Vanuatu by Pastor Allen. We had a swim at the Grand in the afternoon, and played Uno in the evening.

On Tuesday I took Kirsty to the home of Marie, one of the women I got to know on the oral health survey. She showed us how to cook simboro, one version of laplap. We got stuck in and grated the manioc, rolled it into small parcels wrapped it in island cabbage leaves, and Kirsty had a go at scraping the coconut flesh out of the shells to make fresh coconut milk with. Marie steamed it in a pot on the gas burner, and we had a small feast along with fresh pawpaw. Yum! Once again all the photos are on Kirsty's camera 😏Kirsty really enjoyed the morning - it was a special time sharing an everyday task with Marie and her sister, somethings most tourists don't get to experience.

All too soon her time was up, and off she flew back home. Not too sad for us as we will see her in just 1 week!