Tuesday 31 July

Bronwyn Fraser and Natasha arrived in Vila yesterday for 5 days.  They are from Uniting World Church, Australia.  Bronwyn was introducing Natasha to the PCV, Natasha will be looking after the Gender Programme from Uniting World in the Pacific Region. Welcome to Vanuatu Natasha.

 Natasha on the left and Bronwyn  at PCV devotions this morning

Bronwyn saw our Marmite shortage on FB and kindly brought two jars over from Australia.  Didn't know it was legal to have Marmite in Australia 😂. Tank yu tumas tufala long Marmite

On Sunday Mahana and friend were playing on Ethel. They did the brum brum sounds and held the handle bars (well as much as their little arms allowed them to reach 💗) 

Vanuatu Independence Day 30 July 2018 - 38 years

Congratulations to the Republic of Vanuatu,  38 years ago the people of Vanuatu gained their independence from the political condominium, a colony jointly ruled by Britain and France.  Prior to 30 July 1980 the country was known as the New Hebrides.

On Monday the party began at 8.00 am on Independence Park.  Throughout the country villages and towns would have been celebrating with their local celebrations. The usual band, marching displays and speeches took up the morning. French Paratroopers were going to parachute onto Independence Park but the wind was to unpredictable so that part was called off.

Photos from Independence Park.  There were dozens of stall selling food and handicrafts.

This stall owner put up a banner to make her stall stand out

It was a very hot day, probably the hottest we have had for several months, so any shade was sought.  These people found shade under the tree in the PMC Church grounds.

At 4.00 pm the party was still in full swing. On the stage are a group singing and dancing

Then there is the day after. On my walk to work Tuesday morning i took a couple of photos.  The park was covered in rubbish. This photo does not show how bad it was.  By the afternoon the the rubbish was all gone, and the marquees taken down

Snippets from our Week in Port Vila.

The Chinese Navy are in Vanuatu with their medical ship, this week they are in Port Vila. They have visited other islands where they have provided free medical service.  There are around 40 or so doctors and dentists on board. On board there are surgeries, x-ray, facilities, laboratories and hospital beds to allow patients to stay to recuperate after surgery

The ship moored in the habour in this shot. It is usually berthed at the cruise ship wharf to take patients on board, but when the cruise ships are in Vila the medical ship anchors in the harbour.

The shuttle taking patients out to the ship

Vanuatu is gearing up for the BIG party on Independence Day on the 30th July.  Marquees set up for the stalls around Independence Park.  They were working on Saturday night putting the marquees up

The mango season is on its way. The mango trees are out in flower. The fruit won't be ready to eat until mid October.  Annette will be already in New Zealand then, she returns to NZ on the 15th September.  I will stay another three or four weeks and I may be fortunate enough to enjoy the early fruit.

Playing Tour Guides

We had a lovely day out being tour guides for friends from Te Awamutu, Massey and Jayne Lynch. Martyn and Massey used to work together at Eagle Air. They came into Port Vila for the day on the Pacific Explorer cruise ship, and we enjoyed showing them some of our favourite places in and around Port Vila.

The cruise ships are massive! The container ship wharf has recently been rebuilt and is big enough for one cargo ship at a time. The cruise ship wharf is still in need of upgrading.

We showed them the markets downtown, then headed out of town to see the bigfala banyan tree. 

We checked out turtles at the Reef Zoological, the abandoned resort, and stopped for lunch at the Eden on the River, where our lovely guide Ruth told us lots about the uses of the plants. (In Massey's back pack there was an essential supply of Marmite for us.  We ran out of Marmite several weeks ago.  Massey agreed to bring us a jar.  The backpack is where the jar stayed as they sailed away at the end of the day.  Bother we forgot to collect it from him 😂)

I couldn't resist this beautiful water-sculpted log.

We got them back to the ship right on time, and they sailed off into the sunset. They really enjoyed their day, and so did we. (this is not actually their ship, but this is what it would have looked like 😉)

It's a shame about the Marmite, but Jayne left her sunglasses behind. We will hold them for ransom until we return home, and then do a ceremonial exchange 😁

Children's Day - Vanuatu

Tuesday 24th July is Children's Day in Vanuatu, it is a national holiday.  Lots of activities going on around Port Vila (and the rest of Vanuatu). We went across to Korman Stadium to watch what was going on.  This is a wonderful facility for the people of Vanuatu to use.

View from the grandstand.

Laplap for sale. By this stage all that was left of the laplap, were the last few scraps.

Stands and displays on the athletic field, promoting heath living, internet security, child safety etc.  All about safety for our pikininis.

Budding Eliza McCartneys in the making?  The children were enjoying the landing pads for the pole vault.

Teaching the children how to hit the ball for Australian Football League (AFL)

Playing Snakes and Ladders

Hand painting

Just doodling.......

There are 4 lines of children under the marquee , they are passing balloons down the lines

Children's painting drying in the sun

And there wouldn't be a children's festival without face painting

The grandstand. Inside there are courts for basketball, volley ball etc.

Racing over low hurdles (great action shot  👍)

Then of course there is kakae (food).  Long lines waiting for the free kakae.

Junior tennis on the courts at Korman Stadium

Sunday in Vila

We had a beautiful service at ICC this morning with a guest preacher Pastor Steve Blake from Life Changers Ministries.  

The wireless mic the ICC had been using had a major battery failure and it leaked acid into the mic and ruined it.  So NZ came to the rescue.  We had received a wireless mic set from NZ.  Several months ago our friend Chris a minister we know well in NZ had asked us if we could use a now defunct mic at ICC.  The frequency of the mic is now not available for churches in NZ to use. The answer was yes.  So we arranged for it to get to Vila. Shows you how God works as it was a blessing we had Chris' mics when the old one failed.

Pastor Dave with the new mic in hand, thank you Chris for the donation of the mics

This coming Tuesday is Children's Day in Vanuatu. It is a public holiday as well. So we had a presentation form our children's ministry during the service.

 After lunch we took Ethel and explored some more back roads around Efate.  We ended up at Mele Beach, we had a coffee and we enjoyed the harbour view and watched a group of children enjoying the water on a couple of inflatables. There were plenty of large yachts in the bay, only a few in this picture.

A recent addition to our road is this dumping of broken concrete. At least it is covering the worst of the sharp-edged tiles. Tony acquired it for free and has arranged for a grader to come and spread it more evenly, sometime. It is helping to fill the great lakes (which are currently dry) but probably most of it will wash away in the next big rain. 

Update on the St Kentigern work around the Cafe Containers

Annette and I completed some painting on the outside tables and chairs that were installed by the team from St Kentigern Schools a fortnight ago.  Saturday afternoon we headed down with a tin of polyurethane, brushes, sandpaper and bucket to wash the furniture.

One of the tables - before painting shot

One half of the Team 👍👍

The other half of the Team.👍👍

Completed tables drying in the afternoon

After we had left, Neville and Gloria were passing by, fortunate that they were passing and they stopped to ask the lady to not sit on the seats. The polyurethane was touch dry by this stage.