A day on Aniwa.

I have just returned to Vila after a day spent on Aniwa island. 

Aniwa is a teeny tiny speck of an island in the very south of the Vanuatu chain.  It has made a bit of a name for itself recently - with even Julia Gillard spreading the good word about the little islet - after the community there did great things with a sports program funded by Australia.

So a delegation was sent down to give them all a bigfala pat on the back for all their good work.  The Vanuatu Minister of Sport was part of the group as well as officials from both Vanuatu and Australia, including me.

We squeezed aboard our charter flight at about 7.30 this morning.  Within an hour we had touched down on the grassy air strip in Aniwa and were greeted by the local transport operator.

Aniwa is a one-truck island.  This is the truck.  And we were all hopping in.

After a quick bumpy ride - passing a John Frum settlement on the way with its USA flag a-flutter (see earlier postings for more about the John Frum cult) -

 - we arrived in the village and were greeted by these inhospitable chaps.

Thankfully it turned out it was only for show and they really didn't intend to spear us to death. 

A lovely lady made up for their shennanigans by presenting us all with an incredibly fragrant frangipani garland.

There was a welcome sing-sing by the local pikininis

An official hand-shake

And the cutting of the "cake"  (they tricked us!  it wasn't a cake at all but LAP LAP decorated to look like a cake!)

Then the sports demonstrations began. 

We saw the local women play 'island cricket' which uses bats whittled out of wood and a big rubbery ball made out of tree resin.  The official uniform for the women is their island dresses.  I was told this was because one of the techniques of the game is to use your skirt to scoop up the ball.  However I suspect the dresses are worn so as not to offend the menfolk by wearing trousers.  But we didn't see the men play - so maybe they wear the dresses too and it has nothing to do with being inoffensive.

After the match was over, we broke for lunch.  Lobster was on the menu.

As was roast pig, an enormous baked fish, a roasted goat and of course, mountains of rice and lots of lap lap.

I was served a portion of each and hit a carb/protein overload about a quarter of the way through.  There is no such thing as 'left-overs' in Vanuatu and I had some peckish pikininis only too happy to help me finish off my plate.

After lunch, the games began again.

We watched the boys play soccer. 

Then the girls.  The girls were tuff tumas - skidding around in the dust as they tried to wrangle the ball off each other.

There was a running demonstration.
'On-a-maaaaarks---GO!' 

'On-a-maaaaarks---GO!'

'On-a-maaaaaaaaaarks-----GO!'

They were irrepressible! 

Then there was volleyball and even more soccer, this time by the older players.  Everyone on Aniwa plays sport.  No matter if you are a girl or a boy, a yangfala or an olfala, every Wednesday afternoon and Saturday morning the whole community of around 500 get together and play.

When the demonstration was all done and dusted, for some reason WE were the ones that got the prizes.

Including a MASSIVE fish.

And a collection of very beautiful woven things for each of us.

We said goodbye to our new friends.  Including these cute kids who kept chattering away to me in local language.  I didn't have much of a clue as to what they were saying, but it had something to do with a lolly - which they kept popping out of their mouth to show me, and then passing it on to the next kid for a suck. 

And this lady with the best shirt on the island "send more tourists - the last ones were delicious!!!"  Except it is a french speaking community so most of the people, including the lady wearing the shirt, couldn't read it and had no idea how funny they were being.

I had a lovely day.  I wish it had been a terrible day so that I could have titled this blog something clever like 'Anywhere but Aniwa!!'.  But I didn't.  And that is why the title is dull.

The end.



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