Fortuitous meetings in Tanna

Kokamo's Pacifc Meanderings
Tom and Rachel
Wed 21 Jul 2010 02:41
 
Our first day on the Island of Tanna was fantastic.  Having sailed here much quicker than expected things worked out amazingly well.  We arrived in Port Resolution, a small bay on the eastern side of the Island.  In order to sort out the official business of entering the country our first task was going to be a trip across to the main town of Lenakel on the west to visit customs and immigration.  There were a couple of other yachts in the bay and we were immediately informed that a truck had been arranged leaving from the village early the next morning for just that purpose and we would be able to get a ride.  So an early start on Tuesday morning for the spectacular 2 hour journey along the only road that crosses Tanna - up past the smoking volcano, across bits of the track where the road was almost completely washed away by the recent rains, through verdant green forest, past tiny villages and finally down the steep hill into the town of Lenakel. Esther and Leah from the village also joined us as there is a big circumcision ceremony here on Thursday for which they needed to buy some supplies. Our bottoms were a little bit sore by the time we arrived but it was a great way to get a feeling for the place straight away and an interesting way of arriving in a new country.
 
For Tom of course it was all very familiar  so he was busily wondering how we could arrange to send a message to his friends in the villages of Iakel and Ianalaol.  After asking around a bit it turned out that there was a large celebration going on in town for the openning of a new cultural centre - there was bound to be someone there we thought so we went to have a look. Quite a large crowd was gathered for a proper formal event with some serious speech making. Tom quickly recognised some of the women from the villages at the back of the crowd and went to say hello.  There was immediate excitement and quite a lot of surprise and we discovered that in fact a whole delegation of at least 100 people had come into to town to perform some dances as part of the celebration. Before we knew it Tom was being hugged by Chief Yapa (the Chief from the British series of 'Meet the Natives') and I was being introduced to everyone and shaking hands with a whole line of men in their nambas as they came past us to perform their dance. The dancing was wonderful and although I'd seen the film footage it is rather different in real life when you can actually feel the ground shaking from the jumping. 
 
Unfortunately we weren't able to stay around for the evening celebrations (I think Tom would have been required to drink a lot of Kava) as we needed to get back to the boat. So we set off in the truck once more for the return trip.
 
This afternoon we are going ashore to visit the village of Port Resolution and they are taking us on a trip up to the volcano, Moumnt Yasur, this evening.