Fortuitous meetings in Tanna
Kokamo's Pacifc Meanderings
Tom and Rachel
Wed 21 Jul 2010 02:41
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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.
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