Black Magic and Christopher Columbus - Asanvari Bay, Maewo Island, Vanuatu
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sun 20 Sep 2009 22:53
|
15:22.501S 168:07.989E
On September 3rd, we struggled into the brisk
and sometimes more than brisk southeast trade wind for a short two and a half
hours across the channel separating Ambae and Maewo
islands to Asanvari Bay. Like our previous two stops, this was a
place we had not been to before. We decided to make the long eastern trek
all the way from Espiritu Santo Island to Maewo Island because we had heard
nothing but good things about Asanvari Bay. As soon as we arrived, we
could see why. It reminded us of the Marquesas, that first group of
magical Pacific islands we sailed into last year after leaving the Galapagos,
but with a Melanesian twist. In other words, a cross between the island in
that old 1970's TV show 'Fantasy Island' (minus the midget and 'The
plane! The plane!') and the island setting for a Bob Marley
song. The bay is on the southwestern tip of Maewo Island where the
jungle covered high hills and mountains protect it from the prevailing
southeasterly wind making for a mostly calm anchorage. It is filled
with water so clear we could easily see bottom more than forty-five feet
below us. No lie. If it isn't the clearest water we've ever seen,
then it at least ties for first place. The topper was the perfect-picture
waterfall tumbling down through a narrow ravine and dumping
itself into the eastern side of the bay with an oddly comforting dull
roar. Wow.
We stayed five nights in this spot. Initially
we had more than enough company with eight or nine boats in the bay, but after
the first night or two, the crowd was down to a more reasonable four
or five. There is at least three villages in and around the bay,
but as we've consistently seen throughout the more remote parts of Vanuatu,
each village really only consists of one extended family with a 'chief' who
is often just the patriarch of the family. The village closest to the
anchorage was run by Chief Nelson and his son Nixon. Their
village is fairly progressive in that it uses the waterfall to power a
small generator, which allows them to play really loud music, watch DVD's on a
vintage computer and offer various services to boaters like use of the Vanuatu
version of a yacht club (thatch hut which doubles as a restaurant if
anyone dares to eat there). Speaking of scary remote island food...
it was a few days after we (I) mistakenly traded the prized sour cream
coffee cake ('dessert' vs. 't-shirt') for fresh water prawns (shrimp) that we
read in one of our guide books, 'Beware of fresh water prawns
as some tourists have come down with meningitis after consuming
them'. Meningitis? Ugh! So when Nixon offered to cook us fresh
water prawns for dinner in the yacht club, Sue and John and Don and I all
exchanged scared looks and quickly responded to Nixon with a
reply that hopefully sounded polite. What we wanted to say to
Nixon was 'hell no!', but figured that wouldn't go over well.
We learned from Nixon that another of Chief
Nelson's sons died about two weeks before we arrived. When asked
what his brother died of, Nelson replied quite seriously, 'Black
magic'. Black magic - it's still a thing that's practiced in Vanuatu
- especially in areas where the missionaries don't have a stranglehold on
the people (sorry, I'm letting my anti-missionary views peek through a little
here). The story doesn't end there. A few days later, we heard
through the villager/boater grapevine that a bush knife (machete) was
placed in the chief's dead son's hand when he was buried. Or was it
that a bush knife had been placed on his grave? Anyway, the end
result was that the man accused of putting the black magic spell on
the chief's dead son was found dead himself. The implication being, of
course, that the chief's son had lashed out from beyond the grave
and killed his killer. I'm not making this up. You've got
to love a people that still believe in magic.
Picture 1 - Asanvari Bay complete with the Vanuatu
version of a boat (dugout canoe) and its overgrown cousins from Australia, New
Zealand and the US.
Picture 2 - When Storyteller is present, the
ni-Vans have no interest in the rest of us dime-a-dozen sailboats. It's
the powerboat they crave while they stare at it, star struck, perched in their
cramped and perpetually leaking homemade canoes. John and Sue took Nelson
and a couple of his friends out fishing on Storyteller for a half a day.
They didn't catch anything, but we heard several days later from some of
the other villagers that the three lucky guys who went fishing still hadn't
stopped talking about their ride on the big motor boat. The
fellow in this picture probably heard the three guys bragging and decided to get
a closer look at the famed Storyteller for himself.
Picture 3 - This is the waterfall (not the best picture) with John and Sue as
well as ni-Van John and his brother Alex (sitting behind big ni-Van John, so is
difficult to see). The black pipe running behind where Sue is standing
carries the excess water away from the generator pump house to the stream.
John and his brother Alex own the waterfall and surrounding land.
Chief Nelson must have some type of agreement with these brothers that allows
him to use power from the waterfall for his village. The terms
of this agreement weren't discussed, but based on our conversation
with brother Alex, the brothers' opinion of Chief Nelson and his
villagers is none too positive. In fact, Alex is happy to compete
with Chief Nelson and his village for the attention of the
boaters. Brothers John and Alex are building a bar/restaurant/boater
gathering place on their land at the foot of the falls. They are
doing this completely by hand and with no help from any of the neighboring
villagers. The end result will be another thatch hut, but one that will
serve cold beer and have a spectacular setting. Alex wasn't shy about
sharing his views of Chief Nelson's villagers, 'They are lazy!' he
proclaimed. 'They just sit and wait in their stupid yacht club for the
yachties to come. They don't offer anything that the yachties want.
They don't work! They do nothing but drink kava all day. They
sleep off their kava hangovers, get up late in the morning and don't
eat lunch! This is why they have no energy to work! My brother
and I work hard and eat lunch!' Yes, we noticed that Alex
and his brother John did indeed break for lunch. Lunch seemed to
last two or three hours. We did admire their initiative and
competitive nature though.
Picture 4 - Another first for Harmonie - fresh
baked bread delivered via canoe by none other than the Asanvari Bay
baker named Christopher Columbus. Nope, not kidding.
Christopher Columbus. It was raining on this particular day (as it did
most every day since Asanvari Bay is in a perfect position to receive
the moisture that dumps out of the air as soon as it gets pushed over the
mountains by the southeast trades) so Christopher had the bread stashed in a
cardboard box inside a trash bag - all precariously balanced across the front of
his canoe. He bakes the bread starting at 3 am. Then, at about 6:30
in the morning, he loads up his canoe and paddles from one side of the bay to
the other in order to deliver the bread to the boaters and villagers - all done
with a smile.
Picture 5 - This is one of the villages near the
bay. Like the villages in the far north we visited with Billy and
Tracy, all of the homes are traditionally built thatch huts. Most
families have one 'cooking house' and one 'sleeping house'. Over the
course of our travels in Vanuatu, we have been inside both cooking houses and
sleeping houses and both are pretty bare. They usually have a mud
floor and are quite dark with only a few windows. Sometimes
there are no windows at all and only the sunlight slanting through
the doorway lessens the gloom. The first impression when entering one
of these structures is always, 'Wow, it's dark in here.', followed by, 'Wow,
it's empty in here. Where's all the stuff?' Of course they have no
stuff, but that's easy to forget when you come from a world where
there is lots and lots of stuff. The cooking house has
a place for a fire, a couple of pots and pans, maybe a dish or two and
a stick of bananas hanging from the ceiling along with a few other
vegetables. The sleeping house has a few mattresses on the floor. If
it is a fancy sleeping house, then the mattresses are up on a raised
platform and mosquito netting hangs from the ceiling. All the
mosquito netting we've seen seems to be the same so we've wondered if it
was issued to the villages by the government or a charity. It's
especially important given the malaria threat in Vanuatu (particularly in the
wet season, November to April).
Picture 6 - This is Nelson's youngest
daughter. She is modeling her new dress, given to her by Sue from
Storyteller. The dress was purchased in Fiji and given to Sue's
granddaughter when she came with her parents to Oyster Island to visit
Sue and John. Unfortunately, the dress did not meet with the
granddaughter's approval. Apparently she prefers Dora the Explorer's
style of dress (pants) and couldn't be bothered to wear a dress.
Sue made good on her threat to take the dress back and give it to
a ni-Van piccaninny (Bislama for child) who would most certainly be more
appreciative. Appreciative this piccaninny was as she preened and pranced
around in her new beautiful dress, striking poses here and there.
Picture 7 - This is Nixon with both his daughters
sitting in front of the yacht club. His older daughter was not happy about
her sister's new dress since she didn't get one for herself.
However, the new notebook and colored markers we gave her after this
picture was taken seemed to do the trick.
Picture 8 - Asanvari Bay is the place for
baskets. There was not one, but two basket shops (thatch huts with a few
baskets hanging from the rafters) - one in Chief Nelson's village and one
in the next village over. Sue did her part to support the local economy
and bought several. Here she is with Erica, one of the basket weavers, her
baby, and Janet, from one of the other boats in the bay.
Picture 9 - We had plenty of time for snorkeling
and there was an incredible spot just off the coast at one end of the bay where
the volcanic rock forms a shelf which then drops down steeply to what looks like
a dark blue abyss when you're floating above it. The fish love to
congregate here and schools of these transparent creatures kept buzzing by us as
we paddled around.
More on the rest of our Vanuatu island hopping tour
later.
Anne
.
|
