Doroline’s Dream

A young girl was travelling with her mom, who in accordance with tradition had moved from her birthplace at Craig Cove on Ambrym to marry her husband from Malakula, and father from their home on the mid-western island of Malakula, to Port Vila the capital of the Archipelago on the island of Efate about fifteen years ago. She was on her way to the college there to study foreign languages and business. Her name is Doroline.

During the course of her studies she met a young man, Tony who was training to be a teacher and they fell in love. Doroline is a bright and loving person who thrives in the company of other people and animals and Tony was an equal so they made their lives together, but this did involve sacrifice for her. When their sons came along they decided that she should ‘stay back’ in the home to be a home mom and so the fruits of her studies were put on hold.

After Tony fulfilled teaching roles at two other schools including one on the watchful island of Nguna, they settled in the little village of Emua, on the northern shore of Efate where Tony’s parents lived in a house overlooking the beach, Undine Bay and Nguna.

Soon Doroline’s mind was turning to what she could do to occupy her healthy mind and help the family and village at the same time. She had a dream and was formulating an idea when, in the market in Port Vila one day she overheard a young man talking. She approached him and asked if she was right in thinking he was a builder.

“Yes, I am Brian the builder from the Banks Islands (to the north).”

“I would like you to come and build me a house.” That same evening Brian, Doroline and Tony sat down at her home table to draw up some plans and list the items needed in the construction. Brian would return with the building materials which included sheets of flattened and woven bamboo for the walls, roof ‘shingles’ made of woven palm leaves, planks of wood for the floors and various other lengths of wood for the uprights and wall supports. The house would be one room about 12 feet square with a full length veranda at the front. It would be built on a family owned strip of land next door to Doroline’s parents in law, Raymond after whom the bay was named and his wife, now his widow who lives with Doroline and Tony now.

The build took just a few months because the roof and walls were prefabricated and during the process Brian taught Doroline how to do a lot of the work so that she can manage her own repairs.

Doroline was overwhelmed with pride at the little house which was built in the Melanesian style. She set too decorating the walls with pretty fabric and making sheets and coverings for the beds and covers for the cushions. In one corner of the bedroom there is an airing cupboard where the wall is just one thickness of the woven bamboo. The corner cupboard she ‘walled’ with fabric and it is used for sheets and blankets.

Soon Doroline was in business. Tony looked after the advertising on the internet and her first guests arrived. Doroline is very flexible in that she is happy to cook an evening meal as well as breakfast and if the visitors wish for a ferry to Nguna and a truck to the top of the volcano she is happy to organise that and any other trip, walk or flight the residents might chose. Then disaster struck.

Cyclone Pam hit the island in March 2015 and the house next door, also used for paying guests, was flattened. But Doroline’s house stood virtually undamaged and she was letting it out very soon after the devastation. In the photos you can see there is a gap between the walls and the roof of about six inches and the walls breathe through the woven bamboo. There is also a gap underneath the building which itself stands on stilts over a foot off the ground. So the entire building breathes and gives in a strong wind and is refreshingly cool and well ventilated with its louvered windows on opposite walls at all times.

Bamboo Melanesian homes are designed to withstand strong natural events just as the bamboo homes in Bahia in Ecuador withstood the earthquakes that occurred when Zoonie was moored in the river there, because they could give and flex.

You can see from the visitor’s book just what a top class host Doroline is. While we were there she came and sat with us on the veranda three times for long chats and she said that she enjoyed our stories, just as much as we enjoyed hers. For the room and evening meal and breakfast she was going to charge us exactly the same as the Iririki Resort wanted to charge us for just putting a foot on their beach.

When we arrived we parked the car in the pretty lane outside and asked the two lads busy rigging up a new electric light in the outside loo and shower block and they pointed up the road as Doroline was making her way towards us. Her previous guests had only just left so she used the word ‘sorry’ a lot when explaining we could see the room but she hadn’t got around to cleaning it yet. We said we understood and she needn’t apologise until we realised that some folk here start almost all their sentences with ‘sorry’.

“We’ll walk down to the bar/restaurant and have a beer and be back in an hour or so if that’s ok?”

We sat on a high bench overlooking the water to Nguna with two ice cold Tuskers, which after the snorkel tasted sublime. Two young lads arrived in a rush and one fell into my lap, “Hello I’m Nicky” and “I’m Alex.” We loved their youthful gusto.

“So are you home from school?” Nicky was not quite old enough but Alex told us his teacher’s name was Monique before a lady called them from around a corner and they dashed off.

A few years ago the deadly crown of thorns starfish munched its way through the coral reefs around Nguna and we wondered how they are faring now as we looked across to the island.

Back at our tropical beach front retreat a trail of roses and hibiscus blossoms paved our way in to our room for the night. Some of Doroline’s guests stay for as long as a month, now there’s an idea.

Not only flowers on the ground but we had our own frangipani tree and a pretty, carefully laid out garden with coral paths bordered with variegated leaved hedges and beautiful shells decorating the veranda balustrade and acting as soap dishes in the shower and outside washing area.

I found a fascinating book showing photos of the different types of sailing rig typical in the islands, some of the photos I had seen in the museum and I thank the unknown photographers for them and acknowledge their right to a mention here for my using a few of them.

The wing tip rig is highly sophisticated in its use of aerodynamics begging the question ‘Whose was the brilliant mind that designed the original?’ When the wind creates a vortex within the sail a ‘lift’ results and the craft easily reaches phenomenal speeds. Wow, that would be fun. See how deep are the hulls that allowed for essential inter-island trading, where shortfalls of essential items on one island could be addressed with trade with another.

I imagine the lateen sail with a single triangle point upward was the type used by Roymata and his followers because he came from the south where they originate. And I was delighted to find the actual photo of the villager returning to Lamen Island in his canoe with the single use banana frond sail to catch the filtered trades to show you. The jetty he is sailing past which is shown as intact in the photo is the one we snorkelled around when Zoonie was moored on the other side. So the breaking up of the concrete jetty has taken place in the last 20 years.

A little procession comprising Doroline, young son Morris and Tony came with our supper of salad fish with wild yam, boiled rice and stewed fresh vegetables and beans. How easy for her to cook a little more of what she was doing for her family to provide us with supper, that’s what I would do. We lit the citronella mosquito candles and relaxed over cups of coffee with hot water taken from the big thermos flask listening to the evening sounds; a tiny crying baby, adult laughter from next door, yellow eye-rimmed myna birds and the ubiquitous crowing cockerels, cicadas and discontented dogs. You wouldn’t believe how many folk referred to their stay as ‘peaceful’. Well it was of course a lot of the time.

Trouble was I didn’t want to miss anything in this one off magical experience so my sub-conscious would not let me sleep for long. The night began with a hilarious attempt to get completely underneath the purple mosquito net so we wouldn’t be eaten alive. “We’ll start with the flaps at the bottom” Rob said. But then by the time we had spread it out around the bed the gap at the bottom had opened. Rob scrambled around trying to pull the gap shut, getting more and more frustrated all the while.

“Ok we’re going to move it round so the flaps are at the top,” we pulled and pushed and huffed and puffed and laid back only to find the top corners didn’t reach the bed. So we pulled them down and tucked them under the pillows which meant we had the net over our faces. It all worked pretty well in the end and a very disgruntled Rob rolled over into the land of nod.

A deliciously cool breeze wafted over us between the facing louvered windows and silence reigned except for the lapping waves and the distant roar of surf on the reef, but they were soothing sounds. Sleep enfolded us until all at once something upset all the village dogs who set off a cacophony until, with a single long drawn out howl, the matriarch or alpha male silenced the lot of them and we went back to our dreams.  

Next in the early hours just before dawn were the cockerels who even get on Doroline’s nerves, but it was all part of our one night in a Vanuatuan village. A gong was sounded at 6.45 and again at 7.30 to get families up, workers off to the bus to Port Vila and school children off for the short walk to Manua School, where Tony taught and by coincidence where Steph with her Sharm Foundation volunteers were just finishing a new toilet block, and she has invited us to the opening in a few days’ time.

Over our breakfast of a fried egg with white bread and doughnut followed by banana and papaya Doroline told us about her plans to recall Brian and build with him another guest bungalow on the site of her late father-in-law’s house. That would be ideal especially if two groups of the same family or friends were to visit, each requiring accommodation. It is customary to demolish the home of a deceased male villager, his widow going to live with family, so it would make good use of the space which has been respectfully empty for a while.

Doroline pointed to the small area of coral infront of the house before the beach. “We were married there last year,” how lovely that their lack of convention is part of modern village life, here anyway.

“That little fire was started by my son and his friend who is a Chinese boy living in Australia. They stayed here for a holiday recently.” When they were about to leave the Chinese lad was crying so Tony had to search the village to find Morris who didn’t want to say ‘goodbye’. Dad brought son back and the lads hugged saying they would meet again one day. After a holiday on the beach exploring with his new friend, climbing trees, catching crabs swimming etc the Chinese boy was on his way back to an apartment with no garden let alone a beach and lots of company. Doroline said the same thing my grandmother used to say to Robin and me, “You have to go to come back.”

Just before we left I took a walk onto the beach and chatted with a young mother and her two children who were sitting on the beach with a saucepan of sticky white rice that the children were devouring for their breakfast. Their beautiful black and white dog was with them wagging his long haired tail.

The tide was falling revealing a vast area of flat reef, so I wandered out from the shore for a look back at the village in particular our little patch with the hills in the background to which the villagers run if there is a tsunami. The live cone shells were to be carefully avoided, I didn’t even want to get close enough to photograph one incase it shot its deadly venom at me.

We drove towards the road and I kept my eyes open searching for Doroline as I hoped we would be able to say a proper goodbye. Whitey there dog appeared so I knew she wasn’t far away. We hugged and thanked her for the rare and wonderful experience her fulfilled dream had given us.

Just in case you are interested their address is; Raymond’s Bay Beach Bungalow at Emua email: traymona199 {CHANGE TO AT} gmail {DOT} com