ni-Vanuatu children playing in the surf
VANUATU, SOUTH PACIFIC PARADISE
These smiling, fun-loving ni-Vanuatu children were typical of the people my husband and I met when we lived in Vanuatu in the early 1990s. Vanuatu then was the land of everyone’s dreams. A South Pacific paradise. Then on March 13, 2015, Cyclone Pam hit. With wind gusts of up to 185 mph, the category five storm destroyed or damaged most houses and left power and water supplies badly affected.
Last week I promised to post more photos of Vanuatu as it looked when we lived there. I wasn’t interested in photography then, so I have only a few from which to choose. I hope these will give you a taste of the beauty of this country I love.
GROWING THINGS IN VANUATU
Eugene in his vegetable garden
My late husband, Eugene, developed an interest in gardening after we moved there. Since Vanuatu is geologically quite young, the soil is thin. The feed and seed store sold soil from the center of the island (Efate). As you can see, it’s beautiful soil. With the year-round sunny, warm weather and frequent rainfall, Eugene’s garden took off. Before long, we had more than enough to eat. Every Monday he filled the trunk of our car with fruit, veggies, and flowers to take to his co-workers and staff.
Food may be easy to grow in Vanuatu, but after the cyclone, people will have to start from scratch. That will leave the 80 percent of the population who are subsistence farmers without food for months. Two important crops, bananas and coconuts, were mostly destroyed by Cyclone Pam. Citrus and avocados were stripped from the trees. Even the root and leaf vegetable crops were flooded or uprooted.
Mom and the young garden
Mom visited us in Vanuatu when the garden was newly planted, 1991.
CORAL REEFS: FISH NURSERIES AND A SNORKELING WONDERLAND
Mom on a Coongoola cruise and snorkeling trip
When you snorkel, it seems that the coral reef has been put there to provide an underwater wonderland just for you and for other snorkelers. But coral reefs also provide habitat, spawning and nursery grounds for many fish species. Sadly, it’s estimated that Vanuatu’s coral reefs and fish stocks will take a decade to recover.
relaxing after snorkeling on Hideaway Island
A TRIP TO TANNA
Tanna Airport
After I’d shown my mom the capital, Port Vila, and driven around Efate Island, we visited the second most populated island in Vanuatu, Tanna. In the nineties, Tanna’s airport was small with only a grass runway. People were racing horses on it just before we landed.
White Grass bungalows
This is where we stayed. The foundation of the bungalow was concrete, but the grass roof and woven upper walls couldn’t possibly have survived a cyclone as strong as Pam.
custom village, Tanna
Clearly, the houses in the custom village we visited were not cyclone-proof.
A FEW FACTS ABOUT VANUATU:
* Population: 267,000
* An island chain of about 80 islands, it lies east of Australia between Fiji and New Caledonia.
* The ni-Vanuatu are primarily of Melanesian descent.
* Official languages: Bislama, English and French
* Before 1980 the country was called the New Hebrides.
* Formerly a joint colony of England and France
If you’d like to contribute to an aid agency that is helping provide relief in Vanuatu, CNN has put together a list with links.
I do hope they can recover from this tragedy in their lives, Nicki. Thanks for sharing your lovely memories and the link for aid. 🙂
What an interesting place! I hope they can recover soon from the cyclone but given the destruction caused, it will take some time.
How did you end up in Vanuatu, Nicki? Is there any post about the story? 😉
The South Pacific regional office for my husband’s employer used to be in Port Vila, Vanuatu. It later moved to Fiji. I have lots of stories to tell about Vanuatu, but I’m not planning to share them until I’m farther along on my new novel which is set there.
Loved seeing your pictures and reading about the before/after of the tornado. It’s really hard to imagine the damage these events cause, and seeing your story and pictures makes it very real for us. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, Stan and Cheri, for your interest in my blog. I’m glad my photos gave you a taste of the country pre-cyclone Pam. While we were in Vanuatu, we experienced one cyclone, but, like the typhoons that hit Manila during our stay, it wasn’t too bad. Every so often a big one like Cyclone Pam hits.
It looks as though you have some happy memories from your time spent in Vanuatu, Nicki. Thanks for sharing your story and your beautiful photos.
Thanks, Jill. Now I wish I’d taken more pictures. I did keep a journal though, and that will be useful when I need to remember some details for my next novel.
Once you start to read the journals, the pictures will come to your mind. Thank you again for sharing this, Nicki.
Thanks, Nicki! Kate’s right, it’s terribly sad and Vanuatu’s devastation is lost among other news stories.
I love the pictures and the stories of the garden, huts, and airport horses, though.
I just remembered something else, Autumn. There were some children running after the horses on the grassy runway.
This is so sad. You don’t hear much about it in the news anymore.
A small country on the other side of the equator can’t compete with everything else–Ted Cruz and Netanyahu, The “Rolling Stone” rape story, ISIS, National Puppy Day, and a brawl at WalMart.
The before pictures make the after pictures that much more devastating. Thank you for this account. What a wonderful garden!
I wish I’d taken a picture of the garden when it was at its height. My favorites were the cherry tomatoes. We had a whole row of them. They were sweet as candy if you ate them off the vine. We also had a big circular herb garden near the kitchen door. We had some great salads.
Great story on the people and the islands.
Thank you for stopping by. I’m glad you enjoyed it.