You talk about rights, we talk about respect

Well, due to the rain today we had a bit of a change in plans. We headed to the Museum and cultural centre which is about 5 minutes walk from the hotel (but we caught a taxi because we had one umbrella between the two of us). We were first treated to a display of sand drawing, where the guy drew in the sand while telling a story. You could really see how it would be an effective method of telling stories. We then saw a video which talked a lot about how pigs are currency in Vanuatu. They are used as a bride-price, they're used to atone for crimes, to seal legal deals, as a sacrifice when making a new chief. I found I was really interested, but quite grossed out, partly by the pig killing, partly by the skinny whiteness of the foreigner who has been studying the Vanuatu culture for 30 years. Hmmm...


I found I was getting a bit better at reading Bislama. For instance, if you see the sign, the first thing I saw was “BIFO” which meant that I immediately thought “biffo”. But of course “OL STAEL” is “old style”, and “SEL” is “sail” (I was helped a bit my the pictures of sails below the sign), and “BLONG BIFO”, once you know that “BLONG” is short for “belong”, and if you say “BI-FO”, it sounds like “before”. So the sentence means “Old style sails from history”. Phew, that was a mouthful.

I headed down into the centre of Vila and had lunch out of the pouring rain. My lunch included the best cappuccino that I've had in Vanuatu so far.

At about 2pm, Pastor Allen picked us up and we went to see the building which is the headquarters of the National Council of Chiefs. The man who was there had a really interesting couple of stories that helped me to understand a bit more of the culture here. He told the story of a young foreign teacher who had volunteered to go work on a remote island. The chief warned the woman that living alone was not a good idea in the village, that it never happened. He said that she should either move in with a local family, or that she should bring friends to stay with. She said she'd be alright, but a couple of months later she was raped. The man who raped her is now in a Villa gaol, but he's now got a pregnant wife back on the island and the whole community is broken. The woman is now living in the US. The man's comment on that story was “You talk about rights, we talk about respect” - respect of the local culture and of the chief. Incidentally I wasn't sure if he was excusing the man, it didn't sound like he was, it wasn't clear cut for him either.
The next story was prefixed by the statement “You talk about Justice, we talk about Peace”, the example he gave for that was a young pregnant girl who claims that Boy A is the father, Boy A denies all responsibility. Boy B is brought along and after being spoken to by his father and the chief, takes responsibility for the baby, even though it's clear to everyone that Boy A is the father. Now that's peace, not justice. Incidentally, he did say that that situation would not finish there, Boy A would continue to be worked upon until he was ready to take responsibility.

OK – that's quite a bit of info there. I might have to speed up on the next couple of things. Pastor Allen then took us to the National Women's Council, where they run programs to raise awareness about women's issues, and help women who are in need. We then went to the Youth Challenge building next door, which is funded by UNESCO, and has programs to help young people skill up and apply for jobs.

In the evening elder Johnny took us to Paama Seaside church. This is the church that Pastor Allen has in mind for us to partner with. It's not far from the hotel, but it's in a slum area, and once you're off the main road the first thing I noticed is that the roads were AWFUL. It was like a mini version of the grand canyon. We were warmly welcomed. They sang a song in their Paama dialect (Paama is an island in Vanuatu), and we were given lei's of leaves around our head. I was speaking to some of the girls who are doing confirmation classes at the moment, they are very bright.

We then stopped for dinner, and we found it a bit weird that no-one ate with us except Pastor Allen & Elder Johnny. We expected them to let us go first and start eating after us, but no-one moved. And we got up and had a look inside their new church which is a bit of a cement shell at the moment, but it has a roof and windows. They think it will take about a year to finish. But it's an amazing building, and they've built it all by themselves. Then we we joined the group in the hall we still expected them to get up and help themselves to food, but they didn't! They covered up the food and we continued the meeting. Very strange.

We had some speeches. First from our group, and then from the people in the church, Elder Johnny, Pastor Allen, and a woman named Lucy who is the head of the Presbyterian Women's association for the parish. Then Margaret, Jenni and I decided was hadn't quite made enough of a fool of ourselves yet, and we sang Amazing Grace, just the first verse, and then got them all to join us as we sang it again, and it sounded ok with just us, but it sounded brilliant once they'd joined in with lots of harmonies. We were left with a feeling that we had been truly welcomed and that we could have a very fruitful relationship.

We came back to the hotel and had a bit of a debrief. We can see big possibilities, and things seem to be taking shape now, and it all seems to be happening quite fast. Personally I'm finding it's a big responsibility to be talking to them on behalf of the church at Wesley, and walking that fine line between talking about possibilities and actually making commitments, but I sure am looking forward to talking with the people back home about this because it's been quite an experience!

Katherine