Then we went to our friend's village who took us to the local wedding here. There was a fundraiser for their primary school. They walked us from their house to the village (20 minutes), then from that village to the neighboring village with the primary school. I can't believe these 6 year olds are walking this twice every day!!! It was quite a journey through muddy jungle trails that intertwine with people's walking paths to their gardens and other villages. We had an escort going up and only took one wrong turn coming back down.
The fundraiser was very nice. It was $3 to enter per adult and $1 for kids. They slaughtered a cow and cooked up rice, Chinese cabbage, and the beef. You could buy a big plate of food for $1. And they had skewers with onions and meat for 20 cents apiece that the kids really loved. We had more than we could eat for under $10.
Then there was a "local string band" from Ambrym. There are many "local string bands" and we're not really sure how you tell one from another other than this one had a lot of electronic instrumentation (speakers, amplifiers, and things). It was funny to see all the electronics surrounding this wood box with a stick and a string as the primary focus instrument. They had a similar sound as the other string band, a nice tune, and their lead singer had a nice even, good range of tones. They were a good band and we enjoyed listening to them.
It was raining lightly the whole day; we had decided to go home. As we were walking out, a woman caught up with us and invited us to tea at her house. She was sure we should come and was very sorry she missed the kids (they had headed home for naptime). She is the kindergarten teacher and lives right across the street. She fed us Gatos (local donuts sort of) that her father-in-law makes and sells every day and gave us "tea". She asked if we drink sugar, we thought she meant sugar in our tea, but it turns out that "tea" was just hot water with a spoonful of sugar in it. Actually wasn't bad at all. We had a nice snack and conversation, and then she went to get us some veggies she'd already brought down for us from her garden. She gave us 2 pamplemousse, a huge cucumber, 2 Chinese cabbages, and a bag of sweet potatoes. She then wrapped up 3 Gatos for the kids for us. We gave her a 10-litre collapsible water container that we had and invited her out to the boat. She will come tomorrow at 3 pm to the beach. We have kid's clothes for her and an infant swing (maybe 2) that she can bring to the school for the kindergarteners.
We walked home, relaxed for about half an hour and the chief of the neighboring village (the one we donated the medical supplies to) came out to the boat with his son and nephew in their outrigger. We gave them popcorn and water and showed them around. We gave the kids a swimming mask and him some tubing to remount his sling. Tomorrow he will bring us a bundle of bananas. Many of the islands don't have bananas because of the cyclone, but Malekula wasn't hit too bad by the cyclone because they remembered their traditional roots, threw the knife between the coconuts to reroute the cyclone, therefore, they have bananas here, so we can get some!!! Quite excited. Even in Vila we couldn't get bananas before we left due to the shortage and the popularity of bananas in their diet.
All in all, we are doing great. We heard on the net this morning about possibly a Rhom Festival (traditional dress and dance) next week on Ambrym. Since we are going to Ambrym in the next couple of days to hike to the volcano, we can try to look into when and where this festival is also. We are enjoying meeting the locals and immersing ourselves in the local culture.
Shannon
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