A Youth Challenge Experience

Tanna is one of the southern most islands in the Vanuatu. We thought that for this blog entry, we would share with you the experiences of one of the Youth Challenge International groups recently returned from Tanna. They had an amazing experience on their way there. The writer is one of the group leaders, Liesa. The photos are also Liesa’s……………

“Finally arrived back in Vila yesterday from 5 weeks in the remote jungle. It was amazing. We were in the middle of nowhere, in a mountainous jungle, next to a stunning black sand beach, not far from a rumbling live volcano, living in a grass hut with people that don’t speak English or Bislama - only their traditional language, and who have never seen white people before. And it was fabulous. We had no electricity of course, and no running water, and had to walk 10 minutes to a pipe that came from a river to have a bucket shower in a palm frond cubicle.

We organised a Youth Skills Summit that went for a week, and invited all the youth from surrounding villages. We had to do 9 hour hikes up and down ravines to deliver the information at the beginning, then they all came to stay at our village during the Summit.

They had never heard of HIV/AIDs, Sexual Reproductive Health, never seen a policeman before (who came to do a talk), didn’t know that you should wash your hands after going to the toilet or before eating, or anything. Quite amazing. Having said that, they are highly intelligent and extremely resourceful. No one has a job, they all just live off the land, build their own houses, raise chooks and pigs, which are wandering around everywhere. Skinny dogs and cats wander around too, but they don’t get fed because they don’t get eaten. They are all poster animals for the RSPCA. I kept sneaking one particular malnourished kitten and pup tinned mackerel (eeew...blah....spew) and tuna. The Ni Vans were horrified. They have no concept of being nice to animals - they are purely a resource to them.

After a horrific 24 hour boat trip on an overcrowded cargo ship to Tanna from Vila, we finally arrived at our destination at 9.30 at night, only to be told that the crew wouldn’t unload our equipment because they were too tired. What the? So the Captain agreed to let us sleep on the ship that night, sans passengers.

As it happened, we arrived on the night of the amazing Toka Ceremony, which occurs only once every 5 years. It is a 3 day ceremony where men and women from different tribes gather and dance for 3 days straight, then kill 200 pigs. It is where they find wives.

So my team of 14 headed up a goat track in the back of uts in the middle of the night. We drove up a steady incline in the middle of the jungle, which is very disconcerting when you don’t know your drivers and there are lots of strange people appearing from the bushes in the darkness, all heading towards the hill top. We finally arrive near the top of the hill, and climb out of the back of the utes to the sound of clapping and chanting and stamping. We looked up toward a spot lit clearing, dust hovering above a wall of dancing female bodies in traditional costumes (grass skirts and not much else) with their faces painted bright red. The atmosphere was electric.

After negotiations with 3 serious looking men (chiefs), we made our way up the road, when suddenly, about 100 men holding spears came running toward us, stamping and chanting. The group split in two and bolted to each side of the road. Our escorts dragged us over the fences on the sides of the road, out of the way of the men.

Apparently, if the scary chanting men grab you, they take you away and you don’t get seen until the next morning. I didn’t ask what happened to you in the meantime.....

The men stomped past, turned around and ran back up the hill, melting into the crowd on the clearing. We made our way back up the road, to the clearing in single file, holding hands. We pressed through bodies - between the dancers and onlookers. The scary men tried to grab some of the gals, but luckily the onlookers pulled them back again. We continued on and made our way to a temporary viewing platform built in a huge banyan tree, via footholds cut into the tree, using strategically placed saplings as handholds.

From the platform, it was like arriving on the movie set of a Hollywood blockbuster. An area about the size of a small football oval was packed full of dancing, stomping, clapping, chanting women in various custom costumes, faces painted, bright feathers sticking out of their hair, grass skirts whirling. The scary men formed a really wide congo line that snaked its way continually through the dancing women, keeping the different tribes separated. A huge cloud of dust hovered above the clearing. It was amazing.

There were only about 5 other white people there. It was a traditional ceremony - not staged for tourists. We felt like we shouldn’t have been there and were privy to a sacred, ancient ceremony. (There was me and 5 Aussie gals - the rest of our group were Ni Vans). We stayed a couple of hours but because we were underclothed, underfed and overtired, I had to take the gals back to the ship, although I would have loved to have stayed all night.

And that's just one of the fabulous stories to tell from Tanna. There are many more………….”