Thursday, 19 June 2014
Wednesday, 18 June 2014
Tuesday, 17 June 2014
Sunday, 15 June 2014
Thursday, 12 June 2014
Wan Smolbag Theatre
Wan Smolbag Theatre was established in Port Vila, Vanuatu in 1989. It began as an amateur theatre group with 15 voluntary actors.
I went to see a play called ‘Klaem long lada ia’ (I am climbing the ladder) it brings to its audiences an undeniably entertaining story of the reality about what is happening in Vanuatu and the Pacific countries.
Arthur, a businessman, is building a new house on ground he bought cheaply from the government because he's always helping them get money. His daughter, June likes Terry, one of the lads building the house, but June's family don't know. Arthur has managed to get June a scholarship even though her marks aren't very good. The lads on the building site are not happy because Arthur doesn't pay them very much. They have no idea how Arthur and the government use the country's money. They live for the weekend. They even forget their wives who wait at home every pay day for their husband's pay. Terry's sister, Alice, has a different method of bringing home money, which the other women in the community feel damages their reputation. But everyone's life in the story is about to change when an 'investor' tells Arthur he has to pay back a loan quickly or else...
The play allows audiences to judge, think and discuss ways of how to solve these issues. I am told that 'culture' or kastom maintains people’s respect no matter the crime they have committed.
I went to see a play called ‘Klaem long lada ia’ (I am climbing the ladder) it brings to its audiences an undeniably entertaining story of the reality about what is happening in Vanuatu and the Pacific countries.
Arthur, a businessman, is building a new house on ground he bought cheaply from the government because he's always helping them get money. His daughter, June likes Terry, one of the lads building the house, but June's family don't know. Arthur has managed to get June a scholarship even though her marks aren't very good. The lads on the building site are not happy because Arthur doesn't pay them very much. They have no idea how Arthur and the government use the country's money. They live for the weekend. They even forget their wives who wait at home every pay day for their husband's pay. Terry's sister, Alice, has a different method of bringing home money, which the other women in the community feel damages their reputation. But everyone's life in the story is about to change when an 'investor' tells Arthur he has to pay back a loan quickly or else...
The play allows audiences to judge, think and discuss ways of how to solve these issues. I am told that 'culture' or kastom maintains people’s respect no matter the crime they have committed.
Wednesday, 11 June 2014
Sunday, 8 June 2014
Thursday, 5 June 2014
Wednesday, 4 June 2014
Tuesday, 3 June 2014
Monday, 2 June 2014
Siviri Village, Efate Island
It's been said that when you have everything you need provided by Mother Nature, you must develop challenges so your men have ways to prove themselves. Well, in Vanuatu men must acquire pigs so they can throw feasts in order to keep the people who eat at the their feast beholden to them. The women work really hard tending to the men, the children, and especially to the pigs. Most of the islands don't have electricity , so they struggle to prepare food and to keep their families clothed, fed and clean. They work as a group, outside the male bastion.
The children are responsible for the younger ones. They are safe in the villages, and their endless play trains them for later life. I watched a toddler with a bush knife, an ankle biter leaping from boulder into a pool, a preschooler with a baby on the hip.
Families share their children, raising nephews, sending their own to life on a different island, adopting a teenager. It makes a network of brothers, fathers, aunts throughout the islands.
Each village is a group of extended family members, their small houses set around a nakamal (mens club house). Before the sun rises, the wives light the family's fire, food is prepared and then family members to to the gardens, and the young children to school. Teenagers leave the village to attend boarding school, or live with maternal uncles perhaps. Some young people head to Port Vila, but so many move back to their traditional homes - where they can grow food, hunt pigs and there's no crime.
Life could be bliss: women in the gardens, men discussing matters in the nakamal over kava. But then there is school fees. A secondary education is expensive, so cargo boats go around the islands collecting copra (coconut shell) just before for the school fees are due every three months.
The children are responsible for the younger ones. They are safe in the villages, and their endless play trains them for later life. I watched a toddler with a bush knife, an ankle biter leaping from boulder into a pool, a preschooler with a baby on the hip.
Families share their children, raising nephews, sending their own to life on a different island, adopting a teenager. It makes a network of brothers, fathers, aunts throughout the islands.
Each village is a group of extended family members, their small houses set around a nakamal (mens club house). Before the sun rises, the wives light the family's fire, food is prepared and then family members to to the gardens, and the young children to school. Teenagers leave the village to attend boarding school, or live with maternal uncles perhaps. Some young people head to Port Vila, but so many move back to their traditional homes - where they can grow food, hunt pigs and there's no crime.
Life could be bliss: women in the gardens, men discussing matters in the nakamal over kava. But then there is school fees. A secondary education is expensive, so cargo boats go around the islands collecting copra (coconut shell) just before for the school fees are due every three months.
Thursday, 29 May 2014
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