Tuesday 23rd August
So now there are three young girls who can do the Pride of Erin – a skill which will stand them in good stead for many years to come! Last night we had dinner at the Waterfront Bar & Grill aka our front garden/café. (Delicious meal, by the way, Kate H – Pete had a beef curry and I had beautiful fresh wahu on a bed of mashed kumara with veggies lavishly cooked in garlic and butter.) The next table was full of cheery charming Australians with their delightful children. They were all staying at Le Lagon resort, which is, apparently, quite wonderful. But they decided to leave their comfort zone come and hang out here, and we enjoyed their company very much – especially that of the girls, aged 6, 7 and 9. They had all had their hair braided and were wearing new sun-dresses from the market, and they were full of fizz, bounce and chat. The local singers were singing their way through their repertoire, and the girls all enjoyed learning their new dance very much. A few old people (by old people I mean Pete’s and my age or even older…) sitting on the sidelines recognised the steps if not the music – yes it is possible to do the Pride of Erin to Lady in Red; in fact, to just about any song – and called me over very happily to tell me they too had learned this very lovely dance at primary school.
So we are back to food, music, dancing and…sleeping… We went to bed at about eleven and when we (finally…) woke this morning, Pete said, “What time do you think it is?” I stretched my guess and said, “Nine?” Well no, it was closer to ten… Back in snoozyland!!
Today we have wandered around Port Vila in search of mundane items such as a special sort of battery for the diving equipment Andrew Miedecke is bringing with him tomorrow.
We met up with Mark and Leah by chance in the small pharmacy opposite the yacht club – great joy all round, and amazement –they had been looking for us on the boat, and had quickly scarpered because people in the café were staring at them with great suspicion. We had been buying doxycycline and were then going to make our way to Island Princess to find them, so it was good luck all round, and we had a lovely lunch at the Waterfront instead of having to traipse any further. (Re the doxycycline…this is a very light dose of antibiotic which we are – sigh sigh – required to take as an anti-malarial precaution thingy. I am deeply suspicious of antibiotics and very rarely take them – I have suffered very bad side effects, won’t go into it but any of you know what thrush is will sympathise. So I usually go to areas of malarial infestation going lalalala, I won’t get it. Our Asian pharmacist gazed at us expressionlessly as she watched me dithering, will-I-won’t-I-maybe-just-you-take-them-Pete. Then she said, flatly. “You have to take them. You will get malaria if you don’t.” Oh OK… She was a bit Chinese Mother so, ofcourse, I obeyed.)
Mark and Leah were full of chat about (a) the earthquake the day before yesterday – 7.5 on the Richter Scale and OH MY GOD, their house shook on its foundations… and (b) Alice’s wedding. The church service went from just after 10am till 1.30…MUCH singing, many sermons. There were about 1,000 guests; Leah the only white person. She thought she and Mark would slink in and out but no…they found themselves at the bridal table for the wedding feast, guests of honour! Alice looked beautiful in her Chinese ebay dress with much ruffling and bling, but Leah and Mark said the entire wedding party looked absolutely petrified –centre of attention for 1,00 people, very daunting!
One of the things I had on my to-do list back in Tasmania was to do to the doctor and get a disgusting growth thingy cut off my wrist. It has been there for about six months and has not responded to treatment in any way other than to flourish and grow bigger and yuckier. I have even knocked it off during moments of Extreme Sailing, and it has inexorably grown back. But… I was TOO BUSY. When we were back on 2XS, Pete noticed that it was stil there, in spite of my cunning disguise of Large Bandaid. “Oh Gawd, you didn’t get it cut off!” I asked Leah about the accessibility of doctors – would I have to wait a long time to get an appointment? She laughed heartily – “Just walk in!” The Medical Centre is just opposite our Waterfront Paradise so I abandoned Pete to yet more battery searching (yes he gets all the fun!) and I went in, hesitantly, to make an appointment. The ni-Van receptionist, lacking any evidence of teeth, and chewing gum with great vigour, said, “When you want appointment? Now? Write your name and date of birth here.” She tore a tiny strip of paper off her desk calendar and I wrote the required details. Within thirty seconds I was flat on my back on a bed having my wrist anaesthetised by a lovely kindly doctor from Tuvalu. Leah had warned me that his equipment would be primitive and indeed I could see a re-fillable and very large syringe coming my way…so I closed my eyes.
When I was paying my bill (this took longer than the rest of the appointment and it cost me nearly $100 in case you ever want to come and have a yucky growth cut off your wrist in Vanuatu) I looked at the posters. There was a lovely one promoting baby (bebi) health, and it said, baldly, “GIVIM TITI.” Couldn’t have put it better myself.
Next to the medical centre is a very hot and stifling computer shop, where I also spent some time this afternoon. I bought a new ipod at Sydney Duty Free, with greater capacity, and my new BFF (Best Friend Forever) Ravi spent a stifling few hours trying to get it to work in English rather than Mandarin – I had inadvertently pressed yes to this inscrutable language rather than English – oh dear and oh no… I have also purchased some new audiobooks – Alistair Cook’s entire Letters From America, for example, which will be every soothing when I am at sea on ocean passages. But…they are not visible anywhere on my itunes although I have receipts from Audiobooks thanking me for my business. Ravi is going to work on this ALL NIGHT, or so he assures me, and all for… about $10.
Maybe you have realised that this afternoon I was NOT with Pete. Aha! So what did I do? I spent money very freely! I bought two summer dresses, one from a shop ($25) and one from the market ($18), ideal for hot weather. They are very very beautiful…for the tropics. So they will no doubt be hidden in the bottom of my wardrobe when I get back to Tasmania.