be spending my night.
We saw loads of islands. All different sizes. Like clumps of broccoli sprouting from the sea. Paul told me around 83 islands make up Vanuatu. I saw a few nice ones I’d have been happy to stay on. Nice white sand, clear blue water and bushes and trees for protection from the sun, just like the Bounty advert I mentioned earlier. He then took me to see a volcano. It was terrifying. I’d seen a lot of volcanoes when holidaying in Lanzarote, but they were all dead and just looked like giant ashtrays. This one was alive. I kept saying that it wasn’t safe as we flew through the steam clouds that were gushing out of the top. We had to do extra flights on the way here due to ash clouds from Chile and yet here we were flying through the smoke like contestants on Stars in their Eyes. I could see the red hot lava bubbling like beans do when you’ve had them on the stove for too long. We were being battered by the heat that was rising from it and being thrown all over the place. I wasn’t happy. Paul was getting too close for my liking. He seemed to be attracted to it like a bluebottle in a chippy flying too close to one of those FlyZap electrocutors. I wasn’t feeling great from the turbulence, but what made me feel worse was the smell from the volcano. It stunk. To me, the fact that nature has made this thing stink is a way of telling us that we shouldn’t be anywhere near it.
The smell of sulphur is similar to rotten eggs. It’s odd to think the middle of the earth smells of bad eggs.
We headed back and I quizzed him about Vanuatu being the happiest place in the world. Paul was from Australia and he told me he’d travelled a lot and he really thinks it is the happiest place he’s ever known. He told me that the locals use a greeting that is a type of laughing sound.
KARL: But if everybody’s doing that sound how do you know when they are really really happy?
PAUL: But they are really really happy.
KARL: No, they’re not. They can’t be – not all the time.
PAUL: Yes, they can.
KARL: So, you meet someone and go heeee and they go heeee, and then they say ‘What’s been going on?’ and you go ‘Oh, my gran’s just died’ and they’d go ‘Why are you so cheerful?’
PAUL: Ah, you would know if their grandma had died ’cos you’d see they would have a beard. If someone dies no one shaves.
KARL: For how long?
PAUL: Ah, I think it’s for how long they feel, maybe a couple of months either way.
KARL: So, ’cos I have a bit of a beard they’ll think someone close died?
PAUL: Yeah, and they’ll try and be even happier to you, so you may get a few more heeees just to stop you going into depression.
KARL: It’s worth keeping it then ’cos they’ll treat me better, won’t they?
I like the idea of growing a beard when someone’s died, as you wouldn’t really be in the mood for shaving after hearing the bad news. It’s also a way of showing respect without it costing anything. Death is a costly business at home. It’s another way of getting money out of us, and they try to make you feel you’re a better person if you spend more on the dead. My dad says it’s all bollocks and he wants to be stuck in a bin bag and I should let the council get rid of him. The trend at the moment seems to be buying a bench with a message engraved on it. They’re like the new gravestones. ‘Arthur used to like sitting here. Missed by wife Betty 1936–2012.’ I bet the councils can’t believe their luck how much they’re saving on not having to cough up for public benches.
It wasn’t long before I was at the airport again to get on another plane to fly and meet a tribe that worship Prince Philip as a god on the island of Tanna. Luke gave me a few photos of Prince Philip to pass onto them and a limited edition £5 coin that had been released to celebrate his recent ninetieth birthday. £5! That’s a lot of money for a coin you’re not going to spend. Why couldn’t it be a special 10p coin? It’s things like this that annoy me about Britain. It’s a right rip off. We don’t even have £5 coins in circulation. It’s things like this that would stop us ever making it into the Top 10 list of happiest places in the world.
Anyway, the Prince Philip tribe . . . The story goes that the son of a mountain spirit travelled across seas to find a powerful woman to marry, and somehow the son turned out to be Prince Philip. He visited close to the island in the 1970s, which helped to back up their beliefs. I met two locals as I got off the plane who were holding a piece of wood with my name on it. One was called JJ who spoke some English. He introduced me to Albi who was described to me as the happiest man in the village, as well as being the greatest dancer. They were both stood there wearing next to nothing. Just a bit of plant on their heads and wicker on their knobs. I got in the back of a van with Albi as JJ had claimed the passenger seat on the inside.
Most places I visit I do try to learn a few words like ‘Hello’ and ‘Thank you’, but during this trip it was hard to keep up as they say Vanuatu has over 100 languages in use among the 230,000 population. I don’t know how a place can run like this. Surely a lot of people have to speak a certain language for it to qualify as one. If the Teletubbies moved here they’d have to add that language to their list, too. English is used a little, and so is French, with Bislama being the main national language. It was hard to understand when being spoken, but it was possible to work it out when written down. While driving to meet the rest of the villagers with Albi and JJ, I saw a sign that read SLO DENJA which meant SLOW DANGER. They write down words how they sound, which is good. It’s how it should be, really. I don’t know why we started using silent letters in the English language like using a ‘p’ to sound like an ‘f’ in the word ‘phonetic’ or an ‘x’ in ‘xylophone’. Why not ‘zilofone’? Our words have become so long and complicated we’ve had to come up with abbreviations to help us use words we don’t know how to spell. If I was in charge of the dictionary I would have a right clear-out of words. Words like ‘necrophilia’ I’d get rid of. If someone has that (attraction to dead bodies), I’d make them say, ‘I fancy dead bodies’. Then, at least when they tell people, they might realise how mental it sounds rather than it being hidden in a posh word. And then they’ll stop having the problem. The fact that it has its own word makes it seem more acceptable.
On the rest of the trip I spent most of my time looking at billboards and signs to work out what they were saying. It was like looking at those images that were popular in the 1980s where if you stared at them for long enough you’d see a monkey riding a unicorn. Some examples for you: ‘Mi wantem’ is ‘I would like’. ‘Mi wantem’ sounds like ‘Me want them’, which equals ‘I would like’. ‘Bitwin’ is ‘between’. ‘Bisnis’ is ‘business’. By now you’ve probably got the hang of it, so I don’t have to tell you what ‘Gud moning’ means. If you’re still struggling you’re a ‘dik ed’.
I gave Albi the photos of Prince Philip that Luke had cut from magazines and he was really really happy with them, so I gave him the coin as well. He was even more chuffed. Luke said I’d made a bit of an error giving Albi the coin, as I should have saved it for the main chief of the village. We didn’t have any more coins, so I wanted him to hide it, but this is the problem with wearing nothing but a wicker knob coverer – there’s nowhere for small change. I gestured that he should hold it tight in his hand and show no one.
Suzanne
