When I had started getting really excited about the prospect of giving myself a year to travel wherever I wanted, I went on AirBnb and just looked for places around the world where I could live in a "village". Tanna Island, Vanuatu came up. The post read that you could live with a local family in a village that has descended from a very old tribe following the native "kastom" tradition. The tribe would welcome you with a dance. You would get a sense of village life in the midst of the beauty of Tanna Island. This prospect got me so excited to travel. It would be so different than anything I had ever done before. I'd go out of my comfort zone 100%. Forget about air conditioning, I would be sleeping on a hay mattress in a hut. Who knows what I would even be eating? There would be no running water, just a bucket and a cup to pour well water on yourself. No electricity. I was not even sure where the village was located because I could not find it on the map.
After sleeping in huts, tends, fales and small enclosed combo tent-huts that were supported by local villagers, I came to realize that I had been staying in villages all along. Indeed, the villages were for tourists. However, the property was an extension of an existing village that existed before the tourist days. By the time my Loukweria experience was about to start, I had realized that I did not really need any more village experiences to prove to myself that I could survive living in a village (I can) or that village life was better than city life (it's not). However, I did want to give it one more shot. I knew that this place was the most remote of all of the previous villages. I would also be the only gringo. This was certainly not a a tourist village.
The drive from the Mt. Yasur volcano area was another 45 minutes or longer. We went back to the main road only to go off towards a very rugged path. It seems that the name of the village listed on Airbnb is not the same village that was listed in my instruction email. This caused confusion and the locals had not heard of one of the two villages listed. I could not get in touch with my Airbnb "host", as she was in Sydney. She was originally from the village and put the village on Airbnb as a homestay to help pay for the kids to go to school. I also had the cell phone number of my actual host in Loukweria but I would find out that her cell phone was broken. I did think about asking the driver to turn around and take me to a hotel.
We were driving deeper and deeper into the jungle. I thought to myself, "What the fuck am I doing?" I was not really looking for more isolation after a few days next to a volcano. The roads were getting worse. I realized that I would not really be able to escape if there was an emergency. We finally found some children who directed us to the family's plot of land. I sucked it up and decided I could pull through this, as it would only be for one night.
My host in Loukweria.
Upon arrival, I was greeted with a warm smile by my host. Her English was good. I attempted to speak some Bislama to Grandpa. It did not work.
Life is simple in Loukweria. The kids go to school. It was not totally clear what the adults do to make a living. They do not do much farming. They make jewelry and create thatched bags for sale to tourists. I was living with a mom, dad, two kids, some cousins and a grandpa. During the day the kids went to school. Grandpa was suffering from some ailments. He was coughing all night. During the day, an uncle came by to give him a back and leg massage and he was moaning in pain the entire time. I only found out after the moaning started. You can imagine how startled I was.
I spent most of the first day sitting alone in my hut. I was instructed to wait in there until I was called or I could walk around the village.. The common area of the family's plot of land had a fire constantly burning. The smoke seemed to go directly into my hut. I started coughing too. The fire was lit with some wood, old newspapers and what smelled like cigarettes. This was the fire used to cook food. There really was not much to do around the family's plot of land. It was surrounded by other family's plots of land. I walked to the "center" of the village area, which was just a giant empty plot of land with views out to the ocean. The land was covered in chicken poo. There was really nowhere for me to go but back to the hut. I had some reading material and solitaire on my phone.
In the evening, the other villagers came to our plot of land and performed a traditional welcome dance ceremony. I was very moved by it. There was a circle dance element that reminded me of the hora, my culture's traditional dance. I wanted to pose for a photo with them and they encouraged me to take photos. I wondered about the risk of being viewed as exploiting them or appropriating culture. It did not seem a like a concept they were overly concerned with but I knew that the sensitivities around this subject are very high right now. I am choosing to post some select photos here but you should know I took many more, as the locals encouraged me to.
The next day, I visited another local village that still lives in the way of their ancestors. This means they do not wear a lot of clothing. They shun Westernism and Christianity. Like many other tribes on Tanna Island, they survived this long because of their history as cannabalistic warriors.
Earlier in the day, I checked my flight status to go back to Efate. I got an email saying the flight was cancelled. I started texting my brother David at a furious pace. I became overwhelmed with the thought that I would be stuck on Tanna for another day. The truth is, I do not belong there. It ends up, our original plane required maintenance. Luckily, the airline had prepared a backup plane. I had survived Tanna.
