Where ever, When ever

We have had a busy last few weeks. We had a great Easter, Matt had a wonderfully unique birthday but besides that it’s been work, work, work. We have been running more tour guide training workshops, English Training, meeting with the local council and yesterday had a meeting with all the chiefs to sort out some tricky political issues regarding our work. We’re also continuing to test tours and also seem to have a lot more little requests that seem to take up our time….’can you print this letter out?’, ’can you take a photo of…’
We are heading into Vila on Saturday and are looking forward to having a whole weekend off!

In amongst our busy month there have been a few classic moments that we think are pretty unique to our time here on Ambrym Island.

Where ever, when ever ….

Would you use a sea shell to scratch out the inside of a banana, wrap it in leaves, stick it into the fire, pour coconut milk on top and eat it (this is the famous lap lap that we have mentioned before)?

Would you see a cat desperately hungry for some coconut scratchings?

Would you see a birthday boy so happy with some of the simple pleasures in life?

Would you be able to buy a hand carved canoe for $25 AUD?

Would you be able to sit on a black sand beach and watch incredible sunsets every night?

Would you see mammas in their colourful island dresses walking for an hour to a church service in the next Village?– Recognize the mamma on the left?

Would you see a lunch spread of starchy vegetables such as taro, manioc, banana laplap and yam?

Would you see a bunch of such crazy advanced tour guides?

Would you receive as thank you presents a yam, a chook and a home made mat?

Would you find a 7 year old boy expertly butchering a chicken? He saw Matt struggling to pluck the thing and soon took over. The butchering was amazing. A very specific process was used to gradually cut the carcass into bite size pieces. He didn’t gut the thing…but instead butchered around the guts. Although the end result wasn’t your chicken wings and drumsticks, it was an effective way to butcher a chicken using only a sharp knife and no chopping board.