Talking Location with author Nicki Chen – VANUATU

23rd May 2021

#TalkingLocationWith …. Nicki Chen, author of When in Vanuatu, set in Vanuatu.

When Mom Comes to Visit …

My mom had one complaint. She wanted to travel more. Dad didn’t take her on enough trips, she said. I thought we had great family trips when I was growing up, but I have to admit that they were all short and close to home. Dad had to work, he insisted. Besides, he’d seen enough of the world during World War II, courtesy of the United States Army.

So, when my husband and I and our children moved to the Philippines and later to Vanuatu, we invited Mom to visit.

She came to the Philippines three times over the years. By the time she visited Vanuatu, she was 70 years old, something I didn’t appreciate until later.

Entertaining a visitor in Vanuatu is easy. Vanuatu is a South Pacific tourist paradise, known for its warm weather, uncrowded beaches, diving, snorkeling, and boating.

Mom, although never considered athletic, was a passable swimmer. And though she thought of herself as shy, she wasn’t as timid as she thought she was. In fact, she was game to try everything we suggested.

She and I shopped at the open-air market, explored Port Vila’s downtown, took the ferry to Erakor Island, climbed up to Les Cascades, and swam at various beaches and pools. Then we booked a daytrip for a Saturday cruise on the Coongoola.

It was a lovely trip—following the dolphins between islands, watching for flying fish, eating lunch on an isolated beach. After lunch, we were expected to snorkel above an offshore reef—far offshore. It felt like the middle of the ocean. And Mom had never snorkeled before.

After lunch, we’d helped her practice from the shore, but she still wasn’t comfortable with it. Then we got into the dinghy and rode out to the reef.

Mom was scared to jump off into the ocean, but she did it.

Vanuatu is a country of about 80 islands. Considering that Mom had traveled more than 6,000 miles from Seattle to Vanuatu, I figured she should see more than one or two islands. So, I scheduled a flight for the two of us to Tanna, the island just south of where we lived. I’d never been to Tanna, but the tour was recommended by the travel agency and also by friends.

We landed on a grassy field after waiting for a horse race to finish there. We were booked into White Grass Bungalows and scheduled for a tour of the island the following day. If your idea of a good tour is to see something new and interesting, then you could count this tour as a great success.

Our first stop was Yasur Volcano, an unimpressive little mountain, but we were assured that it would put on a show. Mount Yasur had been continuously active for 800 years.

Yasur Volcano

Our tour guide stopped the jeep at the edge of the ash plain and announced that we had arrived. Mom didn’t hesitate. We climbed to the top and looked down into the crater. The mountain rumbled and coughed up plumes of smoke and ash from a roiling red sea of lava. Glowing lava bombs shot into the sky. Exciting but harmless. Right? Well, maybe not entirely. A few years after we visited, a couple of tourists were hit by chunks of red-hot lava and died.

Moving on, our next stop was a “custom village.” The 22,000 people who lived on the island were scattered in 92 villages and 700 smaller settlements. From the road, we couldn’t see any of them. Our guide explained to us that most people who lived on the island of Tanna preferred to stay in their own villages and live according to the customs of their ancestors. At least one village, though, had chosen to allow outsiders to visit. They charged a fee and allowed only small groups with reservations. We were a group of four plus our tour guide.

While the experience may have been educational, I found it uncomfortable. This was no Colonial Williamsburg where costumed employees worked and dressed as people did in the colonial era. This was people in their normal, current environment. They danced for us and sold us baskets, grass skirts, and penis wrappers. Then they went back to whatever they’d been doing before we arrived and allowed us to wander around their village and take pictures. Although the village didn’t seem to have been coerced into allowing visitors, they were very clearly dipping their toes into a different world. And who knows where that would lead them in the future and how fast.

These are the things you do when you live in a beautiful developing country, and your mom comes to visit. No museums, no great cathedrals or castles. And yet, when Mom boards the plane heading back to the USA, you feel confident that she is returning with a suitcase full of memories.

Nicki Chen

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