The New Yam Festival happens in villages across Vanuatu anywhere from January through April of every year. It celebrates the new yams growing and finally being ready to eat. It's celebrated with prayers, sometimes church services, and always feasting. Lavets on my island tend to involve getting together early in the morning to start cooking. As lunch gets ready, the men (and a few of the women) start day drinking kava. They take a nap for the rest of the afternoon, while everyone who's not drunk prepares dinner. Then it's a split again -- some people eat as soon as the dinner's done while other people wait and drink more kava before they eat. No matter how you do it, though, on Tongariki everyone basically stays at the nakamal until everything is done.
Here's a few photos from New Yam in Lakilia. This happened in ... late January, I think.
This is Melissa. She's like 3 and permanently attached to her Papa's side.
This is Rahel and Samuel. Samuel really, really, really dislikes me. I just love how you can see on his face that he is very perturbed at the idea of being so close to me. (Oh well.)
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