Life in Vila now

Things have changed in Vila since we left, but it's surprising how normal everything is here, considering the situation in some of the outer islands. 

The biggest difference in Vila is that some buildings are destroyed. You also can see some buildings that you didn't use to be able to see, because there used to be trees. The roads are cleaned but there's lots of broken trees on the sides of the road. 

The other thing that's strange is that there's no fresh island food available. When you go to the stores, they're stocked with rice, noodles, tinned fish, lollies, coffee -- everything is normal. But you can't buy island cabbage, coconuts, sweet potatoes, or oranges. There's no one at any market in Vila. There's a Facebook group called Yumi Toktok Stret where some people have posted that they have island cabbage for sale -- at three times the normal going rate. Everyone is estimating that it'll take a good 3-4 months for there to be fresh food available again. I think what this means is that rich people will eat tinned vegetables and imported cabbage/carrots, and poor people will just eat rice and tin meat, rice and tin tuna, rice and tin mackerel, until things change. Poor people in Vila already eat an unhealthy diet because of the high price of fresh food, but it'll just be worse for a while. Pre-Cyclone, the standard Vila diet for most people I know was bread with margarine and sugary coffee for breakfast, rice and some kind of soup of tinned meat/fish and a little vegetable for lunch, and the same for dinner. Rice and bread haven't gone up in price, at least, but life is going to be more difficult.