Vanuatu ... I swear this is the last post about my parents being here.

Vanuatu with the Rents -- BEING ON THE ISLAND

To continue my 15+ post discussion of my vacation ... (But it looks so nice!!) I'm going to talk about having my parents on the island with me. We had a lot of fun on the island. I took them walking around through all the villages and we went to lots of feasts. I showed them all of the plants on the island and my mom even got to scratch some manioc for laplap in Lakilia village! 

This is what my beach looks like ... Stones, stones, stones.

Mom and Dad on the road to Lehunatam (the field where the school and the dispensary are.)

Here we are, just having had lunch at school. The woman on the far right is Elsie Daniel, my supremely lovely counterpart. She's the head teacher at the school and absolutely incredible. She just had her third child, a little girl called Renata, who is absolutely darling. Also in the photo, from the right, Steeve, Kiki, Winnie, Lesbet, me, Erica, and my mom. The shed in the back is where the school keeps its tools.

Christmas Eve dinner ... Dry manioc, baked beans, and steamed yam laplap. (Oh, yum.)

Xmas in Mu'ur village.

Watching people play seven lock -- kind of like Uno, but with cards

Oh no, we have to leave!

Vanuatu with the 'Rents--GETTING TO THE ISLAND

My parents came to Vanuatu for a few awesome weeks! (Sorry if you're getting tired of reading about my vacation ... but I had such a good vacation. Wow.)

Getting to Tongariki is a pain and a half. You can either take a cargo ship (slow, uncomfortable, boring, but cheap!) or you can decide you don't hate yourself. If you go the second route, you fly from Vila to Tongoa island, take a truck across the island, take a boat to my island, then take the truck/haul your stuff up top yourself. 

Here we are at domestic departures. 

When I travel, that's how we have to do the boat. And look at that beach! South Pacific, you think of beautiful white or black sand beach, palm trees swaying in the breeze ... Admittedly this was a pretty overcast day, but this is what my little rocky stretch of aelan looks like. For reference, this photo is facing Valea and Ewose (dark colored islands) with Tongoa in the back. Tongoa is where the airport is. It's a roughly hour long boat ride to the other side.

Me and Dad ... Glad we made it to the other side!