Vanuatu trip 4/4
 - Scenery 

The pictures kind of speak for themselves.
All photos above (apart from the top-left one) were taken by me. :3 

Vanuatu trip 3/4
 - Shopping (capped)

So it was your typical tropical island shopping - knockoffs of big brands in duty free stores (I saw a rack of Dior sunglasses in a supermarket next to the pasta sauce), and huge marketplaces where you had to barter for a reasonable price. There was also this massive food market in the city.

The models in the stores were pretty interesting.

Vanuatu trip 1/4
 - Schools

So the big reason we went to Vanuatu was to go to the schools, teach some lessons, give them some resources. I did a few poetry classes in the high school and we all did  a lesson at the three primary schools we went to, which consisted of teaching about the kiwi bird and playing games and singing songs.

The kids were pretty much adorable. Every school we went to, the kids sang a song for us. The buildings were mostly pretty bad. Huge holes in the ceiling, broken windows, woodrot, etc. So I felt like we should’ve been fixing that stuff instead of talking about birds and alliteration. :/ Hopefully I’ll get a chance to go back again and do something more useful.

All the kids laughed at us because we were white.

I was the palest person in the team.

\m/

Vanuatu trip 2/4
 - Fun (capped)

We did some pretty fun stuff too.

• We went snorkelling 4 times, which I’ve wanted to do since I was 5 years old, watching the fish screensaver on my dad’s computer. It was completely amazing. It’s so beautiful under the water. The fish swam right up to you, and we dove down deeper to be within arm’s reach of the reef.
• We went to the beach a lot.
• We went on a river canoe and saw some traditional dancing.
• We all had a “buddy” at the school we stayed at for a week (which, for the record, had no running water/electricity for the majority of the day - plus we couldn’t drink the water because of the malaria risk) who we all ended up being really close to.
• The beach was right across the road from the school, and when they find baby sea turtles, they look after them for a year until they’re big enough to survive on their own. So we met a couple of them. :3
• We went on a glass bottom boat.
• One of our buddies was really good at climbing coconut trees, she climbed one and got one down for each of us to drink from. Because everyone in Vanuatu seems to carry around a machete (seriously - everyone), they chopped them up for us to eat.
• There was one night where I stayed in my buddy’s dorm (it was a boarding school - unfortunately it was nothing like Hogwarts) and all her friends circled around me and braided my hair. They were all really shy and had to have big pep talks in their native languages just to encourage each other to ask me questions!
• We went on some bush walks and in some ancient caves with drawings and all that jazz.
• We got some good exercise running away from the snakes and the giant insects.