19:37.57S 169:29.79E Port Resolution, Tanna, Vanuatu
A very interesting day today.
We had a formal ceremony in the morning with the Port Resolution villagers where there was dancing and an exchange of gifts. We gave them some western bits and pieces and they gave us baskets of fruit and vegetables, banana leaf hats, grass skirts and one very frightened-looking piglet.
In the afternoon we piled into the back of pick-up trucks and bounced along a dirt road to another village where dozens of men and boys gave us a display of dancing while wearing nothing but penis-sheaths. We didn't see any women there. Who knows what the women traditionally wear.
Moving in the trucks, we bounced through a forest of giant tree-ferns up the side of an active volcano and then stood on the volcano's rim as darkness fell and stared at the fountains of lava and ash being thrown out. Completely at our own risk, apparently.
Returning to Port Resolution, the villagers had laid on a feast which we ate off banana-leaf plates. The little piggy was very tasty.
M