Notes from New Caledonia and Vanuatu (November 2015)

Noumea

Travel: the waiting game. Noumea. Hotel Nouvata. Lobby. 40 minutes till shuttle bus for airport arrives. Heading to Vanuatu. Should already be there. Chanced to look at my email before boarding shuttle for early morning flight. Got up at 5:00 AM for this purpose! Only to read the flight had been cancelled. Only the second time this has happened to me over the years so I consider myself lucky.

Wasn't so bad really. I went back to bed for a couple of hours and subsequently had a nice walk around Noumea. That was my plan for Port Vila today but it will be dark when I get there now. Quite a fascinating blast to be here in Noumea. One can live a life so ignorant of things that are just so close. Just three hours flying time from Sydney and you’re in the French Pacific. English very much a second language here but everyone speaks it well enough. Just 44% of the population of New Caledonia are descended from the Kanakas - all of whom came here from Vanuatu. The remainder are French, or the progeny of French plus locals:  ‘burgers’ as they are called it Sri Lanka. People of mixed blood. Noticeably missing are the big-framed, overweight people found on other Pacific nations. I assume the French influence has been significant here and that equals education which equals better diet/exercise which equals a beautiful streamline version of Pacific people. Curious to see where Vanuatu fits in the fat/ weight scale.

So out here, just a short hop away from Australia is this pretty, French speaking version of the Gold Coast. Actually it's nicer than the Gold Coast, and though the local culture has been well and truly relegated to second place under the French elite, there is at least a local culture and things seem harmonious. (Note: I learned later this was often far from the truth.) 

I wonder if the men beat their wives and partners here? And what of Islamism? Honestly out here it's like jihads, terrorism, the Taliban etc don't exist. Travelling tends to remove you from the news cycle, and I’d need to turn on a TV or read a newspaper or monitor news feed to hear about the Islamists and I'm tired of them ….

…… wait there's more. New flight to Vanuatu went ahead as scheduled, but no driver at the airport to get me. Air Vanuatu have lost one of its ATR aircraft to a broken engine. So all their scheduling has been thrown into chaos - all of their flights have been rescheduled, handed over to Aircailin, or cancelled. My flight today to Luganville has been rescheduled to two hours earlier. I rang Emmanuel in Luganville this morning and he said he would pass on the new details to his son. Alas he didn't show up at pick-up time at the hotel so I think I'll ditch his services from now on. I thought the family connection was a nice touch but it's already an unreliable connection or maybe I just didn't give him enough Vanuatu time?

Port Vila

I had a lovely morning wandering around Port Vila. And it was with great relief that I woke up this morning able to do such things. There was an episode in the middle of the night that sent me scurrying to the toilet a few times. No pain - just dread that it might be the start of several days of inconvenience but when I woke all was back to normal. Alleluia! Think it may have been the fish or mashed potato (made with milk) but who knows? The fish was wahu and I loved it - juicy and tasty.

Port Vila Airport

So here I wait (and write) once more at the Port Vila domestic airport. Very casual. Laid back. Airport officials in thongs and high viz jackets. No fans turning but I've found a spot at the end of the building with an open view of the terminal, and the hint of a breeze every now and then. Quite pleasant and entertaining really. Just 45 or so minutes to kill then to Luganville on Espiritu Santo where the whole reason for my being here will suddenly be real. Conversations tonight I assume with Emmanuel about how we run the workshop. I'm looking forward to his input to help and finalise the fine detail for the week. There's still a few blanks.

And ….. I have seen enough of ni-Vanuatu to know the workshop will be slower than I thought. (I'm an expert after 24 hours!) There is a cultural difference - that's no surprise -  but the surprise is often in the nature of the cultural difference. I'm still working on it but they don't appear to process information the same way I might. And it is slower, but that's just because they're thinking something other than about the words I'm speaking! It's fascinating. It’ll take me all week to figure it out I'm sure. As well as everything else we're supposed to achieve.

 

Housework: The Hard Work of Democracy

CC image courtesy of Nigel Paine

Housework
Dunstan Playhouse
State Theatre Company
Tue 11 Feb, 2025

It was a little unnerving to watch a show trashing the inner workings of democracy just as the world’s foremost democratic state across the Pacific is busy dismantling theirs. The timing is exquisite.

So too is the timing of the pacy dialogue between the six cast members of Housework. Set changes are marked by a loud military style drum beat and a ticking clock. The pressure is relentless and the need to get your message out quickly is paramount. When not firing messages at each other MPs and their staffers are racing down the corridors of power to the next confrontation.

A wonderfully cold, hard, and grand set design facilitates these multiple movements and adds a gravitas that belies the petty intentions of the building’s inhabitants. One may enter politics with grand delusions about making the world a better place but any optimism is quickly worn down by a realistic pragmatism. Cynicism trumps naivete as negotiations become a process of conniving, backstabbing, tit-for-tat I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine. This is the sad, but at the same time hilariously funny, source of humour for plays like Housework.

We’ve seen it before in TV shows like Yes Minister and Utopia – political absurdity is a rich vein of humour that never seems to tire, but at some point, beyond the laughs, one wonders whether this kind of democracy is very productive. It’s convoluted, slow going, and spits out professional and personal casualties.

Shannon Rush’s smart direction and an innovative set manages to convey the impression that there are crowds of people in the house: MPs, staffers, ministers, protesters, cleaners – all buzzing about taking care of business.

Emily Taheny is simply wonderful as the Chief of Staff for a federal MP as she controls all movements and narratives around her boss with perfect grasp of tone and manner. She pays attention to every little detail as a senior staffer, and consummate performer. She’s a joy to watch. Franca Lafosse is excellent as the hapless junior staffer and her excitement at being at the coalface of politics is endearing and infectious. She quickly learns the game – perhaps too quickly – and pays the price for crossing boundaries.

Susie Youssef as the MP shows great comic timing with several funny one-liners, and it was a nice touch to have Sunitra Martinelli play the part of both cleaner and Prime Minister. After all, someone has to “clean up all this shit”!

Despite all the wheeling and dealing, the blame and accusations, the conniving and backstabbing, the characters seem ultimately to care for each other somewhere. There appears to be tacit recognition that they are trapped in a system that brings out the worst in people and underneath it all that they might actually have some respect for each other.

And what’s it all for ultimately? The love of democracy? The good of the country? To make people’s lives better? The final scene provides the answer with brilliant simplicity!

Great theatre –  superbly functional set, humour in spades, and a witty and insightful play perfectly executed by a first rate cast who didn’t miss a beat.

(This review also published on The Clothesline.)

Ships and Norway

 

The first time I ever heard of the country Norway was when I was a young child in Port Lincoln perhaps 8-9 years old. We lived in a house that overlooked Port Lincoln harbour and we could see all the ships that came and went. My father was the local top cop and because of his high profile in the town he often got to meet the captains of the visiting ships that came to port. So there was an occasion when this ship called the Nidar came to Port Lincoln and I learned that it was from Norway. This became significant because for the first time, through Dad's connections with Captain Larssen of the Nidar, we were able to go on board and have dinner and we were given a tour of the ship. As you can imagine it was quite a special occasion and something I've never forgotten. In addition every time the Nidar came to port Lincoln it would blow its horn three times when it came into port and again three times when it left. Captain Larssen said this was his way of saying hello and goodbye to us when they came and went so we felt quite special when we heard that loud barp barp barp noise across the harbour rising up to the hill where we lived. It was Captain Larssen sending us greetings.

So my first memory of Norway was to do with ships.  Fast forward 60 years and I'm finally in Norway. I'm in the waiting room of the Roros railway station. I'd been walking around for a while and it was pretty cold so I thought I'd just go in there and take a break. I figured that it would be  warm and I could defrost before continuing my walk. This really friendly guy (see photo above)  was in there with a companion having a few beers in the corner of the waiting room and offered me a drink. I declined the drink but lingered to have a chat and he was really friendly. He spoke excellent English as many Norwegians do and he told me how he had first heard about Australia from his father. His father was a sailor or seaman and had travelled the world on ships in the Merchant Navy and said that the best place he ever went, and the best people he ever met were Australian and this guy in the waiting room, his son, was telling me this story and how because of what his father had told him, he'd always wanted to go to Australia and was very pleased to meet me there in the waiting room of Roros railway station! I said well you don't look like you're that old so you've got plenty of life left - maybe you could go to Australia and see it for yourself and he held up his beer, looked at me with a great big smile and said, “I drank all my money.” So a sad story in a nice way;  he was obviously a drinker and perhaps a heavy drinker - it was about 1:00 in the afternoon and he obviously already had a few and he said that was a pretty regular occurrence where they go to that waiting room at the station and have a few drinks.  But we both kind of realised that we shared a connection.  My first experience and my first thought of the country of Norway was associated with ships and his first introduction to Australia was also through ships and people sailing the world. It was just a really nice interlude, not quite magical, but a very warm moment where it felt very nice to be in Norway. I felt welcome.