After my rather sombre previous post about Vanuatu, I thought it was time to show you something fun, and something that Vanuatu is doing SO RIGHT. Or at least, fun for someone. I’ll confess up front that I’m writing this post because I know my parents will enjoy it!   And if you happen to enjoy it too  too, well, that’s an added bonus! My parents are permaculture farmers in Hawaii.  They grow every tropic fruit you’ve ever heard of, and probably some you haven’t.  There are vegetables too: anything that grows well in the tropics without chemicals and fertilizers.  I grew up planting lettuce and picking mangoes and washing bok choi.  I love tropical fruits and vegetables: I love eating them, and I enjoy growing them (well, at least for a couple of months at a time when I’m home visiting). So when I discovered the fruit and vege market in Port Vila, I just about died of happiness.  Held in a huge open air pavilion on the waterfront, the market runs  24 hours …

The first thing I noticed, climbing down the steep steps of the plane onto the tarmac in the tropical heat, was the smell. Hawaii & Rarotonga smell of warmth, and flowers, and faintly, in the background, the clean, salty tang of the ocean. Vanuatu smelled of smoke.  It hung in the air, and caught in my lungs: burning vegetation and wood.  Flying over the island, or looking out over the island from any height, you could see the plumes and haze.  Small cooking fires, and larger patches of burning forest. The next thing I noticed was the beauty.  Lush green hills, endless coconut plantations, a city centred on one of the most stunning  natural harbours in the world, dotted with miniature islands and fringed with white sand beaches. The final thing I noticed was the poverty.  I’ve never been to a third world country before, and Vanuatu is properly third world.  Most people live in shacks cobbled together from tin and cement, or wood and grass (well, technically palm fronds).  Huge portions of the population …