Ambrym

Ambrym is the island which evokes magic, Rom dances and volcanoes. It is also the centre of fine wood work and home to the 12 foot tam tams. (drums)
We arrived for the three day festival only to find it too had been delayed a day—we are getting used to that, fortunately there is always another village to become familiar with so it is never a hardship.
Chief Massing met us showing us where we could deposit our garbage and discussed the festivities planned for the next three days. We had also expressed interest in climbing the volcano the day after the festival and he will set it up for us. This will involve leaving at 6am and hiking the 4-5 hours up the volcano spend an hour or so there and hike back arriving at 5pm. It apparently has a red bubbly liquid boiling inside and is quite a sight. It is an arduous difficult trek but apparently worth the effort.
The festival is at a nearby village but his village wants to put on an Island Night for us to raise money for the kindergarten they want to start.
Kindergartens appears to be a recent phenomenon and are run by one of the more literate mothers of the village introducing the children to pencils, crayons and drawing before they enter school. No children have access to anything like this at home and many children are vastly unprepared when they enter school. There is no funding and local villages do what they can.
As the sun set the sky glowed red from the smoking volcano and at night the sky behind the near hills where the volcano was also glowed red--- no wonder the local people had associated it with magic—the magic is now apparently good magic but it was certainly not always the way. We had heard tales of people having their tongues cut out and reattached and they truly believe this happens.
This festival is one of the favorites for yachties and 23 yachts had arrived. As well as Sea Rover who we had been sailing and several of the boats which had been in Southwest Bay for that festival and Zeke with Karen and Al who had been with us in Tanna arrived.
The festival was at a village 45 minutes walk along a good dirt track so most of us welcomed the walk. For those who did not want to walk they organised a truck with a shuttle system to pile everyone on the back.
They decided to start the festival at 10am island time so we all went in around 8 30am to look at the display of carvings which our village had set up. They are beautifully finished and are very reasonably priced. The big decision is what to buy????? Those of you who know me well can imagine the quandary, Ken who knows me well just backed off and let me change my mind every minute!!! The tam tams would look wonderful in Salt Spring—could be our door knocker set in a garden off the back deck—I did acknowledge that a 12 foot one would be excessive so perhaps a 6 foot one. The problem being there was also a wonderful carving which was only about 3 foot high which could go in the garden also. I have already admitted that our small cottage is already going to be crowded with what we already have so would like something for out doors. It is not the cost that is the issue it is how we will get it back---Darlene who will join us in a few weeks may yet have to share a bed!!! –and a plane seat when she leaves!! We will look into shipping to Canada from Vila.
Anyway after drooling it was time to walk to the village where the festival would start at 11am—not so bad.
It started with a welcome ceremony/dance by the men who were wearing the nambas which other than the penis itself lets it “all hang out”!!!—a little disconcerting later to be speaking to them individually but after a while it all seemed quite normal. The men due to the physical nature of their lives, walking up and down hills and making copra—the mainstay other than carving of this area too—have great physiques.
The women then came out clad only in grass skirts and some kind of lei of leaves around there necks. Unfortunately their lives have been full of breeding children, no bras and much sitting making and eating the starchy lap lap have not been as kind to their bodies.
The mens dancing involves much chanting and stamping of feet, all of the dances were accompanied by drumming the tam tam. The women join them after a while but after the jubilant manner of the women of Tanna, these women appear very unenthusiastic. They do some hypnotic chanting of their own but with very little movement. The sand drawings were demonstrated once again.
Ladies of the village had set up stalls selling the ubiquitous lap lap, sandwiches, banana fritters and drinking coconuts doing a thriving trade. Local men also had yet more carvings for sale there. I had made a sandwich and wrapped it in saran wrap for our lunch, when I went to put the plastic in the basket they had woven for garbage other than one coke can ( a yachtie’s) everything else was able to go back to the land. Coconuts used for drinking and banana leaves for wrapping.
In the evening we had Sea Rover, Zeke and Atlantia (Scottish) over for a pot luck followed by Mexican Train which they had never played and we had not played for a long time so had an enjoyable evening.
The next day the highlight of the festival was the dance where the important men who had attained a particular grade were able to dance around stamping and chanting and take pot shots with coconuts at another chief who had climbed a structure. This appears to date back to where they would throw spears and the chief on the structure would prove how strong he was. They ducked a lot so am not sure how strong they really are any more!!!
This was followed by a magic show where they told us they would pick up a boy on a leaves. They piled several large leaves on each other and then had a boy around 6 years old lie face down, he grabbed his ankles from behind making a rigid frame. The two men then lifted him and walked him around the dancing area. We could see that although they were holding the leaves they also had the inside of the boy’s arm—I guess when you want to believe you will!!!
The last item of the day was the marching in of the masks for the Rom dance tomorrow, this has to happen the preceding day. These are wonderfully decorated masks and we are looking forward to the final day.
The night was Island Night at our village. It was showery during the evening which unfortunately deterred some of the yachties coming in but those of us who did were sent the 5 minutes down the trail to a large building where they had managed to hang a light and were running a generator. None of the villages have power and very few have a generator and if they do have it they only run it occasionally. They had set out food along the whole length of the floor, they had killed a pig for us and had made lap lap. We had all taken in some salads so it was a lovely feast. One of the yachties made a speech thanking them for their generosity and passed a bowl for our donations. It was meant to have been only $5 each for us and we all gave more. The following day some of the yachties who had not come in donated more money and they were delighted with the amount we raised for them.
We were now ready for the last day of the festival; meanwhile the negotiations for the volcano hike had been happening. It is actually a few days after the season for the volcano as it is now yam season where the locals are all meant to be busy planting. However they had said that the spirits could be appeased with money but came up with $280 between us to make the spirits happy!!! We wondered if they would throw the money into the volcano so the spirits would be really happy but we all had lost interest in this exorbitant appeasement. There had only been a small number of us who were going to do the hike anyway and as the festival had been intense and we were tired most people quickly lost interest making it even more expensive for the few who remained interested so the idea was forgotten.
The last day started with the 9 Rom dancers coming in with a lot of chanting, stamping and drumming and was an amazing sight. The Rom dancers wear the huge masks but also are covered totally by a cloak of dried pandanus leaves. It is mesmerizing and we have videos as well as stills which we will bore our families with later. This as all of their dances went on for some time giving us a long time to enjoy it. To qualify to do the Rom mask you need to make a mask and give a pig which get shared amongst all of the dancers—no women are allowed to eat ceremonial pigs.
The last dance was one that they use for the circumcision ceremony which someone had just written the lyrics. These appear to be quite racy as the crowd of locals was in hysterics over them. They then invited us to join the dancing which I along with a number of white women did and we sweated profusely as we jumped up and down in the hot sun.
All in all it was a fine end to a wonderful festival and we would recommend it to anyone contemplating coming.
We went back to our village where we finished with a Scottish night with haggis—my first taste—on Atlantia.
The next day we just relaxed with mixed feelings of regret and thankfulness that we were not climbing the volcano.
Chief Massing came on our boat expressing the thanks of the village for the kindy money—they have enough for the building now and want to continue having the yachts support it so would like us to come up with a name honouring us. We were touched and the voted the Kens suggestion of “White Sails Kindy”—the first thing they see when we arrive—the villagers likes the name so that is what it will be.
We will come back on our way south later as he is making a smaller tam tam which we may be persuaded to buy along with the 3 foot carving that Darlene can already sleep with!!!
We sadly said goodbye to Sea Rover who were heading north to the Banks as we had enjoyed their company, as we know with other boats we have become particularly friendly with we may yet meet again.