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St Andrew's college ventures into unknown

In late April 2007, 10 students from Christchurch’s St Andrew’s College, year 12 dean Mike Graham and a parent helper stepped off a plane into the mysterious Vanuatu.

None of us knew quite what to expect. It’s hard to explain the skill of drivers in Vanuatu but we think that 99 percent of it is just luck. Soon we were racing down the shingle roads dodging people and cars, on our way to our next stop; Onesua Presbyterian College.

The local children became our new best friends and we went everywhere together. From the first soccer game to the last snorkel, these kids went everywhere with us. They ate their meals with us; we taught them “goose”; they taught us how to dance island-style; we taught them the song Tutira mai nga iwi; they taught us how to spear fish.

Two days in and we packed onto the back of a truck (true island-style!) and headed to catch a boat to the island of Nguna. After a slightly scary and wet trip, we arrived and were warmly welcomed to the village; we ate fried bananas and warm coconut milk.

After eating we headed for the reef. It was more amazing than we could have imagined. As soon as we put our heads underwater we saw the most incredible displays of colour from the fish and coral.

We lived like ni-Vanuatu students, waking at 5am to start the school day with our buddies.

Classes in Vanuatu are mostly the same as in New Zealand, but at the same time they are completely different. We’re doing the same work but the classes are totally silent apart from the teacher and so we think that we may have possibly been a distraction.

We loved buddy bonding time when we took a walk to the school farm where the food is grown for the school. The boys got to see their buddies scramble up trees and cut coconuts open for them while the girls enjoyed sitting in the shade with our buddies eating our all-time favourite, grapefruit.

All too soon we had to say our goodbyes. Some things were easy to say goodbye to like the generator (we only had power in the morning and night) some of the local food, and the incredibly early mornings.

Our new friends, local children, and the warmth of Onesua in general were definitely the hardest to say goodbye to.

I speak on behalf of the whole group by saying that this cultural trip was just so rewarding and incredible and if we ever had the chance to go back then we certainly would.
Tanku tumus!

Sarah Crampton