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Two years in Vanuatu

Our family is into the second year of our stint in Vanuatu. We live at Talua Ministry Training Centre, where ministers are trained for the Presbyterian Church and the Church of Melanesian Fathers.

Jon teaches English and is also acting bursar for Talua this year. My role is teaching our kids and generally keeping home and family together.

We do NZ Correspondence School to keep the kids up with the New Zealand system till our return in 2008. We find this one of the most difficult aspects of being here because coming from the conventional face-to-face system, the kids have found it hard to work on their own without as much classroom interaction, stimulation and competition. I have often found it difficult to oversee this work, not being a trained teacher, but they have learnt to be more independent workers and are all now avid readers.

Education issues were a main factor for us in deciding to have our eldest son, Phillip, stay in NZ for 2007. Next year he will start NCEA exams and we were concerned for his adjustment back to the conventional system for that. Having him away is the other most difficult aspect of life in Vanuatu for me. Phillip is very happy living with extended family in NZ and has made wonderful friends at school and church. If he had been unhappy it would have been much worse, but we are a long way apart, and 14-year-old boys are not renowned for good communication!

Outside school hours, the children have a ball living here. They have the safe but adventurous childhood that most New Zealand children have missed out on in recent generations. They all learnt to speak fluent Bislama very quickly (their parents still struggle!) and are immersed in life here.

Here is William (10) writing about life in Vanuatu: “I think Vanuatu is great because you can just walk outside and play with someone, even if it’s a little kid. There is freedom to go into the bush to cut down small trees then come back and make them into spears, arrows, carvings or anything you want. You can also play with fire and chase chickens. It is so cool.”

Overall, this cross-cultural experience has been wonderful for our family. Adjustment back to life in NZ next year will be hard. We’ll need to work out issues like work-life balance, the simple life against the materialistic world, bombardment from the media into all aspects of life, and other unforeseen issues. The kids will need to adjust to a fenced-in house, without a playground and playmates just outside the door. We don’t know our next move yet but we will move there with our God.

Vivienne Parkes