English. England, of course, couldn’t have cared less about the New Hebrides, but its little brother Australia did, and so the Condominium was proclaimed. The French busily drew plans for the islands, and then the English erased those plans and created their own, which were then scribbled over by the French, and so on, until finally, exasperated, the two countries drew a line down the middle of the Etch A Sketch. The result was two high commissions, two governments, two official ruling languages, two flags that competed for the loftiest perch, two currencies, two postage stamps, and two educational systems. Depending on where they lived, the Ni-Vanuatu found themselves inhabiting a world that leaned either anglophone or francophone, and each group was told to mistrust the other. As one can imagine, this did nothing for the subsequent stability of independent Vanuatu. In any given year, the government is likely to change as the francophones topple an anglophone government, who then spend their time plotting to remove the francophones, and so on. On the bright side, in Port Vila one can now begin one’s day with a flaky croissant and a steaming bowl of café au lait and end it with a heaping platter of fish and chips washed down with a frothy pint of lager.
Today, some thirty thousand people live in Vila, and while the vast majority are Ni-Vanuatu, the atmosphere, by Pacific standards, is decidedly cosmopolitan. The center of town reflects a fading colonial heritage and a rising future in banking. There are fifty-five banks in Port Vila. As far as I could tell, only three were banks in the traditional sense, bricks-and-mortar buildings containing vaults and money and tellers and ATMs. The other fifty-two banks were a little more ephemeral. Vanuatu is a tax haven. Inevitably every year or so, it is listed as one of the top ten go-to destinations for money launderers and tax evaders. This confers a certain air of intrigue to Port Vila. Sitting in a café, I’d find myself wondering about the man at the next table, reclining there with his pipe and briefcase, picking at his croque monsieur. A missionary? Or an international supercriminal?
One tends not to think of the South Pacific as a particularly diverse place. People tend to be attracted to the center of things, and no region is more peripheral. Yet, in Port Vila, one finds a town inhabited by daring French fashionistas clicking down the sidewalks in designer heels alongside plump Melanesian women in modest flower-print Mother Hubbards. There are Australian tourists, all inexplicably wearing cornrows on reddened scalps, wandering through the covered market alongside ink-dark, barefoot men from the outer islands. Every couple of weeks, a cruise ship disgorges a thousand gaping visitors, who spend their day in Vanuatu buying trinkets in the market and perfume in the duty-free shops, but mostly drinking beer, before returning to their ship and continuing on their journey exploring the sights and sounds of the South Seas. There are also semi-tame frontier men from the Australian outback who have settled in Port Vila, where they pass their evenings at the pub complaining about what a good-for-nothing dirty sod your Ni-Van is, as all the while their Ni-Vanuatu girlfriends twitter beside them. There are Chinese merchants who have established a veritable mini-Chinatown on the streets above Father Lini Highway. There is a Vietnamese community, descendents of Tonkinese laborers recruited by the French to work the coconut plantations. And there are the missionaries, in town for a few days, splurging on lemonades, awaiting a flight to the outer islands, where they will try to convince the many who retain kastom ways that they really, really need to put some clothes on.
During our first few weeks in Port Vila, we simply absorbed this odd tableau. From the terrace of Le Café du Village, a dockside restaurant where we’d linger after sumptuous seafood meals, there was an appealing
Today, some thirty thousand people live in Vila, and while the vast majority are Ni-Vanuatu, the atmosphere, by Pacific standards, is decidedly cosmopolitan. The center of town reflects a fading colonial heritage and a rising future in banking. There are fifty-five banks in Port Vila. As far as I could tell, only three were banks in the traditional sense, bricks-and-mortar buildings containing vaults and money and tellers and ATMs. The other fifty-two banks were a little more ephemeral. Vanuatu is a tax haven. Inevitably every year or so, it is listed as one of the top ten go-to destinations for money launderers and tax evaders. This confers a certain air of intrigue to Port Vila. Sitting in a café, I’d find myself wondering about the man at the next table, reclining there with his pipe and briefcase, picking at his croque monsieur. A missionary? Or an international supercriminal?
One tends not to think of the South Pacific as a particularly diverse place. People tend to be attracted to the center of things, and no region is more peripheral. Yet, in Port Vila, one finds a town inhabited by daring French fashionistas clicking down the sidewalks in designer heels alongside plump Melanesian women in modest flower-print Mother Hubbards. There are Australian tourists, all inexplicably wearing cornrows on reddened scalps, wandering through the covered market alongside ink-dark, barefoot men from the outer islands. Every couple of weeks, a cruise ship disgorges a thousand gaping visitors, who spend their day in Vanuatu buying trinkets in the market and perfume in the duty-free shops, but mostly drinking beer, before returning to their ship and continuing on their journey exploring the sights and sounds of the South Seas. There are also semi-tame frontier men from the Australian outback who have settled in Port Vila, where they pass their evenings at the pub complaining about what a good-for-nothing dirty sod your Ni-Van is, as all the while their Ni-Vanuatu girlfriends twitter beside them. There are Chinese merchants who have established a veritable mini-Chinatown on the streets above Father Lini Highway. There is a Vietnamese community, descendents of Tonkinese laborers recruited by the French to work the coconut plantations. And there are the missionaries, in town for a few days, splurging on lemonades, awaiting a flight to the outer islands, where they will try to convince the many who retain kastom ways that they really, really need to put some clothes on.
During our first few weeks in Port Vila, we simply absorbed this odd tableau. From the terrace of Le Café du Village, a dockside restaurant where we’d linger after sumptuous seafood meals, there was an appealing
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