Hitchhiking in Vanuatu: Emua Village
9th of September, 2025.
I finally find the courage to pick up a papaya from one of the hundreds of trees alongside the road. There are always some papayas getting rotten, and apart from feeling really bad about that, I love papaya! Here they are called popo, which is very funny for me because in Brazil popo it’s a slang for buts.
Soon after that, a car which is coming out of a resort kind of place stops for me. They look very nice and friendly, and are going somewhere after Emua, so I can come with them. Greta and Sam are from Australia, in a short holiday trip. Greta is already considering coming back here to volunteer as a nurse, her current profession. How lovely! When I’m about to leave their car, they give me one of those miniature bible books, which contain only some proverbs and the psalms.
There’s a small local market for food going on right at the entrance of the village, and I meet some of the ladies selling their stuff. When I ask about camping in the village, one of them tells me she will come with me and show me a spot.
Elizabeth is a lovely lady, and she’s the sister of the chief. Great! She shows me to a great spot, with flat green grass, and just in front of the beach and her house. She tells me about two other foreigners who stayed with her once, a long time ago, and she tells me that the reason why I cannot stay with her is because now she has much more people already living with her. I tell her that there’s no problem at all, and that I’m more than happy with camping. I also met some of her grandchildren, including a young girl named after her, and Selena, a 12 years old girl, with whom I would spend a lot of time talking and interacting.
Selena gives me some of the local nuts, as we are sitting under its tree. Then she climbs that tree, in like two seconds. We take photos together and she takes photos of me and the sunset. I don’t really get anything to eat at night. It’s a bit different here in Vanuatu than in Fiji, where everybody is always inviting everyone to eat, no matter what. It’s not only a matter of different culture, but also, here in Vanuatu people are way less privileged than in Fiji, with poverty rates being much higher than there.
10th of September, 2025.
I have a chair. In all my years of travelling, visiting and staying in beaches, I’ve never had the luxury to have one of those laying chairs, whatever model, today I have one. Two, actually. Laugh. They belong to Elizabeth, and yesterday she brought them here to the beach and told me I can use them. So I do that a little bit in the morning. The children are all around me, so that is not very nice, but eventually they go away. Another thing is the weather. It’s weird. It’s super windy, which eventual clouds in the sky which cover the sun from time to time. Super annoying. And all I want it’s to get a little tan.
I take a walk from the village to a small bungalow place. Luckily, it belongs to some local people, as a tourist from Sri Lanka who is staying there tells me. On the way there, I pass by some abandoned properties, all by the beach. It happens quite often here in Vanuatu. I pass by the village on my way back, and it’s small too, although still much bigger than Siviri. I talk with a local man.
When I come back, I meet Kaltu, Elizabeth’s brother. We would spend a long time talking about Vanuatu, other cultures, my travels, and many different things. He has an electric guitar, and plays a little bit. Kaltu keeps saying that what I am doing is unbelievable, and that if he was younger, he would start doing the same thing as I, going around and travelling like that. I tell him he still can but then we get stuck at the Visas process thing. Then he suggests I go to Pele. I tell him I cannot pay for the fare. He says that if I have travelled around the world like that already, there’s no way I cannot get a lift in a short boat drive of 10 minutes to Pele. I love the way he says that and I love the idea of going to Pele. It’s a plan. We shall go to the wharf and talk with some people today, try to get something settle for tomorrow.
We have rice and beef soup for lunch.
When Selena comes back from school, we all go to the wharf. Selena points me in the direction of Trishia, a student a bit older than her, 16, but who she knows from school. Trishia and her family own a boat, so they should be able to give me a lift if they want to. Trishia is a lovely girl but also very shy. I think that in the opposite of Selena, she’s a bit afraid about her English level, and worried about making mistakes. But we still manage to have a decent conversation, and the deal is that she will ask her father today, and tomorrow when I come back here, at this same time, I shall have my answer.
Back in Emua, Selena braids my her. It’s so much fun and it looks absolutely amazing! I love it! Damn I wish I could keep such a nice hair style like that for longer than only a few hours, but if I do, my migraine will start annoying me. We take some really cool photos with the kids, while they are coating themselves in sand, after swimming. They look like major KFC pieces. Laugh.
I make a bracelet to Selena out of my leftover lines from Larabeck and Michael’s bracelet. She’s so happy with it that she wants to give me a gift which was once given to her, but I say I cannot accept. We have yum and papaya for dinner, and soon after that I go to sleep.
Next morning, I have my papaya for breakfast. Before Elizabeth goes to the market, she tells me to have some yum which was prepared in Punia, and top it up with coconut milk. It’s great! I also have a tea with a little bit of coconut milk in it.
Kaltu and I talk for some time, and then when he leaves. I finish reading I am Malala. It’s interesting in how much you can learn with a book, and how pissed you can also get. It’s such a shame what these ignorant people from the Taliban are doing to countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan. I wouldn’t be surprised if deep down some of them are financed by some powerful foreigner countries, in order to create hate against these two poor countries and Islam itself. I wouldn’t be surprised at all. But then there is also the fact that so many things from Islam itself upset me. Things like that when a child turns 12 years old, he or she is considered an adult now. What a heck? Or simply the fact that women have to cover their face.
When Selena comes back from school, we all go back to the wharf again. We can’t find Trishia, and when it starts getting late, I simply accept that she might have missed school today, so I must try and find another boat. The kids also try to help me and the very first captain to whom I ask for a lift, tells me he’s going back home, no passengers, so he can take me. Yay!
I say goodbye to everybody, give a hug in Selena, and wish them all the best. Pele here I come!
10 Years Around the World 