children's day

4 August 2014

24 July is magical day in Vanuatu where school is canceled, children play all day and everyone gets to eat cake, lots of cake. Every year on 24 July the entire country takes the time to celebrate only the most important part of the country’s past, present and future–Children! In the US we have Mother’s Day and Father’s Day but why hasn’t anyone ever acknowledged the importance of a day just for Children? I can’t believe I never saw the inequality until now.

Anyway, Children’s Day was lots of fun. With no school the kids just spent all day running around, playing and swimming in the ocean. In the afternoon I played volleyball with some 5th and 6th grade girls and in the evening my family celebrated all the children in our family with a big Laplap sorsor (yam with chicken, the best!) and no less than 7 cakes between 4 families (12 children). I ate so much lap lap my sister teased me saying that “Peter won’t be happy when he comes to visit and sees you have been doing so much over eating”…I held off assuring her that the mushed yam and fresh chicken cooked with some greens, tomatoes and a little coconut milk were not going to pack the pounds on too seriously, or that I didn’t think Peter would tease me about any weight gain.

After my stomach took some time to digest I felt it was a good time to indulge the little ones in one of my favorite childhood pastimes–flying. One of my favorite things to do as a kid was to make my parents help me fly. For those who weren’t as lucky as I was, this means they laid on their backs with their legs together in the air, perpendicular to the floor, and held me up over them from my stomach as I spread my arms like a bird. It took a few seconds for any of the kids to trust me and let me do this to them but once I got one up there they were all screaming for a turn. I love the look of excitement mixed with slight fear as I let go of their hands and tell them to act like a bird (or a pigeon, as all birds except chickens are called). One of my nephews, Fremton, is 11 and pretty small for his age so I asked him if he wanted a turn. He accepted gladly and enjoyed it just as much as the little ones, so much that he wanted to help me make sure everyone got to fly as much as they wanted–he laid down and started to try himself. Unfortunately, his tiny body couldn’t really handle it and a few kids took a tumble. I felt sorry because I could tell he was embarrassed but luckily he seemed to bounce back. Of course this led to a flood of kids coming over to have my fly them and, as the demand rose and the supply went back down, chaos ensued. As soon as I had one kid flying another would come running into my legs, knocking the one who had a brief moment of flight to the ground. After this happened twice I had to be the mean anti/mami and end the game because there was just too much rough housing!

After being defeated by the excitement of Children’s Day (primarily the over eating of the Laplap) I retreated to my house for a few hours of sleep until I woke up bright and early for my truck into town. Since Children’s Day falls so close to Vanuatu’s Independence Day (30 July), my headmaster had told me earlier that week that there probably wouldn’t be any kids at school for the next week so there was really no point in me being there. I already had the travel bug and an itch to see some friends so off I went to Santo for some shenanigans, cold beer, pizza and a surprise rodeo.