It was 8.30am by the time we had washed, had breakfast and piled everything we needed to repair their boat into the dinghy. Just before we left, Polo (one of the villagers) had come out in his canoe out to give us some fruits.A few of the villagers were already on the beach waiting for us. Once again climbed into the back of the Ute and headed down the muddy track.
When we reached the village and boat we worked out how we were going to go about it. We were the main attraction of the day, as all the village gathered around to see what we were doing. We each started sanding different holes in the boat. By the time it was sanded there was a big black cloud and rain heading our way. The villagers quickly found some tarpaulin and made a tent over the boat just as the rain came down. There hadn’t been enough time to secure it properly so everyone was holding the edges from blowing away.
Ten minutes later it was back to work. They cut up a piece of plywood big enough to cover the largest hole and we fibreglassed it into place. We epoxyed between three and six layers of fibreglass depending on how big each hole was. When we had packed up our stuff and the villagers all had a close inspection of the repairs, we told them not to use the boat for two days.
Back in the Ute and we were being brought limes, lemons, pomeloes, nuts and beans. They drove us back to the beach and helped load the dinghy.
This afternoon has just been a lazy time.
NOTE: This village are descendents of the survivors of the 1913 volcano eruption on Ambrym. All the villagers on Ambrym were wiped out. The survivors made it to the shore of Malakula and meany never returned to Ambrym, instead started the village Nduen here on Malakula .
