Go to home page - diocesan shield

The Anglican Church in Tasmania                                                             Search

a healthy church...transformingLIFE

Tasmanian Anglican

August 2003

 

Some thoughts on the 'Editor's Angle'

(Editor's Angle Tasmanian Anglican June 2003)

from Caroline Sibson in Vanuatu

 

 

I felt so sad for the man in the airport who was a 'communications centre'. I remember vividly my departure from Hobart, bound for Vanuatu. True, my laptop was on my shoulder and my friends had mobiles, but I was surrounded by friends and talk and loving hugs.

Here in Vanuatu I see the true meaning of modern telecommunication in a small third world country.

Vanuatu is justifiably proud of its system. Most businesses have telephone, fax and often email. Many Port Vila houses have a private telephone and more and more villages boast a public telephone. Our school has an office phone, three public phone-card phones and two staff houses have private phones.

I understood the importance of the public phones while chatting to a year 12 boarding student. His family lives not far from the main island, but his island is difficult to reach. He has not been home for four years! He thanks God daily for the telephone, the main means of communication with his parents.

Make sure you have spare batteries!

But many islands are still without telephone access, so important messages such as cyclone warnings and public exam results have to be broadcast on short wave radio.

The most important means of communication remains the old fashioned 'face-to-face'. Ni Vanuatu will automatically ask where you are going after saying 'Hello'. This is not idle curiosity. It stems from village life where it is important to keep track of everyone for safety reasons. After all, not only does the sea teem with dangerous creatures: only a few generations ago villagers might eat you if they felt inclined! The habit of 'looking after' is important. Every one looks after each other, no one starves, and if cash is needed for school or transport, the whole village will often help.

Perhaps our sophisticated society could learn something from our Pacific neighbours! I thank God daily for email to keep in touch with family and friends over four continents. Connections sometimes don't work but it is vital to my own emotional well- being.

How I send an email:
  1. Type it on laptop on table in my bedroom. - it's a bit hot in this corner and the table too high, so I sit on my pillow.
  2. Pack up computer, walk between the swaying coconut palms, cross the campus, greeting students with their soft Pacific voices on the way: 'Hello Miss Caroline'. Two-minute walk to the staff room.
  3. Deposit laptop on sink just inside door. Outside on the concrete wall is a public phone next to a green and gold plaque proclaiming that this building is a 'gift of the people of Australia'.
  4. Unplug phone, open cyclone shutter, thread phone cord through rat-chewed hole in fly-screen, through window to waiting computer. Inside, with now disconnected telephone, (it is inclined to go walkabout with year 7s who haven't yet realised it doesn't work without the cord!) I attach cord to computer, and click! - I'm in touch with the world!)

Caroline Sibson carolinejopat@hotmail.com is spending two years with AVI, teaching at a high school in Vanuatu.