Shell Shocked

I accidentally had a super American moment yesterday when I panicked when I thought I missed my flight. There were two flights, but they were set up so that the planes touched down 3 times – the first was Santo-Sola-MotaLava-Torres-Sola-Santo, and the second was Santo-Sola-Gaua-Santo (planes work like buses in Torba…) Leslie confirmed that I would be on the return of the Torres flight, making me the last plane of the day, but then didn’t tell me this. So I thought the truck was coming for me at 10 for an 11-ish plane. Let’s reiterate – I was extremely excited to come to Vila after 5 months, and I’m really excited about vacation with my family – so when I heard the first plane come over the hill and pass over my house at 10:45, when I was still there, because the truck hadn’t come yet, I started to worry.

I tried to call Leslie but couldn’t get an answer. I called Nicole who said Leslie had gone out to find the truck. Meanwhile, the second flight passed overhead. My neighbors came outside to watch it go by, then looked at me questioningly. “Um… wasn’t that…” My response? Don’t. Talk. To me. I finally got a hold of Karen, who just happened to be on the same flight as me en route to Australia for 2 months to visit her Aussie husband, and she (like any good ni-van) assured me that she was still at the airport, I was on her flight, and even if I wasn’t, “They’ll put you on,” and I still had 2 hours to get there. The truck came at 11, everyone had a good laugh because I was so panicky (people don’t panic here) and I will probably be the talk of Sola for the next few days even in my absence.

When I got to Santo I met Michael at Natangura Café for some lunch. As I played with the saltshakers and managed to dump salt all over the table, he commented that it had been a long time since I’d been at a restaurant. Whoops.

They brought menus. The lunch menu at Natangura is one whole page of options.

“Michael, what’s good here?”
“Cheeseburger.”
“Ok. That’s what I want.”
Done.

They brought cold Coca-Cola.

“Michael, what’s this in the glass?”
“Those would be ice cubes. And that’s a straw. But you don’t have to use it if you don’t want, I don’t know how anymore.”

After lunch we went on a quest for ice cream. But not just any ice cream – a Mangum bar. I swear we went in every single store in Santo (and there are a lot of them) and we finally found them, freezer burned in the corner of the gas station’s freezer. We continued to walk down the street leaving a trail of ice cream drips and chocolate coating on the sidewalk behind us.

I went back to the airport to check in for the flight to Vila and caught myself people-staring, rather than people-watching. There were a lot of French people there. That’s my excuse. They were all rather fancy-looking.

Karen had stopped in Santo for the weekend, but had a box of fish she was taking to her sister in Vila, so I took the extra carry-on and was told that her sister “looks just like me but tall,” and her sister was told to watch for “a tall white girl with two long braids carrying a red bag.”

(A very typically Banks thing, taking fish as a carryon. Karen’s posh though – the fish was in a Tupperware inside a bag. To be truly Banks, the fish would have been hanging off of a loop of string. Possibly in a box. Speaking of boxes, they found an empty box for the rooster on my flight. That was a good thing. It tried to fly away when its owner was checking in.)

When I arrived in Vila I found Karen’s sister and was paid in the form of, “We have a truck, where are you staying? We’ll take you.” Yesssss. Awesome.

I was met at my hotel by Kathy, Gene, and cold beer. I took about an hour to get over my sensory overload (the Vila airport, the traffic through town, etc), then we headed down to Voodoo to wait for the partyers and stare at the big screens playing music videos that we’ve never seen before.

Jake, the birthday boy, arrived saying, “You DO exist!!” (Was I really gone that long? Crap, I was.) Other conversations included:

“How long have you been in town?”
“Um… 4 hours?”
“Yeah… You’ve got that fresh-face look. Your eyes are kinda big.”

“Why the crap are the ‘80s coming back?!?!?!” – a collective response to the music videos we’ve never seen before.

“Wait, Lady Gaga has NEW music?!?”

It was Friday, so they were cooking Voodoo dogs out front, score!! (Hotdogs. “For the drunks,” as the security guard/hotdog chefs say). Somehow I made it to 2am without dying. And Hali even used her Woman Tanna skills to get me bus fare on a taxi home.

So after a cheeseburger, ice cream, a hot dog, some beer, and too much dancing, I curled up onto a real mattress (not foam! real!) with a squishy pillow and slept wonderfully.

But I’m still in Vanuatu. So I still woke up with the sun. Gross.