baby wayne

at long last some record of otis' trip to vanuatu. of course, without this many would doubt that otis had ever left the country.

a few facts about vanuatu

it would appear that two of the main results of european colonisation of vanuatu have been the introduction of christianity and the establishment of vanuatu's status an an international tax haven.

the first of these became apparent to us over sunday breakfast on our first morning when diners at the 'resort' were sung to by a choir for around an hour. the joyful singing of the choir did not seem to match up with the apparent every day experience of those living in port vila.

Our brief excursion into the town revealed miserable poverty, and terrible living conditions. as the 'air vanuatu' in-flight magazine advised us vanuatu is one of the world's 40 tax havens - there is no tax other than a 12.5% consumption tax. the main benefactors of this regime are clearly the seemingly shonky proprietors of large numbers of french and australian businesses. some of these businesses appear to be aimed at the french and australian tourists and others appear to be simply money laundering operations.

still, while the ni-vanuatu live in shanty-towns the corpulent ex-pat business operators live in enclaves with each house having lagoon frontage and pedigree dogs.

you can't go anywhere is vanuatu without the music. sure, it seems pleasant enough at first - a kind of happy midnight welcome to distract you from the heat but after hours of this every night you start to go a bit crazy.

otis is a nice baby. we had a seemingly recurrent conversation with a large number of ni-vanuautu, mainly women, that would start out with the phrase "nice baby, nice baby," would include questions about his sex, age and name and would end with the reiteration that otis was a "nice baby, nice baby." occasionally, resort staff would come and grab him and take him away for a cuddle.

we stayed in a large resort set on a lagoon outside of port vila. the weather was beautiful - it was mainly hot and sunny with occasional bouts of humidity and the odd drop of rain. in the end this really contributed to us not doing particularly much at all. We pretty much established a daily routine that involved alternating between eating and sitting by the pool and swimming. every evening we would go for a walk before otis' bed time. towards the end of the week we branched out in to some mild actvity that included a couple of hits of tennis.

otis appeared to be having the time of his life. apart from the newly discovered joy of swimming - fortunately we were spared the embarrassment of any accidents in the pool - the week in vanutu was marked by much smiling and laughing and the introduction of a whole range of new squeals, squawks and other entertaining sounds.

some exciting pictures of activities are featured below:

otis goes for his first swim - he seems to enjoy based upon the amount of splashing and laughing. it is unclear whether he distinguishes swimming from a really large bath without the armpit scrubbing.

otis enjoys some relaxing towel time after his swim.

some time with mum in the hammock. getting three of us in and out of the hammock without injury or incident was one of the week's greatest achievements.

a view of the beach with dad. we were searching for meaning through muteness and secrecy but couldn't work out what that meant. confused? ask uncle tom.

back in the pool again and becalmed by a moment of zen realisation brought about by splashing oneself in the face.

enjoying a final cuddle with mummy by the pool - is otis' head actually bigger than kimberley's?

despite out best attempts to book a bassinet for otis on the flights to and from vanuatu we were foiled by the boeing 737-600 which has no space for a bassinet. on the way there this problem was solved by lifting up the arm rests and laying otis across the seat to sleep. on the return flight we were upgraded to business class and although the seats were bigger and you couldn't kick the seat in front if you tried the arm rests were fixed - otis had no choice but to be cuddled for the whole three and a half hour flight.

overall the holiday experience was very relaxing - if a little wierd - but next time we hope that the adventures of otis will be more adventurous.

This is a great Blog!