Our mini Sunday adventure

I We decided to venture out of Coconut Palms yesterday and actually see part of the island. Our biggest problem is the heat, we want to go on expeditions but as typical Brits other than at 7am and 6pm it just all seems too hot. We managed a walk down to the wharf where the big cruise ships come in, to see the handicraft market and look for somewhere to have lunch. We were silly, it was a Sunday so nothing was open but we got to see some amazing views and sought out a place to go on another weekend. 

Outside coconut palms

Amy in her snazzy trousers 

Very hot but still happy 

Some cool graffiti 

Anyone need a car 

Handicraft market 

The gas plant 

We had a late lunch at the same place we feasted at on our first night, we had fantastic views over the harbour and after a glass of wine (our first of the holiday) and another burger we got to watch the sunset in its entirety. It was truly gorgeous. The nice man who owns 'cafe du village'  invited us to a music night this Friday which we hope to go to  and we made friends with a lovely local woman who has promised to cook us some local food, the national dish of 'lap lap' in her family home, everyone is so friendly here we've never felt more welcome I don't think.

At lunch 

Cheeky wine

Our burger. Yum

Sunset 

Back at coconut palms we sat chatting on a sofa when suddenly the sofa started moving. We weren't sure if this was a result of too much wine after our abstinence or what was happening! We'd watched many reports about the dad happening in Nepal wth the earthquake so decided we were probably being melodramatic. A lovely Aussie lady walked past and asked us if we'd felt the earthquake. at least we weren't going mad! On checking quake monitor this morning the shakes we felt measured 4.8 on the Richter scale. It's all happening here, apparently this is a common occurrence here as vanuatu lies on the fault line. 

Today we had another day at the hospital, we almost did a full day. This morning we watched the delivery of two healthy twins, a natural birth of twins is very hard to come by on labour shifts in the UK so this was the most amazing experience. The labouring woman made no noise after she was told to shh, the two babies were identical twin boys and after a few tentative gasps they both screamed and squeaked, born half an hour apart. Truly amazing 

We then attended a Gynae clinic where we saw women with previous ectopic pregnancies , cervical problems  and massive uterine masses. The doctors taught us about pelvic masses and the cervical cancer screening programme that goes on in Vanuatu which we were surprised to learn went on. 

We went back for lunch and sat by the pool. After eating a slightly miserable piece of bread and cheese we made our sweaty way back to the hospital for another ante natal clinic. This was strange we only saw about 3/4 patients and for the last 2 Dr Kevin had his backpack on ready to go! 

Back at coconut Palms we sat with the Aussie lady who checked on us after the earthquake. She was a photographer and had been capturing the devastation in the outer islands of vanuatu. She showed us her pictures, which were truly eye opening and absolutely amazing pictures. She had such interesting stories about her travels and the people that she met. 

We've bought food for the week and the kitchen has been fixed so hopefully we'll be well fed, we've also bought a good amount of diet cokes as a treat to ourselves 

A lizArd!!

We had another cockroach situation last night but hopefully tonight will be less eventful