Police Commissioner Joshua Bong’s call for improved government intelligence was roundly supported by all sectors of Vanuatu Society. The announcement, made at the closing of a recent security conference, met with enthusiastic responses from everyone this writer interviewed.

A survey of 100 people asking the question ‘Do you support intelligence in government?’ resulted in a 97% response for the ‘yes’ side. Two respondents, both MPs, had not finished reading the question when the poll closed. The third, a prominent minister, replied that he has campaigned for intelligence and that he supported the idea of intelligence in principle, but he could not condone its use in government at this time, as it might undermine the balance of power.

There were a few mixed responses. The reaction of one group of youths was difficult to gauge, as their sustained laughter made it impossible for them to speak. A chief from Kivimani village on the island of Futua Lava seemed to call for part-time intelligence, observing, “Ol minista oli waes finis, be waes ia i kasem olgeta long aftanun nomo.”

Approached for comment, a police spokesman said, “That’s not the kind of intelligence we meant. We meant analysis and data gathering and…. Oh. Right. Yeah, I think I see what you mean. Yes, I think intelligence in government would be a great idea.”

More on this breaking story as it appears. Assuming more intelligence actually does appear.

Given that:

1. Doctor Who is wildly popular;
2. Following each regeneration, the Doctor can end up looking like anyone;
3. He can appear at any point in space and time;

The BBC should sponsor a ‘Doctor You’ fanvid contest, in which the most implausibly plausible people play the Doctor. In the interests of actually being able to finish in a reasonable amount of time, contestants should create only the pre-credit opening scene.

This whole idea is inspired by the realisation that Matt Smith looks TOO MUCH like the Doctor. He’s not entirely credible because he’s too plausible.

See, David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston are really not unusual-looking. Their only visible eccentricity is in their clothing, and even that isn’t something that would leap out if they walked past you on the High Street.

And that’s why we experience delight when we see, for example, Tennant yelling, ‘Allons-y!’ and leaping out of a spaceship in a suicidal suborbital descent, down through a Victorian skylight, just in time to send the Time Lords back into oblivion.

One look at Matt Smith’s features, though, and we’re more inclined to say, ‘Oh well, he would do that, wouldn’t he?’ Worse, we’re left slightly mystified when he demonstrates normal human emotions, which is a good deal of the time.

So let’s play with the assumption that Doctor could look like anybody. That there’s really no reason he wasn’t more than slightly Sheldon Cooper-esque back when he was in his 200s. That he might be a corpulent middle-aged middle-brow more likely to yell ‘Trot!’ than ‘Run!’.

None of these details really matter. Not nearly so much as the fact that this is a (mostly) human character wandering alone in the Cosmos with the fate of civilizations resting on his –or her– shoulders. That’s character enough, don’t you think?

Anyway, everyone should make an entry. Here’s mine….

POWERS OF TWO

The Doctor [voice-over, concurrent to the following]: Tchilumba Mera! The Tree Planet. Only 6 million years ago, a single kelekele seed fell through the atmosphere onto a barren rock. Now, the root system covers every inch of it, delving below to surface, below the mantle, into the volcanic core of the planet, translating its heat into world-spanning concupiscence!

[Establishing shot - a birds-eye view, as if flying at cloud level over seemingly endless cloud forest, down through the mist, then through the branches of a vast, planet-size banyan-like tree. Two figures become visible, clambering over a giant root. The camera comes to a halt, as if on a tree branch above The Doctor and his companion. ]

Anna: ‘Concupiscence?’

Doctor: Concupiscence! Watch your step, concupiscence can be a little–

[They slip, teeter and then fall precipitately. Snap cut with an accompanying thump to a tight close-up of the Doctor and his companion Anna. They are lying tumbled together on the forest floor.]

Doctor: –slick.

[Awkward pause]

The Doctor [bounding up and giving a hand to Anna]: Alley-oop!

[Traveling shot: The Doctor and Anna continue walking. Close up on Anna in profile as she pauses, watching the Doctor.]

Anna: Doctor? Why am I here?

The Doctor: Here on this planet, or here in this Universe? If it’s the latter, I shall have to have a word with your parents.

Anna [patiently]: Here with you. I mean, it’s clearly not because you… you know…

Doctor: I do? What?

Anna: …

Doctor: What? Oh!

Anna: Yeah.

Doctor: Ha! Yes! NO! No, no. Ha! No. Ha. Why are you here with me? Ah. Well… tell me what you know about this planet.

Anna: Well, it’s concupiscent. And wet. And covered end to end with forest.

Doctor: Tree.

Anna: Yes, covered with trees.

Doctor: No-oh. Tree.

Anna: What? This… all this…. This is all one…

Doctor [topping]: One, immense, planetary tree. One single organism, grown to astronomical proportions, encompassing literally everything within the boundaries of its world.

Anna: That’s incredible. [laughing out loud] It’s wonderful.

Doctor: No it’s not.

Anna: It’s… why not?

Doctor: It’s utterly alone. Imagine being the only living thing in your entire world. How would you even know you were alive without someone to remind you?

Anna: Without a… companion.

Doctor: Yes.

[beat]

[They continue walking.]

Anna: So we’ve got to find this planetary tree a companion!

Doctor: Tried that already. Didn’t work out so well.

Anna: Why not?

Doctor: Well, what’s the perfect companion for a lonely tree? A bird. Better yet, a lonely bird. A pretty, lonely bird, with plumage that changes with the light, a song so varied and wonderful that musicians travel across the galaxy to be inspired by it and come back dumb-struck, unable to play another note. Found a nice one. Just the ticket. So I thought.

Anna: What happened?

Doctor: Well, it was a mockingbird.

Anna [mimicking the Doctor]: Wot, got a little taste of your own medicine, did you? Familiarity bred contempt, did it?

Doctor: Well yes. No! No, that wasn’t it. It was a Phrygian Mockingbird, you see. Normally harmless. They mate for life, and as long as the pair are together, they only imitate one another. Perfectly. Literally. Atom for atom. They complete one another. Alone, they’re liable to mimic anything.

Anna: And you only brought one?

Doctor: I didn’t know!

Anna: So what’s the problem? Just pop into the Tardis, grab another up and Bob’s your uncle.

Doctor [testy]: I haven’t got an uncle, and it’s not that easy.

Anna: So you’re just going to giv–

Doctor: The last time I took one in the Tardis, it mimicked the entire universe!

Anna: The entire…

Doctor: Universe, yes. It looked into the heart of the Tardis and created a duplicate universe.

Anna: So what happened to it?

Doctor: I dumped it here on this planet.

Anna: No, the universe!

Doctor: The Duplicate Universe.

Anna: The Duplicate Universe. What happened to it?

Doctor: I destroyed it.

Anna: You destroyed the universe?!

Doctor: The Duplicate Universe. It was a duplicate.

Anna: But how could you know which was which?

Doctor: Oh, I’d know.

[Camera backs off as the Doctor looks around uncertainly. Beat.]

Anna [worried]: Doctor?

Doctor: What is it?

Anna: You left that… that bird…

Doctor: The Phrygian Mockingbird?

Anna: Yeah, that bird. You left it here? On this planet?

Doctor: Yes, well I had to, you see –

Anna: Do you know where it is right now?

Doctor: It’s a Phrygian Mockingbird, capable of imitating anything, down the last atom. How could I know for sure where it is?

Anna [staring off-camera]: Doctor? I know where it is.

[Snap cut to a medium shot of two identical Tardises, side by side.]

Doctor: Ah. No, my dear, you see, that’s the problem: You don’t know where it is. You don’t know at all.

[Freeze frame. Opening Credits.]

You’d better be strong, flexible, resourceful, good with languages and have more than the normal allotment of patience.

I’ve been stuck in cyclones, got malaria, dengue, been hospitalised from the after-effects of prolonged dehydration, had more parasites in more places than anyone really wants to know. I’ve been stung by things straight out of a Tim Burton movie. I’ve had death threats and constant, insanely unreasonable demands on my time and my pocketbook.

To put things into perspective: we had a 7.5 earthquake here a couple of weeks ago, and were laughing about it within the hour. Nature is tough and unforgiving here. You’d better be prepared.

You may think all this is exciting. It’s emphatically not. Put your Hollywood imagination away. It’s tedious, uncomfortable and often dangerous in small, boring, trivial ways.

I walked away from an affluent existence as one of the first few professional web developers to enter the field and survive now on a small fraction of what I used to earn (although I do live quite well by local standards – my new house has hot water!). That may sound romantic – I’ll admit it does to me – but the price is no security in my old age. I’m fool enough not to worry, but you may not be so inclined.

Development is a dirty, arduous grind, with few noteworthy victories. You have to measure success like a batting average. Just assume you’ll strike out more than you succeed. Most projects are unwinnable from the start, and you only go through with them because to do nothing would be worse.

On top of all of that, you’ll need to adjust to a culture so foreign to your experience that it will often leave you bemused or even shocked to the core. And you won’t have any safety net to rely on. There won’t be any police if you’re in a tight spot (unless they’re the ones who put you in it), the fire truck – if it arrives at all – will come in time to water down the ashes.

You’ll see children crippled and even killed by trivially treatable conditions. You’ll see good people die and bad people prosper.

But once in a while, someone will smile at you like this, and it will all be worthwhile….

… It better be, anyway, because most of the time, that’s all the payment you get.

If, after all that, you’re still intent on coming, then read this and come on along.

Not all photographers have the time, opportunity or, heck, the money to take those seriously WTF, how-did-you-DO-that, I-will-see-the-world-differently-because-of-this kind of shot. Sadly, such moments are relatively rare. You may yet have your chance to blow the world away with your incandescent, visionary imagery. But in the mean time, here is a quick primer to help you put your own special genius into perspective.

Shots We Have Already Seen

This may come as a shock, but others have taken photographs before you. Some of them were very talented. Among the shots we have already seen:

• The water droplet
• The water droplet on a blade of grass
• The water droplet on a blade of grass with a distorted reflection of something visible deep inside. (Tragically for you, the visual metaphor of Worlds Within has indeed been considered once or twice before.)
• The blade of grass, without the water droplet
• The forced-perspective skyscraper
• Two forced-perspective skyscrapers
• Forced-perspective anything, actually
• The reflection in the window
• The distorted reflection in the rainy window
• The staircase (It turns out there are several spiral staircases in the world. They have, alas, all been photographed before. Yes, even that one.)
• The beggar
• The self-conscious hipster made edgy and cool by rotating the camera 30 degrees
• Someone blowing smoke in a dimly lit room (Did you know this happens sometimes in bars? What brave new world is this, indeed.)
• Footprints (in anything, leading anywhere)
• Sunset

Shots We Didn’t Want To See In The First Place*

• Your pet
• Your girlfriend
• Your child
• Your street
• That old farmhouse
• Grass
• That tree (not even at sunset)

* Don’t get we wrong. I’m sure your family and friends would love to see a well-taken shot of any of the above, but unless your date is truly unique, your pet looks like this or you have the skill to capture your child in a moment like this, we’d all rather you didn’t foist them on us for comment. After all, we hardly know you.

Shots Which Had Better Be Really Fucking Good Before You Even Consider Showing Them To Others

• The long-exposure shot that makes the water seem all misty
• The long-exposure anything, actually
• The topiary
• The insect. Yes, really.
• The strangers sitting on the bench (Astoundingly, again, others have discovered this useful metaphor for social dysphoria. )
• The high-speed exploration of liquid dynamics
• The reflection in the water
• The distorted view through the glass
• The vista of boats on water
• The shot of birds in flight
• The fisheye shot
• Silhouettes

See, we don’t mind seeing these. They’re kinda cool. But you might want to think twice before crowing about them. The examples above are just a small sample of the stuff found on one website in about one month.

Things Which Are Never Tasteful, No Matter What

• Watermarks (Seriously, if someone can’t immediately identify your photos from their own inimitable style, then a watermark isn’t going to help you. And no, cursive text does not make it all right.)
• Women in bad makeup
• Women on the railway tracks (I mean, seriously: Dude, what?)
• Actually, nude women sitting anywhere they wouldn’t normally sit, if you hadn’t paid them*
• More than two shots of any one thing (Remember: Shake it more than twice and you’re playing with it.)
• Shots of your camera (especially if you’re holding it.)
• Models who have been painted all one colour
• Saturation. It is the photographer’s ketchup. Use it accordingly.
• The one-colour wash (Guys, seriously, that sepia tone was an artifact of the chemical process required to develop the film. It does not make your model look hotter.)
• The single colour element of an otherwise monochrome shot. (Shit, even the banks don’t use this in their ads any more; that’s how cliché it’s become.)
• Captions that say what’s in the model’s thoughts (This goes double when the model is your pet.)
• Tragically, wedding shots. Don’t know why. They just never are. Ever.

* Okay, on rare occasions, nude women in strange postures are genuinely beautiful. But are they more beautiful than normal postures, really?

Shots We* Actually Do Like To See, Really (Provided You Possess Any Skill At All)

• Straight up, simple portraits of normal people busy living their lives
• Ordinary things and moments
• No, really – ordinary things
• Dead things (Not to be morbid, but the opposite of pretty is often fascinating.)
• Really, really simple compositions
• Symmetry

* By ‘we’, of course I mean ‘I’. Shyeah…

Shots That Will Be Popular*, Whether You Do Them Well Or Not

• Young women
• Two women touching or nearly touching
• Children
• Pets, especially cats
• Baby animals
• Children
• Shiny, especially red and gold

* These are all things we’re wired to stare at, and which can get you far in terms of popularity, until you discover that this hasn’t necessarily made you a better photographer. Then again, they’ve made you popular, so who cares?

Behind and up, the hillside’s clad in mauve petals,
A decade’s worth of candy wrappers cast
Aside in moments by adolescent hands.

These hands. These hands are holding hands
In fervent, sweating, anxious rhapsody.
Aching out hilarity, too close to see the comedy.

A ten year old with awkward teeth, all knees
And elbows, nestles in the crook between the boughs
And spies upon the lovers, mystified.

The world, alas, is far too hurried for the truth.

I’m going to leave current events alone for a week. Not for lack of news, but because the smaller things in life need our attention, too.

This week, let’s take a lighthearted look at a few expressions that make Bislama such a delightful language. Before we do, though, I must apologise to native Bislama speakers: I’m not going to tell you anything you don’t already know. Nonetheless, it’s sometimes useful to record such trifles for posterity.

Because of its impoverished vocabulary, Bislama relies heavily on metaphor, imagery and euphemism. The pictures it paints are remarkably vivid and often frankly indecent, generating wild laughter among the interlocutors. Propriety dictates that I leave out the most scandalous of them….

Faea I Ded – The full expression is ‘Faea blong yu i ded,’ though it’s often reduced to a single exclamation: ‘Faea!’ It means, literally, ‘Your fire is dead.’ It’s used as a capping statement, gleefully punctuating the fact your interlocutor has been left speechless, unable to respond to a winning argument or repartee.

Many statements are overtly positive, but have extremely sarcastic connotations:

Yu laf gud ia? – Literally, ‘Are you laughing enough?’ A friend translates it thusly: ‘What the heck are you laughing at? If I hear another sound coming out of your hyena mouth, I will pummel you!’

Some of the most amusing expressions refer to, er, social activities, including kava drinking and other after-hours shenanigans:

Wire i taj – Literally, ‘The wires have touched.’ Used to suggest that someone’s neural circuitry is positively sparking from the effects of strong kava. It’s not entirely a positive thing, connoting a circuit that’s been shorted out more than a properly functioning one. Contrast with ‘feeling a buzz’ in English.

Rod I Smol – Literally, ‘The path is [too] small.’ In Bislama, any human-navigable pathway is a ‘rod’. A particularly narrow hillside trail, for example, might be called ‘rod blong nani’ – a goat track. This expression usually refers to someone so intoxicated that they cannot keep to the path. The road, therefore, is too narrow for their staggering gait.

Fo Wheel I Fas – Literally, ‘[All] four wheels are stuck.’ This term refers to someone so inebriated that they can’t even crawl on hands and knees (hence four wheels). Note the archaic use of ‘fast’, meaning ‘bound up’, not ‘speedy’.

Danis Rap – Literally, ‘Rap Dancing.’ Someone who’s overdosed on kava will often fall prey to violent muscular convulsions alarmingly similar to a rap dancer ‘popping’, that is, jerking their limbs about in a robotic fashion.

Karen Blong Hem – Literally, ‘His/Her garden.’ It’s used as a euphemistic reference to someone’s boyfriend/girlfriend, usually because they’re not formally associated to one another. In that sense, it implies a slightly risqué – or at least casual – relationship. (This is only the first part of an extended metaphor that becomes far too explicit for present company.)

Hem I Pas Bihaen – Literally ‘S/He has gone behind [someone else].’ A euphemistic way for saying that someone has been cheating on their partner.

… Blong Rod – Literally, ‘[Someone/thing] from the street.’ In the possessive form (shown here), it alludes to refuse lying at the side of the road. So a ‘pikinini blong rod’ is a worthless person, essentially ‘born in the gutter’. Likewise, ‘toktok blong rod’ is baseless rumour. If we say of a woman, ‘Hemi stap wokbaot long rod’ (‘She’s walking about on the road’), we’re using a term identical to ‘steet walker’ in English.

Mi Holem Taet Yu – Literally, ‘I hold you tight.’ Quite suggestive in English, this expression is actually perfectly innocuous. It’s the equivalent of saying, ‘Wait a minute.’ It’s usually spoken in an apologetic tone.

There are many more such vivid turns of phrase, but alas, most of them aren’t fit for these pages.
Commonplace nuisances also give rise to remarkably apt metaphor:

Rat I Kaekae… – Literally, ‘Rats have eaten [something].’ Used to describe the pilfering and petty theft endemic throughout Vanuatu. See also:

… I Grow Leg – Literally ‘[Something] has grown legs.’ Again, this refers to petty theft, describing the propensity of all things in Vanuatu to mysteriously grow legs and walk away of their own volition.

Reading this, you already have formed the impression that Bislama consists of nothing but scandalous language. That’s not true. When used in formal circumstances, Bislama can take on a cadence and oratorical power similar to the classical Latin of Cicero’s senatorial speeches.

But in its most common usage, the laughing, chaffing exchanges that punctuate our daily exchanges, it’s good-natured, inventive and cheeky, strikingly similar to the bawdy discourse in a Dublin pub on any given Friday.

Perhaps the most enjoyable linguistic trope is the verbal ellipses, wherein one begins an ostensibly innocuous statement and trails off just before it declines to outright scandal. As in so many other languages, timing is the essence of comedy.

My point – and I do have one – is that visitors ignore the nuance and linguistic flair inherent in Vanuatu discourse at their peril. No one can truly say they understand Bislama until they’ve grasped its vividly metaphorical, highly contextual fluidity and made it their own.

Update for online readers: Digicel Vanuatu’s Manager for Commercial Operations did finally contact me, too late, alas, for the publication deadline, which had been pushed  forward this week to accommodate the Good Friday holiday. We had a thorough discussion, and he cleared up a few things that were left as question marks in the original column. I’ve updated the text below, and have tried to show what’s changed between the original version and this one. – DM

About 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday this week, an email hit the VIGNET mailing list, announcing that Digicel had rolled out its long-awaited mobile Internet service. Using radio waves to send data over the Internet, Digicel’s GPRS service significantly increases the value and flexibility of their services.

Charging rates cheaper than many in the US and Australia, Digicel have raised the bar in terms of customer expectations once again. Now, Digicel subscribers can send multimedia messages to one another or browse the web from their laptop or mobile phone. You can now take a photo with your camera and send it to a friend, send them a ring tone they like, read your email from your phone, or check out an important web page.

Sending photos from your phone may sound frivolous, but think about it for a second: Hubby is sent to pick up some baby products at the supermarket. Faced with a dizzying array of choices, he take a photo of one, sends it to his wife with the question, ‘Are these what you meant?’ Domestic harmony is well worth the expense.

A caveat before I go on: I’m composing this column less than 24 hours after the initial public roll-out, and Digicel management have yet to reply replied too late to my requests for information, so whatever information you find here is of necessity incomplete and possibly mistaken. Some of the information in the print version of this column is incomplete.

In fact, if it were not for the intervention of a kindly technician, I wouldn’t have GPRS service on my phone at all. As things stand right now, Digicel formally supports about 14 different mobile models from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Motorola. If you have one of the supported phones, all you need to do is phone Digicel customer care at 123, and the very courteous and professional support staff will automatically configure your phone for you.

There’s no charge to enable this new service. Both pre-paid and post-paid phones are eligible, and though fees have yet to be formally announced, I’ve been told that customers are charged about 400 vatu per megabyte downloaded. In real terms, if you’re reading 20-30 text-only emails per day on your mobile, you’ll likely find it costs less than 2000 vatu more per month.

My Motorola W375 was not on the list of supported phones, but a very helpful technician was kind enough to go above and beyond the call of duty. Well into the evening, he called me and helped me through the configuration, which turned out to be trivially easy. (It’s a curious thing, but even though I’m capable of writing complex software applications, I’m still the kind of guy who has trouble changing the time on his phone.)

The technician reassured me that any mobile that supports GPRS will be compatible with Digicel’s service. This was later confirmed by Digicel. If you have one of the 14 currently supported models, Digicel customer care will set everything up for you. If not, you’ll might need to enlist a local geek to lend a helping hand. In either case, you do need to ring 123 in order to get your account enabled for digital data service.

I spent several hours last night and this morning playing around with the service. It was a little up-and-down last night, but that’s to be expected in the early hours after the roll-out. So far today, it’s been pretty solid. Again, full credit goes to the hard-working technical staff who, I don’t doubt, are a little short on sleep right now.

One of the more interesting things I can do with my mobile is to plug it into my computer and use it as a modem. This means that someone with a laptop and an appropriate mobile phone can hook into the Internet from just about anywhere in Vila or Santo and get a quick hit of Internet.

GPRS isn’t particularly cheap, and it won’t take the place of a full-time Internet connection (like TVL’s ADSL broadband service) in the home. But if you need to get online from anywhere and you don’t get too download-happy, you should find Digicel’s service remarkably useful and more affordable than similar offerings in developed nations.

Reaction among the online community has been almost universally positive. One person who had a preview of Digicel’s mobile Internet service was writes:

“As a foreigner coming to Vanuatu, the ability of picking up a GPRS enabled SIM card and putting it in my phone is just wonderful. No longer am I limited to checking my Push email on my phone in the hotel’s lobby or going to a friend’s place and using his wifi… Now I can have my email on the move, when ever I want, wherever I want.

“I think this is a great advancement for Internet in Vanuatu.

“When/if Digicel start selling USB GPRS dongles that will make the internet much more accessible to the average home user with a computer. Sure it will be expensive, but if all you are doing is using google chat (or variants) and sending small emails, then it will be affordable.

“The speed for looking at mobile optimised websites such as news.com.au is fine. Last week i sat down at [the Last Flight kava bar] and checked what was news back in Australia – too easy!”

A member of the Vanuatu Government’s Geohazards Project wrote in to tell me that GPRS will likely be an invaluable part of their overall service plan. GPRS in the islands would allow them to send important visual and sensor data via email, and do so more cheaply than satellite. This could make the difference between life and death in the event of a volcano, tsunami or other natural disaster. “For us,” says Sylvain Todman, “it is a revolution!”

Digicel’s mobile Internet service isn’t the final piece in the connectivity puzzle, but it’s an important one. There’s every indication so far that it’s being rolled out with the same dedication and professionalism as their original GSM service.

I strongly suspect that one of the biggest drivers of this service will be international traffic. The ability to send email from a mobile will make it easier for families of those working abroad in New Zealand or Australia to stay in touch. Likewise, business travelers visiting Vanuatu will be extremely glad of the service and pricing.

If and when GPRS service reaches the islands, it GPRS is available throughout Digicel’s coverage area. In the islands especially, it could prove a real boon to business. Imagine being able to send a photo of your prize kava plant, batch of fish, produce, what have you, and get an immediate commitment from a buyer before you put it on the plane.

I tried to contact Digicel’s management in order to get authoritative information concerning the service, to no avail but they responded too late for me to include their feedback in the print version of this story. Questions concerning the service coverage area, pricing for post-paid customers and which mobile phones exactly are supported by customer care all went unanswered.

Digicel’s mobile Internet service is an important piece in the communications puzzle. Despite the unanswered questions, o One can’t help but feel good seeing another entrant into Vanuatu’s Internet market. There will be more, and different, but this is a big step in the right direction.

I have a terrible confession to make: When I was young, working towards a degree in English Literature, I not only studied poetry, I wrote it too.

Now that I’ve got that dirty little secret out of the way, I can talk a little about one of the enduring delights of living in Vanuatu: The poetry of the language.

In literature and linguistics, pidgin tongues usually come across as the simple country cousin of ‘proper’ languages. That may be, but too many people seem to think that ‘simple’ and ‘stupid’ are synonymous. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Bislama is simple, even impoverished in vocabulary. But what non-native speakers forget is that what matters in language is expression. The mechanics of Bislama are deceptively easy to master, leading people to feel that it’s enough to drop the ‘h’ after the ‘s’ and the ‘t’ and to suffix every verb with ‘em’. That doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Bislama has come a long way from its origins as hand-waving baby talk employed to negotiate the price of a bush knife or a bag of copra. As mobility became possible with the cessation of most inter-tribal conflict, Bislama became the language not only of trade, but of the much more subtle and nuanced negotiation of alliance and arbitration between chiefs, between shipmates, between travelers and labourers from all over our little patch of the Pacific.

Only a smattering of native words found their way into the language, but the island ethos is its very essence. Just as they do in countless island tongues, metaphor, natural imagery, obliqueness and inference lie at the heart of self-expression in Bislama.

Every poet knows that simplicity need not lack subtlety. Anyone with an ear for it quickly finds that, in the hands of an adept practitioner, Bislama is an ideal tool for open-ended, allusive expression. Conversely, it can be a remarkably crude instrument if not handled gently.

Where English writes the road map, Bislama only gestures. This means that ambiguity has to be managed carefully. In a milieu with a nearly complete lack of privacy, circumspection and euphemism were applied to all aspects of daily life. All aspects. Especially the ones that Victorians once kept carefully locked away indoors.

This is English, so I’ll have to state things plainly: In a world of thatched roofs and bamboo walls, gossiping about so-and-so’s personal habits or sexual escapades requires deliberate vagueness. There is, in other words, no such thing as benign euphemism in Bislama.

When a native English speaker, fresh from his third language lesson, tosses out a phrase like ‘samting blong yu’ (literally, ‘something of yours’), it’s enough to make everybody in the room cringe. The speaker has unintentionally referred to his interlocutor’s private parts.

I remember hearing about a young doctor in Papua New Guinea. He enthusiastically encouraged his first patient, a woman in labour, by repeatedly shouting, “Pusum!” (“Push!”) Even in her agony, the young lady was nonplussed. The doctor was telling her to do the very thing that had got her pregnant in the first place. Surely now was not the time.

Making mistakes is an integral part of all learning, and I confess that I’ve been guilty of a few howlers myself. Once, in the course of complimenting a friend’s mother’s cooking, I mistakenly accused her of having sex with the chicken. Happily, the family knew me well enough that they simply collapsed in laughter. As did I, once my faux-pas became clear.

But this is more than just a homily against silly mistakes. Once you’re done chuckling, I want you to remember this: Bislama is not nearly as simple as it sounds. There is a poetry to it that can delight, even enlighten, if you listen for it.

Yes, there’s no such thing as ‘no’ in Vanuatu. We all know that. But when you’re sitting in the nakamal, chatting with the village bigman, are you sure he’s really talking about his crops? When the chief remarks as he wipes his feet that one should not track dirt into a household, he’s talking about more than domestic hygiene.

Bislama is more than the sum of its words. People ignore this lesson at their peril. A poor Bislama speaker may be forgiven, but a poor listener suffers more than they know.

More than once, I’ve had to pull some well-meaning soul aside and explain that they can’t get another meeting with some functionary because they didn’t pay any attention to what they were told at the last one. Often enough, they’ll angrily retort that nothing important was said.

As I learned to my dismay back in university, poetry – like all art – can’t really be taught. Asked to define rhythm, jazz great Fats Waller famously retorted, “If you got to ask, you ain’t got it!” Bislama lessons are fine and good, but remember this:

A proper understanding of Bislama comes only with time, an open ear and a willingness to listen beyond the words, until the English falls away and only the poetry remains. And when you finally hear it, you’ll be glad you did.