Lelepa Island

Last Saturday, 1 Sep, two truck loads of us senior missionaries, along with three visitors of the Roundy's, from China, headed for the island of Lelepa.  Those of you who were fans of the TV program Survivor, may or may not know that this was one of the islands they filmed the series on.  It is a beautiful, secluded, island, off of Efate where we live.  The plan was to drive to the other side of our island, park our vehicles, and catch a little boat over to Lelepa.   Greg and I rode with the Lindeman's, the Roundy's took their guests, and off we went.  On the way, we asked Lindeman's if they wanted to take a little detour and drive out through a rough, bumpy area, to see where alot of the members of our Black Sands ward lives.  They wanted to do that, so we took the ten minute detour.  It's good we did, because as we approached this really steep hill that would take us up and over to the other side of the island, we saw Roundy's truck pulled off to the side of the road.  As we got closer, we could see that the back tire had dropped off into a deep crevice off the side of the road.  We found that Elder Roundy was having a hard time getting up the hill, so he tried to back down, and dropped into the hole.  There was no way you could put it into four wheel drive and drive it out.  Soon, others started to pull over and direct traffic.  Pretty quick, about six, big, nivans (locals) came along, got to the side of the truck and lifted it out of the hole, while Greg drove it out.  We were all cheering and thanking the everyone for helping us! Once you start up what is called snake hill, you must keep the momentum going.  Elder Roundy got in our truck, and Greg got in his truck to drive it on up.  We drove out ahead of Greg, and soon could see that he wasn't behind us.  We turned around and went back to see where he was, he ended up backing the truck about 1/2 mile down the hill, and parking it in the Mele Cascade Falls parking lot.  The clutch was toast, it needed to cool down.  There wasn't anyway that truck would make that hill, so Roundy's just stayed and took their guests to the falls.  The rest of us headed on our way.  When we got in the boat, I noticed there were no life jackets, and about a 20 minute ride across the ocean to Lelepa! EEK!  One of the main reasons we were going to the island was to snorkel out to see some giant clams.  WOW! they were amazing.  They looked to be about three feet in diameter, and yes, they were alive.  They looked like they were pretty old too.  There was probably about fifty of them.  One of them had a  blue star fish stretched on top of it, just incredible.  After we were done snorkeling, the second reason we went there for (at least the sistas), was to walk into their little village, to the handicraft market.  As we walked along the paths through their villages, the people waved and said, "gud moning."  There were also cute little pikininis riding their bikes having fun.  We were soon met by a man that told us that the mother of the Chief of the village, had just past away.  That meant that everyone was now in mourning, and that the village, along with the handicraft shop, was closed.  Soon we saw the women of the village walking up a path, and you could hear their sorrowful mourning, so, we turned around and went back to the beach area where we could catch a boat back.  It was interesting to see that part of their culture. 

When we got back across the ocean, we could see some of the locals waiting on the shore to catch a boat back to Lelepa.  When we got off the boat, there on the shore, was a dead, bloody cow!  We asked what happened?!  One of the girls standing there, may have been the bride, told us that it was part of the bride price.  They were headed to the island for a wedding.  The groom was probably taking over to give her father as part of his payment for her.  Not sure how that was going to work with the funeral service!!???  All I knew, is that they better get that cow on the coals!  After our excursion, we went down the road a little way, to of all places, an Italian restaurant.  The food was pretty good, a little pricey though.  All in all, it was a fun and eventful day.  Like they they always say, "you just had to be there"!