The Bonne Annee Singers of Ekipe

‘Oli man kam sing sing Bonne Annee tudei blong haos blong Jo-Ann mo Apu Tim,’ announced Silas on the day we’d returned from Australia in the early hours of that January morning. Tim looked blankly at Silas. After further questioning it seemed that Silas, the self-appointed social director of Bethel was asking us if we wanted some people to come to our house tonight to sing songs to celebrate the new year.

‘Not today,’ we said between yawns. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’

Silas explained that between the 1st and the 15th of January, groups called Bonne Annee singers visit homes at all hours of the night to welcome in the New Year. You can ask for any number of songs. At the end of the concert, you give the singers a gift of food or some money to buy chicken or kava which they will save until the 15th of January when they have a big party where they eat, drink and generally make merry with all of the donations.

Silas was keen to make arrangements so we agreed to a visit the next afternoon; Saturday, at 5pm. No midnight sing sings for us. We’re usually in bed by 8pm. Oh, and five songs would be a good number.

Saturday and 5pm came and went. We were still sitting on the verandah at 6:30 when Lewi came up to pick up her phone which had been recharging.

‘We don’t think the singers are coming today,’ we told Lewi.

‘Yes, they come. They on black man time,’ she assured us, taking a seat to wait for the show. Twenty minutes later, Lewi made a quick phone call to one of the singers. ‘No, they not come. Tomorrow they come.’

Sunday and 5pm came and went. ‘I wonder if they’re coming today?’ I asked Tim. Our daughter, Georgia, had Skyped in for the event. She disconnected at 6pm.

Ten minutes later Silas appeared with a box of flour and a bag of sugar. ‘They come!’ he announced. Some of the Bethel kids arrived with pineapples to add to the gift. I had a bottle of wine, rice, popcorn kernels, cans of lemonade and some money for them. Tim got his camera out, cursing at the fading light.

A group of thirty adults and children came up the driveway with a huge bunch of frangipani and Christmas Tree (Poinciana) flowers and even bigger smiles. They presented the flowers to us and sang their songs with harmonic gusto.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Emily with a container of talcum powder in her naughty hands. At celebrations, Ni-Vanuatu delight in throwing great quantities of talc over everyone. It gets everywhere, sticking to hot, sweaty bodies and here in the tropics, we are often hot and sticky. Tim had asked Emily not to bring powder as he didn’t want her making a mess which he would have to clean up later. Obviously she was ignoring him. Soon the singers were smeared with white as she tipped it down their backs and wiped it on their necks and faces. Emily wisely decided not to sprinkle Apu (Uncle) Tim.

Emily then disappeared briefly around the back of our shed. She returned with a bucket of yellow goo that she had secretly stashed there. She’d mashed overripe bananas, pawpaws and breadfruit into a pulpy mess and was ready to tip it over the singers who were dressed in their best outfits. Emily’s joke backfired on her as one of the singers wrested the bucket from her just as it tipped, redirecting the bulk of the flow over Emily’s head.

People shrieked and ran but quickly reformed to finish their performance, hardly missing a beat. We laughed about that but Tim wasn’t laughing so hard the next morning when he walked around the back of the Ford and saw Emily’s goo covered hand prints decorating the tray. It took some elbow grease and a fair amount of cursing but he managed to clean the corrosive gunk off before it started rusting the paint work.

We were feeling a little down after the recent visa disappointment where we’d returned to Vanuatu to discover that our Special Category visa hadn’t been processed but the Bonne Annee singers left us feeling uplifted and grateful to be living here in Vanuatu.

We heartily thanked them and bid them ‘Ambong! (goodnight)’ as they headed back to their homes with their booty.

#Vanuatu #Ekipe #Efate #travel #happynewyear #bonneannee #BonneAnneesingers #celebrating2020 #niVanuatu #islandlife #ContemporaryVanuatu #vanuatutourism #offthegridliving #villagelife #music #Vanuatusingers #localchoir #islandchoir #SouthPacific #goingbananasinvanuatu #islandhumour #comedy