News and culture from Vanuatu and the Pacific Islands
News and culture from Vanuatu and the Pacific Islands
Port Vila is warm all year, but its seasons are real: a hot, wet cyclone season from November to April and a cooler, drier stretch from May to October. Here is what each month feels like and how to plan around it.
Kastom — the Bislama word for custom — isn't just tradition for show. It shapes land rights, marriage, conflict resolution, and daily life across Vanuatu's 80-plus islands.
Vanuatu's independence story is unusual even by Pacific standards — it involved two colonial powers, a coconut rebellion, and a French-backed separatist movement all at once.
For Vanuatu and neighboring Pacific nations, climate change isn't a future problem. Rising seas, intensifying cyclones, and saltwater intrusion into freshwater supplies are happening right now.
With 138 languages across 80 islands, Vanuatu needed a common tongue. Bislama — born from the Pacific labor trade — became that tongue, and then became something more.
Vanuatu grows some of the world's strongest kava and has been drinking it for centuries. Nakamals — kava bars — are where politics happens, conflicts get resolved, and the day ends.