November 22, we have finally got back to our place on Santo. The place looks good, though our builder has been pre occupied looking after Ambae refugees. The roof is on, some of the ceilings have been done – beautiful white wood timber. The plastering has been completed on all the block walls – inside and out. An incredibly smooth job, only he covered over some of Mark’s light switch box holes and wiring (also cut some of the wires???), luckily could still find where things were supposed to be.
Mark put some of the guttering up, so now at least we are collecting rainwater in our tanks. Plenty of rain happening – in fact every time i step into a water taxi it seems!
Where we stayed was lovely again, the local village people and children were once again down at the beach (and doing their washing at the well). School holidays for the kids, meant they were swimming and having fun. Their boat motor broke down, so many of the men were at the beach all trying to figure out how to fix it – much head scratching going on – they finally got it to work, thankfully, because the whole village relies on the boat to get them where they have to go.
I now have business registration and a licence ( to go with my VIPA approval), now to get my residency sorted – everything takes time here – and definitely business done face to face is far more effective. As much as I love the people here they rarely answer the phone or emails (often the mail boxes for both are full) – so you generally have to find the ‘right person’ to speak to, to achieve anything.
We now hope to at least be able to move in at the end of January, though it will be more like camping, with the bedrooms not completed, and the solar not installed – but should be fun anyway. It will give me a chance to get the glamping sites organised, the gardens planted, and complete the inside of the ‘lodge’.

Looking out from the kitchen through the lounge out to the channel