Getting Stoned With Savages - J. Maarten Troost [20]
The settlers were just as charming toward other settlers. By the turn of the century, there were 55 British settlers and 151 French. “We have just celebrated Christmas,” wrote one observer in 1888, “and Christmas in the New Hebrides is a fearful and wonderful sight. Thank God it only comes once a year. The French and the English had a pitched battle but luckily they were all too drunk to shoot straight.” Port Vila’s days as a distant backwater eventually took a turn toward the farcical with the establishment of the Anglo-French Condominium, one of history’s more peculiar colonial arrangements. This joint rule represented an attempt by the British and French governments to restore some order to the islands. The Condominium, which was established in 1906, could best be described as a petulant compromise between the French and the English. Anyone who has ever watched two cranky toddlers argue over an Etch A Sketch can envision the result. You can’t have it, said the French, who wanted to annex the New Hebrides to settle their ex-convicts from New Caledonia. Well, you can’t have it either, said the English. England, of course, couldn’t have cared less about the New Hebrides, but its little brother Australia did, and so the Condominium was proclaimed. The French busily drew plans for the islands, and then the English erased those plans and created their own, which were then scribbled over by the French, and so on, until finally, exasperated, the two countries drew a line down the middle of the Etch A Sketch. The result was two high commissions, two governments, two official ruling languages, two flags that competed for the loftiest perch, two currencies, two postage stamps, and two educational systems. Depending on where they lived, the Ni-Vanuatu found themselves inhabiting a world that leaned either anglophone or francophone, and each group was told to mistrust the other. As one can imagine, this did nothing for the subsequent stability of independent Vanuatu. In any given year, the government is likely to change as the francophones topple an anglophone government, who then spend their time plotting to remove the francophones, and so on. On the bright side, in Port Vila one can now begin one’s day with a flaky croissant and a steaming bowl of café au lait and end it with a heaping platter of fish and chips washed down with a frothy pint of lager.
Today, some thirty thousand people live in Vila, and while the vast majority are Ni-Vanuatu, the atmosphere, by Pacific standards, is decidedly cosmopolitan. The center of town reflects a fading colonial heritage and a rising future in banking. There are fifty-five banks in Port Vila. As far as I could tell, only three were banks in the traditional sense, bricks-and-mortar buildings containing vaults and money and tellers and ATMs. The other fifty-two banks were a little more ephemeral. Vanuatu is a tax haven. Inevitably every year or so, it is listed as one of the top ten go-to destinations for money launderers and tax evaders. This confers a certain air of intrigue to Port Vila. Sitting in a café, I’d find myself wondering about the man at the next table, reclining there with his pipe and briefcase, picking at his croque monsieur. A missionary? Or an international supercriminal?
One tends not to think of the South Pacific as a particularly diverse place. People tend to be attracted to the center of things, and no region is more peripheral. Yet, in Port Vila, one finds a town inhabited by daring French fashionistas clicking down the sidewalks in designer heels alongside