Our New Year Celebration in Vanuatu - by Emily Almeida

 On December 31st, 2023, at 5am in Salem, Oregon, our crew in Vanuatu watched the clock turn to 12am on January 1st, 2024, and celebrated the beginning of a new year. 

The start of our New Year’s Eve celebrations began a few hours prior when we arrived at The Beach Bar. The Beach Bar is a local restaurant owned by an Australian expat (for those who don’t know, ‘expat’ is short for expatriate, someone who lives and/or works in a country other than their country of citizenship). The Beach Bar is popular for its Friday night fire shows and Sunday night circus- and, as a special treat for New Year’s Eve, The Beach Bar hosted a fire show and fireworks display, even though it wasn’t a Friday.

The Beach Bar is also well known for its pizza oven, which many of us took advantage of, ordering anything from a four-cheese pizza to a fish pizza with the local catch of the day and chunks of crab on top. (That’s island food for you!)

After we had all finished our dinner, we explored the beach and got ready for the fire show. Personally, I enjoyed watching everyone playing in the water and running around the beach. The playful attitude of all the families set the tone for the night and, in my opinion, made everything all the more enjoyable.

Eventually the music started, and everyone was told to take their seats for the fire show. The fire show was hosted by Wan Smolbag, a theater troupe of Ni-Vanuatu (the name for locals in Vanuatu), which was created in response to the need for job opportunities across Vanuatu. The Beach Bar was the first location to hire the group for the fire show, and it has since grown and gained popularity around the island.

The show started with Moves Like Jagger, (which Professor Buske immediately proclaimed to be the “National Anthem” of Vanuatu) and was followed by Firework by Katy Perry (another Vanuatu song) and many other mid-2000s pop hits (which were all deemed Vanuatu songs by our professor). Throughout the show, the troop members of Wan Smolbag danced with different tools that created various effects and shapes with the fire.

It was an incredible show, and after a small dance break, they invited the crowd to try spinning fire. In my opinion, trying new things is the PERFECT way to celebrate the new year. So, with that in mind, I OBVIOUSLY had to try my hand at something I'd never done before - spinning fire!

Before we knew it, the night was over, the year was 2024, and we were greeting the morning of January 1st with an excited attitude, ready to go into town and start the year right.

… So much for that plan! Here in Vanuatu, January 1st is a holiday for everyone- which meant that almost all of the markets and stores downtown were shuttered, giving families the opportunity to celebrate the new year together. We split into groups to explore, and while one group went to get Thai food, my group spent some time walking around the deserted downtown before we finally decided to start our journey back to the villas, via a quick stop at Au Bon Marche (the local grocery store chain here that has become a favorite of our little group). After perusing the ceramic aisle and grabbing groceries for our family-style dinner, our group went back to our villas, where I took a snorkeling and journaling break before my roommate Jana and I started cooking.

We ended the first night of 2024 around a dining table, sharing in a home cooked meal and reminiscing about our trip so far. Could there be a better way to start the year?