The Ash Plain

I'm driving a pick up truck. MY pick up truck.Technically it belongs to the VIVA project, but for the next 6 months it's mine. I'm starting to REALLY like pick up trucks. It's new(ish). It's silver. It has a full cab and payload and it can go alost anywhere, and believe me, Tanna roads have tested it. There is almost no pavement on the island aside from a few stretches of less than 100m at the steepest parts of a few hills, and the one and only parking lot at the airport which everyone eschews for the lack of shade anyway, preferring instead to park outside the grounds for some cover under the trees. 

I have never driven on anything even close to the conditions on these roads. In fact for the first few days I had this kind of resistance to driving at all, just because of the mental effort required to navigate the constant stream of deep ruts and bumps that were coming at me endlessly, like some weird Tetris game. You get used to it pretty quick though. Still, some of the backroads are completely nuts. Oh well, in this male dominated society, driving is a guy's job so I'd better man up.

Anyway, on this particular day I am driving us to visit an outpost dispensary on the east side of the island. These places service areas of the island that are too remote for the people to journey to hospital from unless it's serious. One has to pass by the volcano to get there. Mt. Yassur is the most accessible active volcano in the world. Whenever people hear this fact they inevitably ooh and aww, but then I think,"wait a minute...shouldn't an active volcano close by actually be a bad thing?"

It's not every day that a man gets to buzz his truck along the ash plain of an active volcano, throwing up rooster tails and hanging his head out the window as he speeds by. There is no speed limit or regulations so technically i can't be "speeding" can I? This lack of regulation applies to so many aspects of life here, from letting you kids hang out the windows of the moving truck, to performing medical procedures that you have never done before, but circumstances demand they be performed. Coming from politically correct Victoria, it's such a breath of fresh air. The downside of course, is that people can get significantly hurt doing such things. I'm chalking it all up to practicing "risk management skills".

The previous post tells the story of our climb up the spine of the Mt. Yassur, and of Sasha's quote of the week, which brought a tear to my eye, so I won't repeat.

Anyway, driving across the ash plain was 'a moment'. One of those when you suddenly get perspective on where you really are and what you are really doing.

Did I mention that I love my truck........?

Sean