Thursday, January 12, 2017

Aoba vs. Ambae

Hey all!
Apologies this post is coming late this week. I'm in the capital for our Close of Service (or Continuation of Service, in my case!) Conference this week, and have been a little busy. This time around I'm just going to leave you with a little anecdote.
If any of you have seen maps of Vanuatu, my island is marked by two different names; sometimes one, sometimes the other. These names are Aoba and Ambae. The story is that when white people came to Ambae, there was no common language. They tried to ask what the name of the island was, but when they pointed around, to try to show "here", they pointed at a bird. The local they were talking to, then told them "That's a bird", or "aoba". The explorers of course thought he was answering their question, and that's how the confusion arose!
So, Ambae is the real name of my island, but if you see Aoba on any map, just look it as a testament to the difficulties of meeting new people!

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