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Melsisi
Melsisi is a large settlement and Catholic mission on the west coast of Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. The mission includes a large church, convent, clinic, Francophone primary and secondary schools, and a small guesthouse. Melsisi also has a bank and post office, numerous small stores, restaurants, a sports field, and a shed by the beach where cargo ships come ashore. Although Melsisi has virtually no permanent population, many residents from surrounding communities have houses there, which they stay in when visiting Melsisi for church, school, work, medical treatment or transport. Each of these communities has its own nakamal in Melsisi, and many of these nakamals have commercial kava bars alongside. In the local Apma language, the village's name is really ''Melsiisii'', with a long and stressed final vowel. Apma ''siisii'' means to scrabble at or disturb, and locals claim that the site got this name because inhabitants from upland villages were historically harassed when they came ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melsisi From Above
Melsisi is a large settlement and Catholic mission on the west coast of Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. The mission includes a large church, convent, clinic, Francophone primary and secondary schools, and a small guesthouse. Melsisi also has a bank and post office, numerous small stores, restaurants, a sports field, and a shed by the beach where cargo ships come ashore. Although Melsisi has virtually no permanent population, many residents from surrounding communities have houses there, which they stay in when visiting Melsisi for church, school, work, medical treatment or transport. Each of these communities has its own nakamal in Melsisi, and many of these nakamals have commercial kava bars alongside. In the local Apma language, the village's name is really ''Melsiisii'', with a long and stressed final vowel. Apma ''siisii'' means to scrabble at or disturb, and locals claim that the site got this name because inhabitants from upland villages were historically harassed when they came ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apma Language
Apma (or Abma) is the language of central Pentecost island in Vanuatu. Apma is an Oceanic language (a branch of the Austronesian language family). Within Vanuatu it sits between North Vanuatu and Central Vanuatu languages, and combines features of both groups. With an estimated 7,800 native speakers (in the year 2000), Apma is the most widely spoken of Pentecost's native languages, and the fifth largest vernacular in Vanuatu as a whole. In recent times Apma has spread at the expense of other indigenous languages such as Sowa and Ske. Apma is increasingly mixed with words and expressions from Bislama, Vanuatu's national language. Name of the language Like Pentecost's other languages, Apma is named after the local word for "what" or "something". Locally it is usually referred to simply as "language" or "our language". Many people from other areas of Vanuatu recognise the language by the catchphrase meaning "good" or "OK", or refer informally to its speakers as , an Apma ter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pentecost Island
Pentecost Island is one of the 83 islands that make up the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu. It lies due north of capital Port Vila. Pentecost Island is known as in French and in Bislama. The island was known in its native languages by names such as ''Vanu Aroaroa'', although these names are not in common use today. Pentecost has also been referred to as ''Raga'' or ''Araga'', a tribal name that originated in the north but is now widely applied to the whole island. In old sources, it is occasionally referred to as Whitsuntide Island. Geography Pentecost is a lush, mountainous island which stretches north to south over some . It has an area of . The mountain range, of which the highest is Mount Vulmat (), marks the dividing line between the humid, rainy eastern coast and the more temperate western coast. The coastal plains, cross-cut by small torrents, are generally very green and ideally suited for plantations and livestock. The climate on Pentecost is humid tropical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyclone Harold
Severe Tropical Cyclone Harold was a very powerful tropical cyclone which caused widespread destruction in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, and Tonga during April 2020. It was the first Category 5 tropical cyclone in 2020. The seventh named storm of the 2019–20 Australian region cyclone season, eighth named storm, and fourth severe tropical cyclone of the 2019–20 South Pacific cyclone season, Harold was first noted as a developing tropical low within a trough of low pressure during April 1, while it was located to the east of Papua New Guinea. Over the next day, the system moved south-eastwards over the Solomon Sea, before it was classified as a tropical cyclone and named Harold by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The system moved into the Fiji Meteorological Service's area of responsibility on April 2 and began to explosively intensify by April 3, reaching Category 4 status by April 4 on both scales. The next day, it further strengthened into a Cat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sowa Language
Sowa was the original language of south-central Pentecost island in Vanuatu. In the 20th century it was totally displaced by Apma, a neighbouring language. Sowa was closely related to Ske, another south Pentecost language. Sowa was originally spoken on both western and eastern sides of Pentecost. The river at Melsisi formed the language's north-western boundary, and its range extended southwards to a creek near the village of Levizendam. Following the depopulation of Pentecost that occurred after the introduction of European diseases, men from Sowa-speaking areas were married women from other parts of Pentecost, who were mostly Apma speakers. As a result, by the 1960s, Apma had totally replaced Sowa as the predominant local language. The last native Sowa speaker, Maurice Tabi of Vanvat village, died in 2000. Today, a few local people whose fathers or mothers were Sowa speakers still remember parts of the language, although none speak it fluently. A couple, including Isaiah T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vanuatu
Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east of New Guinea, southeast of the Solomon Islands, and west of Fiji. Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people. The first Europeans to visit the islands were a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Fernandes de Queirós, who arrived on the largest island, Espíritu Santo, in 1606. Queirós claimed the archipelago for Spain, as part of the colonial Spanish East Indies, and named it . In the 1880s, France and the United Kingdom claimed parts of the archipelago, and in 1906, they agreed on a framework for jointly managing the archipelago as the New Hebrides through an Anglo-French condominium. An independence movement arose in the 1970s, and the Republic of Vanuatu was fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nakamal
{{Italic title A ''nakamal'' is a traditional meeting place in Vanuatu. It is used for gatherings, ceremonies and the drinking of kava. A nakamal is found in every significant Vanuatu community, but the design of the nakamal and the traditions surrounding it vary between areas. Etymology The term ''nakamal'' is a Bislama word, borrowed from certain Oceanic languages spoken in Vanuatu, such as North Efate. In those languages, such a form can be parsed as ''na kamal'', combining the common article ''na'' and a noun ''kamal'' or ''kamali''. Ultimately, it descends from a Proto-Oceanic and Proto-Malayo-Polynesian etymon ''*kamaliR'', meaning "men's house". Cognates in non-Oceanic languages include Cebuano and Tagalog ''kamalig'' “granary”. Traditional nakamals In north and central Vanuatu, the nakamal generally takes the form of a large building, assembled from traditional materials with the help of the entire community, under the direction of a particular chief. Entry to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kava
Kava or kava kava (''Piper methysticum'': Latin 'pepper' and Latinized Greek 'intoxicating') is a crop of the Pacific Islands. The name ''kava'' is from Tongan and Marquesan, meaning 'bitter'; other names for kava include ''ʻawa'' (Hawaiʻi), ''ʻava'' (Samoa), ''yaqona'' or ''yagona'' (Fiji), ''sakau'' (Pohnpei), ''seka'' (Kosrae), and ''malok'' or ''malogu'' (parts of Vanuatu). Kava is consumed for its sedating effects throughout the Pacific Ocean cultures of Polynesia, including Hawaii and Vanuatu, Melanesia, some parts of Micronesia, such as Pohnpei and Kosrae, and the Philippines. The root of the plant is used to produce a drink with sedative, anesthetic, and euphoriant properties. Its active ingredients are called kavalactones. A systematic review done by the British nonprofit Cochrane concluded it was likely to be more effective than placebo at treating short-term anxiety. Moderate consumption of kava in its traditional form, i.e., as a water-based suspension of kav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marist Brothers
The Marist Brothers of the Schools, commonly known as simply the Marist Brothers, is an international community of Catholic religious institute of brothers. In 1817, St. Marcellin Champagnat, a Marist priest from France, founded the Marist Brothers with the goal of educating young people, especially those most neglected. While most of the brothers minister in school settings, others work with young people in parishes, religious retreats and spiritual accompaniment, at-risk youth settings, young adult ministry and overseas missions. History St. Marcellin Champagnat decided to start an institute of consecrated brothers in the Marist tradition, building schools for the underprivileged where they might learn to become "Good Christians and Good people". The decision was inspired by an event, when as a parish priest he was called to administer the last rites to a dying boy named Jean Baptiste Montagne. Trying to lead the boy through his last moments in prayer, Marcellin was struck by t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Populated Places In Vanuatu
Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a census, a process of collecting, analysing, compiling, and publishing data regarding a population. Perspectives of various disciplines Social sciences In sociology and population geography, population refers to a group of human beings with some predefined criterion in common, such as location, race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. Demography is a social science which entails the statistical study of populations. Ecology In ecology, a population is a group of organisms of the same species who inhabit the same particular geographical area and are capable of interbreeding. The area of a sexual population is the area where inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with ind ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
