The title refers to a sign i saw in a van in Port Vila, Vanuatu. In its entirety it read :
Tugeta long loa tugeta long jastis
Wan gudfala nasen.
A sensible call to nationhood.
Bislama, the language of the ni-Vanuatu, began as a pidgin. It looks amusing but it is a language with considerable historicity and is not as easy to understand in spoken form as you would think from reading it. There are some words i could pick up, from prior knowledge, like 'picanini' which means a child in most pidgins, and 'save' which is in every pidgin and originates from the Portuguese. It means 'know', like our term 'savvy'. i have no particular talent for languages, and to me Bislama sounded like any other foreign language ie: incomprehensible, nuanced, complex.
i photographed two other signs, one on a cigarette packet which said:
Sigaret i kilim man
No specifics, but no punches pulled either.
And the other, in the toilet at Tanna airport:
PISPIS
LONG
TOILET
BOWL, NO
PISPIS
LONG
FLOOR
which was a wise sign, because from the look and smell of the place many people had pispis long floor.
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