Cargo cult lives on in South Pacific

To view the original article Click Here

Title – Cargo cult lives on in South Pacific
Source – www.bbc.co.uk
Date – 17th February 2007

Having a good understanding of the environment you are visiting allows you to plan your trip and gives you a greater chance of it being successful in making it the experience of a lifetime, rather then a missed opportunity.

Tanna Island in Vanuatu is truly the other side of the world form almost everywhere you start and in every sense of the phrase. Active volcanoes, cargo cult tribes and a village culture and social higherachy that goes back thousands of years. Understanding your destination will help your to appreciate the significance of your impact on this fragile way of life and experience it without disturbing it.

It is easier then ever to travel and you can travel almost anywhere, but you’ll never understand everything. But if you consider it a great honour if you are even given the slightest of insights into the way that other people live in their home country, you can learn a great deal from your hosts. Travel in the knowledge that even the smallest insight makes you a very lucky person and not pushing your luck keeps you safe and often result in even more acceptance.

Arriving by accident in a village and seeing a village meeting taking place is not an invitation to get out you cameras and flash away. In Vanuatu it may be a very serious matter and village meetings solve problems from how to share a harvest to dealing with “crimes” and acting as court and sentencing processes for those involved. You wouldn’t walk into a court house at home and if you mistakenly did, you would make every effort to remove yourself without being noticed, the same should apply when you visit a new country.
Our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety and Awareness workshop concentrates on developing individual’s skills to allow them to travel well prepared, safely and with a sense of Cultural Awareness, allowing you to have a positive impact on your destination.

Please visit our website at http://www.safegapyear.com/