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Vanua2



Praise be Lord Bison for magnanimously publishing my first missive on the so-so tropical paradise of Vanuatu. The big down sides of rural Vanuatu of course are malaria, lack of gun shops and dentists, and not being able to have a decent snow ball fight in winter.



In this second missive I wish to address the points that the commentators of the first put forth.



1) @ssholes



They are needed to make homicide justifiable. In a Mad Max world, they can also be used to feed the hogs. As I am lazy, and also risk adverse, I strive to avoid them (not the hogs; they likely taste better).



2) Disease, parasites, heavy metal poisoning of the fish, and economic challenges.



Treating water to kill unseen bugs is something that should be done almost every where in the world. There have been outbreaks of giardia in Sydney, Australia, and Bergan, Norway within the last 15 years. Dogs are often carriers of giardia, so you can often find it in poorly run kennels.



Boiling water is the time-honored way of making it suitable for drinking. Filtering also is effective. So is putting it in small, clean transparent bottles and putting the bottles in the sunlight for a long while, since the UV radiation in the sunlight can kill them, too.



Cooking your food well will kill the parasites in it. Don't eat raw fruit or vegetables that you have not inspected and prepared for eating. Wash your hands before eating.



Wear shoes or sandals to avoid hookworms. They can be found in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. I wouldn't be suprised if they can be found else where. They live in "warm earth where temperatures are over 18°C. They exist primarily in sandy or loamy soil and cannot live in clay or muck. Rainfall averages must be more than 1000 mm (40 inches) a year."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookworm



If you have old tyres and certain tools you can make tyre sandals. With a little capital investment, you could become the island's cobbler.

http://www.hollowtop.com/sandals.htm



Teaching could also be a way to earn your keep. Another is trading in foreign goods, such as water filters, flint and steel, used clothing, small fresnel lenses, fish and moskito nets, hand tools. If you have medical knowledge and medicine, you could become the local medicine man. And if you have a masochistic perosnality, you could become a whore or slave.



In a tropical country you need to be attentive to hygene a lot more than in a cold climate. You need to protect your skin, so scrapes and cuts have to be dealt with very quickly to avoid infections. If your skin is prone to sunburn, then you need to have good wide brim hats, long sleave shirts and pants to protect you from sun-burn and bug bites. The chance of getting an allergy to sun light from Doxycycline is about 3%.



Mercury poisoning from eating fish is mostly a risk for children. Sharks, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish contain a lot of mercury, while shrimp, canned light tuna, salmon, pollock, and catfish have a lot less. "For most people, the risk from mercury by eating fish and shellfish is not a health concern."

http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguidance/fishshellfish/outreach/advice_index.cfm



3) Rapid population growth



"The most populous islands are Efate, Espiritu Santo, and Malekula."

http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Asia-and-Oceania/Vanuatu-POPULATION.html



Any of those three islands would not be as good as some of the other 80 islands. In 2004 the Torres Islands in Vanuatu had a population of less than 1,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torres_Islands



Erromango covers 888 km² and in 2009 had a population of 1,950. The population density is about 2.2 people per square kilometre. The populus is contrite for the murder of John Williams, which happened in 1839! This could easily be turned to your favor if you moved there. You could claim to be a decendant of his and thus win their favor. Or perhaps just telling them he came to you in a dream and bade you to go and continue his good work, would be enough to have them believe almost

any thing you say.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafea_Province

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/83981 26.stm



Another island in Vanuatu with a population density of 2.2 people per square kilometre is Gaua. Most of the population is located on the coast. In the middle of the island is an active volcano, ringed by a large lake. May be it will catastrophically exploded some time soon, or it could long after we are all dead, or it could even become dormant or

extinct.



Kwakea could be even better. May be no one is living there now, so your risk of hostile locals is very low. It had plantations for decades, which means it most likely had, and may still have, a source of fresh water, and fertile land. Keep life vests and a sailboat or canoe ready, just in case you have leave in a hurry. "The only thing that remains is

the Whitford Family Cemetery."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwakea



4) Appreciation



Thanks Anonymous 7:41 AM, I knew you had to be alive.



Without the been-there-done-that crowd, the Vikings would never have gone to Greenland or Canada, and Age of Discovery would have been the Age of Staying Home. The Age of Staying at Home will take place later this century, exactly when is uncertain, so you better find a nice place to remain really soon. And if humans avoid extinction, there may be an Age of Rediscovery after that.



History books and autobiographies are two of the means that "the been-there-done-that crowd" have graciously bestowed their wisdom on the have-not-done-much-of-anything crowd, which is where the other crowd sprang out of. Wiki articles are the modern versions of such books. An important cavaet about "the been-there-done-that crowd", is that their experience can be extremely biased and outdated. That being noted, scanty, or even inaccurate information has been very useful, and likely

will be in the future. Several mutineers from the Bounty escaped the gallows by moving to Pitcairn Island. They got there because only the latitude of it was known at that time. Christopher Columbus greatly underestimated the circumference of the Earth and then went on to "discover" the New World. If Columbus, his crew, and his backers had known the real size back in 1491, none of them would ever have gone.