Meetings in Vanuatu

I feel like this is an important subject to talk about to get a little insight into Vanuatu culture. I don’t know, maybe I just never attended enough meetings when I was younger, but whenever I attend a meeting here, I am struck by its orderliness.

First off before every meeting the secretary writes the Order of the Day on the blackboard. It looks something like this:

1. Prayer
2. Welcome
3. Roll Call
4. Order of the Day
5. Last Minute
6. Matters Arising
7. Other Business
8. Announcements
9. Prayer

These meetings aren’t big ordeals (in my opinion). Sometimes there may only be 4 people in attendance, but still It must follow this format. The Chairman and Secretary sit in the front. When we get to Matters Arising, in order to decide anything even like “Alyssa will do a workshop on Friday” there needs to be someone to make a motion: “I move that Alyssa will do a workshop…”. Then someone will Second the motion. Lastly they will ask the house to say “yes” or “hemia nao” (roughly translated as “that’s what I’m talking about.”) if they agree. Only after that can we move on.

Meetings (which undoubtedly start late due to Black Man Time as opposed to White Man Time which means On Time) always run past 2 hours. Sometimes there’s only one thing on the agenda, but people like to talk and restate the same ideas. I tend to sit down with my notebook and write down one o a million plans I have for when I leave Vanuatu. In all the meetings I’ve attended, I’ve yet to make a motion.

I don’t know about other places, but all the meeting I’d been to, we’d never done that, but I’m sure one day these formalities will come in handy. The thing I see in Vanuatu is that once they find a system that works for them, they tend to sticvk with it and are very hesitant to change it.