2nd Place Youth: Lina’s Luganville

By Noah Westra

Lina stood in Luganville market. Bislama mixed with French and English wisping and swirling together. A singlet-wearing tourist asked for traditional food but grimaced at the sight of laplap. Lina smiled. She remembered her cousin wearing jeans and a Tupac t-shirt circling around custom dance at the festival last week. This is Vanuatu now, where custom and modern rhythms thumped the same beats. Her uncle grumbled about youth forgetting old customs, but even he uses Messenger to reach family members on outlying islands. When a Chinese shopkeeper presented her with a sweet dumpling, Lina smiled and accepted it, laughing at the bizarre yet tasty union. Identity here wasn't one thing; it was multiple things like her mat; robust, colourful, changing with every new strand but still distinctly Vanuatu.

Noah Westra is an Australian male who grew up in Scotland. He currently lives on Aore and enjoys playing with his dogs, working out and swimming.