With an interview with joint winner Leina Isno

VANUATU SOT SOT STORIAN 2024 FINALISTS

JOINT FIRST PLACE – OPEN

A Keloid Scar

by Leina Isno

 

I remembered when mama Ruby sighed,
the mighty keloid scar on my left shoulder had travelled,
from Lumeté to Port Vila, Wellington,
Melbourne, New York, Toronto, Tokyo, Dhaka, Apia, Bangkok.
The District School immunisation left a lifetime scar.
Mama Ruby’s Lumeté’s nimitmorit cream,
Aunt Janice’s Wintua’s aloe vera leaves,
Mamalapo Letran’s Bilyes fresh watercress,
Uncle Saiman’s Lorxwoi’s pale orange drink,
Pupu Louis’s Lai’emp’s natavoa bark medicine all helped the wound.
Papa Peter’s daily prayers and
Aunt Nevin Ross’s clinic dressings kept the flies away.
The saltwater bathing at the Nembagahu boulder burned.
It made me live to see this day.

Leina Isno was born in Port Vila and has lived in New Zealand for over twenty years. Currently, she is studying medicin at the University of Otago alongside being an International Health Delegate for the New Zealand Red Cross. She is fluent in Ninde from South West Bay, Malekula, and has strong connections to her Vanuatu people. One day she hopes to publish her children’s books. Leina was the joint winner of the inaugural Sot Sot Storian competition and has a new poem in the Landing Press anthology Now and Then (2024), as well as a micro-fiction piece forthcoming in He Moana O Reo / An Ocean of Languages.

JOINT FIRST PLACE – OPEN

Paran Ire (Woman of the Sea)

by Jodie Kapalu

 

io paran ire
ɨmait pa toh ieram iru
tahan kaka netgɨn iau
kaui io le tehe iekol nahuaak
ɨmipwɨr le nam ne nauta taha tehe
napang nouak ramauhte le tehe
le nian ieram nahak rinarup
karu nuvo le tehe toh tahak niuh
le nian ieram ɨmol niuh
karai io le nau asla, namwinelɨk tahan toh tahak nipɨwran
le nian ieram ɨmol niuh
ɨekaik le tehe,nɨgal rɨkɨs tahak nɨmakum
ɨekɨlu le nian
ɨekapiag malín nɨmonwi menuk
tahak nɨsipɨn ramselsel
kanipa kam io:
“nɨnipar”
“tɨnɨpasua toh taham narɨkan”
“mɨpamos nam kam nererum”
“rol mwealane kaha rɨmɨtukun ik lan”

I am a woman of the sea
born to someone from the Iru tribe
whose brother was named after the turtle
I was baptised in the sea to be seen as a church member
I grew up feeding on fish and the sea’s endless riches
salt a tasty constant in my diet
on the day my breasts budded
they drowned burao branches in the sea for my grass skirt
on the last day of my first bleeding
they cut me with sharp bamboo, the scars a mark of my maturity
on the last day of my first bleeding
they made me swim in the sea, its salt the balm for my wounds
my skin smooth and oily from coconut
dressed in my grass skirt, head adorned with chicken feathers
my face painting bright and glowing
they told me:
“you’re grown now”
“one day you’ll sail away to make your own living”
“you’ll catch fish on your own to feed your children”
“just like grandma taught you”

*Note: Iru is a tribe in West Tanna named after the mullet fish (ieram iru)

Jodie Kapalu is a 31-year-old married bookworm and mother of two who has dabbled in writing poems before, albeit only for therapeutic purposes. This piece written in natvaur (a West Tanna dialect) used the Lenakel Dictionary written by Professor John Lynch. It is my effort towards preserving the spoken and written form of the dialect.

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SECOND PLACE – OPEN

Blonde Hair

by Cathy Hite Sakumalefo

 

My blonde hair is not from dye nor is it genetic; it’s from bathing in the ocean. My island is hugged by the ocean, a tourist destination.

Adulthood: my blonde hair turned brunette. I don’t know why; I tried hair dye, but it’s not the natural beauty I cherish.

I returned to the island, but I couldn’t find the beach—the ocean hugged it tighter. I stood motionless; I saw a waetman and asked if he was a tourist. He replied, “No, I am a climate change guru.” I wept; my blonde hair gone. Should I buy dye or land?

Cathy Hite Sakumalefo joined the University of the South Pacific in August 2020 as Manager of the USP Community Legal Information Centre at Emalus Campus, Port Vila, Vanuatu. Previously, she had a successful career as a legal practitioner in the Solomon Islands, serving in various senior roles. Cathy founded the Stat lo Hom project, providing pro bono services, advocating for children and women’s rights, gender equality and awareness on family law.

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THIRD PLACE – OPEN

Freedom

by Polly Walker-Dorras

 

She sat watching the waves break on the shore. She felt an inner strength, like the force driving the waves forward. She’d finally left. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. So many times she’d tried, only to be reeled back in with false promises of change. But this time she’d stopped believing. She looked towards the horizon where it seemed the ocean met the sky and she felt free. Never again would he have power over her – never again would he make her feel small and useless. Standing up, she walked back home. The waves, like her troubles, crashing behind her.

Polly Walker-Dorras was born in Zimbabwe. She moved to Vanuatu with her family when she was four years old, and her parents founded Wan Smolbag Theatre. She studied law in Australia and worked as a lawyer there before moving back to Vanuatu in 2017 to work with the Vanuatu Australia Police and Justice Program. She has two children, Jeremiah (19) and Miley (6), and her partner Mike is from Ambrym.

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FIRST PLACE – YOUTH

The Ocean

by Mislin Wari

 

Far away in the deep ocean a floating plastic was wondering where he would end up. Even the ocean did not know where the floating plastic came from. The floating plastic asked the ocean if the ocean could help him to get back on land. Because plastic knows that ocean fish and reefs will not be clean, happy and healthy if plastic is there. Plastic is poisoning the ocean, and a lot of fish could die. The ocean made a big wave and swept the plastic to the land. Now the ocean was free.

Mislin Wari lives in Santo. She is 16 years old. She likes playing volleyball and likes to be alone in places where it’s quiet.

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Introducing Leina Isno

Leina Isno has been a New Zealand Red Cross Delegate for seven years and is currently pursuing her PhD at the Centre for International Health, University of Otago, in Ōtepoti Dunedin, where she is looking into finding a remedy for the bacterial disease scrub typhus that would benefit Vanuatu and communities globally. She has harboured dreams of writing for children for a long time but has struggled to find dedicated time to write alongside her studies. Her first non-fiction piece, a letter to her granddad, was published in Sista Stanap Strong! A Vanuatu Women’s Anthology (THWUP) in 2021. Leina addressed the importance of creative writing at her presentation at Te Tumu, the Centre for Indigenous Studies at Otago University last year. This is what she had to say:

Leina Isno (LI): Pacific communities are oral communities, we do not have any or very minimal documentation, especially in Vanuatu. For the last decade, I have gone on a journey wanting to know about my grandfather Isno Betep. I never met him. I have only heard my father infrequently talk about him, but I knew tracing my genealogy would be extremely important to my identity. That identity lies with the missionaries who came to South West Bay; the late Reverend Ian Taylor in Brisbane and Dr Mary Grace Whyte in Melbourne with her husband, the late Isaac Neilson Whyte, who held photos and stories about my grandfather. I heard that my grandfather was “their hands and feet in South West Bay.” He did everything for these missionaries. I travelled to the cities in Australia, searching the Queensland Archives to find stories, any stories that could help me understand my grandfather. I longed for his love, care, and respect but I also wanted to tell him about a very changed world. A world that he would have gasped to hear about if I’d proceeded to tell him about my international travels to maintain his memory and legacy.

Mikaela Nyman: Congratulations on being a joint winner in Vanuatu’s first microfiction competition, Leina! Your community in South West Bay, Malekula, was very excited to learn about your Sot Sot Storian competition win and also about your forthcoming work in the Landing Press anthology Now and then on the theme of ‘Generations’. Can you tell us a bit more?

LI: Thank you! In South West Bay we have an annual event called the Nalawane Cultural Festival between the villages of Lawa and Labo who host the two day event. It is supported by the Malampa Province and the Vanuatu Tourism Office in Port Vila. My parents were ecstatic to hear about my recent win for the Sot Sot Storian competition. They relayed the news to the whole village and the Bay area. My uncle Saiman and Arsen were over the moon for my win. They got on the phone to me and asked me to come home; they begged me to come back to South West Bay so I could write down the kastom (traditional) stories. They have so many stories to tell but no one to write them, because sadly, they cannot. They can only tell oral stories, and each story comes with a song and a dance. They have realised our stories are going to disappear if we don’t act now.

The Nalawane festival is the best time to engage in these cultural stories and revive our Ninde language again. They would like me to come home and record the stories in a book so we can save them for future generations. I told them that, sadly, I have no time at the moment. I have a PhD that is so heavy I cannot do any extra work. My father also begged me on the phone to come home and record the cultural stories because he enjoyed hearing me read my pieces to them. I translated them into Ninde so they would understand. They felt very empowered. And they were very surprised to hear that I will have my stories and poems about South West Bay published in books and that I even won prize money for one.

So that’s the feedback from my place in Vanuatu. Thank you for all that you are doing to support us writers. I will keep writing!

 

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Leina Isno was born in Port Vila and has lived in New Zealand for over twenty years. Currently, she is studying medicin at the University of Otago alongside being an International Health Delegate for the New Zealand Red Cross. She is fluent in Ninde from South West Bay, Malekula, and has strong connections to her Vanuatu people. One day she hopes to publish her children’s books. Leina was the joint winner of the inaugural Sot Sot Storian competition and has a new poem in the Landing Press anthology Now and Then (2024), as well as a micro-fiction piece forthcoming in He Moana O Reo / An Ocean of Languages.