I began the "Back in the Day" thread with several reminiscences of my days in the New Hebrides fifty years ago. After we left there, Britain and France gave up their governance of the Islands to a selected group of native Islanders whose early act was to steal all the unused land owned by foreigners, including a suburban lot we'd bought for half a year's wages. I've kept an occasional interest in the place ever since.

It was in the news last week for suffering a nasty earth quake, and that event warrants giving the place its own thread in the "Rest of the World" forum. The earthquake killed 20 people and almost all of the offices and private houses in the capital (Port Vila) are reported to have been knocked over. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Port_Vila_earthquake . TV reporters from Australia and New Zealand have been interviewing natives who can speak English, but there aren't all that many of those. Most of the natives (on all the Islands) speak the local pidgin in public,and their respective native languages at home. In the '70s, the main island of Efate had 13 (count 'em!) separate native languages, and the villages on the other islands, two or three hundred. They almost certainly still do.

For those who delight in diplomatic idiocies, the New Hebrides was always good for a laugh. There were actually four legal codes in play - the British, the French, the joint British/French, and the "native code" composed by the British and French in tandem. In addition, the natives of the Islands had their own traditional unwritten laws - a separate one for each village, mostly. Foreign residents - i.e. not French, not British and not local natives - were obliged to choose between the French and the British. That obligation had never been tested until some time in the 1970s, when a US citizen and hopeful investor chose to be governed by the British code, only to fall out with the British officials and announce that he had changed his mind and would be bound by the French in future.We were working there at the time, but I really can't remember how the furore ended. I think the American threw up his hands, cancelled his proposed investment, and went back home!