The daily emails from Lance in Vanuatu.

Our friend Rina loves her job.  She is a cheerful soul, and works as a house girl. She did housework for her older white lady employer.  As the years rolled by her job morphed into cook and nurse. Then her now-frail employer eventually died, peacefully in her own bed in her own house.There's...

Last week I stopped at a gas station in Port Vila to get some fuel. I have been to this particular station before, but not regularly: probably less than once a year.In Vanuatu there are no self-serve fuel stations. I have not touched a bowser in 5 years. There is instead a small army of assistants...

Was talking with my wife this morning.Adeline was looking at the Australian news, and saying "We've been here in Vanuatu almost five years now. Until I look at the news I forget how crazy it was in Australia. How I was always checking myself in case I offended someone without realising...

Upfront Warning: This email may offend.It's about the reason why people don’t take action....They’re scared.That’s it. Nearly every excuse I hear has that simple – but powerful – feeling at its core.Fear of getting it wrong.Fear of inadvertently breaking the law.Fear of invoking government...

"My tenant is saying the water heater is not working and the plumber wants to charge a fortune to replace it. Can you help?"So went the conversation with an associate who is living in Australia for the moment. Her tenant in her house outside of Port Vila had reported that the gas water heater had...

When I was 5 years old, I went out to play on the verandah of our suburban Brisbane (Queensland Australia) house. There were two green snakes.Now from this distance I remember them as "big," but they were probably less than a metre long.My mother had taught me that snakes were bad, so I called...

Sometimes I get too enthusiastic, carried away talking about secondary residency and citizenship. Then someone brings me up with a bump and a question like, "Why would I want that?"Think about it: People cannot choose their place of birth and cannot control the consequences (good or bad) of being...

Almost every government around the world looks inept and heavy handed against the Coronavirus.Central bankers seem at their wit's end.Banks are sitting on trillions of dollars of losses, while regulators have actually asked the public ‘please do not withdraw your money.’And social cohesion has...

So yesterday I went to the Fedex office in Port Vila to pick up my monthly document delivery from a certain USA company (Settle LLC, if you've heard of them)I made a few extra unscheduled stops, so I was going to get to the Fedex place after 5pm on a Friday afternoon.Most places I was used to...

I have heard many horror stories about labyrinthine bureaucratic processes in connection with visas.In fact I was just reading an email about the processes for getting resident visas in Portugal. The writer went through a long list of options, requirements for each, and for whom each was...