Tourists - The Temporary Immigrants

"Jacob, I fucking hate that hat," my girlfriend Phoebe said, waterfalls bubbling to her eyes. She bled from embarrassment, sick of the head bruise, uncomfortable swimwear and anxiety of cultural appropriation in Efate's circumnavigation of machetes, passing wedding celebrations and a lunch that felt too much like home.

"What? That's it?!" I laughed. She sobbed. I outstretched my arms to hug her. A gesture like Dad's invitation for her to come with the family in celebration for a 30th and 60th birthday. Thankfully, Phoebe and I were offered love in a separate hut from Mum and Dad. Phoebe palmed off her tears in regrets. The earlier waterfalls felt like a dare, like the Vanuatu trip. After two months of a relationship, we were tourists in another country. A backpack burden of her bruise weighed on the conversation on my head. Not my first rodeo, I wore the Vanuatu cap supplanting a bruise. It read, "Vanuatu" in the national colours of the flag that to any colonised context may read as childish. Grins escaped me as Phoebe was visibly concerned and confused as I wished to hug her confusion. I understood sandy grumps but this conversation offered some context to her frowns.

Phoebe's eyes were beach shores, tears banked by sand from conversation, sad in the evening light with uncertain hue. Phoebe and I had toured Efate earlier but opted to be around Mum and Dad, they'd been here before. Mum asked Dad not to jump off a bridge into a waterfall's pool, but I did. Dad followed some time after, prompting a defeated look from my Mum. Phoebe shimmered with a similar look about the Hat of Complaints. In that moment I could have wondered if the fresh fish in the crashing wakes of a true blue lunch of frozen fish were as upset as Phoebe and Mum were of me and Dad. At least Mum told Dad off immediately, but Phoebe was stubbornly quiet during the day.

For a quick history lesson, the people of Vanuatu have culture.

No shit Jacob.

Vanuatu was declared independent on July 30, 1980, known as New Hebrides previously with multiple colonisers mapping the area in a colonial crucible of French, Portuguese and English charts given to the Ni-Vanuatu - Vanuatu's citizens. Predominantly Protestant, Vanuatu claims to be the happiest place of all and yet it's located in islands that could easily be swamped by skyscrapers of tsunamis should culture rise up to swallow it. The museum of Efate is a combination effort of a continued presence of Australians as I raised an eyebrow in confusion hearing the language of my country's music through the percussive melodies of a museum display. The Melanesian and Lapita histories of the 83 islands of Vanuatu are in part helped by the efforts of Captain Cook, oddly acknowledged as a man who helped the Ni-Vanuatu find their place in the world and keep their art so that children may learn the culture. Despite these points, the museum takes stairs of effort, eyes of education and values of criminal justice to read between the lines of, "Save the ocean," amongst other less palatable displays for regular tourists.

I'm a tourist.

I grin everywhere to all brothers and sisters who may grin and wave back, their declaration of independence towards my simpering British-Australian habits.

I'm an Australian. The burden I wear is a tourist sensibility as I swim from person to person with switching caps. I've been around laughter to think it was about me, but I'm the tourist who smiles. I smile as kids talk in machetes to their parents, both with spirituality on their heads in white, red and blue. No hats and no worries. I might hear the Northern waters of Efate but don't see the camaraderie. It's all anxiety and problems we want to share as I laugh and grin to a "Brisbane music scene," lamentation at a live music gig. Grinning is an expensive risk for a tourist like myself, but it's because I confront a colonial beast who smiles with shark teeth. The sharks love their Jaws of shark mechanics, finding every flaw and highlighting those instead. I grin even if a bigger fish of intelligence claims to usurp my sensitivity. I'm "bro" to my nephews, as I hear other tourists like myself barely touch sculptures of museums made for me. I'm an Australian tourist of my own country.

I'm a tourist, so if I shop around...

One cap shows an Australian man castled by double brick and 'sovereignty' to call his insurance company without seeing the eyes of his insurance premium.

Another cap is a much older man who sits on the side of his bed, almost about to drop from fuel prices.

The tricolour, primary cap is a packet of Tiny Teddies who brick over time in a mouldy cupboard as picnic baskets materialise in Australian kitchens of Yogi's and Boo-Boos. Why the fuck do we have bears in Australia?

Readers are tourists too. You're the immigrant to my Australian story and allegedly enough to be considered a threat. My thinly veiled insurance or border security is "privilege" and it'll ignore you or its off to an Australian prison for you tourist! The bike you rode on was going 12km/hr in a bike zone and you took the red pill, which is actually blue and not given to teenagers. Pills? Bikes? What the fuck Jacob?

I'm defending my selfishness like everyone else does. Maybe I do bite harder with the Queen's English of grandmothers who tutored me to arrogantly profess with pride and prejudice. "My words... you peasant," I could say and lock these words behind a paywall or membership for some poor bugger of a friend or family member to ask, "Where you talking about me?"

No I wasn't, but now I am!

You read this as I write on Easter Sunday, the Lord's day. Phoebe slept for hours just to wake up and tell me not to publish the part about the tiny teddies but laughed about the hat. I'm compliant and do everything my partner tells me to. I also swim off to jokes and stories, the bait I'll appropriate with a meaty gulp so the other fish see the hook of the bloke who sped into a winding frenzy for a naked fishing rod. No violence here for those fish sorry mate, I'll eat that beating as a fish fed on Looney Tunes, Monty Python and my maternal Grandad's Mongolian Racing Duck. As a good Christian tourist who values life, if you joke about the wrong struggle I'll warn you that I'll write again. Harder.