Even an island paradise can use a little sprucing up now and then especially when visitors are expected. And in this case, it's not just a few visitors - there's going to be thousands of them. When the international cruise line P&O started visiting the tiny island of Wala in Vanuatu, it seemed as if a vein of gold had been opened.
Each time a ship visits, Wala islanders are supposed to get the lion's share of anchorage and landing fees amounting to thousands of dollars and there's money to be made from trinkets, souvenirs, and what's reputedly the best intoxicating brew in the whole Pacific. What's more - Australian aid, through AusAID, has put in more than $800,000 to help improve facilities on Wala and two other islands that P&O Cruises visit. So today, Wala has a cyclone-proof, Aussie-built public toilet block, with running water and septic system - for tourist use only, of course.
KAMI MALILI, ISLAND LEADER: This toilet was built last year.
It's an irony that doesn't escape island leader Kami Malili.
KAMI MALILI: The foreigners use this toilet.
REPORTER: Built by foreigners for the use of foreigners?
KAMI MALILI: Yes. We would like to have one like this for our community.
By some estimates, Wala's five communities should have raked in around $500,000 from cruise ships. While showing off the island's pristine attractions, Kami says islanders had hoped that that sort of money would bring improvements to everyone's lives.
KAMI MALILI: The first thing we want is good health in these villages and electricity and water, and a good toilet in every house.
But over 10 years, the only evidence of development is the basic water system beside the graveyard - and that only supplies the tourist toilets on the waterfront.
KAMI MALILI: From the start of the cruise ships, the money has not been used properly. One chief says "Okay," and the other chiefs, and then okay, another committee, that's another one. Not a proper person to use the money.
For all the dreams, the tourist dollar has changed island life barely at all.
KAMI MALILI: This is where I live... This is my house, and I have two sons that stay with me, and I have nine grandchildren. House for sleeping here, and this is the kitchen with my wife and inside for cooking. And this is the rest room that we can heat inside. Yeah, it's a tiny room.
Like Kami's family, three generations usually share a little compound. They collect rainwater. There's no gas to cook with. Some have small generators but often no fuel. Most get by with a couple of cheap, portable solar lights. Kami reckons that, if the tourists can have nice public toilets, then it's probably time the villagers did too.
KAMI MALILI: It's good to have a tourist toilet and the community toilet will be the same.
REPORTER: So you want some community toilets - same sort of thing?
KAMI MALILI: Same sort of thing, like the tourists have.
REPORTER: And maybe with showers as well?
KAMI MALILI: Shower inside also.
REPORTER: So, public health system?
KAMI MALILI: Public health system. So you have good toilet, good health for everyone.
So what happened to the money from the cruise ships and all the improvements that people hoped for? It's a question islanders have trouble answering. Flavian Lelekte and his wife run one of the many of the little stalls that open when a ship arrives. As a young island chief, he's part of a new committee set up to find out just what's gone wrong.
MAN: Keep the change.
CHILD: Thank you.
MAN: That's OK.
REPORTER: Where is the money now?
FLAVIAN LELEKTE: I don't know, maybe someone stealing, or maybe... I don't know because I am always here. Maybe someone left here and went to Vila, going to an office... but it's missing.
REPORTER: And took your money?
FLAVIAN LELEKTE: Yes.
REPORTER: Who do you think this was?
FLAVIAN LELEKTE: Maybe some people.
REPORTER: Do you not want to say? You don't want to use anybody's name?
FLAVIAN LELEKTE: Yes. By using a special kind of magic, the boys collect the leaves...
The fact is, tourism dollars have driven division, distrust and dishonesty with a group of mainly subsistence farmers with no experience dealing with cash flow.
REPORTER: Are there lots of arguments about who has money and where it is and who should spend it?
FLAVIAN LELEKTE: Oh, yes. Of course.
JEAN-EVE MALERE (Translation): I can't say.
REPORTER: You don't know?
JEAN-EVE MALERE (Translation): No, I don't, I don't know, so I can't say.
Jean-Eve Malere heads the new tourist committee that hopes to discover how much has been squandered, and how much stolen.
JEAN-EVE MALERE (Translation): The financial reports from 2004-2012 have never been published. That is why I can't say anything about the previous committee.
The sad truth is that Wala's woes are a microcosm of the nation. While Vanuatu clings tenaciously to its cultural integrity, there's little integrity in public life. Politicians have even stooped to black magic to bring down opponents. Meanwhile, ineptitude, cronyism and out-and-out corruption runs so deep that even recently elected Prime Minister Moana Carcasses admits it's endemic.
MOANA CARCASSES, PRIME MINISTER: People used to say that the politicians were corrupt. Now, it's everywhere. The civil servants are corrupt. Everyone is corrupted.
REPORTER: Why?
MOANA CARCASSES: I don't know. I guess people were not punished. My government will make sure that whoever breaks the law - if you are caught, you are going to go to court, and you're going to be punished.
REPORTER: Does that apply to ministers, government officials?
MOANA CARCASSES: Everyone. And also the one who bring the profits, the private sector.
From the impoverished outer islands to Efate, and the capital, Port Vila it's where the money and the power lies in Vanuatu. It's also where you look for answers about what went wrong.
REPORTER: So this is...?
SETHY REGENVANU: This is Walter Lini, the first prime minister and on his right is me, the first Minister of Land.
REPORTER: Memories of hope?
SETHY REGENVANU: Exactly!
Sethy Regenvanu was one of the leaders who fought French and British colonialism to win independence in 1980 for what was then the New Hebrides.
SETHY REGENVANU: The government, from independence up to 12 years, was a very good government.
REPORTER: 12 good years?
SETHY REGENVANU: 12 good years.
REPORTER: What's happened since then?
SETHY REGENVANU: I think what has happened was that the people who did not share the belief that we had, who weren't a party to that drive that we had, came into play. And they saw the opportunities that were before them as an independent country, and they wanted to maximise the opportunity for their own personal benefit, and so on.
Here in Tassiriki, an upscale suburb of the capital, is a good example of what Sethy Regenvanu is talking about. A former government minister issued prime waterfront leases to favourite members of his department at knockdown prices, and never a thought for the villagers who live around such prime sites.
SETHY REGENVANU: They become vulnerable to outside manipulation, business interests. But today, I think the outsiders have exploited personal-private industry extended. People no longer pursue the interests of the nation and the people of this country as they should, in my view.
The Prime Minister may have promised to clean up the act, but many say they've given up expecting anything at all of their government. They feel Vanuatu is now just a marketplace for the highest bidders - over the counter, or under it and the buyers are all foreigners - Chinese, Australians, anyone but islanders.
BARNABAS TABI, PREACHER: That will give power to all our communities to work together to build this nation, Vanuatu. At this time, I want to set us all a challenge.
There is evidence that some islanders, at least, are trying to seize back control of their future. Barnabas Tabi is in Port Vila to preach islander self-reliance, and to encourage indigenous business development. To see what Barnabas is trying to achieve, I sail 130 sea miles north from Port Vila to his rain-shrouded home island of Pentecost. Government plans for a port or jetty to serve the islanders have come to naught and the ferry service is expensive and unreliable. The hand-carried cement bags are for Barnabas, to be hauled up a mountain through the jungle to build a dream.
Barnabas has spent decades persuading isolated villagers to resettle on the roadside - the core of the little city he can so clearly envisage.
BARNABAS TABI: There's one of us up here, on my left. There's a school here, where kids come to school.
You need a pretty bold imagination to keep up with him. Instead of the shattered track, imagine a thriving regional centre bustling with business from all the nearby islands, no longer dependent on Port Vila for goods and services. It's what Barnabas has in mind.
BARNABAS TABI: 18 offices, we are going to have 18 offices here and this system here will be the governing system.
REPORTER: When will it open?
BARNABAS TABI: Hopefully maybe some time this year, the end of this year. And the system we're going to set up is that we start from down the bottom, then up to the top.
REPORTER: Bottom up?
BARNABAS TABI: Bottom up. Because the government now is setting up administration from the top to the bottom, but I see that it can't work, because we've been independent for 33 years, and nothing happened for the rural people.
To kick-start the whole project and encourage small business, Barnabas launched the nation's first microfinance cooperative.
BARNABAS TABI: This is the place where people come and do their banking. This is the financial institution. Now at the moment, we have more than 1,000 members. We find it very difficult for local people to do banking with the local banks here, because their policies are too hard for Nivans to follow. They find it difficult, so we start off with things that are very easy for anyone to do banking here.
The first loan went to a grower of Pentecost kava root - the island's major export. It's on its way to Port Vila, where the grower - Noel Malang - has invested the loan into one of the capital's most popular kava bars.
NOEL MALANG (Translation): I think he has done a good thing, it is very good because for all of us farmers or people from Pentecost, he is the first man we have seen who has emerged to help us with the small things we do. So we support him. We fully support what he says.
Noel's wife and daughter are now a part of the business. The loan has been repaid, and the profits go back to Pentecost. These are small beginnings indeed, but Vanuatu needs to start somewhere if it's going to build an economy that no longer relies on foreign aid. It's an approach that gives hope to leaders old and new.
SETHY REGENVANU: I like the message. I like the message. He needs support.
MOANA CARCASSES: Don't wait for the government. That famous quote from JFK, you know? "Don't ask what the government can do for you, but ask what you can do for your government." I'm glad that this person understands that.
Back on Wala, islanders are trying to take the future into their own hands. There's hope yet, but the hard-earned tourist dollar may bring them the things they need, like a little primary school, so children don't spend their first years crossing the water every day. Meanwhile, when the tourists have returned to their ships, the doors to the island's pride and joy - its toilet block - are locked until the next foreign invasion.
ANJALI RAO: Peter George, and Vanuatu's quest to the back on track - that's if the new Prime Minister can deal with the rampant corruption. We believe that is the first Dateline story to be edited on board a yacht. On our website, you'll find photos of Jessica George toiling away to assemble the story below deck. There are more stories from Vanuatu online, including shunning the traditional economy, and using pig tusks as their currency.
Reporter/Camera
PETER GEORGE
Producers
ASHLEY SMITH
GEOFF PARISH
Translations
KIRK HUFFMAN
Editor
JESSICA GEORGE
Original Music Composed by
VICKI HANSEN