I’d gotten off the bus too early, standing on the side of an apricot toned dusty road surrounded by scratching chickens and shyly smiling children, echoes of waves crashing in the distance. Mini vans will pick up and drop you off anywhere for a couple of dollars, usually pulsating to local reggaetón rhythms, abuzz with happy chatter, women with their vibrant alean dresses cradling laps full of fresh produce. It was exactly these colourful collages of fruits, vegetables and plants, grown in Vanuatu’s richly black volcanic soils, that had led me on this particular adventure. There on the side of the road in a small village just outside of ‘town’, Port Vila, I looked out over a soccer field where children roamed, washing swung in the salty breeze on tree branches, fresh papayas and coconuts tantalisingly hung overhead. To my right there was a small nakamal where some young men were drinking a shell (or three!) of kava. With a beaming smile, long dreadlocks and a frangipani nestled in his beard, one of them approached. “You are looking for Leisal? nambawan, follow me!” Many hours passed with ‘mama Leisal’, a respected elder in the community who was bemused by my curiosity for everything food and gardening, and appreciated an extra set of hands in the laborious process of making 'laplap'. The national dish is an adaptable recipe localised with the likes of root vegetables, banana, greens, freshly caught fish wrapped up in foraged leaves, baked into a pudding often in an earth oven or over white hot volcanic stones. “What you will learn here” she told me, her kind and intense deep brown eyes checking how serious I am about learning, “is that things taste better when we sweat and use our hands.” Finally eating the fruits of our labor was certainly a visceral experience; the sweetness of banana and freshly grated and hand squeezed coconut milk, the grounding earthy flavours in the yam and the ocean in the salt water splashed throughout. We were tasting the landscape, traditions, histories. Sitting with legs outstretched on woven mats, tired muscles, bellies full and a sleepy child laying across my lap, Leisal continued: “food is not just food for us, its about identity, our land, our kastom. It’s like the main menu of our culture! We need to holem tait, hold onto this knowledge. Now the climate is changing and people don’t realise what this does to our culture; our garden. These plants are out children too, our pikinini. Most of us don’t have these ATM cards… we know when cyclones come, we only have what’s growing in the ground.” A hush came over the women sitting with us, as we contemplated the weight of Leisal’s words, quietly nodding as we continued to chew the sticky, sweet, earthy, salty laplap. Noticing my head drop a little, her voice retained some of it’s vigor - “but!” she continued defiantly, “as they say, we are fighting not drowning.” This has become the battle cry for climate activists in the region. “And some of us mamas here in this village, we are fighting with food. We need to tell these stories, and pass on this ancestral knowledge to the young ones, and people around the world” Within this moment her sense of agency and defiance was infectious, her strong arms distributing the remaining laplap on various plates and leaves to be sent off to others in the community. I added, “yes and we must fight too, those of us in the countries that are causing the pollution that impacts on your beautiful foods and lifeways so embedded within the forest and your gardens!” Leisal not only shared with me these unique and emplaced food traditions. It suddenly dawned on me that climate change is not just a physical phenomenon, and food is not just calories. These kindred connections between people, plants, animals, foods are also threatened, and how will people in Vanuatu maintain their wellbeing without them? I returned to visit Haima and her family several times and an avocado tree was planted in my honour. In thanks, I too brought her a beloved orchid plant to add to her collection. “Don’t forget us and don’t forget what is happening here, keep growing your gardens – fighting with us… remember we always grow together.”