For the first time in many years, on the little island of Motalava in Vanuatu, a new song will be composed in the island's ancestors’ language, the language of god Quat, and become part of the island’s repertoire. The Poet’s Salary tells of the daily life of ethnographers while doing fieldwork, through a vivid and colourful account of the mutual exchanges between the people of Motalava and ethnolinguist Alexandre Francois and ethnomusicologist Monika Stern .