tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11265657630321250962024-03-14T03:31:33.087-07:00Hopeful TravelerRachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-24661459918350857532010-11-16T22:15:00.000-08:002010-11-16T23:04:28.926-08:00A Tale of Custom, Commerce, and Crossing Cultures<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWLfKDgNbktt2-ItSiwoUCpxhZtSvj4M8qVSMGGU7Fgtg5wUUnBhqKU2KVYpXjcJC0sEEIHXGgly97g9_mZOIvdBYHyuJt7uzb03oLMdYzVnJ8Xxofn2Xwd5Yiq0eMENeqJjXDtB5Qfrtl/s1600/mats+outside.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540399053738993794" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWLfKDgNbktt2-ItSiwoUCpxhZtSvj4M8qVSMGGU7Fgtg5wUUnBhqKU2KVYpXjcJC0sEEIHXGgly97g9_mZOIvdBYHyuJt7uzb03oLMdYzVnJ8Xxofn2Xwd5Yiq0eMENeqJjXDtB5Qfrtl/s320/mats+outside.JPG" border="0" /></a> Here is a story that, to me, is wonderfully representative of what life in Vanuatu is like, of what can happen because of cross-cultural communication and its limitations.<br /><br />Ed and Beth moved into a house in Lolowai during my second year as a volunteer and part of their decorations was a large custom mat dyed a beautiful shade of aqua. It reminded me of the water in Vanuatu and I had never seen another one like it. Apparently, the only women on Ambae who use that particular color dye are those in Lovunvili and the villages around it. I decided to find one of the mamas and ask her to weave 3 small mats for me, dyed that gorgeous aqua color, as mementos. It took several phone calls to find her phone number but eventually Mrs. Rosaline agreed to weave me three small mats, dyed blue, for 3000 VT (about $30).<br /><br />Approximately one week later, she called me to say that she didn't have enough of the blue dye to do all three mats. Fortuitously, I was in Santo where I could buy another small container of dye for her to use to finish the job. I told her I would buy the dye and deliver it to her when I got back.<br /><br />The day after I returned to Saratamata, Mrs. Rosaline appears in the office carrying a bundle of mats. They are purple, red, and dark teal. We share some small chit chat and then she hands me the mats. I open them up to admire them, hoping that they are just exhibits to show me what my mats will eventually look like, and that she has really come to pick up the dye. But no, the purple, red, and teal mats are for me, the ones I ordered. She did not wait for the additional blue dye but went ahead and used other colors. This was not what I wanted. These mats will not match my other house decorations.<br /><br />We unroll the mats and Mrs. Rosaline, one of the few women who still know the custom stories that go along with the custom crafts, proceeds to explain the designs on the mats--designs she chose especially for me. The squared off spirals represent the moon, a feminine symbol, and its light. Its light is gentle, giving light through the darkness so that people are not afraid in the night. (It gets better.) She chose the symbol of orchids as another pattern for the mat, also a symbol unique to women's mats. The orchids represent how women move to new places. Like the orchid that appears unexpectedly in the branch of the trees, women join their husbands in his village, and surprise everyone because no one saw how they arrived or where they came from. She said that I was like an orchid that appeared on Ambae and now I was going back to my home. And the pattern of weaving at the ends of the mat represents two people coming together, traditionally a man and woman, but in this case it shows the two cultures of America and Vanuatu coming together. The smaller holes are footprints that show the customs or the "fashion" of each culture and are how people follow behind in our "fashion."<br /><br />I was crying by the end. This beautiful, wise-in-custom woman presents me with three mats-- three mats that I am paying for and that are not what I wanted--and tells me the cultural stories behind the symbols and the sentiment she put into them . . . . and what can I do. I cry a little, I say thank you over and over, and I pay for them.<br /><br />Shortly after she leaves, two of my colleagues in the office sit down with me. They ask to hear the custom stories Mrs. Rosaline told me because they don't know what the symbols mean. That knowledge is being lost. We storian for a little while and they too share some custom stories with me. Michael tells me that when he was growing up (he's probably in his 40s now), all of the custom mats were red. The color came from a particular vine that had to be dried and boiled and skinned and processed ad nauseum before it could be used. Now, the mamas are able to buy different color dyes at the stores so the red is usually store bought. Purple is the next most popular color for custom mats on Ambae. The blue ones are unique to south Ambae and they are using blue mats for their custom ceremonies and for custom dances. Krenny told me that the ends of my three mats should be yellow to be truly traditional and more beautiful. (Thank goodness Mrs. Rosaline did not feel that was necessary. I like the natural color.) The yellow color comes from a root that is a cousin of ginger and is bright orange when you break it open or grate it.<br /><br />Then Michael told me the custom story that helps explain why custom mats are such an important part of Ambae's traditions. The volcano on Ambae, Manaro, is depicted as a god in most custom stories. In this story, a man falls in love with Manaro's daughter. She agrees to marry him so the volcano gives her to the man. At the same time he gives her three seeds--a natangura seed, a seed for a smaller palm that has wide round leaves, and a pandanus seed. The natangura seed is for the palm tree whose leaves they use to weave the custom roofs. This seed would provide them with shelter and safety. The second palm seed is called an "umbrella plant" here because of the size and shape of the leaves. When the sun is strong, we can hide under the leaves, and when the rain is raining, we can hide under them (translated from the Bislama). Finally, the pandanus seed would provide them with the materials they needed to weave custom mats for sleeping, for births, for deaths, for marriages, for chiefly ceremonies, for gifts. Today, a bride's uncles and aunts still present her with these three seeds after her marriage. Pretty cool, huh?<br /><br />At the end of the day, I ended up with some amazing custom stories, great storian time with my co-workers, and three beautiful customs mats that will not match with my American decor. All for $30. Money well spent when you look at it the right way.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2lR1kqeZRG7X2TqKs0hB79GOJBZKoi7w8XFQyOVP_TXtGAPgpwQjkiCQXqmJ3ZFBDVsmIT8aO0ijESS5Y66kv30k4TAyOWnCbT4ACIuiFc0k6y0FRP-OnA-ey74lY0MiRiNJFirVAIZNy/s1600/mats+inside.JPG"></a>Tomorrow, if I can get the necessary pictures to download correctly, I will post another mat story of similar beauty and tragedy. Tomorrow's will be funny as well. At least that's how I'm choosing to look at it. :)Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-54345776373809290992010-10-25T14:38:00.000-07:002010-10-25T15:13:43.193-07:00Luganville, one last timeI am in Luganville, Santo, for the last time. Ostensibly, the purpose is a kindy conference. You may remember a similar post coming from Luganville about a year ago when I was waiting to find out where I was staying and when I was going to do my presentation. This is the same conference, and it is proving to be just as unorganized. However, it proved to be a great opportunity to take a last trip and get away from Ambae for just a little while. <br /><br />The first part of my trip to Santo was spent with Karen, Mariann, and her husband Vic in Port Olry (close to Champagne Beach if you want to look it up on the internet). It rained the whole drive up there and the whole afternoon and night but it was great. The beach was still beautiful and I ended up sleeping most of the afternoon and about 10 hours again that night. Apparenlty, getting ready to leave Ambae has been more exhausting than I realized. The sun shone long enough for me to get a sunburn, we ate dinner at a restaurant that cooked island food with a Western twist, read books, walked along the beach, swam at Champagne and just had a restful weekend.<br /><br />My presentations (two) are supposed to happen today and my time has been cut about in half. I'm not entirely sorry. And I'm hoping that the participants today will understand the purpose of Vision/Mission statements more quickly than my earlier workshop attendees. These guys are the coordinators for the 6 provinces in Vanuatu so they're more familiar with abstract concepts than the kindy teachers who are mostly untrained. For the local teachers, writing Vision and Mission statements proved to be a considerable challenge.<br /><br />Once the workshop is finished, all that remains is to visit with my family who are here. My sister-in-law and niece, Clarissa, are both here. Monique is waiting to start work at a new Tusker beer factory opening in Luganville. She and my brother need money to finish their house and to pay the bride price, which has gone up now because they have a child. She has been here a couple of weeks but the factory still isn't open. My brother Demie came last week to start a job at a resort. He just finished the first of a two year course in hospitality and tourism at the local technical school. The teachers had set up practical job experience for them once the course was finished but Demie figured why wait. He asked about working and gaining some experience during the summer spel (now) so he was placed at a restaurant/bar/hotel here in Luganville. I haven't seen him yet to get the update but I was proud of him for pursuing the opportunity. And my oldest sister, Jenny, lives here with her husband and two children. We only just met a few months ago when she came to Ambae for a visit, but I'm looking forward to seeing her again.<br /><br />The week before my Santo trip, I had several visitors who added considerably to the stress of that week. The new trainees arrived in September and have been in training on Efate until last week. There was a mass exodus of trainees from their training villages to the outer islands to get a look at what someplace else in Vanuatu is like. There were rumors that Peace Corps sent trainees to the sites that PC had in mind as their permanent placement, but it's just rumor at this point. Neill seemed to like Saratamata and East Ambae but it was quite tiring to be the tour guide for 4 days. When other volunteers visit, there's no pressure to be "up." They usually just want to hide in the house, buy things at the store that they can't get in their village, and watch movies. Trainees need to be shown the ropes, introduced to everyone you pass, acquainted with the work you are doing, had hoped to do, or would have done if you'd had more time. And they have questions, lots and lots of questions. Thankfully, Sheridan and Justin arrived right in the middle of Neill's visit on their way out of Vanuatu for good and they helped with answering Neill's questions. I think it was probably a great chance for Neill too since Sheridan and Justin live in a very different place than me and have had a much different experience. So Neill got the benefit of a town-girl and country-couple stories.<br /><br />I also got to see Sandy from Maewo for a few minutes before she, Sheridan and Justin got on the plane to Vila. However, Sandy's Maewo host family was not content to say good-bye to her on the sandbeach by their village like Sheridan and Justin's families. Seven of Sandy's family members came to Ambae to put her on the plane. It was heart wrenching to see them say good-bye to her. Sheridan said it feels like you are dying; that the village and your family mourn you as if you're dead. I saw evidence of that with Sandy's family and it gave me an indication of what my own good-byes are going to feel like. <br /><br />My last two weeks on Ambae will be spent at my host family's house. I was/am not looking forward to the long drop toilet again and swimming (i.e. bathing) in the saltwater, but it felt important to be back for a while. I will have come full circle, in a sense. And because it is difficult to visit with my family during the work week but stay in my house in Saratamata, staying with them in Vatumamea will give us lots of time for visiting in the evenings. I still plan to go to the office each day and have lunch at my house. This way I can finish packing and tidy up at the office and not have TOO much downtime in Vatumamea--those first months of idleness and crossword puzzles are still too raw a memory for me to want to that again. But we'll have the evenings and weekends for going to the garden and storian. I think it will also help me feel that this is really ending. <br /><br />I've been working on a couple of lists. As I keep going back and forth from ready to go to wishing I could stay a little longer, excited to go home and sorry to leave, irritated by some part of life here but worried about readjusting to being home, I decided to write some of it down. So I ended up with a couple of lists that help to summarize some of the back and forths of this transition time. The headings are self-explanatory.<br /><br /><u>Things I won’t have to do anymore</u>:<br />--wash all of my laundry by hand<br />--burn my trash<br />--tie a lavalava over my knee-length shorts so I’m “clothed” enough to go to the store<br />--use a toothbrush to scrub the dirt off of my feet<br />--check each morning to see if the water is running<br />--try to sleep through the chickens crowing and clucking at 3:30 in the morning<br />--use basins and colanders and tins to hide every possible item that might be of interest to rats<br />--go without eggs or meat or telephone credit because the ship hasn’t come in a while<br />--go without vegetables because the mamas didn’t come to the market house this week<br />--sweep the ceilings for cobwebs every time I sweep the floor for dirt<br />--lay awake most of the night because it’s too hot to sleep<br />--listen with a smile as ladies tell me I’ve gotten “fatfat” (not an insult here in Vanuatu, just statement<br />of fact)<br /><br /><br /><u>Things I won’t be able to do anymore</u>:<br />--go to work without looking in the mirror<br />--be “well dressed” if what I’m wearing is clean<br />--live 2 minutes’ walk from the ocean or hear it as part of the background all night<br />--eat mangos and pineapples straight from the tree or plant<br />--smile and say “good morning” to everyone I see<br />--choose to take an afternoon off from work and spend it reading a book or taking a nap<br />--get enough sleep so I can go through my days without yawning and without getting sick<br />--spend $20 and eat for a whole week<br />--be accepted and welcomed by people simply because I took the time to chat, because I tried<br />something new, because I participated in an activity<br />--feel like a good hostess just because I have an extra mattress and towel for a guest<br />--change my plane ticket the day before my flight without paying any fees or penalties<br />--get my take-away food in an environmentally friendly, totally biodegradable leaf<br /><br /><br /><u>Things I’ve learned how to do or learned how to do better</u>:<br />--cook <br />--improvise <br />--do without <br />--enjoy the little things—rainbows over Maewo, an unexpected chat with a friend, macaroni and<br />cheese, cucumbers at the market, a rare breeze<br />--be idle . . . truly idle<br />--walk on muddy roads without flipping too much dirt up onto my skirt<br />--walk on bush roads without tripping over every root or stone<br />--approach babies and small children who are not used to white faces without making them cry<br />--stand up, kneel down, and sit at the correct times in an Anglican church service<br />--make laplap and roll island cabbage leaves to make simboro<br /><br />If time allows, there will be one more post from Vanuatu within the next few weeks. And then it's off to SE Asia. Miss you all and SEE YOU SOON!Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-595038286090346402010-10-13T18:10:00.000-07:002010-10-13T18:31:08.573-07:00Home StretchMy time on Ambae is drawing to a close and my emotions are . . . all-about. Within five minutes, my attitude can change from “If there was a plane leaving now and I could get on it, I would. In a second.” to “How can I be leaving already? How am I going to say good-bye?” It’s exhausting. I could maybe describe the experience as bi-polar . . . . . dichotic? . . . . intense in its opposing natures?<br /><br />The experience has been long at times and short at others. It has been incredibly frustrating and extremely rewarding, sometimes at the exact same moment. Two years of boredom have also been two years of new experiences. It’s hard to reconcile all of that in one sitting. As soon as I commit one comment to writing, an opposing or qualifying statement has to be added. There are things I will miss and things I will be glad to escape. I am looking forward to being back at home, close to family and friends again, but I know there will lows in the months before a new job or grad school begins. My thoughts go around and around. I’m sad to be leaving, and I’m grateful that I do feel sad because there was a long while when it was just hard to be here. It’s going to be hard to say good-bye but I am so looking forward to saying hello again to people at home. This has just been a very complete, multi-faceted experience. And the more I think about it, the more I think that, as personal therapy perhaps, I’ll be continuing the blog for a while. There are so many things, little things, that have happened that were pushed aside by bigger events for the blog that I’d like to do some reflecting and remember even after I’m back. The nice thing about a blog is that, once it’s out there, it’s in your hands whether you want to continue with me. No pressure.<br /><br />Here’s a little glimpse of life that normally wouldn’t make it into my blog. There is a cement water tank attached to the corner of my house. It is quite large, especially for one person, so lots of people in my community make use of the water. We use it for cooking and drinking, some of the men use it for cleaning and preparing kava, if the running water is turned off we use the tank water for washing too. But these last few months have been the dry season, and the water level in my tank has been dropping lower and lower. The water trickles instead of pours into the waiting kettle, bucket, or jug. I hear people come to the tank at night—to avoid detection or because they just thought about it, I don’t know—but they are filling buckets, big ones. And I fret. However, my tank continues to provide. At night, a small rain will fall and it is just enough to provide water for that day. It makes me think of the Bible story--Elijah, or was it Elisha, and the widow with her never ending oil and flour. I remind myself that there are other water tanks in Saratamata, but word goes out that they are emptying too and that is why more people are coming to my tank. But the last two days have been rainy, very rainy, and in 48 hours my tank is full to overflowing and the worry recedes. Cabbage leaves stand up again and the lone pineapple in my garden has had a growth spurt. Just like that. It's beautiful.<br /><br /><br />Here are my plans for leaving Ambae and Vanuatu, just so you know.<br />Last day on Ambae—November 12<br />Last day in Vanuatu—November 20<br />Traveling in Thailand, Cambodia, Taiwan until December 12<br />Arriving home--December 13<br /><br />There is a lot to do before leaving so I haven’t had much time to enjoy all the possibilities of going to SE Asia, but I’m working on the to-do list. There are reports to write, grad school essays to complete, last kakaes (good-bye dinners) to schedule, and a house to pack. Most of my belongings will be given away or sold so I’ve been making piles all over my house—things to give to people, things to sell, things to mail home fast road (expensive but safer), things to mail home slow road (3-4 months but cheaper), things to carry with me on my travels, things to burn. Not much can be done with them until closer to the end but I feel like I’m making progress. It pleases me to see how little I will be bringing home. I've returned to the days when I could fit all of my belongings into my car. . . . until I get home and take a look into the storage container. <br /><br />That’s the update from Saratamata, East Ambae, Vanuatu. Five weeks to go, counting down.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-29901742786722568172010-08-04T16:22:00.000-07:002010-08-04T18:00:15.365-07:00A week of city livin'After 9 days of Brisbane's version of city living, I'm back in Port Vila, a city of sorts. In Vila's defense, they do have plenty of buses, though not on any kind of schedule since you just tell the driver where you want to go when you get on and he takes you there . . . . eventually. There are also lots of restaurants for a city this size, probably because of its development as a tourist destination. I can't get everything I want in the grocery stores but it's still a lot more varied than Ambae. All in all, not a bad place to be for a couple of extra days.<br /><br />Jeannette and I had a great time in Brisbane. I am hoping that she is recovering from the jet lag gracefully. My new travel strategy involves staying for several days in one place, taking day trips if necessary, before moving to another "home base" for several more days. Brisbane proved to be a great city for this kind of travel--we spent several days exploring what the city proper had to offer and several more taking trips to nearby attractions but we didn't have to pack up and move every day or two. It's a much more relaxing way to see a country than the "5 cities in as 5 days" type of trip.<br /><br />The pictures below are of some of the more interesting things we did. If I'd given in to my impulses, most of my pictures would have been of fast food restaurants, paved sidewalks, trains and buses, grocery stores that were selling DELICIOUS strawberries and cherries, movie theaters (I recommend the new Karate Kid--it's a good approach to a remake), and other modern conveniences. Each day, after our stop for coffee and chai, Jeannette would say, "What should we do now?" My response was genuinely unhelpful since, having had a hot shower and holding a chai latte in my hand, I was content. Anything after that was a bonus for me. It turns out that this is not unique to my experience. When I got back to Vila, I ran into another volunteer who had also been in Brisbane and he experienced the same thing. One of his first comments to me was, "Wasn't it so nice to be in a CITY?" I couldn't agree more.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSQW8KzNDQEvFpCBCukj2GeCFIvgvWmGU1ILDziewJY2IaIWLqcIoYXIHPQ2ZITzjsacwk4JCKRModQfJS6b8g82xpMx_9ymq8_nxrQxbudrTgaW-HsJZeIDsrN18FUUilH0dbO5dnmnkG/s1600/Brisbane+skyline.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501702264699146082" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSQW8KzNDQEvFpCBCukj2GeCFIvgvWmGU1ILDziewJY2IaIWLqcIoYXIHPQ2ZITzjsacwk4JCKRModQfJS6b8g82xpMx_9ymq8_nxrQxbudrTgaW-HsJZeIDsrN18FUUilH0dbO5dnmnkG/s320/Brisbane+skyline.JPG" border="0" /></a> Brisbane makes great use of the river that flows through the city. They built a botanical garden and pedestrian walkway on one side of the river, several pedestrian-friendly bridges to get across, and a lovely park on the other side, complete with bougainvillea covered walkways, lots of restaurants, and a man-made beach. Jeannette and I spent a lot of our unscheduled, left over type time there.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY6KrPXqkclc-9ezVNcTDEXsbJgtS7d0UsMVSj7JRBOhUGF978XsNG2KeKcRr3K1E3J3GiFwdAXE7fbcTockvSS11ZYvrns1dU8s-LJQWiS5PbAEZycF_ryxJ54PTECyooPt5U0xPhue64/s1600/Jeannette+and+koala.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501702262965295650" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY6KrPXqkclc-9ezVNcTDEXsbJgtS7d0UsMVSj7JRBOhUGF978XsNG2KeKcRr3K1E3J3GiFwdAXE7fbcTockvSS11ZYvrns1dU8s-LJQWiS5PbAEZycF_ryxJ54PTECyooPt5U0xPhue64/s320/Jeannette+and+koala.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />One of our days was spent at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary where we opted to have our pictures taken for free <em>close</em> to the koalas rather than pay $16 additional dollars to have it taken with koala in hand.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifJHfGoCGGgzxWi-i90mKSh8f8SiVFSySuEHqIpnYky5rjIawiMLC1PbPrX-7Cb4ko1Iy1cvBuLoYXtDIMov1j5nb-ElFeCkmrkFjXezfb9g2osaRHba3cONVgGbaTb-CSw4rxXqG3TyY6/s1600/koala.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501702257613836738" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifJHfGoCGGgzxWi-i90mKSh8f8SiVFSySuEHqIpnYky5rjIawiMLC1PbPrX-7Cb4ko1Iy1cvBuLoYXtDIMov1j5nb-ElFeCkmrkFjXezfb9g2osaRHba3cONVgGbaTb-CSw4rxXqG3TyY6/s320/koala.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />I have to admit they're pretty cute. Smelly but cute. If you look carefully at the picture of the lone koala, you'll see she isn't actually "lone." There is a baby koala hanging onto her stomach. Look for the browner shade of gray.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAslmyMKA6HiwDlOBQzQC7vTb5tfLhYkT8burEIV8n7kwAWfR_k3qbKWfh6CTjUeZRXGdnsEEOsaEDq0vuZJERAm0OMeYLVPD_qj5DLmgJCvcLDf6hGn7OmcxauodobdQWV8BQ9S1k7IPZ/s1600/Tasmanian+devil.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501701965719727858" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAslmyMKA6HiwDlOBQzQC7vTb5tfLhYkT8burEIV8n7kwAWfR_k3qbKWfh6CTjUeZRXGdnsEEOsaEDq0vuZJERAm0OMeYLVPD_qj5DLmgJCvcLDf6hGn7OmcxauodobdQWV8BQ9S1k7IPZ/s320/Tasmanian+devil.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br />They also had Tasmanian devils at the sanctuary. After watching them run around for a few minutes we were both convinced that Tasmanian devils served as the inspiration for the R.O.U.S.es in <em>The Princess Bride</em>. Now you can believe they exist, in miniature.<br /><br />The day we toured the river bank brought us to the Maritime Museum. The displays were low budget like most maritime museums but interesting nonetheless and the highlight was the two ships we were able to tour. One was a replica of a wooden sailing ship from the 1800s and the other a decommissioned WWII submarine destroyer.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjFSsOU6hCIW82UaBT7RXPhnMVv7uxSWLgPqlZuZnBOTzbpE0YKEeZBZSuNjtUL2J7YseatoSEDOtZ6wNA1vDd-Wl0Mh9C3MEtvuNqVvb4tOZpROMwGjKizmTgZFan96BY41hYPxsm0mij/s1600/WWII+ship.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501701964506351874" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjFSsOU6hCIW82UaBT7RXPhnMVv7uxSWLgPqlZuZnBOTzbpE0YKEeZBZSuNjtUL2J7YseatoSEDOtZ6wNA1vDd-Wl0Mh9C3MEtvuNqVvb4tOZpROMwGjKizmTgZFan96BY41hYPxsm0mij/s320/WWII+ship.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Jeannette and I didn't know anything about military ships beyond what we've seen in movies so we were happily speculating on what different spaces were for and what it would have been like to live on a ship like that when a docent, probably fed up by our naivete and silly observations, offered to give us an unofficial tour of the dry dock area. Hard hats required. Of course we accepted and got to go down into the dry dock area to get a close look at how it worked and at the undersides of the ship. Very cool.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghpqILIshQO4fR7N-Jna-KC9fiuSBbHHQ8wiJh6vRaJYf9Wt040yRiVqCr_1rO1qiUw5htJGBIW4TSWIXFH0kDy0ke8hSfEZAHRaAP-6P1Isyj3oilSF_FfFgUmd7SQde2-_AyfArxGatS/s1600/Jeannette+and+I,+dry+dock.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501701957714003746" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghpqILIshQO4fR7N-Jna-KC9fiuSBbHHQ8wiJh6vRaJYf9Wt040yRiVqCr_1rO1qiUw5htJGBIW4TSWIXFH0kDy0ke8hSfEZAHRaAP-6P1Isyj3oilSF_FfFgUmd7SQde2-_AyfArxGatS/s320/Jeannette+and+I,+dry+dock.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />We also toured parts of Tambourine National Park which is home to a sub-tropical rain forest. The vegetation was interesting--a mix of palms and eucalyptus and strangler figs--but the signs were better. Sign spotting actually became a mini-theme for the trip since Australians aren't shy about designing pictures that tell you exactly what they want you to know.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyiIqpG5FwCxr57sG1NhZ9DSt3fZN2UVVOUXNToDUKROSwZxsFJ0sIidsZc8lx00fAwEg1qtFcX9VdJl1DUPCkjU-deeesDzsMqB40G-U8qEM7ygoEo_V7EmcQZ8fD5YRNjjHU6cubuWYX/s1600/cliff+edge+sign.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501701593544314514" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyiIqpG5FwCxr57sG1NhZ9DSt3fZN2UVVOUXNToDUKROSwZxsFJ0sIidsZc8lx00fAwEg1qtFcX9VdJl1DUPCkjU-deeesDzsMqB40G-U8qEM7ygoEo_V7EmcQZ8fD5YRNjjHU6cubuWYX/s320/cliff+edge+sign.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiJNrimd33MvEDKO1RkGuwyzxOZJYrV6EzhPlOPkzJ3KC3qZoxtS1DMqDL0SZb4J4Fasa_m-A5BJI0FqQ4XHUBSJCaLdSE8ut5-cA_yYZ-riApYMLQdFpqnmVr5Fqb7mFpjnL7DAjWblUw/s1600/Tambourine+NP.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501701588851846802" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiJNrimd33MvEDKO1RkGuwyzxOZJYrV6EzhPlOPkzJ3KC3qZoxtS1DMqDL0SZb4J4Fasa_m-A5BJI0FqQ4XHUBSJCaLdSE8ut5-cA_yYZ-riApYMLQdFpqnmVr5Fqb7mFpjnL7DAjWblUw/s320/Tambourine+NP.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />Wish I could tell you which mountain that is but I can't. We're standing on Mt. Tambourine and Brisbane is just off the picture to the right in the far distance.<br /></div><div></div><div></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3NEg6kSaKTpffSXaw6eXQ9qYrQi7f-WNKKX4g11fJxO-acRnGHTx-kkm7n5EQG3Ne_qJfV06uB4iPfezlMgKBOKdbCA58Is1FPHP6f50Me07hu6WxQUWDPFnmpyBQX4hS0TzRjukhm44g/s1600/waterfall.tambourine.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501701584026682050" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3NEg6kSaKTpffSXaw6eXQ9qYrQi7f-WNKKX4g11fJxO-acRnGHTx-kkm7n5EQG3Ne_qJfV06uB4iPfezlMgKBOKdbCA58Is1FPHP6f50Me07hu6WxQUWDPFnmpyBQX4hS0TzRjukhm44g/s320/waterfall.tambourine.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjESnHvIHfxhCmSfszcc5K_QX0bZl_NWk82MepadzlHI-1hs0OmEIXCWjR47ZvmnDu8Gqxc318Rtmd1TJFkstF1L3r5EpIR2wte7xKozPdYQTbToKqtjwXNBREjfUr2KmXvPqkMedvOFrG7/s1600/Sufers'+Paradise.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501701234388050898" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjESnHvIHfxhCmSfszcc5K_QX0bZl_NWk82MepadzlHI-1hs0OmEIXCWjR47ZvmnDu8Gqxc318Rtmd1TJFkstF1L3r5EpIR2wte7xKozPdYQTbToKqtjwXNBREjfUr2KmXvPqkMedvOFrG7/s320/Sufers'+Paradise.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />One of our field trips was to Surfers' Paradise Beach on the Gold Coast. It was a little cloudy that day but not unpleasant enough to cause any good sized waves. As a result, we weren't able to watch any "real" surfers but we had a good time watching the surf schools that were going on.<br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO9jIVRAVZptFII9k4UBEXvFEr_RSipZ2IoFz5fL4Pu1PfvH2cRT57jDloXiWGqfa-LGsq5WMH1uht_hq373mccyqBRo7hzGbK-DsgoTqIPkng_Ufe5TzLrvUplT17nJsF9j_9O57IENJY/s1600/Chinatown.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501701229900735858" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO9jIVRAVZptFII9k4UBEXvFEr_RSipZ2IoFz5fL4Pu1PfvH2cRT57jDloXiWGqfa-LGsq5WMH1uht_hq373mccyqBRo7hzGbK-DsgoTqIPkng_Ufe5TzLrvUplT17nJsF9j_9O57IENJY/s320/Chinatown.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Chinatown in Brisbane is one block of Chinese restaurants and stores so not much of a destination. But I found dried corazol (sour sop) in one of the stores and that was exciting. It's a common fruit here in Vanuatu and I think also in parts of the Caribbean but it isn't easy to find. The tree are kind of picky about pollination and then people don't sell them at the markets because they're just every day food. No one is going to pay money for a sour sop . . . . except me.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzIeIZdZ-6oHG_jwlIMKy3qXxksLhJCH-_b9UxMm1tu15-Xw5I7YBesTrOQhwzoomwvAQWPGy-IdZGhXu_3uJpN1r-umyqjo7cZKpAJrvHsrFUXKUPSkk61NWfMnNUFwvoEGXVOQSq-d82/s1600/Sunshine+Coast.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501701223445779634" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzIeIZdZ-6oHG_jwlIMKy3qXxksLhJCH-_b9UxMm1tu15-Xw5I7YBesTrOQhwzoomwvAQWPGy-IdZGhXu_3uJpN1r-umyqjo7cZKpAJrvHsrFUXKUPSkk61NWfMnNUFwvoEGXVOQSq-d82/s320/Sunshine+Coast.JPG" border="0" /></a> This was our other beach day, to the north of Brisbane instead of the south. We went to the Sunshine Coast on a day with very little sunshine. We arrived in the rain and left in the rain but had a small window of sun peeking through the clouds during the afternoon.<br /><br />The beaches we visited were very deep and had very fine sand. The water was way too cold for me though it didn't discourage many other people. I got my feet wet and that was enough.<br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBZ6IRyiFd8G3wkeUgxH9rcUlDLD6HAr0D0_0tAbKEEhPc0Q0XXEuPRENzgYNAV1nJGvFYsPyQLTnl9tB8gG0D_fPv6ZpQWzgJq3YeuOpdiKJ92QY8wUHc2WniCFxfd98I2rcdYIscn_Eh/s1600/canopy+trees.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501700887272375154" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBZ6IRyiFd8G3wkeUgxH9rcUlDLD6HAr0D0_0tAbKEEhPc0Q0XXEuPRENzgYNAV1nJGvFYsPyQLTnl9tB8gG0D_fPv6ZpQWzgJq3YeuOpdiKJ92QY8wUHc2WniCFxfd98I2rcdYIscn_Eh/s320/canopy+trees.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br />On the Tambourine/rain forest day, we went to a relatively new attraction. This sky walk bridge had been built in order to give people a walk through a rain forest canopy. At this point, the canopy hadn't reached the height of the catwalk but it was still pretty interesting. In another 10 or 15 years, it will be a fascinating place to go.<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimSLESH_DUpt9D68bm3E2wgbV73kUEUbZ8e_vFHJETrto3u3Rui9I1lGSv-DrWhvSh_om5m7MIQNpfruW_9TG4pOJbNO5kOdmodPeyBNyUtHj3yZCL5s44CYw2YAS9uv01tWpfKrArwHPb/s1600/skywalk.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501700877902730450" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimSLESH_DUpt9D68bm3E2wgbV73kUEUbZ8e_vFHJETrto3u3Rui9I1lGSv-DrWhvSh_om5m7MIQNpfruW_9TG4pOJbNO5kOdmodPeyBNyUtHj3yZCL5s44CYw2YAS9uv01tWpfKrArwHPb/s320/skywalk.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4tz2mxkOo8TtMdQ9LPjc8_Pm1kNp0YWyh14BdKdFdZ5RKhiwje2dTeX3PIGmbVTxy9cr95rNgSaYBmFscgZcT5JJiWkXrr6e_yORu0LpHV0vC_G0iPS-U551K8jovw9TVqQGvCdIacDKd/s1600/riverside.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501700879059218914" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4tz2mxkOo8TtMdQ9LPjc8_Pm1kNp0YWyh14BdKdFdZ5RKhiwje2dTeX3PIGmbVTxy9cr95rNgSaYBmFscgZcT5JJiWkXrr6e_yORu0LpHV0vC_G0iPS-U551K8jovw9TVqQGvCdIacDKd/s320/riverside.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />This is the north bank of the Brisbane River as we followed the river walk back toward our hostel. Brisbane is a great city for walking, biking, roller blading, etc. because of all of the footpaths they've created. We had to be careful to stay on the LEFT because of the bikes and skaters coming through. Not easy when our natural inclination was to stick to the RIGHT side of the sidewalk.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkPqkZOujqdbjhwtf4GRcmAZ4d71nbO0jlJpINzYnPRV4qLE-PfgZ9_zHsKLhf2Yu8o4udBsTEG05C4GHOJAJIe_49jlEfqYV1x7yoGZPe4SoAcJZXsUDI56yKEQLuyEyeDrHcR-yNrSSA/s1600/Krispy+Kreme.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501700579882249266" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkPqkZOujqdbjhwtf4GRcmAZ4d71nbO0jlJpINzYnPRV4qLE-PfgZ9_zHsKLhf2Yu8o4udBsTEG05C4GHOJAJIe_49jlEfqYV1x7yoGZPe4SoAcJZXsUDI56yKEQLuyEyeDrHcR-yNrSSA/s320/Krispy+Kreme.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />And this was the ultimate proof that we were in a developed country -- Krispy Kreme donuts available, hot and now.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I didn't intend to put two pictures of myself in a row but it gives me a chance to explain the unvarying outfits. When I packed for the trip, I packed everything suitable that I had available--3 pairs of pants, 5 shirts, one fleece and one windbreaker. Also socks, though I forgot the requisite tennis shoes. Plus the weather, in my version of reality, required some sort of covering for the better part of each day. As a result it looks like we took all of these pictures in one day, but no. Different days, same wardrobe.<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTOhhYv1a4DvqePc5F4n7szUmP942iKNrgzMgh7nMn0EU4x-mPrYLbHppuiWJX0PrlMxI2sLgaErSxtv-mArKL2AxBT2r0PaIrkTj3b4wilYwYAsuEY1FejWP985mmegymgWUObAsPrFCd/s1600/me+in+botanical+gardens.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501700575830607058" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTOhhYv1a4DvqePc5F4n7szUmP942iKNrgzMgh7nMn0EU4x-mPrYLbHppuiWJX0PrlMxI2sLgaErSxtv-mArKL2AxBT2r0PaIrkTj3b4wilYwYAsuEY1FejWP985mmegymgWUObAsPrFCd/s320/me+in+botanical+gardens.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxVA1E8VdhHTpiQgpFKLD4vJp5TG6rzpxvP5Ch9LWAL93ZsbMgZDlBOz9J-lMfyZnwgZiTZRvaNaLHeW6BIl_LS12-FnA7z8i8VbITYyPIf4F1hBAKcSduGt8pynnYDk4NMqN6I9yz9lwg/s1600/nambanga+tree.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501700572160294402" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxVA1E8VdhHTpiQgpFKLD4vJp5TG6rzpxvP5Ch9LWAL93ZsbMgZDlBOz9J-lMfyZnwgZiTZRvaNaLHeW6BIl_LS12-FnA7z8i8VbITYyPIf4F1hBAKcSduGt8pynnYDk4NMqN6I9yz9lwg/s320/nambanga+tree.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The last picture here is of a banyan / nabanga tree. We have these in Florida and Vanuatu as well. On Tanna, the people have learned how to sculpt the roots that are growing down into benches, frames for houses, and frames for tables. This one was growing along the Brisbane River.</div><div></div><div>And that is some of our trip. Many thanks to Jeannette for (1) coming at all, and (2) for providing all of these pictures. I forgot the wire to connect my memory card to the computer so I used Jeannette's photos from my flash drive.<br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMtghlB6KkDV0OBHGO5XsxMnj1lCrxyddKjsSelDJvhWxSoNRj8eZkT2ejFn-_7BimdxgO4GfgGvkuJF7j05bn-V8zCdkde4_QLB2qZLL-gzIDecCfvswdMQpy4cMniQd4BvOQyuweQUgv/s1600/night+scene.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501699970352171314" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMtghlB6KkDV0OBHGO5XsxMnj1lCrxyddKjsSelDJvhWxSoNRj8eZkT2ejFn-_7BimdxgO4GfgGvkuJF7j05bn-V8zCdkde4_QLB2qZLL-gzIDecCfvswdMQpy4cMniQd4BvOQyuweQUgv/s320/night+scene.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br />South Bank Brisbane--they had a purple theme going in the city.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><div><div> </div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-86609217206585573862010-07-22T16:35:00.000-07:002010-07-22T17:20:37.084-07:00En route to AustraliaI'm in Vila-town for about 18 hours before heading to Australia to meet Jeannette. I'm looking forward to seeing her, catching up on the news from home, taking hot showers, and having more than one choice at the restaurants. Life's simple pleasures. I'm coming to believe that the real mark of modernity is having choices.<br /><br />Anyway, here are some new photos from the last few months in Vanuatu.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB8vG-pFTqwrGZRT5l-aZeDg-JhlYqHEcTCWwcsVhx9L3fWsIOiqKijgSrhQnNQfEhuajoYU2Rk9bO8viBtDiJP0Zl2lvImhZMsMKRnc48hwqRji_GTolqtNZY01xxbnTywsxx4X1TiJ-r/s1600/dinner+at+Lorenz%27s.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496880662982293922" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB8vG-pFTqwrGZRT5l-aZeDg-JhlYqHEcTCWwcsVhx9L3fWsIOiqKijgSrhQnNQfEhuajoYU2Rk9bO8viBtDiJP0Zl2lvImhZMsMKRnc48hwqRji_GTolqtNZY01xxbnTywsxx4X1TiJ-r/s320/dinner+at+Lorenz%27s.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />From left to right is Ed who lives in Lolowai, Sheridan and then Justin, a married couple who live on Maewo, the next island over. Sheridan and Justin had come to Ambae before our last conference and we all went to Ed and Beth's house for Cincinnati Chili.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuQTzjWNGONO3eA7lfdbgLMVa9VTl3-sAf2IQy8TcGFwwR4-DKRJqhIUPzMrBkNFXfzt_EZYpJEyI88EZsigS_1qec7z34BhalGPnc11zPe4KxQJNClSzD_UQAEjfKZsqcv88i2soDKp4Y/s1600/dinner+at+Lorenz.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496880662597083538" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuQTzjWNGONO3eA7lfdbgLMVa9VTl3-sAf2IQy8TcGFwwR4-DKRJqhIUPzMrBkNFXfzt_EZYpJEyI88EZsigS_1qec7z34BhalGPnc11zPe4KxQJNClSzD_UQAEjfKZsqcv88i2soDKp4Y/s320/dinner+at+Lorenz.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Take a close look at the table settings. We were scrounging for enough dishes for the five of us so Ed and Sheridan ended up with coffee mugs full of chili and Beth is using a little tin bowl that held about a 1/2 cup. Ed and Beth are currently living in what is known as the "doctor's house" because it's where the temporary, visiting doctors stay when they come to serve at the hospital. It's quite a grand house by Vanuatu standards but we were still hard pressed to serve 5 people with the dishes in the cupboards.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />My biggest project the last 2 months has been organizing reading groups with the class 1 teacher at Ambaebulu. We spent 1 week just teaching the kids some classroom management stuff, the activities they would be doing at each station, and a bit of self-management. It was quite an adventure for me since my only experience with kids under 12 was a very painful afternoon substituting in second grade.<br /><br />The reading groups ran a second week before I left the teacher to run them solo. Since then, it has been busy at school and we haven't been able to set a certain day for an observation but I'm confident the teacher will use the groups. Though I don't feel like I gave him the best example, he seemed to see the potential of working with the kids in small groups.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyYw39pU7sBgec2gG5Px2ZU6iO9-4ywxzP8S79VxP4AuqXG6zshGvhScaAZh-itAJiTg3Mx6PLEEEescHt1Al4GIc4n5UWPf7wXza4F872ixFEkw5eX0U6PT7vLqV9u12l6GMYZ4P5ehGC/s1600/Clemson+and+Lloyd.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496880362408588402" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyYw39pU7sBgec2gG5Px2ZU6iO9-4ywxzP8S79VxP4AuqXG6zshGvhScaAZh-itAJiTg3Mx6PLEEEescHt1Al4GIc4n5UWPf7wXza4F872ixFEkw5eX0U6PT7vLqV9u12l6GMYZ4P5ehGC/s320/Clemson+and+Lloyd.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghs5KUiBVFQnMlrNj7AMxA8uXqRZolBVyV5HlqZHU3Qk1FcWGTjkXVTygz_uEUUkBG_UdusM_Du8-DJlz-pnNDUD-4sNEwIqyznIieTAjWkmuU3O_Gqr_rTMTtBnNGyvQSlArksxvohQae/s1600/Chelma+and+Ester.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496880357278957906" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghs5KUiBVFQnMlrNj7AMxA8uXqRZolBVyV5HlqZHU3Qk1FcWGTjkXVTygz_uEUUkBG_UdusM_Du8-DJlz-pnNDUD-4sNEwIqyznIieTAjWkmuU3O_Gqr_rTMTtBnNGyvQSlArksxvohQae/s320/Chelma+and+Ester.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />I took the pictures of the kids one day when I accidentally ended up substituting while the teacher went to a "short" meeting. I ran out of activities after about 40 minutes and the kids ran wild for the next 20. The pictures were a temporary reprieve.<br /><br />Above are Clemson and Lloyd. The girls here are Ester and Chelma.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOGk3i9PVeOV7EwqzZyY85aj2Wq_01MAohDz8AEhkkOBqKQnaO2o3rdrlErJaE-bLZhyphenhyphenW_a8qh1rlbmcGg6DS0MVuLCoqGvseIpfJME1wqZP0C_592OFAtz_j_Dk4ktIJUuKe8qEhde5UG/s1600/rats+at+work.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496880351666376738" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOGk3i9PVeOV7EwqzZyY85aj2Wq_01MAohDz8AEhkkOBqKQnaO2o3rdrlErJaE-bLZhyphenhyphenW_a8qh1rlbmcGg6DS0MVuLCoqGvseIpfJME1wqZP0C_592OFAtz_j_Dk4ktIJUuKe8qEhde5UG/s320/rats+at+work.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I don't know why this picture downloaded on its side, but the point of the picture is still clear. Rats can do a lot of damage in a very small period of time. Fortunately, they didn't get to the peanut butter but they made enough holes for the ants to have easy access.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Recent home improvement projects have included cleaning out my rain water tank after a rat crawled in and drowned. I needed a chair to get on top of the tank and then had to lower the chair inside the tank so I could get in to scoop out all of the water. Not a hard job but something interesting to put on my resume. These pictures show the other project. The papaya tree was growing too close to the house, (I think it was one way the rats were getting into the water tank and up into the roof) so I decided to cut it down.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE9o_QPZMaQSDocs6PUm8SffTUK9dvFlqOtm6cBgqYt8rtxlBA53wXuR33MJ6cqg5K9G0DPyxs3-TsvQ35uHhS-W4MmFmlxbSyyRH3vARzFy_-5KYFW_pmyajT6vaDM1DyCsVvP7rqmxBg/s1600/job+done.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496880026161621394" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE9o_QPZMaQSDocs6PUm8SffTUK9dvFlqOtm6cBgqYt8rtxlBA53wXuR33MJ6cqg5K9G0DPyxs3-TsvQ35uHhS-W4MmFmlxbSyyRH3vARzFy_-5KYFW_pmyajT6vaDM1DyCsVvP7rqmxBg/s320/job+done.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHzTCHUqM_yJGwYsLiESy2iWG2KWCLdtogESi7OPWjisGgx0r4FLezElKlocfs1WTq_8RuCNRv9J-9j6QS0oUkO8b5Ef5xUcWANKY9IeiSUcqSHvK9isXyIxRYm_vXsfgYN073msqlLm3t/s1600/I+cannot+tell+a+lie.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496880023064403010" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHzTCHUqM_yJGwYsLiESy2iWG2KWCLdtogESi7OPWjisGgx0r4FLezElKlocfs1WTq_8RuCNRv9J-9j6QS0oUkO8b5Ef5xUcWANKY9IeiSUcqSHvK9isXyIxRYm_vXsfgYN073msqlLm3t/s320/I+cannot+tell+a+lie.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis5UjTs1N5EIqffSOWuVqcU3pOlO8GGPlMfedVBRg73KSWVmGqVDm9k-ZylPu207lZruYjsqzGobud9CKlLqufTclaUldrzRC-EtuNs2wV7ubNtcb6TQpLC1wITGoS4BSeQt0CpwjFAlAS/s1600/popo+tree.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496880017372705234" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis5UjTs1N5EIqffSOWuVqcU3pOlO8GGPlMfedVBRg73KSWVmGqVDm9k-ZylPu207lZruYjsqzGobud9CKlLqufTclaUldrzRC-EtuNs2wV7ubNtcb6TQpLC1wITGoS4BSeQt0CpwjFAlAS/s320/popo+tree.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />I was a little concerned that I wouldn't be able to do it--it was a pretty good sized tree--but papaya wood is soft and the tree came down in short order. I am also proud to say that my aim proved true most of the time and I didn't have to hack too many times to get the job done. It saved me from some embarassment too because there was quite an audience that afternoon. There were soccer games going on on the field behind my house and all of the players and spectators were either passing by or camped out on the grass nearby.<br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLYBnWAgxR3ojhPw_zxJgMR4PESOSQ7qYsKcPqM2mzvrpMvw_cglFSwn_5C01Bf29OfrFR2D-o-Bj4AkBigOsma3gB44C6O_O-YzJ3A63UtGiwk6GwoZqbRY1oU2HvSKHRqSxSgcUdSrVZ/s1600/Jenny+and+son.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496879533863935314" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLYBnWAgxR3ojhPw_zxJgMR4PESOSQ7qYsKcPqM2mzvrpMvw_cglFSwn_5C01Bf29OfrFR2D-o-Bj4AkBigOsma3gB44C6O_O-YzJ3A63UtGiwk6GwoZqbRY1oU2HvSKHRqSxSgcUdSrVZ/s320/Jenny+and+son.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />This is another sister of mine here in Vanuatu. She recently made a trip to Ambae to visit so I met her and her two children. Her name is Jenny. She's the oldest in my family but still younger than me.<br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivHSEDylUr7zcdlzhOmfpJWah4YKoP9oqlGnqLbrCdBe6gzshHIOXALu-2mcXkRxVxQZYWiLxGX3lT45c5jwQwwFHhSxlZNgBxPaiEQLwFKNY525MhEdQ0_xQE2ogoKjRZVqHU1np6E-p_/s1600/Brady+and+Jemima.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496879529004429474" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivHSEDylUr7zcdlzhOmfpJWah4YKoP9oqlGnqLbrCdBe6gzshHIOXALu-2mcXkRxVxQZYWiLxGX3lT45c5jwQwwFHhSxlZNgBxPaiEQLwFKNY525MhEdQ0_xQE2ogoKjRZVqHU1np6E-p_/s320/Brady+and+Jemima.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />And the other family photo is of my brother Bradford and his friend Jemima. Jemima came from Maewo to live with Brady in March. Brady "blocked" Jemima, meaning he brought some gifts to her family and declared her officially off-limits to other men, in September last year. In our terms, you would say they are engaged. The wedding won't take place for a while, maybe for years, while both families work to stock pile the gifts they need for the exchange.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /><br /><br /></div><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ZkAEEjpiN5P03w7d5ndmL_OySiXVkg4yt2Ldpg-sz0Geo62XRsOclrvv27KlQS3t0u98p9Sp5kTWVE4SgCDyEBf0hvTXBzyvNUJumB9cbOdATtyAAhHEtSnB_Ohpa-VjD6dvGxbi8tP0/s1600/traditional+dress.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496879517404638018" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ZkAEEjpiN5P03w7d5ndmL_OySiXVkg4yt2Ldpg-sz0Geo62XRsOclrvv27KlQS3t0u98p9Sp5kTWVE4SgCDyEBf0hvTXBzyvNUJumB9cbOdATtyAAhHEtSnB_Ohpa-VjD6dvGxbi8tP0/s320/traditional+dress.jpg" border="0" /></a> This last group of pictures is from the Culture and Custom Show at Ambaebulu Primary School. My assigned post was in the food stall selling rice and soup so I didn't get to see much of the show but I sneaked out for one of the school performances.</div><div></div><div>The costumes are traditional style but with a mix of materials--traditional and modern.<br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijYAi4eGXovE3P7bs91L71FKnk2I-leA2aL4Zoduw8-t3K0748dxK6FFt04ILq8NdeoWbYQw9lR0o5QWarsySovToR2KKAIfcS8t8IXlY4UG2RsMmS87M8pCb72Lzgf-uq_FL4RNKzDNav/s1600/headdress.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496879515365933554" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijYAi4eGXovE3P7bs91L71FKnk2I-leA2aL4Zoduw8-t3K0748dxK6FFt04ILq8NdeoWbYQw9lR0o5QWarsySovToR2KKAIfcS8t8IXlY4UG2RsMmS87M8pCb72Lzgf-uq_FL4RNKzDNav/s320/headdress.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaI8cEbzk3Fxg-nEP0aAuFEJEPnJfk2tv5NOMmH23oy4ODQJisI_01cZ9Kq1KF5NUqZ1lcjFFutxtceqRZU1KTygRzZSFHe1nLOOqyedoIpR04L2meJkyxqcsLyP6yzxMPtWoP6WAOd6UA/s1600/culture+show.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496878987886337810" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaI8cEbzk3Fxg-nEP0aAuFEJEPnJfk2tv5NOMmH23oy4ODQJisI_01cZ9Kq1KF5NUqZ1lcjFFutxtceqRZU1KTygRzZSFHe1nLOOqyedoIpR04L2meJkyxqcsLyP6yzxMPtWoP6WAOd6UA/s320/culture+show.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQOewmPD7mpNk7uI0wDpPYakom87jGARngAfXXmGxuprL3mMxzyJYzELCaZFpcphi3VEp5jjzHrdk5XnNoXPLyZH_J6xDDS6m83kttEdJATlk4epotxeeS3Q43zOpHtDYrOf7zP1TB4fQ-/s1600/Ambaebulu+girls.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496878976077187090" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQOewmPD7mpNk7uI0wDpPYakom87jGARngAfXXmGxuprL3mMxzyJYzELCaZFpcphi3VEp5jjzHrdk5XnNoXPLyZH_J6xDDS6m83kttEdJATlk4epotxeeS3Q43zOpHtDYrOf7zP1TB4fQ-/s320/Ambaebulu+girls.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhonS9Mx4AhvicRhs_U9t_pPwa4vPgfu4Qs9vxUFs-BiiGenQkhq5AjER4ydEa16SXXP2wY71h3UHziH4-3yKXZhXCcBRrrZ98S3fssgzAgny1ve683TdNgtLAnrqXmLwjMIDOR6BXoOse/s1600/Ambaebulu+custom+show.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496878973654601906" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhonS9Mx4AhvicRhs_U9t_pPwa4vPgfu4Qs9vxUFs-BiiGenQkhq5AjER4ydEa16SXXP2wY71h3UHziH4-3yKXZhXCcBRrrZ98S3fssgzAgny1ve683TdNgtLAnrqXmLwjMIDOR6BXoOse/s320/Ambaebulu+custom+show.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />That's it for now. I should have a chance to post some pictures of Brisbane when I get back from Australia since I'm planning to stay in Vila for a few days before going back to Ambae.</div><div></div><div>Miss you all. Four months and counting!<br /></div><div></div></div></div></div></div>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-7848556387239736522010-06-01T15:17:00.000-07:002010-06-04T15:45:37.849-07:00Recent Events Complete with VisualsOur last training as Peace Corps volunteers occurred last week and was surprisingly good. I think we were all wondering what kind of training could possibly be helpful at this point in our service but our program director did a great job finding speakers and topics that were interesting if not immediately useful. We heard from several departments within the Ministry of Education that are working on some serious reform here in Vanuatu, UNICEF did a presentation about an initiative that they started in one province a few years ago and are now introducing in 2 new provinces, mine included. There were also several sessions that gave us a chance to share some of our experiences, good and bad :), and to brainstorm some solutions for other people's challenges.<br /><br />Since then, I've been running errands and scheduling meetings and eating ice cream and generally keeping busy in Vila. I will be here until Sunday and then head back to site. This visit/meeting has been the first time in over a year that I have seen some of the other members of my group and it has been really great to sit around at the hotel with them and hear how they are doing.<br /><br />Knowing I would have some internet time while here, I brought some pictures with me to bring everyone up to date on what I've been up to on Ambae for the past 4+ months. It was a long time to be at site and I was ready to be in Vila for a while but there have been some fun and interesting events along the way.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhze4QI9WAnVKU3BexzTQOQgHozRgLea4JDo0lCT9HoBFMX6pbmjqXfApzrnEeNYqL-jU3h0TsOIk-lo2ilaJwFUg-OII8WzfCEELjL-WtsuoiEfZTNETU25S7oRUUPdbf_E70Qr_9i4Twz/s1600/Hideaway.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477940133141515074" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhze4QI9WAnVKU3BexzTQOQgHozRgLea4JDo0lCT9HoBFMX6pbmjqXfApzrnEeNYqL-jU3h0TsOIk-lo2ilaJwFUg-OII8WzfCEELjL-WtsuoiEfZTNETU25S7oRUUPdbf_E70Qr_9i4Twz/s320/Hideaway.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />These pictures are taken at Hideaway Island, a small island off the coast of Efate. I spent a weekend here with the ladies in the next picture as an early birthday celebration. It was gorgeous and the first time in a long time that I had my bathing suit on. It was a little frightening to reveal parts of me that haven't seen the sun in a year and half-- "Turn a whiter shade of pale" kept running through my mind--but so relaxing to stretch out in the chairs on that beautiful white coral beach. Two of the ladies in the picture are volunteers from my group and the other two are volunteers from New Zealand.<br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZfobZ1ltzxy3bTc0Jy73UZnD8EndjKoObCmU0nT8rfkkIeiQpfDxlrSkOzovstaTtzYhbLURU0jiTBXzoK29A9aP0nie6AEvtw6qK3c_gQEmlIA-ARHQ-TMu7VNFWn16DSo26dRK9NUfk/s1600/birthday+buddies.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477940129611368914" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZfobZ1ltzxy3bTc0Jy73UZnD8EndjKoObCmU0nT8rfkkIeiQpfDxlrSkOzovstaTtzYhbLURU0jiTBXzoK29A9aP0nie6AEvtw6qK3c_gQEmlIA-ARHQ-TMu7VNFWn16DSo26dRK9NUfk/s320/birthday+buddies.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaaOXNMTspjSkXHwr9WW9PF6PlTFrbs_pUAtp2NLGknzN6ZG4kGAGxWkavPJJTU6Oa-0c9E9O5fsepJqbYmfdwriN1hdnfSAiWFqdtvWZJC6Y0RAV-VcIZ-mQ9BOzMuH0bcqSxNic4Z-Jd/s1600/birthday+bungalo.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477940125313642562" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaaOXNMTspjSkXHwr9WW9PF6PlTFrbs_pUAtp2NLGknzN6ZG4kGAGxWkavPJJTU6Oa-0c9E9O5fsepJqbYmfdwriN1hdnfSAiWFqdtvWZJC6Y0RAV-VcIZ-mQ9BOzMuH0bcqSxNic4Z-Jd/s320/birthday+bungalo.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>A couple of National Geographic photographer attempts here. The tide went out every day close to noon and left all kinds of interesting and colorful creatures temporarily stranded on the coral.<br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheJtx-qxXlNs8T_MftSQVo0488LcZP8uCyGcWXL5tbyNWt9fPdFyhSNRFycNjalSvv8LbTWjPfEXing5p1ONTH4vn4ijoM8RgdTy_igLB2-unWQxfEQbHml8IAGNCJtDwODB5mU287fvKD/s1600/national+geographic+photographer+1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477939365906270722" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheJtx-qxXlNs8T_MftSQVo0488LcZP8uCyGcWXL5tbyNWt9fPdFyhSNRFycNjalSvv8LbTWjPfEXing5p1ONTH4vn4ijoM8RgdTy_igLB2-unWQxfEQbHml8IAGNCJtDwODB5mU287fvKD/s320/national+geographic+photographer+1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiouZY6UmW6y62GCbupV-cWyCd69S3lKwTGSbplcFUCXL7wY_PkCPK3E9GivKADL46daO6PA0GYeQUkdGm56FL9qDqSXbYQubs6la2m7A89rCvsdNqwOdfY-fPpzuwCDyy99kd02WeeMY4n/s1600/national+geographic+photographer+2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477939364762358450" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiouZY6UmW6y62GCbupV-cWyCd69S3lKwTGSbplcFUCXL7wY_PkCPK3E9GivKADL46daO6PA0GYeQUkdGm56FL9qDqSXbYQubs6la2m7A89rCvsdNqwOdfY-fPpzuwCDyy99kd02WeeMY4n/s320/national+geographic+photographer+2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTj5uaZNGQn9IvbXGP_xYGUEH26uexGGlHkTMn-V8k49x1njnr0T5yaOTxI0oSGUlNSboy9lws3dh4gQIh6I7IGsgm3B5gkMzoC5iQXhOHQ3S6Pv73Qkpb94KT78oAWwfS6iRmYvWQ7uPr/s1600/ples+blong+spel.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477939360765041730" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTj5uaZNGQn9IvbXGP_xYGUEH26uexGGlHkTMn-V8k49x1njnr0T5yaOTxI0oSGUlNSboy9lws3dh4gQIh6I7IGsgm3B5gkMzoC5iQXhOHQ3S6Pv73Qkpb94KT78oAWwfS6iRmYvWQ7uPr/s320/ples+blong+spel.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />We spent most of our day here, reading and snacking and napping. Beautiful.<br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><br />One week in March, I helped to run a workshop for 12 kindergarten teachers from our province. These ladies and gentleman run their own pre-schools but </div><div>also supervise several others so we were teaching things that<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD321gFNwuf5aBwy4xuvQB_fBXGRYHTDibaS-FnvwF7lL8o6uuHqdjjpYU-3bzdmC8BhXJDD4q6ex3MOgWkKVDUAC7ua9wPgdkYH76wtzLrl8Jd4vog4pQI0qBrxiXfm89BvR0rI_f4l2A/s1600/Walaha+airport.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477939015409928706" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD321gFNwuf5aBwy4xuvQB_fBXGRYHTDibaS-FnvwF7lL8o6uuHqdjjpYU-3bzdmC8BhXJDD4q6ex3MOgWkKVDUAC7ua9wPgdkYH76wtzLrl8Jd4vog4pQI0qBrxiXfm89BvR0rI_f4l2A/s320/Walaha+airport.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />they are responsible for passing along to the teachers in their<br />zones. </div><div></div><div>The picture to the right is the runway on West Ambae.</div><div>The planes come in from the ocean, soar right over some very large rocks along the coast, and then have to stop before crashing into the bush at the other end of the runway.</div><div>It's a very exciting landing for the passengers, no matter how calm the weather and/or pilots.<br /><br /><br />This is the pre-school building where we did our workshop. </div><div>All of the participants sat on mats on the floor, for 5 days and evenings of sessions. The pre-school itself has about 30 students when they all come. </div><div></div><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib-TmSRkugv6BcSSbZEk4ylgSjZa7cOw8rXDXw92nF9_aDFeaKhL03oeS8DPwoOMx1f9a9DphGNBHYo7SS8NPW4PeLRE7yU6lECrkk0trSx3vsjSMuBPS169oKKWGdVgAq0L72VBv7AS-T/s1600/Volovuhu+kindy.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477939008542290402" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib-TmSRkugv6BcSSbZEk4ylgSjZa7cOw8rXDXw92nF9_aDFeaKhL03oeS8DPwoOMx1f9a9DphGNBHYo7SS8NPW4PeLRE7yU6lECrkk0trSx3vsjSMuBPS169oKKWGdVgAq0L72VBv7AS-T/s320/Volovuhu+kindy.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjwrMAdCuWEb57mHe6KevRpjgPsUPJpaOQQqySEJEG-JdsiDz-Dz0Ht6gAplUi_ENzfZtirh50iJWdBhG9W7xNyVyZhmiH5ivCo6Xi_YNNHDzn2DFpBaa-ddJFnxiWJ2Lh3UAkvLLvcyZ-/s1600/key+teachers+at+work.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477939004096950578" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjwrMAdCuWEb57mHe6KevRpjgPsUPJpaOQQqySEJEG-JdsiDz-Dz0Ht6gAplUi_ENzfZtirh50iJWdBhG9W7xNyVyZhmiH5ivCo6Xi_YNNHDzn2DFpBaa-ddJFnxiWJ2Lh3UAkvLLvcyZ-/s320/key+teachers+at+work.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div><br /><br />The set of pictures below are from a trip I took </div><div>to North Ambae to help with a water/sanitation workshop being led by Blake, a volunteer who is based quite far north. Blake, Beth (a health volunteer from the new group) and I did a week long workshop on good sanitation practices and how to keep water supplies safe. In the afternoons, the community members worked on building two new small houses that are better in terms of sanitation.<br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYj2_Fk4sUi7PyCzbjYCiGVAN7Q6xl5FXXqS4SSN2RPQQtDrR5St0hJQqPH2MdOdJfP0FiuDIy_6NAmGQ85HCWUhFvwTn_oMUMEGg42DbSIzVbkyO_v9m1T_hY_0gtsqMkJBozl2W-_EJ4/s1600/collateral+damage.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477938186942765218" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYj2_Fk4sUi7PyCzbjYCiGVAN7Q6xl5FXXqS4SSN2RPQQtDrR5St0hJQqPH2MdOdJfP0FiuDIy_6NAmGQ85HCWUhFvwTn_oMUMEGg42DbSIzVbkyO_v9m1T_hY_0gtsqMkJBozl2W-_EJ4/s320/collateral+damage.small.jpg" border="0" /></a> This picture came after a trip to a nearby primary school. The teachers there found out I was coming and asked me to come do a phonics refresher so I followed these kids down to their school. It was a 45 minute (with me along) trip, it had rained the night before, and it was down down down the whole time. I was in a bent-knee skier crouch for 45 minutes straight and my legs were jello by the time we got down. I could always tell when a particularly slippery spot was coming up because the kids who were out in front, skipping easily along, would stop and wait for me. My slipping and falling was always a crowd pleaser. By the time we had walked back up again, I was covered in mud and the kids looked like they'd just stepped out of the shower.<br /><div></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIcFf5DWciq9xrdtSEetnNdvG-JVykB4fY7NsbrPDu8mc4G0SRiuEpLhN9NW-cXYmlNmj755ycAeMG0Iw1WoWeVEoCFUckOUAvAhfzA09SWNNxMOjovb7ELrxsuV7O-QSqusH26pNrtVyz/s1600/Vanuemarama+PS.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477938179738347154" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIcFf5DWciq9xrdtSEetnNdvG-JVykB4fY7NsbrPDu8mc4G0SRiuEpLhN9NW-cXYmlNmj755ycAeMG0Iw1WoWeVEoCFUckOUAvAhfzA09SWNNxMOjovb7ELrxsuV7O-QSqusH26pNrtVyz/s320/Vanuemarama+PS.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />This is one of the classrooms. A lot of the kids didn't come down this particular day because of the rain the night before and the bad weather that was expected. They all have a climb either coming or going and the day I visited, they were all dismissed early because of the potential bad weather (which never materialized).<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9vSwN4_8h_E5gxTDQVB3MRqFcyyseq4MK6K4du0A1uW8IVDonIHsrAIeF_xGLOXyEVX59hE2NTyKWo53B2jEUjpCqQpiUV13xAINz21O1hOwh3c7F8gw8imK3qfqcY2q3DCTGOWzcYZMj/s1600/Vanuemarama+road.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477938176504263474" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9vSwN4_8h_E5gxTDQVB3MRqFcyyseq4MK6K4du0A1uW8IVDonIHsrAIeF_xGLOXyEVX59hE2NTyKWo53B2jEUjpCqQpiUV13xAINz21O1hOwh3c7F8gw8imK3qfqcY2q3DCTGOWzcYZMj/s320/Vanuemarama+road.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />My faithful guides on the trail back to the village. They were very patient with me, even pulling me up some particular slippery spots and always watching for the easiest path. Normally, they are running and singing and playing the whole climb back.<br /><br /><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><br /><br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTPUVW6rjSUG24Z7eertnDuyTRF5VJUwU-vKgXIuzdQguUyZyTNrW3cWLARsjUpe-RSWEu-3RrncWbOD3p-fJqXQZbnOHqII394MDiiHsgP_iQLzXMgsIGYrNM1ytYkaRRW2repmcL4cXs/s1600/children's+activity.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477938171300438098" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTPUVW6rjSUG24Z7eertnDuyTRF5VJUwU-vKgXIuzdQguUyZyTNrW3cWLARsjUpe-RSWEu-3RrncWbOD3p-fJqXQZbnOHqII394MDiiHsgP_iQLzXMgsIGYrNM1ytYkaRRW2repmcL4cXs/s320/children's+activity.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />At the health workshop, my primary job was to do an afternoon session with the kids. Beth had some really great ideas for health activities to do with the kids and it was a lot of fun. In the picture below, the kids are drawing their favorite foods on some paper plates. Afterward, Beth came by with a little paper fly she'd made; it had cotton ball feet she had dipped in "sitsit" that looked an awful lot like red food coloring. The fly then landed on all their favorite foods, depositing its load of germs.<br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV2iA10KkDT0J_pXi98tamLA6lqLjZ4qNskdDSYEqu3KiL9-HrhqzM7ytTkxXwjW3duK0QEEPfp1nWAVTydQFFVBK2gjWyYESWvFDPkuwnBs_d_bfUSIfFXivPBfs2qJ_knZYHpZrlhFKR/s1600/building+the+smol+haos.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477937782409513778" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV2iA10KkDT0J_pXi98tamLA6lqLjZ4qNskdDSYEqu3KiL9-HrhqzM7ytTkxXwjW3duK0QEEPfp1nWAVTydQFFVBK2gjWyYESWvFDPkuwnBs_d_bfUSIfFXivPBfs2qJ_knZYHpZrlhFKR/s320/building+the+smol+haos.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />This is the site for one of the new small houses. They were VIP toilets, which means Ventilation Improved Pit toilets. The idea is to keep them dark so the flies enter a pipe to escape. There is a net on the top of the pipe that traps the flies and prevents them from carrying germs out of the small house and onto people.<br /><br />I included the picture mostly because of the green.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoZI7Mz8kpGi72O890PPILpTSjEwX3vG8pSbmkVkcc9YGyhPuIP0ZZbE1G8EG1du2CrdSf683ZFrayXZTDErMkac_tS9PTsEut5KHG88Op4VCOfIAk3BJ4671OOpMXdGRCfQxnFnQw2jAo/s1600/new+smal+haos.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477937782784312210" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoZI7Mz8kpGi72O890PPILpTSjEwX3vG8pSbmkVkcc9YGyhPuIP0ZZbE1G8EG1du2CrdSf683ZFrayXZTDErMkac_tS9PTsEut5KHG88Op4VCOfIAk3BJ4671OOpMXdGRCfQxnFnQw2jAo/s320/new+smal+haos.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />One of the finished small houses, complete with hand washing dishes and reminders about how and when to wash your hands.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />And these are some of the kids from the village. They loved looking at the picture afterwards and identifying all of the faces.<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf75APUols3HUxns16EqNoNOgXer6H70p0oKSvsHjJqXfWY5cFxf_J4Ay59O8Qiip2QWHxRtvNxMp83MB7nhIgv7W2K74b39zmCU_I0M68zOGfmy9TnyjY_JQ7Lu0SKpTdULX4PsrP4v7I/s1600/North+Ambae+kids.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477937776466426514" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf75APUols3HUxns16EqNoNOgXer6H70p0oKSvsHjJqXfWY5cFxf_J4Ay59O8Qiip2QWHxRtvNxMp83MB7nhIgv7W2K74b39zmCU_I0M68zOGfmy9TnyjY_JQ7Lu0SKpTdULX4PsrP4v7I/s320/North+Ambae+kids.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT-I3WsOvyu1J3qgDaMy7if3A7l8aGyRzb2ge-6m-afWGxbkd2fq-Siq8qz4hBZ5VCYTGsASXmrOVwP_Ya_NcnFq5TnntvZ5Ou_DUG4wpNZv9SYQc4fcSvGL1Awx2bzQ00I37OyltZLLSx/s1600/Beth+and+I.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477937460518299954" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT-I3WsOvyu1J3qgDaMy7if3A7l8aGyRzb2ge-6m-afWGxbkd2fq-Siq8qz4hBZ5VCYTGsASXmrOVwP_Ya_NcnFq5TnntvZ5Ou_DUG4wpNZv9SYQc4fcSvGL1Awx2bzQ00I37OyltZLLSx/s320/Beth+and+I.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />This is Beth, the volunteer who lives in Lolowai with her husband, Ed. The two of them moved to Ambae in November last year, and to Lolowai in January or so. It was been so nice to have volunteers so close; their house is about a 30 minute walk from me. I've really enjoyed getting to know them--they're a fun couple.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />One weekend, Blake and I walked to Ambanga, a village a little north of me, to do a site visit in preparation for a possible volunteer site. It took us about 3 hours to walk there (with a short truck ride in the middle) and about 4 and a half to get back because we missed a turning somewhere. My host family thought that was pretty funny since the road we missed was a truck road, rather than a bush trail.<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSO-50C_npU7vdz7R1mAudpmwEPxiLmEjPI80R0-JaqPryTs31uHaByNRa5dAtvizQXr0jU7HvG6qJbw0GChDMwU3_TLg3tl1Km2Bmw_sg5l57u-VAXDHwbyk8efSA7wtrRHXgBWsKReEx/s1600/umbrellas.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477937454712875218" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSO-50C_npU7vdz7R1mAudpmwEPxiLmEjPI80R0-JaqPryTs31uHaByNRa5dAtvizQXr0jU7HvG6qJbw0GChDMwU3_TLg3tl1Km2Bmw_sg5l57u-VAXDHwbyk8efSA7wtrRHXgBWsKReEx/s320/umbrellas.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />We stayed one night and walked back the following morning. My host was Emina who runs a guest house for people who want to climb Manaro. She walked with us the first hour to show us a shorter road down from Ambanga. Just after we left Ambanga, it started to rain and the girls were using custom umbrellas (taro leaves) to shelter from the rain.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZBAdIlmhC1CuvH8D59QQVAsle19TQtWK5iXn9MqDszLrWIPIKiW16-Ytb3rd0-InmReYB-aad8l2L5uh0I8Hlfwf9N0hWr5S8DjEXF2y70kcThAgUdF62I97R7JmAYh_J9ESLNTE8elm2/s1600/walking.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477937452121145490" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZBAdIlmhC1CuvH8D59QQVAsle19TQtWK5iXn9MqDszLrWIPIKiW16-Ytb3rd0-InmReYB-aad8l2L5uh0I8Hlfwf9N0hWr5S8DjEXF2y70kcThAgUdF62I97R7JmAYh_J9ESLNTE8elm2/s320/walking.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Just setting out on the road back to Saratamata.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZD55RwrPFAp_oYZkKQlFJgIl0ujiZAJpM7tsIee2Uj-c2fSWfjvQhTTxG2CCEdQizQB2GICm2lJZ1iAxEB03uPXLcYNCCfmHJF2cCkf9hJkmRgg9gEaiD3OkpoYBAaIEEnXN7hwn_Q_Nf/s1600/making+cake.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477936890582374066" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZD55RwrPFAp_oYZkKQlFJgIl0ujiZAJpM7tsIee2Uj-c2fSWfjvQhTTxG2CCEdQizQB2GICm2lJZ1iAxEB03uPXLcYNCCfmHJF2cCkf9hJkmRgg9gEaiD3OkpoYBAaIEEnXN7hwn_Q_Nf/s320/making+cake.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />My host family and I have been experimenting<br />a little lately. This picture is of my host brother,<br />Wilson, and a cousin brother, Stephie, preparing<br />a banana cake in an outdoor kitchen.<br /><br />And below is my brother Lonnie with his friend Monique.<br />Monique had tried pizza before and wanted to see if we could<br />make it on Ambae. It was delicious in spite of yeast that didn't rise and no cheese.<br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUiwFR8MjdjeztSI72ieUNwX2WEA3zVVqcmjZmqAuJ8MJVMZ4oXhuaJLjrW95PvWv5MHOV0b0-DDibCntrE9NF_au8HDQTojC9j07nLG-DTdwrdrXCM397sG5xUz9I-TbI7vYIKtqPl6cS/s1600/pizza.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477936888172009794" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUiwFR8MjdjeztSI72ieUNwX2WEA3zVVqcmjZmqAuJ8MJVMZ4oXhuaJLjrW95PvWv5MHOV0b0-DDibCntrE9NF_au8HDQTojC9j07nLG-DTdwrdrXCM397sG5xUz9I-TbI7vYIKtqPl6cS/s320/pizza.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnXryStToDYtfbE5Vey1N998BJ_kUOEfvKhJGqNh18n6wXpL3RlL_1smzDPRrtyT2ULYNLYXQlhVk3TDq9Z5p2Ixy5N-Hdmf7HW1cNQ-BuanScC1OnX3mbAwSPIpD1F1AQzgeHYPDqIpCH/s1600/Garabulu+men.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477936384612646306" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnXryStToDYtfbE5Vey1N998BJ_kUOEfvKhJGqNh18n6wXpL3RlL_1smzDPRrtyT2ULYNLYXQlhVk3TDq9Z5p2Ixy5N-Hdmf7HW1cNQ-BuanScC1OnX3mbAwSPIpD1F1AQzgeHYPDqIpCH/s320/Garabulu+men.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Several volunteers came to Ambae in April to climb Manaro before going to Maewo to do a workshop. I went along since I haven't climbed Ambae's volcano yet. The village where our road began has been working hard to prepare a good path for tourists to follow and to bring some interest from Vila tours. We were not expecting anything more than a guide or two but they village really gave us a red carpet welcome.<br /><br /><br />The men and women did custom dances<br />and they had prepared a sampling of food for us when we returned from the climb. None of us<br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA9DlQu4_rwwxrDiCYJPqSS4a_5gIP5Pk5HBla9AcmUSc2BWIpjhs2jClB6xod3RAH07TVABINhzWSVnfXlZ-D2483LLj1Gd60Zxr6uUw52b9mZSZHCLEUdmfmqCFT6DTkNNoo_zAAelpy/s1600/Garabulu+ladies.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477936380856990594" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA9DlQu4_rwwxrDiCYJPqSS4a_5gIP5Pk5HBla9AcmUSc2BWIpjhs2jClB6xod3RAH07TVABINhzWSVnfXlZ-D2483LLj1Gd60Zxr6uUw52b9mZSZHCLEUdmfmqCFT6DTkNNoo_zAAelpy/s320/Garabulu+ladies.jpg" border="0" /></a> needed to sample laplap since we're all very familiar with laplap of all flavors. But they are definitely prepared for visitors, as long as you don't take their "Close up nao" comments too seriously.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8hN0X88pNoZ16ysoWQXPs5ljmEfVHoNewwiTlP0A9wsqRiMKtcns9qX5eVBFERyySwVE__5hhOW176Tf0dlk5j4QuM-NRkzo_Cwgu8OffSdEMJTKs8qwqh8deSuA6I6lTwK2YhElyYLqs/s1600/close+up.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477936378732241650" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8hN0X88pNoZ16ysoWQXPs5ljmEfVHoNewwiTlP0A9wsqRiMKtcns9qX5eVBFERyySwVE__5hhOW176Tf0dlk5j4QuM-NRkzo_Cwgu8OffSdEMJTKs8qwqh8deSuA6I6lTwK2YhElyYLqs/s320/close+up.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />This is the new cone forming in the acidic lake on top of Manaro. There are three lakes, one cold one that is either spring fed or all rain water. That is the lake we reached during our climb. The lake with the new cone is just beyond the fresh water lake and is too acidic for swimming. We could just see the steam from our position.</div><div>The third lake isn't visible from here.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPN61yEvPGJgwaHLQfAy8v5fSbEmu9kdRa2niakpWC9jlHkrIK4ozCL6fn5uGTAs54rxWMtHVuwfTZi2gKphp94SBbvhC-zRuo4gMVw0rXDGAi0p88t5T34s8PtRzrTkzluCfrWfLdG1Y0/s1600/at+the+top.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477935950641163346" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPN61yEvPGJgwaHLQfAy8v5fSbEmu9kdRa2niakpWC9jlHkrIK4ozCL6fn5uGTAs54rxWMtHVuwfTZi2gKphp94SBbvhC-zRuo4gMVw0rXDGAi0p88t5T34s8PtRzrTkzluCfrWfLdG1Y0/s320/at+the+top.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />This was the climax of our 4 hour climb--not for unfit people or those just getting over a stomach virus (like I was). Billy in the middle lives on North Ambae, about a 7 hour walk from my site, and Bob on the right lived on Tanna, though his contract has finished now.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtg-pf9ae6yLhblCBoA4-lX94nv9XgtehgGgba0kzJY_4LyuuYvAKRn-5lLS9nnidf2bn6WAQ0ydAkx1SekRcX1FFJzxbEfjKGAw9V1vKYhfV5g1fArROdmFb1pp25ckXzyKYudDYC03vz/s1600/early+road.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477935950217880562" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtg-pf9ae6yLhblCBoA4-lX94nv9XgtehgGgba0kzJY_4LyuuYvAKRn-5lLS9nnidf2bn6WAQ0ydAkx1SekRcX1FFJzxbEfjKGAw9V1vKYhfV5g1fArROdmFb1pp25ckXzyKYudDYC03vz/s320/early+road.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Part of the road we followed to get on top.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><div><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEOga2p43viEYcNWfkQa589vWGg1ZfFDdRE7icrpBnrPDoEcAAdmJgEsAL6R4SC35y5sNsR5Po16SWvoi37lFFlaGUibgk80Bk-3jV6cU_Pfc0Ncg4KtltdslTzVJjd59vCj-DU6L9u93t/s1600/Manaro+lakes.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477935514485254690" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEOga2p43viEYcNWfkQa589vWGg1ZfFDdRE7icrpBnrPDoEcAAdmJgEsAL6R4SC35y5sNsR5Po16SWvoi37lFFlaGUibgk80Bk-3jV6cU_Pfc0Ncg4KtltdslTzVJjd59vCj-DU6L9u93t/s320/Manaro+lakes.small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />Two of the lakes with the steam from the cone in the back.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLCjfnRBRYCY2c_YdjYeq8RqQf7CSAZfwbTXDTh0Lb_VE3cSSL7xBld6eOYzYUT66Hoi9WnstilmrFftvpdxYnfo7EmkaZW6wDduCW5Hd-16gRvCs7ajWhq-Zj08_Dvu3V0DcfiKHyxBX2/s1600/Manaro's+new+vent.small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477935515116952674" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLCjfnRBRYCY2c_YdjYeq8RqQf7CSAZfwbTXDTh0Lb_VE3cSSL7xBld6eOYzYUT66Hoi9WnstilmrFftvpdxYnfo7EmkaZW6wDduCW5Hd-16gRvCs7ajWhq-Zj08_Dvu3V0DcfiKHyxBX2/s320/Manaro's+new+vent.small.jpg" border="0" /></a></div><div></div><div></div><div>And one more aerial view of the cone. An obliging pilot flew over it when I was headed for that grass airport on West Ambae.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>That's all for now. I hope everyone is well. I'll be in Vila for the next few days and should be able to access email if anyone has something to say. :) </div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-39078322575041245712010-04-08T03:21:00.000-07:002010-04-08T04:16:56.995-07:00Good News, Bad NewsWithout asking which one you'd like to hear first, I'm just going to put the bad news first and get it out of the way. Mai has disappeared. I let her out one evening and she never came back. She had never done anything like that before but I hoped that she had simply wandered off with a couple of semi-wild dogs who visit us occasionally. But after 3 days, the two dogs showed up at my house without Mai. That was a serious blow to my hope that she would come back. My host family immediately suggested that someone stole her. I had a hard time believing that someone in Vanuatu would be interested enough in dogs, any dog, to go to the trouble to steal her but several other people mentioned the possibility as well. They said that because Mai was a nice dog, and clean, and looked different from most other island dogs that someone would be tempted to steal her. Considering the other possibilities that were offered to me, I'm clinging to the hope that someone DID steal her, someone who really likes dogs and will care for her. Other options were that she was poisoned, stoned, or eaten. <br /><br />It has been three weeks now and I am slowly giving up on her coming back. Her water dish has become a mosquito coil tray and her flea/tick shampoo is put in the closet. I haven't given away the tins of tuna that would have been her dinner but those will go next. It has been very difficult to deal with since people here don't really understand and because I can't really talk about it honestly. I'm afraid that any mention of feeling lonely will mean that my host sister offers to come live with me again. That is not the kind of company I need, though, so I just keep it to myself.<br /><br />OK. On to the good news. I have been much more active since returning from Christmas in the states. I'm not sure if my absence reminded people that I will, in the not too distant future, be gone for good or if they are procrastinators like me and needed the more imminent deadline to create some motivation . . . and really, it doesn't matter why. The outcome is that there are workshops planned and lesson taught and observations done and kids being tutored and no more time for computer games. My first action was to take on 4 kids in the 3rd grade at the nearby school for some phonics/reading tutoring. We identified them as being low at the end of last year, and I figured tutoring was something that didn't require support or initiative from anyone but me, so I announced to the teacher and my counterpart at the office that I would be tutoring every Wednesday afternoon. Two other people have also asked me to work with their kids two more days of the week so three days a week, I am working with 8 kids on various literacy skills. It has been fun.<br /><br />The nearby primary school has also decided to fill their non-pay day Friday afternoons with mini workshops. My first one was a phonics review that included some information about what comes after the basic, early elementary skills. The teachers there introduced phonics about three years ago so the kids in 4th grade are ready for the next level of skills. That afternoon led to two weeks of work at the school. The first week, I was doing three phonics lessons a day in class 5, class 6 and class 3/4 FOR A FRANCOPHONE CLASS! That was an adventure. Fortunately, I could do most of the talking in Bislama and use a French/English dictionary to put together word lists for learning letter sounds. I learned a lot of French words that start with /s/. After a week of model lessons, the teachers took over and I observed each of them several times. A few frustrating moments, like showing up unexpectedly to one of the classes and finding out that the teacher hadn't prepared a phonics lesson because he didn't think I was going to be able to come. What my presence or absence had to do with teaching phonics to his students is still a mystery to me but he recouped his losses by doing an activity after I left and telling me about it the following day. Another one of the teachers was teaching her kids the difference between /s/ and /sh/, a distinction that does not exist in Bislama. She used "She sells sea shells on the sea shore," to help the kids hear and practice the two sounds and it was lots of fun. We all laughed and laughed at the students' attempts to say the tongue twister accurately.<br /><br />I will be doing my second mini-workshop tomorrow afternoon on reading comprehension activities. The weeks in between were filled by Kosuke, a Japanese volunteer who is helping the teachers with mathematics. The workshop tomorrow is going to require some quick work on my part since I am, at the moment, in Luganville, Santo, running errands for a pre-school workshop that will begin Monday in West Ambae. (Told you I was busier!) My flight to Ambae arrives at 10:30 or 11:00 tomorrow morning and then I have to be at the school at 1:00 for the workshop. Hmm.<br /><br />The week before Easter, Beth and I (Beth is one of the newer volunteers who lives in Lolowai, where the bank and post office are) went north for a workshop being run by Blake, man Ambae. (Blake is currently serving his 5th year as a volunteer on North Ambae. I'm not even sure how to respond to that sometimes.) A nearby village asked him to do a workshop on health and sanitation. They received a grant that paid for some rain water collection and storage systems and two new toilets that will help cut down on the flies that trasmit germs from the pit toilets to the people. In the mornings, we did health toktoks and in the afternoons, the participants worked on the toilets.<br /><br />The village is definitely more rural that I am used to. Everything was up or down because they're up on the hillsides rather than down near the ocean. They consider themselves a community but you can't see one family compound from another because of the trees and the incline. Phone calls have to be made from the stump of a coconut palm located on the top of the ridge so you have to climb for 20 minutes to make or receive phone calls. I did a lot of thinking about how difficult it must have been to get to know the people in the area but Blake said his host father was very helpful about taking him around and introducing him to the different families. And the school or community events were opportunities for meeting people as well. Still seems like an extra challenge to me. Blake's host family actually lives in a little hollow and they are proud to point out that theirs is the last compound to the north. No one lives farther up the hill, no one lives farther north, no one lives down the hill. I think, during those first few months, the walls of that little valley would have made me feel trapped. I'm not sure if that was a reaction to the isolation or if it's the effects of growing up in a place where the areas of highest elevation are the garbage dumps, but it made me glad that I was living in Saratamata.<br /><br />The workshop seemed to go well. Beth and I were mainly responsible for a kids activity each afternoon but we helped Blake with the morning sessions as well. Hopefully, the workshop met Blake's expectations though it's hard to tell because the only disappointment he expressed was that they ran out of kava at the closing ceremony. (Not such a bad thing, in my opinion, because a shell and half of the stuff made me drunker than I'd ever been on kava. It was not a pleasant sensation.)<br /><br />I was back in Saratamata on Good Friday, cleaned the house on Saturday, spent Easter Sunday with my host family, and looked forward to a week in the office preparing for the pre-school workshop next week. However, our office copy machine is not working well and we had a impressive number of papers to photocopy for the pre-school teachers and there were supplies to buy and the result was me hopping a plane on Wednesday morning. One full day in Santo to get everything accomplished and out again on Friday. A weekend in Saratamata and out again on Monday for a week long workshop in West Ambae. <br /><br />This is truly a whirlwind of activity here but my days have been generally busier. <br /><br />There is so much more to write about--my host family's Easter dinner and "secret friend" gift giving, the people I met at the workshop and the surprisingly pleasant closing ceremony, some observations on child raising here that are definitely worth a blog post at some point--but I'm running out of steam. It has been a LONG day and I made the most of it in spite of the heat and humidity which made me run with sweat just walking from one errand to the next. A glass of cold lime juice with ice, ICE!, an ice cream, and a cold shower were the highlights of the day and I am looking forward to a good night's sleep with the fan pointed right at me. (Oh, the luxury of 24 hour electricity.) My next trip to civilization should be at the end of May for a Peace Corps meeting. I will post something again then.<br /><br />I miss you all. <br />Good night.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-73239436896440466902010-01-21T13:23:00.000-08:002010-01-21T13:44:50.836-08:00Back in the . . . Van - u - a - tuIt doesn't exactly have the same ring as "Back in the USSR" but it's the best I could do. Readjusting has been . . . ok. There are things that made me smile as soon as I stepped off the plane (the big, genuine smiles of the Air Vanuatu employees and the simple baggage/customs process) and moments when I thought, "Oh yeah. The burning trash smell" or I experienced some similar kind of unpleasant reminder of what life in Vanuatu can be like. There were several volunteers from my group in town as well; they were also returning from visits to the states. And I had 2 training sessions to polish and present almost as soon as I got back from home. Those were nice distractions while my mind got back into thinking Vanuatu-fashion. Overall, it has been a smoother transition than I expected, thankfully.<br /><br />I have just returned from a visit to my host family in Mangaliliu. This is my family from those first few months of training. My host father owns a taxi and shuttles a couple of regulars from the village to Vila and back again each day so he was able to pick me up without making an extra trip. We had fried fish and laplap for dinner--my first aelan kakae since returning--and had a really nice evening catching up. My first born sister, Juliette, did very well on her year 8 exams, placed first in her class, and was assigned to a prestigious secondary school in Vila. The second born sister is proving to be a natural entrepreneur. She has been making shell jewelry to sell in town and I was able to support her efforts by purchasing a really nice pair of earrings. Micah, my brother, is 6 and will be starting primary school this year. He talked and talked and talked while I was visiting. These days, though, I can actually catch most of what he's saying in direct contrast to my early days there when I just nodded and said the Bislama equivalent of "Oh, really?" over and over again. <br /><br />Today is my last day in Vila and I just have a few things to take care of before heading to Ambae tomorrow. I am looking forward to unpacking my suitcases, to seeing my Ambae host family, to seeing Mai, and to reclaiming my garden from the weeds and overgrown island cabbage. It is hot and humid here--in the 90s each day with at least 80% humidity--and it doesn't cool down much at night. But that actually helps me enjoy those cold water showers rather than just endure them like I do all winter. There are also two new sets of volunteers, married couples, who live near me on Ambae. One is a couple from Kentucky who live about 40 minutes away by truck. I will probably see them every couple of weeks. And a couple from New Zealand arrived just before I left and will be living at the rural training center between my community and the bank/post office. I think this year will be a very different experience with so many volunteers nearby. <br /><br />I'm not sure when I'll be able to post again. I don't think I'll be in Vila again until May so I'll try to put something together for Mom and Dad to post in the meantime. <br />MalpongRachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-6053537661091299032010-01-11T00:06:00.000-08:002010-01-11T00:19:46.237-08:00Haka, Heifers, HostelsJust wanted to go on record as saying that the North Island of New Zealand is a great place to visit. I've been here 3 days now and am thoroughly enjoying myself. There was a great show at the War Memorial Museum in Auckland of Maori songs and dances, including haka. All of the summer flowers are in bloom here so even driving through the small towns is a treat because the yards are decked out. The urban gardens are all flowering too. People have been very helpful with directions and suggestions and making transportation and accomodation arrangements. And the cities are very welcoming cities--not too much traffic (pedestrian or motorized), not too big, not too dirty, just friendly. <br /><br />Today I took a bus from Auckland to Rotorua and really enjoyed the trip. It was nice to see some of the rural areas of the North Island. We passed through "Hobbiton" too, also known as Matamata, though the town's welcome sign was for Hobbiton. From the bus window, I could definitely see the potential for the little hobbit burrows in the hilly landscape. Not too many sheep yet, but lots and lots of cows.<br /><br />And Rotorua is a great little tourist town. There appear to be some real offices and apartment buildings and houses here as well, but the downtown area just feels made for visitors. Lots of trees and flowers and pedestrian walkways. <br /><br />It's nice to be here in summer, too. The sun has been bright and warm and the breeze cool (a little too cool sometimes :) ) and just one light rain shower so far. I highly recommend the North Island--at least what I've seen so far. It's worth the 12-14 hour plane ride. :)Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-44808764212936704672010-01-06T15:37:00.000-08:002010-01-06T15:54:55.860-08:00The pictures below are from my trip to Tanna and some recent ones of my host family. I'd post some better captions but my editing screen is showing the code rather than the picture so I can't figure out where to type. <br />The pictures of the volcano show Mt. Yasur on Tanna. It is a very active volcano, at least it was when I was there, with rumbling and small explosions every few minutes. We were able to go just before dark so we could see our way up but also get to enjoy the fireworks of the lava explosions after the sun set. It was amazing to be that close to so much power--no guide rails, no warning signs, just some height and being on the safe side of the crater. <br />The custom dancers were from a nearby village and you can see the volcano's silhouette behind them on the left. <br />One of the first family pictures of my mbumbu Christina (grandma). She is about 4 feet tall, had to change her blouse when I asked to take her picture, and is the crafter of the mat she is holding up. She lives very close to my host family.<br />There is also a family picture with almost all of my host family. Two brothers are missing. My host mother is holding up the newest addition to the family, my niece Rachel and my sister Sophia is holding my cousin, Beres. There is also a picture of my scratching manioc for laplap with my host father sitting in the background. Right after my sister took the picture, my host mother came in with a cloth to drape over my lap. I have a habit of scratching the manioc or banana or yam onto myself rather than into the dish.<br />The last two pictures are of Christmas celebrations, the first with my host family on Ambae and the second of my US family in island dresses. My sisters don't know I'm posting this picture but they will find out soon enough. If the post disappears in the next couple of days it's because my mom knows my password and didn't want the world to see her "island style."<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSGFR29OV2kffUyPERB2hpZWxf5lfRKzJI0q8M6cxBmCDpCdk_iBgVwHeaHMC_elO9AAMMtDS9kpOo52d3a9Yr45jW02xSxwALJz_76otZ_HI8FVoOKbfhDh1_FMmDJRLTjaq3JujgLLbX/s1600-h/Mt+Yasur+4+(small).jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSGFR29OV2kffUyPERB2hpZWxf5lfRKzJI0q8M6cxBmCDpCdk_iBgVwHeaHMC_elO9AAMMtDS9kpOo52d3a9Yr45jW02xSxwALJz_76otZ_HI8FVoOKbfhDh1_FMmDJRLTjaq3JujgLLbX/s320/Mt+Yasur+4+(small).jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423776401979263154" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDmokANXN5qAl5a1nt9C3HSxoNHyreay4EEr566wSHcYQnN4yJFjdKf9Fh7iS_ViMZkD2VcW-k9CdZ2cOZBJ2PZFonPmEGAKBR80reMuy3_EuSGaRd34AtCPKVq2iOMp_RYJoj39yPnAQp/s1600-h/custom+dance+1+(small).jpg"><img style="float:left; 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margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA5OYiv4-kUsGKWSaNqiIMkch6MPrdtgd28mI_7YFIhGxclAfMzjmZ3T4bsqYW7rKogptS6ibLoGHzV-4slfOOHNXA1JQaiO5ZBnV4XOVkOE5PWHbQ16_aOQNBm0TMfZZ2VGzxdn4PVnc0/s320/Bubu+Christina+(small).jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423775992512402626" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUqol14XZODK1dkpwOq1-L5E1c5BftcNpi3akJug3QlFWixVpwnWGXY9ciuK_-ISyL5JTSGXdeELKXbVeQIKhdYCntMwwC-j-3vd3vUuY0SC8BTnJKAaDvgmdKs5V7Kk8J6nJ1PL5rcGmV/s1600-h/scratching+manioc+(small).jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUqol14XZODK1dkpwOq1-L5E1c5BftcNpi3akJug3QlFWixVpwnWGXY9ciuK_-ISyL5JTSGXdeELKXbVeQIKhdYCntMwwC-j-3vd3vUuY0SC8BTnJKAaDvgmdKs5V7Kk8J6nJ1PL5rcGmV/s320/scratching+manioc+(small).jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423775993805029682" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9HQd4Lr805Q237yn3eCgY8-tm012bz4y-XsCo1amyzd8vhcaqW6L-5pAHHiO90dNXBsnv29tPVPYdqfxGbiED1dnkE23Ty-y2IfLio44mfuRWQlyHW9C4l9LrCk7lwZjR4ftCAMuE71pI/s1600-h/Suni+and+Beres+(small).jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9HQd4Lr805Q237yn3eCgY8-tm012bz4y-XsCo1amyzd8vhcaqW6L-5pAHHiO90dNXBsnv29tPVPYdqfxGbiED1dnkE23Ty-y2IfLio44mfuRWQlyHW9C4l9LrCk7lwZjR4ftCAMuE71pI/s320/Suni+and+Beres+(small).jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423775988119322082" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMStA2yjS9h6nQz9m8f6SlTxdJukFD0PwxsiYcYwhHa1wSG6YwLXjRiOW59iarhec7dYWrurXUEI64jqzB_N4M1Rx_5pz1xA2IhhMrr29bib3fZij-Sx3_7BIAN9oveKcUWOCDqMPPE5YQ/s1600-h/Mami+Doreen+with+small+Rachel+(small).jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMStA2yjS9h6nQz9m8f6SlTxdJukFD0PwxsiYcYwhHa1wSG6YwLXjRiOW59iarhec7dYWrurXUEI64jqzB_N4M1Rx_5pz1xA2IhhMrr29bib3fZij-Sx3_7BIAN9oveKcUWOCDqMPPE5YQ/s320/Mami+Doreen+with+small+Rachel+(small).jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423775699237645810" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzgIBrjwWO1KApf6BHkLmy5jXdDUKbLfFPjwmO66FjmLvdB55eDpILXZjQ1XswDC-0sNEhHYFy8f-23HN2PTJ4reDeSXuhplrPYFEi6O6rOgqIiSOjBkXWlge7h7K-10SF-kWSUQVWXLtd/s1600-h/host+family+(small).jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzgIBrjwWO1KApf6BHkLmy5jXdDUKbLfFPjwmO66FjmLvdB55eDpILXZjQ1XswDC-0sNEhHYFy8f-23HN2PTJ4reDeSXuhplrPYFEi6O6rOgqIiSOjBkXWlge7h7K-10SF-kWSUQVWXLtd/s320/host+family+(small).jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423775695933341170" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2xPvh4BIt5xMDW8sToZXkBKLX7D4JBkrfJFLcPxeyeDK2QLeV8Jb-TFWULarfupvbtF2ZeDLxuSvnN5hrpdJgku5NrMPtT7kBTchPLkm61dhnN_ARZCUrMCNyBtVSx6U5x1AfOlcHWsKO/s1600-h/last+kakae+Dec+09.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2xPvh4BIt5xMDW8sToZXkBKLX7D4JBkrfJFLcPxeyeDK2QLeV8Jb-TFWULarfupvbtF2ZeDLxuSvnN5hrpdJgku5NrMPtT7kBTchPLkm61dhnN_ARZCUrMCNyBtVSx6U5x1AfOlcHWsKO/s320/last+kakae+Dec+09.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423775692533453314" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnBHz5IP_nX7sFG0Cq9ZR5Tl06SULK0t6TMQ8FxcWVvCDRs_xoQ9TXFvBo-iLHfNq5MoV7hYXrfDnzdh2Qp1x_uw62oeJl50uf2EVCrIJFZeoeLfRMHNvS3t1095ioSZU07SrteQLGfje6/s1600-h/Christmas+2009.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnBHz5IP_nX7sFG0Cq9ZR5Tl06SULK0t6TMQ8FxcWVvCDRs_xoQ9TXFvBo-iLHfNq5MoV7hYXrfDnzdh2Qp1x_uw62oeJl50uf2EVCrIJFZeoeLfRMHNvS3t1095ioSZU07SrteQLGfje6/s320/Christmas+2009.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423775456238190530" /></a><br /><br />I head back tomorrow morning. The New Zealand plans are coming together bit by bit and I'm excited about my short stop in Auckland. I will miss all of you but look forward to reunions next winter.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-20863448970136406922010-01-03T11:54:00.000-08:002010-01-03T12:48:34.763-08:00Another Year is DawningFor the first time in my life, I am actually living on a schedule where the "New Year" makes sense to me. As a student and teacher, New Years never really had the impact for me that so many people seemed to feel--it came right in the middle of a school year, not at the beginning or end of anything except for the free calendar from the insurance company. This year however, it feels like something much more profound. The halfway mark of my Peace Corps service is proving to be a very complicated place. There is some celebration for having conquered that first year, for the small victories, for the personal growth. There is some frustration at how, no matter how slowly the individual days seemed to pass, the time has rushed by. My successes don't measure up very well by my ingrained, western hemisphere standards of accomplishment. But every volunteer I've talked to has said the second year is busier. That may be a reflection of finally adjusting fully to the slower pace but my list of possible activities when I return is encouraging enough. At times I am confused about how I can be so bored in the midst of such an adventure, and how I can be so idle in a place where there is so much to be done. And at other times I'm so thankful that I can take a day off to go to a custom wedding, that I can sit and talk with Krenny, our office secretary, all afternoon instead of being tied to a project or a deadline, that I can spend 3 days on a letter instead of 3 minutes on an email to a friend. <br /><br />I'm returning to Vanuatu for one more year and I am looking forward to the downward coast after a year spent running, crawling, limping up the incline. It means one more year without electricity 24-7, one more year of cold showers, one more year of banana laplap, one more year of cockroaches and mice and ticks and geckos, one more year of not-enough-to-do. But it also means just one more year with my host family, just one more year of living 50 yards from the ocean, just one more year of having my own garden, just one more year of time for hobbies, just one more year of simple living. Though I'm on the downhill run, it promises to be an emotional trip.<br /><br />It has been wonderful to be home. The culture shock wasn't too bad; I think all of those hours on airplanes and in airports helped reintroduce me to our more luxurious way of life. The first trip to the grocery store had an "Oh, yeah. This is what a store is like" quality. It was wonderful to hear the Christmas carols and see the lights and smell the pine trees. We may go overboard with Christmas here in the states, but I like it. And everytime I opened the fridge (which was more often than it should have been) there were lots of choices--CHOICES! I've been able to spend time with my family including my new nephew, who is a real cutie. I got some work done and even managed to earn a little money! I've even had the chance to experience the cold of winter, though it's a Floridian's definition of cold. The fleece and warm up pants I packed for New Zealand have come in handy; temperatures here have plunged into the 50s. As much as I dislike the cold, I am trying to store up a little bit of the chill because <em>nighttime</em> temperatures in Vanuatu these days are hovering around 90. <br /><br />I plan to get online one more time before I leave to post some pictures. I hope everyone's holidays were a time of rest and reunions and God's blessings and that the new year brings even more of the same.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-83039611608849790092009-11-18T13:33:00.001-08:002009-11-18T14:39:29.720-08:00Last Chance CafeActually, it's the Natangura Cafe in Luganville, Santo, but it represents my last chance to post the pictures. I return to Ambae today at lunch time, just in time to meet three volunteers from Maewo who will be staying with me for a few days before heading off to other places. <br /><br />My presentation to the upper eschelon of kindy (pre-school) administration is done, for better or worse. It is always difficult to plan a workshop/presentation when you know it is a topic they have heard at least once before but you have no idea what activities or what materials they already have. Fred, the kindy cooridnator for Penama was pleased with what I had prepared but when it came time for the actual presentation, most of the attendees were having a difficult time staying awake. The session did take place right after lunch so maybe everyone was fighting that natural after-dinner snooze, but the ladies and gentlemen from Vanuatu did not enjoy their lunch of spaghetti with meat sauce so I don't know how full they actually were. I don't know what the explanation is and I haven't had the courage to ask. There were several positive comments about activities and the phonics review so I'll have to hang my reputation on those and a heavy lunch. ;)<br /><br />Mom told me that lots of people have been asking what Mai will be doing while I'm in the states. She will be staying with my host family for that time, going to the garden, eating lots of chicken bones, and getting spoiled by my host mother. People in Vanuatu have a very different perspective toward dogs. Here dogs are like any other farm animal without the usefulness. Their only real purpose in Vanuatu is to run pigs and to eat the garbage, compounded by the fact that there are no population control measures for the dogs and cats. "Pets" are a luxury that most people here can not afford yet and everybody has a dog and cat living around their house whether they want them or not just because of the constant supply of puppies. However, my host family treats Mai very well. My host mom taught her to "karem i kam" (bring) which is very helpful since Mai has developed the habit of running off with one of my shoes when she thinks it's time to leave. And I even spotted my host father petting her the other day. She's still pretty leery of my host brothers but they're not quite sure what to do with her either so it's reciprocal. <br /><br /><br />I'm sorry this is such a mediocre post. The pictures refuse to load and they were going to be my theme. I'll be home mid-December though, so I should be able to do it then. Look for the pictures next time.<br /><br />Time to go--my taxi will be here soon.<br />Bon kareaRachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-68720442238683846722009-11-15T18:50:00.000-08:002009-11-15T19:14:20.817-08:00Luganville, SantoI had the opportunity to come to Luganville to do part of a workshop/conference for the provincial kindy (pre-school)coordinators of Vanuatu. There are six provinces so six coordinators plus 4 women from the central office in Vila. The conference will last all week; I only get one afternoon. Tomorrow afternoon, I will be doing a very brief presentation on literacy activities for kindy classes with an emphasis on phonics. I spent most of last week trying to translate all of the material into Bislama and then Fred and I (Fred is the coordinator for Penama province) spent all of Friday making corrections to my Bislama. I spent part of my day with my host family writing down a custom story in the language of East Ambae, dictated by my host father and will spend this evening turning that story into a book made with cardboard boxes. It's so nice to have a project!<br /> <br />I arrived in Santo this morning, without a ticket (the Ambae airport had run out of paper tickets), unsure of where the conference was being held, without a specific date for my presentation (Monday afternoon or Tuesday afternoon?), and without a copy of my plans (the office printer/copier is broken so Fred had to carry a digital version to Santo early to print and make copies). However, I now have an . . . OK place to stay and a semi-definite presentation time. Progress.<br /><br />Luganville is much smaller than Vila and most of the shops were closed for lunch when I started walking around but other volunteers have told me that you can still get a lot of things here--faux cheese, pasta, canned vegetables, etc. The really nice part is that you can arrange to have one of the stores here send you groceries via cargo ship without having to come in person. I'm hoping to get the details about that while I'm here. When things are sent from Santo, it's same-day delivery too! (i.e. the cargo arrives the same day that the ship <strong>leaves</strong>, not the same day you buy or order supplies)<br /><br />I don't have a lot of new pictures but I do have some from the Tanna trip that are pretty great. I will try to get those posted while I'm here. <br /><br />Bon KareaRachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-1898689735091297122009-10-11T09:39:00.000-07:002009-11-15T18:49:02.835-08:00Feast or FamineFEAST OR FAMINE <br /><br />One of our “senior” volunteers was sharing an observation the other day that life in Vanuatu is either feast or famine. Since then I have had the chance to reflect on my own experiences here and see how true that can be, in so many areas.<br /><br />I think all agricultural/farming societies or families are more accustomed to gardening feasts and famines than I am. My garden provides a continual source of island cabbage but all of the other plants are growing in their typical cycle. You wait weeks for beans and then you have more beans than you can use for a few weeks and then they’re gone again. There are several taro plants growing, but it will be close to year before they’re ready. I tried to plant tomato seeds in several phases so that, if the weather cooperates, the tomato plants will mature at different times. But the seedlings are taking much longer to grow than I expected. At the market, sometimes you can get loads of taro but there are no other choices. Then kumala comes into season and there is all-you-can-eat kumala for 3 weeks but no other choices.<br /><br />There is no produce section at the nearby grocery store to provide vegetables in the off season. But the feast-famine cycle happens in other things too. For a long time, there was nothing to do and now there is plenty, augmented by the obstacles that make every task take longer than you expected. I am sure that there will come a time when, once again, there is nothing to do and I will be whiling away the hours at work with crossword puzzles and computer games. Right now, however, I either have a school to visit or sizeable to-do list to tackle each day. (And what a pleasure it is! ©)<br /><br />Mail also tends to arrive in big bunches. Three weeks will pass without any letters and then 6 or 7 are delivered on the same day. If I had a little self-control, I would read one letter every couple of days to spread them out. But I can’t wait to find out what has been happening in everyone’s lives so I feast on letters for a day and go without until the next batch comes. Fortunately, I can reread the letters so it’s not a total fast.<br /><br />For months, I will not get a visitor or see another volunteer. And then a wave of activity begins. Last Friday, Sheridan and Justin from Maewo stayed with me one night on their way to Vila. The next day, Krissy and Javi arrived in Lolowai, where they will be staying for 2 or 3 months. (They are working with the province’s health administrators to prepare the province for some new PC community health volunteers.) The next weekend, I walked around to their house for dinner and talk. It was a little bit of a special occasion because Thomas, one of the volunteers from West Ambae (which might as well be another island, as hard as it is to get from one side to the other), had come for the weekend. A day later, Justine, another volunteer from Maewo, stayed with me for a night so she could catch the next day’s flight to Vila. The plane arrived to carry her away, and delivered Blake, the volunteer who lives on North Ambae. He is just returning from a few weeks in Vila. He will stay until a boat is heading north or he feels like making the trek home (a 5 or 6 hour walk). A group of missions-minded people is here as well, from New Zealand, and I had dinner with them last night. Next week, I am going to Malekula to visit so I will be gone when Meg and Beth, two volunteers from another agency who live on Maewo, pass through. (Their service is finished and they are heading home.) I will also miss the return of Justin and Sheridan, the two who started this chaos, and a site visit by one of my supervisors from Peace Corps. This litany of visits is very misleading, though, because once this frenzy of activity is over, there will be months of quiet again, without a single visitor. Everyone will have taken their spels and be content to stay at site for a while, so the time of famine will begin again. This is another facet of life in Vanuatu that requires some adjustment on my part, but it has been much easier to handle those dry spells because I know that they won’t last forever—a letter will arrive, some work will crop up, my tomatoes will eventually ripen. It’s a long-term lesson in delayed gratification. ©<br /><br /><br />MALEKULA / PENTECOST / AMBAE <br /><br />I have recently returned from a short trip to Malekula where I stayed with another volunteer, Karen. The trip was a mixture of rest, socializing, and work. During the past few months, two Malekula volunteers have conducted several phonics workshops for teachers of classes 1-3 and had scheduled a similar workshop for teachers of classes 4-8 during the week I visited. They already had the groundwork laid for the workshop but we tried to add some additional information that was appropriate for the older students. Laura introduced each topic or concept because her Bislama is the best; Karen followed with an activity or model lesson; and then I finished the topic with some suggestions for how to make the activities more appropriate for older students or more challenging for students who have some phonics training. We’re hoping that the phonics work of the two PC groups before us is going to become evident for these class 4-8 teachers in the next couple of years as the students matriculate. Right now the teachers need basic training and activities, but eventually they’ll need more advanced activities or applications. We’re hoping!<br />Besides the opportunity to help with the workshop, it was great to visit another island in Vanuatu and have a chance to see what life is like just a hundred kilometers away. I thought I’d put a little bit in here about my visit to Pentecost, too, since I didn’t write anything about it at the time.<br /><br />Pangi, Pentecost—island of land diving, as the provincial hymn says—has a lot more rivers and streams to contend with than East Ambae. The drive from Pangi to the airport only lasts about 30 minutes but we must have crossed 4 riverbeds in that time. When you’re only traveling 5 -10 miles an hour, that’s a lot of rivers. Pangi itself, like Saratamata, is a government center rather than a village in the traditional sense. It didn’t exist until the local branch of the provincial government set up shop. Most people who live there are actually from nearby villages and have come to Pangi to work. It is very close to the water and they have a beautiful, crescent- shaped sandbeach. In order to make or receive a phone call, you have to go down to the water but the scenery makes the inconvenience easy to bear. The village itself is quite wealthy, as villages go. There is cash from the government teacher salaries and there is cash from the tourism. While we were there to see the land diving ceremony, an enormous cruise ship from Australia anchored in the harbor and disgorged hundreds of tourists. It was strange to see all of those white people in one place—and the women and girls were in shorts! (Pass out the lavalavas so those ladies can cover up! It’s funny how quickly your sensibilities can adapt to new norms.) Maybe because of the money, maybe because the people want Pangi to look nice for visitors, maybe because it didn’t evolve the same way a familial village would, whatever the reason, I kept feeling like I was visiting an exhibit at Epcot Center. The grass was so green and short and tidy—no stray leaves or flowers lying around. The houses and buildings are mostly made from traditional materials (I kept having flashbacks to seventh grade geography, making a Pacific island custom house out of toothpicks, palm fronds, and a Styrofoam tray) rather than the cement that is most common here in Saratamata. The main pathways are lined with coral and sand and it just looks so pretty, so orderly, so. . . . exemplary.<br />[For what it’s worth, none of the other volunteers who were with me saw things quite the way I did. So my observations deserve some skepticism and I definitely require some additional travel to test out my perceptions. There may be a trip to Maewo at the end of July to celebrate the completion of renovations at a school, but no definite plans yet.]<br /><br />In Pangi, my fellow volunteers and I lounged about for most of the three or four days we were there, choosing to spend our time eating and talking rather than tramping about, so I don’t know how Pangi compares to the villages around it. Next trip!<br /><br />Norsup, Malekula—is also a provincial center where you can find the Provincial Education Office, the hospital, offices for the provincial government, offices for Youth Sports, etc. And yet there are also family communities interspersed throughout the area. The road that connects the airport, Lakatoro, and Norsup (the extent of my travels on Malekula) is quite curvy and passes around or through a lot of areas that feel rural/traditional. What makes them seem rural rather than urban? Many of the families choose to live in custom houses rather than build a house of cement so, aesthetically, certain areas are very traditional. However, though so many people chose to use custom materials to build their houses, almost everyone has also chosen to hook up to the power source in Norsup (available 24-7!) so it’s not exactly ‘bush.’<br /><br />One night Karen and I went to her host family’s house for dinner. Karen asked her ‘sister’ to make laplap sorsor for me as a special treat. (Laplap sorsor is unique to Malekula.) Laplap takes a long time so it is usually saved for the weekends, but Sister Doric made one for us on a weekday so I could try it. Delicious! It was manioc laplap with a layer of island cabbage on top, then a scattering of beef. Before you wrap it all up in leaves to bake, you put a few lava stones inside to help cook the meat. Once it comes out of the earth oven and gets unwrapped, you squeeze coconut milk over the hot stones and meat. It was wonderful—comfort food Malekula style. Karen told me later that my appetite was the topic of conversation the following Sunday; I just kept eating and eating and eating. Her ‘mama’ thought I was finished but then I’d ask for another piece.<br /><br />Anyway, as we walked back to Karen‘s house that night, a weird mix of memory and impression and imagination made it a strange trip. It was so dark. The sky was overcast so there was no moonlight to light the path. We were carrying flashlights, of course, but every once in a while, there would be another patch of light, just off the path, through the trees. I was remembering family camping trips, where you could get away from the streetlights and store signs. When we were camping, the patches of light came from lanterns set on picnic tables where families were playing Boggle or Yahtzee (or was that just my family?). But there was also a lot of room for imagination and feeling a little like a visitor to this exotic locale. Like scenes from an old movie where the missionary or trader is following his “native guide” through the bush. Picture an old Tarzan movie or African Queen. Wrong location but right atmosphere. And then the reality, that these glimmers of light came from fluorescent lights hanging from trees or poles, lighting up a family’s everyday dinner. Nothing out of the ordinary for them. It was strange to have all of these impressions mingling in my head as we walked home through the dark, but the aftertaste is distinctly Michener-esque. Very romantic.<br /><br />I have to admit to being a little dissatisfied now with Saratamata. I thought life was pretty fias here with indoor plumbing and electricity for parts of the day and 3 stores and cold drinks. But Norsup/Lakatoro is a whole new level of fias living. I base this almost entirely on the availability of food, but that is an important factor to consider. They do have power all of the time (even in the middle of the night!), but the food, oh, the food. The stores there have lots of cuts and amounts of beef for sale—stew, steak, mince, etc. There are crabs at the market (Twelve crabs for 200 vatu! That’s about $2 US) and fish in a traveling truck. I found canned corn and green beans, canned lentils, spices like fennel and cinnamon, lots of different biscuits (aka cookies), and faux cheese (like Velveeta). The cheese was really expensive, though. Almost $6 for a small package—that hurts. And the mama’s market was full of produce—lettuce (lettuce!), tomatoes, capsicum, spring onions, watercress, pamplemus (grapefruit), mandarins, coconuts, taro, kumala, manioc, yams, strong bananas, all at the same time! It was wonderful. I loaded up a bag full of goodies to bring back with me—crabs and mandarins to share with my host family and spring onions for me to plant in the garden.<br /><br />Now I understand why there is always a live chicken in a basket or a yam wrapped up in a palm leaf waiting to go in the airplane’s cargo hold. Some things just aren’t available in some places and family members on other islands have to look out for you. I know that there are people growing a lot of those things here in East Ambae, but they are growing them to EAT rather than to sell so I am out of luck. However, a local businessman is in the process of erecting a market house in Saratamata. I don’t know all the details yet but I am hoping that it will encourage some of the farming families nearby to plant a few extra feet of garden so they can sell the surplus produce at the market. And East Ambae is too dry for some of the juicier items—tomatoes have to be watered and there are no wet areas for planting watercress or lettuce.<br /><br />Whatever the differences between islands or villages, everywhere I’ve gone, the people share some basic characteristics—they are interested in you, friendly, generous, and wonderfully hospitable. You never leave someone’s house empty handed and you never feel like you intruded or interrupted even though you may have done exactly that. In my experience, the people of Vanuatu are never too busy to stop and chat. Sometimes that can be extremely frustrating, like when you’re waiting for the truck to carry you to the airport or for someone to arrive so a meeting can begin. But most of the time, it’s very refreshing and an important reminder that people can and should come before schedules.<br /><br /><br />7 EVERYDAY EXPRESSIONS <br /><br />While visiting Karen on Malekula, I was struck by the surreal quality of various comments made by various volunteers. In the setting, in the moment, they were entirely natural and commonplace. Taken out of context, put into the more familiar setting of everyday life in the US, they become absolutely ridiculous. <br />For example. <br />--Spoken in a tone of wonder -- “You can get lettuce here?” <br />--The secretary talking to Karen 2 days before our workshop-”Your workshop is cancelled because another government office just requested the room.” (We found another venue.) <br />--Discussing routine travel arrangements for the workshop—”Laura is going to stand out by the road so she can catch a truck to Norsup.” <br />--Any given day—”There will not be power today.” <br />--Sandy, a Maewo volunteer, and Esther (ES ta) who cooks at one of the food stalls here in Saratamata— “What’s in the stew?” “Bullock.” “Real bullock?” “Where are you from?” <br />--Any given office—“No copying or printing because we’re out of toner until August.”<br />--The executive officer for our office commenting on the electric bill for my house—”One two hundred vatu blong wan manis? Hemia sas we!” (One thousand two hundred vatu I About $12 a month? That’s too much!) <br />--On a school report for the Ministry—”We began school two weeks after the official start date because the students didn’t come. By February 12, we had enough students to begin.” <br />--A health official about an imminent, government-sponsored inoculation campaign—”The team will arrive either Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. I’m not sure which day.” (Today is Friday and still no sign of the inoculation team.) <br />--Our office secretary to me—”You didn’t know Blake [the volunteer in N. Ambae] in the US? The people from your town don’t know the people from his town?” <br />--Me to Mami Doreen—”How can you tell it’s a woman crab?” <br />--Karen about one of our dinners—”This is wonderful. It’s like real black bean soup!” (It was pretty delicious even though our salsa was made with canned tomatoes and whatever we could find to spice it up and the sour cream was actually yogurt.) -Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-1190006621302673912009-09-16T13:37:00.000-07:002009-09-16T13:43:53.682-07:00THESE DAYS.... I am keeping busy! Yahoo!. Yes, some of the busy is the repetition that is necessary here to accomplish even small jobs. But I am thankful to have those small jobs to do. I spend two days a week doing school visits. One of the schools is close enough to walk to and I have been there fairly regularly (Thursdays). This is the school where I team-taught a class 7 English unit oh, so many months ago. Lately, I have been visiting and teaching class 6. Last Monday, I taught a 2-hour English lesson introducing a new unit on the environment ( © ) and demonstrating some of the Ministry of Education’s proposals and strategies to boost literacy. It was such a luxury to have 2 hours for English and I was able to follow the Ministry’s suggested timeframe for balancing all the different skills that come with language/literacy. We spent the first 30 minutes talking as a class—discussing what they knew about the environment already from their studies in science (the environment is a popular/important topic here as the people of Vanuatu figure out how to deal with all of the changes that development brings). The first part of the timeframe is for conversation so that they have to USE their English, USE the new vocabulary, get comfortable talking about each topic from the curriculum. (It is a little strange, though, because most of the topics are actually from other school<br />subjects—”Japan” and “Investigation” and “Radio Communication.”) Then 60 minutes for reading skills: new vocabulary words from the text, reading the text aloud (“The Peril of Plastics”), comprehension questions, rereading the text with special emphasis on those vocabulary words, and some more questions. We finished with a short group writing topic. I didn’t like the way the essay ended (no conclusion to speak of) so we wrote a conclusion paragraph for the essay. Then still time for some rhyming practice and to assign a group project (part of each English unit in their curriculum) for the week. It went pretty well. Actually, it would have gone better if I’d realized that their break started at 9:30 instead of 10:00. The kids were very patient with me that last half hour as I pressed on with English right through their break! The following Thursday, I observed the class 6 teacher as he led an English lesson. It’s hard to say what effect I had since I wasn’t able to observe him before I model-taught but it’s a start. He has had some literacy/phonics training; he just wasn’t sure how to incorporate it into the curriculum. Today, I returned to class 6 for a math lesson. This was actually my second 2-hour math lesson. Last week at the other sort-of-close-up school, the class 5 teacher asked me to model a math lesson. He asked me at 10 and the lesson began at 10:30. Half hour for an English/social studies teacher to figure out how to teach a math lesson about converting metric measurements into decimals. Step 1, throw out most of the textbook exercises because they are too complicated. (The teachers are, in my opinion, severely handicapped by the math curriculum, which uses spiraling to teach math. So Monday, it introduces an operation concept (multiplying double digits), Tuesday is geometry (how to draw a cube), Wednesday is measurement (converting metric measures to decimals), Thursday is fractions (adding of) and Friday is something else again. There might be 5 problems for each topic on any given day. It’s crazy. Anyway, we started with a review of how the measurements fit together (millimeters, centimeters, decimeters, meters, etc.) and then a review of place values and then some easy relationship in decimals and yikes, it was hard. By then end of 2 hours, the kids were able to figure centimeters and meters, meters and kilometers in both directions as decimals. Were they able to do it agaln the next day? I have no idea. They probably didn’t get the chance since the math curriculum introduced something new. Ah well. One step forward.... ‘the math lesson today was just as challenging for me—percents, capital, and interest. The first question in the textbook asked the students “How much interest do you earn on 395,000 vatu in a year with 6% interest?” The FIRST question! So I wrote a bunch of prep questions to use during our first hour and a half and we saved that beauty and all of its follow up questions for the last half hour. I was very glad that all of you mathematics teachers were not present to see my classroom struggles, but where were you when I was desperately planning my lesson?! Doing a single math lesson is hard here too because you can’t assume the kids know the pre-requisites for your topic, like how many centimeters in a meter. When you have to go back that far to find out what they know, it doesn’t leave a lot of time for the new material. It has been nice to get back into the classroom as a teacher, though. After the long hiatus and the couple of brief returns to middle school teaching, I have started to reevaluate my 10 years of teaching in the states. Now, I am anxious to compare my experiences teaching the teachers with my experiences teaching kids. There is a good chance that this Friday, I will have the chance to do that. I am supposed to do a short workshop session for the teachers at the nearby school. I am hopeful that it will actually happen though I won’t count on it until I’m actually standing up in front of the room on Friday afternoon and all the teachers are present.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-34687248501137663102009-09-03T14:18:00.000-07:002009-09-03T15:36:14.875-07:00<div>After a little trouble with my flash drive (the folder with all of the pictures disappeared somehow), I have been able to post a whole bunch of pictures from the last few months. And I made sure to include a couple of pictures of myself, as per request. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCsxUYiXjxDXsNy0QEkRREWkiCVB1NvMf9iKhPr62AeRkyeEEEdI9gHy9GJ6mRBrdnsujtL9q7sUAXK7HAWFh32Vd0X83osjI-Es5ofA9L39XNmluqW6AQBjZqzpPNZkzrBz6S1Zc1_Mss/s1600-h/workshop+Malekula+2+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377361696792950418" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCsxUYiXjxDXsNy0QEkRREWkiCVB1NvMf9iKhPr62AeRkyeEEEdI9gHy9GJ6mRBrdnsujtL9q7sUAXK7HAWFh32Vd0X83osjI-Es5ofA9L39XNmluqW6AQBjZqzpPNZkzrBz6S1Zc1_Mss/s320/workshop+Malekula+2+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br />This is the first workshop I did. It was a joint effort with two other volunteers while I was visiting on Malekula. Laura is just finishing her service (on the left) and Karen arrived at the same time as me. About 25 teachers attended and it went pretty well except that we had to change venues at the last minute (pre-empted by the tourism department) and our new site didn't have any tables.<br /><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYIs1P5fmz9ZoHrEH4wXuOkEr8kyY7Yk4ur_8SsVJWiUYGisGpLdUbtpuF3C6zBhyphenhyphenEoggXGOFCk0vy9VT6YA2wG1I1XoNKPXh5Bf-d6JV7P-jo2xbXXmh5j8IYRC3nudhyy_pluqk-rPir/s1600-h/workshop+Malekula.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377360142873541874" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYIs1P5fmz9ZoHrEH4wXuOkEr8kyY7Yk4ur_8SsVJWiUYGisGpLdUbtpuF3C6zBhyphenhyphenEoggXGOFCk0vy9VT6YA2wG1I1XoNKPXh5Bf-d6JV7P-jo2xbXXmh5j8IYRC3nudhyy_pluqk-rPir/s320/workshop+Malekula.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /></p><br /><div><br /><div>T<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZQ1k7O9pAsTzyQ6pKbYwEr_bsS1WqQTqFu5mYocrULP-VGZWUM4IHEaPgtwCz1cC03PDZYgebZaUFE9pSwP5TywM4gxAWy_GCeeDS8R8H3Xigelc34lMFL2-SlxbATOambWbqLmMxICU4/s1600-h/workshop+1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377360139676972978" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZQ1k7O9pAsTzyQ6pKbYwEr_bsS1WqQTqFu5mYocrULP-VGZWUM4IHEaPgtwCz1cC03PDZYgebZaUFE9pSwP5TywM4gxAWy_GCeeDS8R8H3Xigelc34lMFL2-SlxbATOambWbqLmMxICU4/s320/workshop+1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />This picture is from my first solo workshop on assessment. The curriculum advisor for the zone and I drove about 30 minutes south to one of the schools in his zone and I spent the morning talking about too many aspects of assessment for the amount of time available, but it's a start. (Notice the bare feet.)</div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><br /><br /></div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivB2eXSJxXvrqWAuVdHHnc06qtnvXqsh5nHRhUXeYSkfaqq6CbVEtt2CRTmRkvWASe1hnwEGsvMbjnPCTu56AJqlLsXAN-fG_VdMqDkr0w0DZ_AKA95kT-vM7yrwtW7YHD1A4uL58NJe8t/s1600-h/take+away+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377360135140910226" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivB2eXSJxXvrqWAuVdHHnc06qtnvXqsh5nHRhUXeYSkfaqq6CbVEtt2CRTmRkvWASe1hnwEGsvMbjnPCTu56AJqlLsXAN-fG_VdMqDkr0w0DZ_AKA95kT-vM7yrwtW7YHD1A4uL58NJe8t/s320/take+away+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br />One of my earlier blogs contained some references to the kinds of food available here in Vanuatu, and especially on Ambae. I may not have access to lots of different ethnic or regional varieties but I do still have access to take away. Every Sunday afternoon, my host mama wraps up some dinner in a leaf and I carry it home to eat later.<br /><br /></div><br /><div>At the top of the picture is a fried fish and the rectangular objects with white "frosting" is banana laplap with krim blong kokonas antap.<br /><br /></div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqnuxST8ftY7UCk-sg0NSvW9Z6Z_ERXHAuZU96O1d_mjGlqCs2m8rEvlR4qJmGSyzwlqAV2kMQRx8e0ckRCHF58k0W6aQDJxzVNTrCJlm3B0CghibDqqwxhMAUgvWIEC95dRlRgiR2t21i/s1600-h/take+away+dinner+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377360129135597282" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqnuxST8ftY7UCk-sg0NSvW9Z6Z_ERXHAuZU96O1d_mjGlqCs2m8rEvlR4qJmGSyzwlqAV2kMQRx8e0ckRCHF58k0W6aQDJxzVNTrCJlm3B0CghibDqqwxhMAUgvWIEC95dRlRgiR2t21i/s320/take+away+dinner+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_52KtHt2fIL1rSLpyDErZa3u51FQbB77j2IXhz0XoBDRV2GzCJvwAQOgIXEjh5QOYXvCIrIPVaoCM3Sz8GzMMAxlydyVb65ly2ZmBJl7m1KlMqqDc5RySiNE6g5-AT0-uXcOg50dkf_ad/s1600-h/sunset+Vila+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377359379710382258" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_52KtHt2fIL1rSLpyDErZa3u51FQbB77j2IXhz0XoBDRV2GzCJvwAQOgIXEjh5QOYXvCIrIPVaoCM3Sz8GzMMAxlydyVb65ly2ZmBJl7m1KlMqqDc5RySiNE6g5-AT0-uXcOg50dkf_ad/s320/sunset+Vila+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br />A Vila sunset.<br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt4PDv8pA51_QptDVzKX3ViRVoJXL1MpBtJfbbLY_0in-LkeH42eSLcCHbnD39DqFOSbfuCnVT0eg3wnNkCPnriQap5kkVLyKAUVYdRppjf0Rdi6YovAVWXf0OS3AMVVwyCa0GuOZLrtTJ/s1600-h/a+small+Mai+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377359371434925298" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 241px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt4PDv8pA51_QptDVzKX3ViRVoJXL1MpBtJfbbLY_0in-LkeH42eSLcCHbnD39DqFOSbfuCnVT0eg3wnNkCPnriQap5kkVLyKAUVYdRppjf0Rdi6YovAVWXf0OS3AMVVwyCa0GuOZLrtTJ/s320/a+small+Mai+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I reposted this one as a "before" picture.</div><div><br /></div><div></div></div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div><div><br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div></div><div>And here's Mai, all grown up. She doesn't really fit in my lap anymore but she thinks she does.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi05mswzFauNQ7XkrdenAvPcGtXYpnQnlUQi6G_4bNh7ugfz0BBIVItiMPbiNGlW8_nBD9Lw771ckk0wHzWCrADegttNtdSBkzPJlLGFWoNw8Bis01tVAw4jx8xYWj_do0h14UfUnComNQ4/s1600-h/Mai+(small).JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377364191654812594" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi05mswzFauNQ7XkrdenAvPcGtXYpnQnlUQi6G_4bNh7ugfz0BBIVItiMPbiNGlW8_nBD9Lw771ckk0wHzWCrADegttNtdSBkzPJlLGFWoNw8Bis01tVAw4jx8xYWj_do0h14UfUnComNQ4/s320/Mai+(small).JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWNVLcl3DEJGVT7GKESjxIEJJOpWalZ7xW2yueX4vPtgSsutCoSmMY_Yaxo7sJ2C2NzdrZHva11UeZ_6482EA7qJXNcMyhZyJXx08QmsvqQj3AwJ9VztX9y1N_dT5C4MRDAVQuegVf7HZq/s1600-h/Mai+and+me+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377358956044118162" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWNVLcl3DEJGVT7GKESjxIEJJOpWalZ7xW2yueX4vPtgSsutCoSmMY_Yaxo7sJ2C2NzdrZHva11UeZ_6482EA7qJXNcMyhZyJXx08QmsvqQj3AwJ9VztX9y1N_dT5C4MRDAVQuegVf7HZq/s320/Mai+and+me+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div><br /><br /><br /><br /> </div><div><div><div><div> </div><div>An early garden shot---</div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinaOj5362QnE43W30j7s_Wanj7AiIK8mVG1_h9jUT4r_0nVOogdWFXGltpUQzAwwYg4aejzeeLMIG4j9ucJPZxV26NncvZWm_huf7S1PPrFjeDX_yNMaJFUt89TYPyrJhgbygWbv2yZvQV/s1600-h/before+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377358944846270722" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinaOj5362QnE43W30j7s_Wanj7AiIK8mVG1_h9jUT4r_0nVOogdWFXGltpUQzAwwYg4aejzeeLMIG4j9ucJPZxV26NncvZWm_huf7S1PPrFjeDX_yNMaJFUt89TYPyrJhgbygWbv2yZvQV/s320/before+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />And a bit more recent, though the cabbage is now about shoulder height, I have two bean "trees," and some very small tomato and pepper plants where the brown grass is. I've also cleared a bit more space for lettuce and spinach plants, though the chickens got to my first spinach seeds before they could sprout.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWj1tcKhChtxyzEIeBWwpDqb_H3xwF2s2jlTd8LdbCW6zqhKTy6Ya5-I1WONA1CsaYOnRicI29LbULAYbAdQXYht5bWbzXVzePjV5BufsS5UTc9nAcUaLJl8N9sQ_EQ0RzUUpI4jvGNKFC/s1600-h/garden+update+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377358936169644930" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWj1tcKhChtxyzEIeBWwpDqb_H3xwF2s2jlTd8LdbCW6zqhKTy6Ya5-I1WONA1CsaYOnRicI29LbULAYbAdQXYht5bWbzXVzePjV5BufsS5UTc9nAcUaLJl8N9sQ_EQ0RzUUpI4jvGNKFC/s320/garden+update+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNpYPKeSu4XY5ATvSDyaEvo0FeMBHZGR0_IVM6ntFdwo1ZdwJhxqEhsuTPEQC0Jm8E-QDXnlVQfLgTxxRBEDz0DVWjLQxJOcHaNMq1VwOaXBCw2EWRNJ7KPDk0dNOmTT3ZctX00sY6v13D/s1600-h/Jane+and+me+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377358932949130210" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNpYPKeSu4XY5ATvSDyaEvo0FeMBHZGR0_IVM6ntFdwo1ZdwJhxqEhsuTPEQC0Jm8E-QDXnlVQfLgTxxRBEDz0DVWjLQxJOcHaNMq1VwOaXBCw2EWRNJ7KPDk0dNOmTT3ZctX00sY6v13D/s320/Jane+and+me+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />Jane and me--she was our medical officer when we arrived though she has moved on to other things now. A sad day for us here in Vanuatu.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW7xWQfAOyT7sQzQ5GPzC5fMTu_ITYk4DyPZOFRAMdvo3H9mrcClCQMPzXFKDPJHVwGsdGTViSg0gOvYnWt-pA_f0PGiE_UApdsmpgufHWF4bUZInJymfXx4ybIWR_28jOY5SsOk9YDHrm/s1600-h/at+the+office+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377357705336723106" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW7xWQfAOyT7sQzQ5GPzC5fMTu_ITYk4DyPZOFRAMdvo3H9mrcClCQMPzXFKDPJHVwGsdGTViSg0gOvYnWt-pA_f0PGiE_UApdsmpgufHWF4bUZInJymfXx4ybIWR_28jOY5SsOk9YDHrm/s320/at+the+office+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Some of my co-workers. The two men on the right, in the reddish shirts, are ZCAs (zone curriculum advisors, like superindents) and work in the office in Saratamata. The man in the green shirt is a visiting workshop facilitator and the man in the foreground was the ZCA for Maewo, though he passed away suddenly about 3 weeks ago.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcmiGy86oKPu44RIRTrFFL5ZkOU3MpGE_vmv2uchCx2DA44mIMw3tO3IqY_ZGicVzgM__CVV2a3tS4hbyWy0VQe6OOM3k7KrylYtkYv8PSwXoEiw3QJf81MqU1fyovVAPMfXsgzhPdxuth/s1600-h/class+5+at+Ambaebulu+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377357694951904306" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcmiGy86oKPu44RIRTrFFL5ZkOU3MpGE_vmv2uchCx2DA44mIMw3tO3IqY_ZGicVzgM__CVV2a3tS4hbyWy0VQe6OOM3k7KrylYtkYv8PSwXoEiw3QJf81MqU1fyovVAPMfXsgzhPdxuth/s320/class+5+at+Ambaebulu+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br />These are the class 5 kids at the close-up school. I try to get there every Thursday and this particular day, I ended up substitute teaching. We did a math lesson on finding area and a general studies/health lesson on the nervous system. My brother Wilson has his back to the camera.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8i-oAnXvDRksdMi_GEYPnVaqjwQCFOG-2fU6R4w2j2qETAlXGDrnfeO5LqHQ43kldTvRrqE5g3rhjih7Dv-NcnOp-BV00ZoNan-84VwY2gLjrPHU7Epj44HfgcwQeknfriThssBGzQJsX/s1600-h/competencies+workshop+group+photo+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377357692535950482" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8i-oAnXvDRksdMi_GEYPnVaqjwQCFOG-2fU6R4w2j2qETAlXGDrnfeO5LqHQ43kldTvRrqE5g3rhjih7Dv-NcnOp-BV00ZoNan-84VwY2gLjrPHU7Epj44HfgcwQeknfriThssBGzQJsX/s320/competencies+workshop+group+photo+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br />This is a group photo taken after a workshop at the office. Can you find me?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGPDpweU5XFfHJOuDPK2k-aJV2LZpN-BUzsOFUAfRTJH9bBHuIFRDqKenrMsI0J5puGAtk4hMn_sWKhIi-butk2aQj_3unPk3yHfrCiiPlYzjWtTdcXGIpdHKEnj27mywcYSVnCudhUVSe/s1600-h/education+office+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377357689064401154" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGPDpweU5XFfHJOuDPK2k-aJV2LZpN-BUzsOFUAfRTJH9bBHuIFRDqKenrMsI0J5puGAtk4hMn_sWKhIi-butk2aQj_3unPk3yHfrCiiPlYzjWtTdcXGIpdHKEnj27mywcYSVnCudhUVSe/s320/education+office+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br />The education office in Saratamata, newly refurbished, and it is <u>nice</u>. It's about a 2 minute walk from my house. And here's a funny change for me--I am now, almost always, the first one to arrive at work in the morning!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNth9V3sPhgbYZY62cbHQDhMk7X96GqdKPnPxHzD91siYDq4V9JltyTIqjizrXiiy1M_udKxEsNEe5agsBu7wm107MGu8Hp1VZ5MKvAfzHH3lehegGBqiXjZdnJvmromzFpCRr9f5BoVEH/s1600-h/4+July+2009.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377357137856302466" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNth9V3sPhgbYZY62cbHQDhMk7X96GqdKPnPxHzD91siYDq4V9JltyTIqjizrXiiy1M_udKxEsNEe5agsBu7wm107MGu8Hp1VZ5MKvAfzHH3lehegGBqiXjZdnJvmromzFpCRr9f5BoVEH/s320/4+July+2009.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />Fourth of July celebration. For a few months, there was a PC couple living in Lolowai, about 30 minutes walk from Saratamata. They hosted a 4th of July party for our host families and some of the hospital staff. We each gave a small toktok about how we celebrate Independence Day in the US and we sang the national anthem for everyone. Hamburgers and baked beans and caramel corn were on the menu in addition to the breadfruit laplap that the mamas brought.<br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEPvdMZIvYRH0QdQq8g5VmTO5FCCNnJ6rPWK_Lpguw8XHsAHE7q8OZVKJQBIkSdkZYX-cRiAhSo490XAG30SlnfbfyLCjlF7Ebg9RQeDNZ5QajQEXVPH74ZUrOwnQMz-FiVMmC0EGQYaS4/s1600-h/mamas+racing+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377357130108286290" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEPvdMZIvYRH0QdQq8g5VmTO5FCCNnJ6rPWK_Lpguw8XHsAHE7q8OZVKJQBIkSdkZYX-cRiAhSo490XAG30SlnfbfyLCjlF7Ebg9RQeDNZ5QajQEXVPH74ZUrOwnQMz-FiVMmC0EGQYaS4/s320/mamas+racing+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />One of the things I love about Vanuatu is the mamas--they have no reluctance to participate in the games and activities that adults in the US would consider too childish. It's so fun to watch them laugh and giggle while tossing water balloons or bobbing for naos.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuTXq-XHNgg3iMZ-SCZYH_9RZKaWRGfvjkWI0xa1khHlAjyQXYL3NFjZDboavW_p0CbAlSrOYDHiQWTcOqxHxSYNqNefflL0g4YlFAglSnMeeHCK8fzWJvjSwrWz_ZU5S_KHuoZDzYQEJX/s1600-h/bobbing+for+naos+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377357131416699074" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuTXq-XHNgg3iMZ-SCZYH_9RZKaWRGfvjkWI0xa1khHlAjyQXYL3NFjZDboavW_p0CbAlSrOYDHiQWTcOqxHxSYNqNefflL0g4YlFAglSnMeeHCK8fzWJvjSwrWz_ZU5S_KHuoZDzYQEJX/s320/bobbing+for+naos+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br />These guys are trying to bob for naos, though it was really difficult. Naos are harder and slippery-er than apples so we ended up cutting them into wedges. Wilson, my youngest brother, is in the black and red shirt.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />A few months ago, I had the chance to go to a custom wedding for my cousin Alphine. It was so interesting to see the similarities in wedding traditions and the many differences that are unique not just to Vanuatu, but to Ambae.<br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7H0vLwlaZnPMuyU7_DGVSKbhnQet80RDwgUQMOJW2bD55Fh_a1aUnF1Njb2_MaVoXvsruD7jr6uiOvggMcNQ-2nyJlPQq74jIHG27llzTsE7XLlJoMYL-0SFBQc9IGV38Ixo_1VaSEOdV/s1600-h/bridal+veil+Ambae-style+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377356624192966034" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7H0vLwlaZnPMuyU7_DGVSKbhnQet80RDwgUQMOJW2bD55Fh_a1aUnF1Njb2_MaVoXvsruD7jr6uiOvggMcNQ-2nyJlPQq74jIHG27llzTsE7XLlJoMYL-0SFBQc9IGV38Ixo_1VaSEOdV/s320/bridal+veil+Ambae-style+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />Alphine is sitting down and the mamas are piling a few really fancy custom mats on her head. She has a big palm leaf first, I think to help support the weight and to keep the mats stiff. And then 3 or 4 mats are laid on top. The fringes hang down in front and behind and act like a bridal veil.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQnb43r2yjKTThM3lNBSrhBbpLgpH6PnV68jOqyDGMZiiZ0DPnJwau8chbc49HPhvpkhyphenhyphenuTWSd70rILjwDzOdyszPKG0wDKY4jj0LyyBVkkTE6K_KYybLEriOGllhzS24x4ZwMgu86tzrp/s1600-h/elephants+on+parade+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377356606984158658" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQnb43r2yjKTThM3lNBSrhBbpLgpH6PnV68jOqyDGMZiiZ0DPnJwau8chbc49HPhvpkhyphenhyphenuTWSd70rILjwDzOdyszPKG0wDKY4jj0LyyBVkkTE6K_KYybLEriOGllhzS24x4ZwMgu86tzrp/s320/elephants+on+parade+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />This is at the groom's house. (Actually the groom is from another island, so one of Alphine's uncles adopted him for the day so that the complete ceremony could be done.)<br /></div><div>Anytime an official gift is given, the recipient must at least touch the item in thanks or as an acknowledgement. For big gifts, like the bride price or dowry, the aunts or uncles (your father's sisters and sisters-in-law or your mother's brothers and brothers-in-law) walk around the pile of gifts three times. In this picture, Alphine's uncles and cousins are carrying mats from her dowry as they walk around the bride price gifts. It actually made me laugh because each man was holding the end of the mats in front of him to keep them off the ground but it reminded me of elephants on parade.<br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha19sTNicX5bU8szr6c2utyItIQX2jEuhGYJ2SSGczWYZDI9DCGCdBeoZac2f4Bfc5B_3hcraC_gkFiI3aPVY2azeo0322DvQH6ulm3pueZX-LQYidDhiYBJ25fZQN-TMmkX1K4Cyne-kn/s1600-h/Alphine+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377356630746517058" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha19sTNicX5bU8szr6c2utyItIQX2jEuhGYJ2SSGczWYZDI9DCGCdBeoZac2f4Bfc5B_3hcraC_gkFiI3aPVY2azeo0322DvQH6ulm3pueZX-LQYidDhiYBJ25fZQN-TMmkX1K4Cyne-kn/s320/Alphine+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />It was very hot that day and Alphine began to look very wilted after a while, but she posed for my picture.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibql2QyLzjCf_bzEmW23pzFKP9CpwIBsOCtq28z72T4hc9clZK1S2_DvHidfOP_uwnCWdOP3i30mPhK3EKSqGTz9_pfsPyaL8415MLqnfPALm5R8Fy9mb16hJSDlsMTzQo0OTtI7QaLD3w/s1600-h/bride+and+groom+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377356620014174802" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibql2QyLzjCf_bzEmW23pzFKP9CpwIBsOCtq28z72T4hc9clZK1S2_DvHidfOP_uwnCWdOP3i30mPhK3EKSqGTz9_pfsPyaL8415MLqnfPALm5R8Fy9mb16hJSDlsMTzQo0OTtI7QaLD3w/s320/bride+and+groom+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The groom puts his hand on Alphine to acknowledge or "receive" her from her family.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOr8hpQveI0H-uJwOV7PV2xP3AJuIneMjx6Wdo0feoWmvXdpf3IjGK5jVGWo4zJSJeEm5Mon_6Hlvgz_n91I2j8FxzXM7L08SkQ2W-ZyT4e87Ox47aynkPvb4dqyXDUCaGn8rvQHnzxRQW/s1600-h/delivering+the+mats+2+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377355448316321394" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOr8hpQveI0H-uJwOV7PV2xP3AJuIneMjx6Wdo0feoWmvXdpf3IjGK5jVGWo4zJSJeEm5Mon_6Hlvgz_n91I2j8FxzXM7L08SkQ2W-ZyT4e87Ox47aynkPvb4dqyXDUCaGn8rvQHnzxRQW/s320/delivering+the+mats+2+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br />The mamas carry the mats to the pile on their heads. I grabbed my camera quickly when they first started coming but the flow of women didn't stop. I had ample opportunity to take a picture as Alphine's mamas carried their gifts to the pile.</div><div> </div><div>There was also a huge pile of household goods, like the items that we would give at a shower--a matress, dishes, pots for cooking, hurricane lanterns, rakes, suitcases, buckets and bowls.<br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0nLRZPHGVGziCIwZZn7NF4lM5QeR6RlPIOSGzRSZydfVK1XSvyIkjRiLSgpCchIimOZ6mtJ5bDmXEzOsghvDzuno5P_5VzjUGLmBy1gAj-rP2Htfxjmz41ktHOkLf3B9CrL2AbVqMfSyF/s1600-h/delivering+the+mats+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377355454293783842" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0nLRZPHGVGziCIwZZn7NF4lM5QeR6RlPIOSGzRSZydfVK1XSvyIkjRiLSgpCchIimOZ6mtJ5bDmXEzOsghvDzuno5P_5VzjUGLmBy1gAj-rP2Htfxjmz41ktHOkLf3B9CrL2AbVqMfSyF/s320/delivering+the+mats+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdg8WJoqJnN8Et6Bxyhg9I6tozq3aA8m50aUhIYiNA9vfxdVIhi3TLiYbCI7vTdeKaMcsIukZtl-OWkgCdLlTFtEhXUmyS9jm1XSgSbaVJAPMdA9ggnAzuLP5rVsSzjK4xsBjqwecqTsre/s1600-h/part+of+the+dowry+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377356612515818626" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdg8WJoqJnN8Et6Bxyhg9I6tozq3aA8m50aUhIYiNA9vfxdVIhi3TLiYbCI7vTdeKaMcsIukZtl-OWkgCdLlTFtEhXUmyS9jm1XSgSbaVJAPMdA9ggnAzuLP5rVsSzjK4xsBjqwecqTsre/s320/part+of+the+dowry+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />This picture shows some of Alphine's mamas (her mother's sisters) laying out the mats that are part of her dowry. The tradition is that, when the groom's family piles up the mats from the bride price, the stack has to be higher.I asked my host mama about the mats because I've never seen one in use and she said that they are just given as gifts at custom ceremonies--chiefly grade-taking, weddings, funerals, etc. So my host mama brought 3 or 4 mats as part of the dowry, her gift to Alphine, and went home with 3 or 4 different mats, her share of the bride price.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAA2bwrJM1PRexgVb2EpwySo0FiEDJTWEtQfr3sjip4YaXMV_OFQGUPKnl6XNgZBDaLRCouzxy_qbMZXrSAnv26r3KO1FAaQmkzyK94ef80hhJU_cSX7jNx6OsWZzVT3RY1cuqqQWiIM5z/s1600-h/bride+price+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377355444821783282" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAA2bwrJM1PRexgVb2EpwySo0FiEDJTWEtQfr3sjip4YaXMV_OFQGUPKnl6XNgZBDaLRCouzxy_qbMZXrSAnv26r3KO1FAaQmkzyK94ef80hhJU_cSX7jNx6OsWZzVT3RY1cuqqQWiIM5z/s320/bride+price+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Back to the groom's house--these are piles of goods that his family are giving as the bride price. They're divided into piles by parts of the family. So one pile goes to her straight mom and dad, one pile to her uncles and aunts, one pile to her mamas and papas, one pile to her abus (grandparents). That black blob in the foreground is a pig.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />PENTECOST -- LAND DIVING CEREMONY<br />Land diving is a custom ceremony from Pentecost that is done at the beginning of the yam season. It is supposed to ensure a good harvest. These days, it's for the tourists as well. There was a huge cruise ship full of Australians there the same weekend we visited.<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtBjH0CdKOM76gUCO3d2ySvrDM6d3GYBLO1kSOl-EzsrPiDMZLbBag4lykIpfphJL9aGTcCAmtbOkwkGVsTvZfn1a4rZD29tX86Qf1Zs4plSzU3Y5rImkRFRd4esMS2WhcFhY2Bsdcef_3/s1600-h/land+dive+2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377354659584662610" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtBjH0CdKOM76gUCO3d2ySvrDM6d3GYBLO1kSOl-EzsrPiDMZLbBag4lykIpfphJL9aGTcCAmtbOkwkGVsTvZfn1a4rZD29tX86Qf1Zs4plSzU3Y5rImkRFRd4esMS2WhcFhY2Bsdcef_3/s320/land+dive+2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The tower and ropes are made entirely of natural materials. And there were 5 or 6 platforms on this particular tower. It can vary. The first jumper is usually a younger boy, 10-12 years old, and tradition says that if he doesn't jump (gets scared or whatever) no one jumps.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjex4Mm5MLLRvUjsHkL5NYA8muHvIEayDNB7bAEydKE_yKn4c5o5-ZbWeejPhX3TokipEwVM_5_ndJz3gCoqCqYpO3Op_cFNqBRZvO64a3146T1cJZpvY0hBkdjhzRxWrTabaI4RdcN-psq/s1600-h/custom+dancing+in+Pentecost+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377354667308635362" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjex4Mm5MLLRvUjsHkL5NYA8muHvIEayDNB7bAEydKE_yKn4c5o5-ZbWeejPhX3TokipEwVM_5_ndJz3gCoqCqYpO3Op_cFNqBRZvO64a3146T1cJZpvY0hBkdjhzRxWrTabaI4RdcN-psq/s320/custom+dancing+in+Pentecost+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The men and women of the village dance all through the ceremony.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUQYFuadbIbc9AO8gVfTbrAmviv3dP1tCq9oUC6fo1Wo9kqSvjeL7ODoif7mmag_DU76MJobpN2c9TnZlRbhXb3jvcd99hSM_hiOrECEbJELVjIOntio4ECwvV80jmeDGQY3vPSxaPU-N2/s1600-h/first+diver.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377354661593081250" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUQYFuadbIbc9AO8gVfTbrAmviv3dP1tCq9oUC6fo1Wo9kqSvjeL7ODoif7mmag_DU76MJobpN2c9TnZlRbhXb3jvcd99hSM_hiOrECEbJELVjIOntio4ECwvV80jmeDGQY3vPSxaPU-N2/s320/first+diver.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />This was the first jumper the day we went. He's about 20 feet off the ground and about 12 years old.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWA7QlY59QU28Duvwh1y8QChb5AxaDNWwnb4t6kDMBU1O9aBvfUk-mf-SfPT67oVP1MYEAwK53Ev6frs7_xC9QhL5HJZviVxSZwXxB1f04lzULoqnA8SA2F97F0whGEkOiaQdqY5z7mxJY/s1600-h/Land+Diving+tower+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377354654415624242" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWA7QlY59QU28Duvwh1y8QChb5AxaDNWwnb4t6kDMBU1O9aBvfUk-mf-SfPT67oVP1MYEAwK53Ev6frs7_xC9QhL5HJZviVxSZwXxB1f04lzULoqnA8SA2F97F0whGEkOiaQdqY5z7mxJY/s320/Land+Diving+tower+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7pAW92FhWTPpnNQ5ZR9VpqgjHmEMzNELJY3GhvZULeBcyVqvzr-kqvEN0Bh24fqqX8iJOcLl25dIXBk5MZ_8snv6oWEDYrlmU1ZwtMIrtxm7-NQLZqU0g_sXvppn2Kw9enwDsMfwDMXg1/s1600-h/Pangi+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377354646788104818" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7pAW92FhWTPpnNQ5ZR9VpqgjHmEMzNELJY3GhvZULeBcyVqvzr-kqvEN0Bh24fqqX8iJOcLl25dIXBk5MZ_8snv6oWEDYrlmU1ZwtMIrtxm7-NQLZqU0g_sXvppn2Kw9enwDsMfwDMXg1/s320/Pangi+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Sandy on the beach in Pangi, the only place you can get phone reception. Not a bad phone booth!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-45636508764571738032009-08-06T14:05:00.000-07:002009-09-01T16:47:37.317-07:00The Nature of Things - written June, 2009<div align="center">THE NATURE OF THINGS </div><div align="center"> </div>On Thursday of the first week of June, the head teacher at the nearby primary school asked me to help him prepare a grant proposal. The purpose is to fund renovations at the school. Great idea, there’s a donor agency that will fund that kind of project, I’m more than happy to help. As a bonus, the provincial building and grounds officer for our office had already done an assessment of the buildings and we had a list of supplies/materials ready to go. Step (1)—check.<br /><br />Step (2) was to send the list to a hardware store for an estimate; we needed to know how much money to ask for in the proposal. On Friday I made copies of the original supply list, wrote a cover letter, and prepared to fax the request to the hardware store on Santo for an estimate. However, our fax machine wasn’t working so I walked over to one of the stores, where a local entrepreneur provides a fax machine for people to use. He hadn’t arrived at the store yet so I returned the same day during tea break. The fax-man was there, but I needed a phone card to send the fax and the store was out of phone cards. I tried the two other stores but they were out as well. The next week I stayed in another village to attend a math workshop. I thought I had asked the secretary to send the fax for me while I was gone, but she either forgot or my Bislama got in the way and the end result was that the fax didn’t get sent during week 2. Week 3, I returned to the office Monday morning and asked about the fax. It was still sitting on the desk, only now the last page is missing. I need to recopy it but Michael, the man with the original, isn’t at work on Monday. Tuesday I am able to recopy the fax but there still are no phone cards. On Thursday, finally, I can send the fax off to the hardware store.<br /><br />One week later, the estimate has not arrived. One very definite obstacle is that our fax machine is not working again and the hardware store only has the number for the office. So if they have been trying to send the estimate, they haven’t been able to get through to us. So I call them to give them the fax number for the machine at the store. The estimate is ready; a man at the store promises to send it out that afternoon. This morning, Friday, I walk over to the store to see if the fax arrived. It did, but the fax-man didn’t. He hasn’t come to the store yet so I will have to go back again later. It has taken 1 month to complete 1 simple step in a rather lengthy process. There is no telling when I will be able to cross “grant proposal” off my list of things to do.<br /><br />Another example. The last week of April, one of the ZCAs and I discuss several projects he has in mind for the schools in his zone. One of his requests is that I prepare a workshop about writing tests. He wants the workshop to take place in June so the teachers have time to apply the ideas from the workshop in their mid-year assessments. We choose June 12 for the workshop and I make a flier to give to the teachers. I spend the first two weeks of May drafting the workshop. Then I attend a week-long Ministry-sponsored workshop on literacy that causes me to make some drastic changes to my plans. So I spend the fourth week of May revising and retooling the workshop based on those necessary changes. But during the last week of May, the Ministry of Education finalizes the dates for its math workshop. My Friday becomes their Friday so we have to reschedule. June 26 is the next Friday payday so we reschedule the workshop for the 26th• (Paydays are good for workshops because the teachers come to town to go to the bank so they’re here anyway.) I now have two more weeks to revisit my workshop plan and make some new changes based on the math workshop. (There are a lot of workshops and projects and methodologies being introduced to the teachers so I wanted my workshop to reinforce those ideas wherever possible rather than to feel like yet another new idea they have to implement.)<br /><br /> By the week of the 26th, I’m closing in on my plans and getting ready to do the visual aids. But our printer/copier has run out of toner so I can’t print or copy any of the materials I’ve prepared. We’ve ordered a new one, but it missed the flight to Ambae on Wednesday so no copying on Wednesday. This turns out to be a positive situation anyway because, during a brief conversation with the ZCA about the workshop, I realize that in all of my revisions and retooling, I’ve come a long way from his original intention for the workshop and I have to go back to plan A, literally. Fortunately, I saved my original workshop ideas so I don’t have to start over, but it is Wednesday noon, I am spending Thursday morning at a school and the workshop is Friday! Wednesday afternoon is hectic, but I make good progress. I come back to the office Thursday after lunch and we still don’t have the toner. It missed the flight again. The next flight from Santo is Friday at 3:00 so this means, even if it comes on the flight, it won’t arrive until after the workshop is over. So at 2:00 on Thursday afternoon, the ZCA decides to postpone the workshop. He calls all of the head teachers to tell them tomorrow’s workshop is off and the new date is July 23. Yes, the next Friday that is available is a month later.<br /><br />On the bright side, now I don’t have to panic about getting everything ready in less than 24 hours. I have whole month to make the workshop as effective and efficient as possible. But on the dark side, the next date is a whole month later and who’s to say we won’t have to reschedule again. It was going to be my first workshop too so I was looking forward to it and now…<br /><br />Procrastination plays a different role for me in Vanuatu. Having plenty of time and not enough to do means I have too much time to think about, make changes to, rewrite any kind of plans I make. And when I have limited time to get ready (as with this workshop that I had revised out of its true purpose), the procrastination adrenaline only kicks in about halfway because, deep down, I don’t really believe it’s going to happen. My “to do” list habits are also changing. My single list has morphed into 3: a personal, hobby-type list that includes gardening jobs, letters to write, crafty projects to do, housework, etc.; a work-related list of small tasks that can be completed (or at least attempted) in a day or two; and a long-range list that includes larger projects such as workshops and drafting teacher observation forms. Each long-range item usually has its own to do list as well. A bonus of having multiple lists is that I can work on my lists when I have exhausted all of the productive options. Take today, for instance. I need to call my program administrator at Peace Corps as well as the administrator for the community health program, but there is no phone reception for some reason. I will be teaching a 2-hour, 6th grade math lesson on Monday, but I already have a plan for that. My boss asked me to prepare a document for her on the computer, but I made a template for it weeks ago. She just wants some small alterations but she hasn’t had a chance to tell me this morning exactly what she’d like done so I am waiting for her to be free. I need to talk to two of the ZCAs about various projects (a second grant project and teacher evaluation forms) but they are both out and about and unavailable. So I go back to my to do lists to see if there’s anything else I can do, anything I need to add, or anything I can cross off because I’ve actually managed to complete a task. If I include “edit to-do lists” as one of my jobs each day, I might actually be able to cross something off the list once in a while. OK. I’m finished ranting for today. My friends at CCS middle school, this probably sounded very familiar to you. Different context--same tone. I don’t have a soap box or a captive audience here so I pound out my frustrations on the computer keyboard. ©Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-78957844491365046822009-05-06T14:24:00.000-07:002009-05-06T14:27:24.963-07:00Easter on VanuatuBy the time this gets posted, Easter will be a month old but I thought I would share my weekend. It was a good one.<br />Good Friday morning started in the garden. There were weeds to pull, but I was also really excited about planting the tomato and bell pepper seedlings that I started in February. Eight tomatoes and 4 peppers sprouted, survived my occasional underwatering, escaped the mice, and were tall enough to plant. I won’t declare success until I’ve actually harvested a tomato or pepper, but I am sure that 4 days after planting they were already bigger. Vanuatu has miracle soil, I think. Unfortunately, none of my carrot, dill, spring onion, or parsley seeds sprouted. Disappointing. Then a quick, cold shower (the only kind I’ve got) and into my island dress for church. I attend an Anglican church here on Ambae, at an Anglican seminary that is about 10 minutes walk from my house. It has been a new experience for me, all the form and liturgy of the Anglican service, but the more I hear some of the regular responses the more I appreciate them. We follow the same order of worship/liturgy each week except for the readings and the sermon. And the Lord’s Supper is celebrated each week. This weekend, they had a Good Friday service which started at noon. A different brother spoke about each of Jesus’s statements from the cross. After each reading and reflection was a prayer. We were there for about 3 hours, I think it intended to symbolize the length of time that darkness descended on Calvary.<br />[On a linguistic level, it’s really interesting to go to church there. Students come to the seminary from all over Vanuatu so most of the service is in Bislama, but many of the novices and brothers have English Bibles. So from one Sunday to the next, one reader to the next, the scripture changes from Bislama (01 reading, maybe) to English MV (NT reading) to another version in English (gospel reading). And the priests will often switch from Bislama to English during the message if there’s a word they need.]<br />On Friday afternoon, I started to empty out the kitchen in preparation for a serious scrubbing—ceiling to floor needs an application of soap. My plan was to remove all the food and dishes and then put out some rat poison before doing the soapy-rag-over-every-surface cleaning either Saturday or Monday. That way the mice couldn’t undo my hard work with one scamper over the shelves and dishes. However, both of the (open) stores here in Saratamata were out of poison. A lady who works at one of the stores suggested the sticky traps but when I asked for one of those, they were gone too. So I spent the rest of the afternoon working on a crafty project instead. Can’t say I was disappointed.<br />**update, the hardly-ever-open store was open yesterday (a week later) so I picked up a packet of poison. I put it out last night and my conscience has been kicking me ever since. Not sure I can go through with it. Did you know that some kinds of poison require 4-7 days before the mice die? I’m not sure I can live with that. My animal care ethics have really undergone some serious testing here in Vanuatu. Between the pitiful dogs who all need better care and the really aggravating mice who are eating through everything not made of metal, I’ve had to stamp down many of my compassionate impulses. If I don’t, I’ll be running a charity home for 30 odd village dogs and any mice who care to take up residence.<br />Saturday morning I did laundry, which always takes awhile, made a couple of trips to various stores for various things in between the rain showers, and finished the book I was reading. And in the afternoon, it was raining again so I felt perfectly free to stay inside and lounge about with my project.<br />Easter morning began very, very early. Church was scheduled to begin at 3:00 am. I still haven’t figured out why. We didn’t actually start on time (usual for Vanuatu but not so typical of Tumsisiro. The seminary services typically begin right on time.) When I arrived at 2:45, the novices were just gathering for a pre-service devotion. There were several people from Saratamata there already so we went into church for the devotion and then came back out to prepare for the service. We started with a fire, which the priest blessed. (Why?—I have a lot of questions about the Anglican service/tradition, things where I don’t understand the purpose or the history or the symbolism. Maybe I’ll post that list as another blog and someone out there who has some knowledge about the Anglican Church can fill me in.) Then we were all given candles and we processed into the church. (I considered the possibility that the early start was for the candlelit procession but it was dark enough for that at 5 or 5:30 too.) There were several reading and prayer cycles again, similar to Friday’s service, but after the special Easter things, we started the regular Sunday liturgy. (The sun rose while we were in church so I thought maybe this was a sunrise service? But we didn’t actually watch the sun rise; it just got light while we were in church.) So church lasted about 3 hours again. <br />Afterwards, the novices and brothers invited everyone to stay for tea so my host mother and I stayed. It took about an hour for them to prepare the food (crackers and bread and fruit) and drinks but nobody seemed to notice. The novices sang several songs for us while we were eating and that was wonderful.<br />They always sing in several parts and with great enthusiasm. I was really disappointed that I hadn’t brought my camera. I would have recorded a song or two. Maybe next time.<br />I got home at about 9 am and took a short nap. After that Mai and I spent the day with my host family. We scratched bananas for lap lap, which takes a while to bake, and then had rice and fried fish for lunch. After lunch one of my brothers shot a wild pig so they butchered and cooked the pig for supper. Yum. It was a good supper on Sunday, though mine was to-go. I usually walk back to Saratamata in the late afternoon while it is still light out. That way no one needs to walk me home. So my host mama wrapped up two pieces of lap lap (one kumala and one banana) with a fried fish left from lunch, some pig, and a chicken wing in a couple of leaves and tied it with the stem and I ate it later that night. That much protein is pretty unusual but is always welcome.<br />Monday was a rainy day again so I baked a lemon cake (the chocolate cake mix here is really terrible but the lemon is quite good) and worked on my project and went to the beach to talk to my parents (the cell tower on Ambae is not working at the moment so I have to walk down to the beach where I can get reception from the tower on Pentecost) and gave Mai a bath (which she did not enjoy) and washed the rugs and basically puttered about all day. It was a lovely weekend. Rainy and a little cooler (winter is approaching) and slow but with a few necessary chores to add a sense of purpose. © I hope that all of you had a blessed and refreshing weekend too.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-57337367995135100642009-03-27T13:40:00.000-07:002009-03-30T03:30:41.148-07:00Feast or FamineYou wait three months for an update and then two appear within two weeks. Sorry for the irregularity, but I've got to take advantage of the technology I can get. I'm in Vila for about 10 days and wanted to take the opportunity to post some pictures of my site.<br /><br />So here's the grand tour of my new life in Saratamata. These are pictures of my new house--cement walls and floors, 4 rooms with an indoor shower and toilet, screens in the windows, and furniture. It doesn't get much better than this. The small square thing to the right of the house is my rainwater storage tank. That's where I get my drinking/cooking water<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOIZfvM3aoi9rQUTLgr29pjsEqd-5uMKTs8fv-AlLiHnDNVXoMLYwJYlerjUpNsoMU9mAYAQcKyoZphA3pdquF2Kz08BweXlCauEb5PbZ_MEx_cCGtjOXrTwpxY8rD33Pfm6DWZXql3F9q/s1600-h/inside+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317973360700499026" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOIZfvM3aoi9rQUTLgr29pjsEqd-5uMKTs8fv-AlLiHnDNVXoMLYwJYlerjUpNsoMU9mAYAQcKyoZphA3pdquF2Kz08BweXlCauEb5PbZ_MEx_cCGtjOXrTwpxY8rD33Pfm6DWZXql3F9q/s320/inside+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a>.<br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIqNw29U_Pmt7OUzrmZOxgSfwNgqxXOYeSrYvJybNgHTwSn2QeFh-48eYVUYjkhjZDACprQU7LQgtgUnYmSTLsZSITgfqP4rKTW4u5yENr6i_nu9L9F1i_2CS8tSxzdWThotv0KUN40KX-/s1600-h/my+house+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317973360603799426" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIqNw29U_Pmt7OUzrmZOxgSfwNgqxXOYeSrYvJybNgHTwSn2QeFh-48eYVUYjkhjZDACprQU7LQgtgUnYmSTLsZSITgfqP4rKTW4u5yENr6i_nu9L9F1i_2CS8tSxzdWThotv0KUN40KX-/s320/my+house+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>The indoor picture is of my dining room and kitchen. There are lots of windows and lots of light. The only thing not pictured is the mouse that has built a nest in the small wall with the window and the ants that are EVERYWHERE!</div><div></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjViAerILSfsvxIIo_SFlBtAPstNVXmzmqkLRw8Yqka9LaYDifi6ERpbrCWWnM8St0wYjM-O3QHwVCBKjd5SdVFGQbLcjZdRs2EIvl_5mRTfcGe7EUgZZ4Oy5tEJO17a2yQHXQk1ip2uKMd/s1600-h/my+new+favorite+restaurant+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317973211998993058" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjViAerILSfsvxIIo_SFlBtAPstNVXmzmqkLRw8Yqka9LaYDifi6ERpbrCWWnM8St0wYjM-O3QHwVCBKjd5SdVFGQbLcjZdRs2EIvl_5mRTfcGe7EUgZZ4Oy5tEJO17a2yQHXQk1ip2uKMd/s320/my+new+favorite+restaurant+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a> This is my favorite restaurant in Saratamata. No black bean burritos, but they do usually offer a choice between two meals--chicken wings in a sauce or minced beef in a sauce or an omelet on top of sauce, always served with rice and some island food like lap lap or boiled taro.</div><div></div><div>Underneath is a picture of my walk to school. It takes about 20 minutes to reach the local school and this is what the trip looks like. The only difference is that some parts are shady because different kinds of trees have grown up and over the path. About 20 kids walk this each day to go to school.<br /><br /></div><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgALAXchVK0IuzG17xUGSowckkFuAscg_tpHbIb8zcRWpQ20FtQxucTjYukNGVtr5L1MDNwVKYXgBKqNXvZu7QMYhXghyphenhyphenUK5RB0kyFtE8vfxY21W0Rf_0hDf8lUjPMqzRUZUQm1awbZjqAd/s1600-h/the+path+to+school+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317973201119057074" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgALAXchVK0IuzG17xUGSowckkFuAscg_tpHbIb8zcRWpQ20FtQxucTjYukNGVtr5L1MDNwVKYXgBKqNXvZu7QMYhXghyphenhyphenUK5RB0kyFtE8vfxY21W0Rf_0hDf8lUjPMqzRUZUQm1awbZjqAd/s320/the+path+to+school+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Our New Year's Day celebration included a trip to the garden antap to escape the heat and flies. Two of my host brothers are facing the camera, the other boy is a cousin of sorts, and the woman in front is my brother's fiance. They are beating roasted breadfruit with sticks dipped in coconut milk. A great treat here, though I will admit that I prefer the breadfruit just roasted. Yum.<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-4NMc1mhy4s_21_zrsfG4mdks5zthPiDFgVzKqAI8w2CxekZmkkY-5c0m_im-O3st3vrj_tHHo6YX6NfbhIhd4T9ydJ9Ky1TRGOATxiDWOgO3xyqotcO0GmcWAKzi4vPSKYJtOuV-URfi/s1600-h/New+Year%27s+Day+dinner+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317973015746901138" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-4NMc1mhy4s_21_zrsfG4mdks5zthPiDFgVzKqAI8w2CxekZmkkY-5c0m_im-O3st3vrj_tHHo6YX6NfbhIhd4T9ydJ9Ky1TRGOATxiDWOgO3xyqotcO0GmcWAKzi4vPSKYJtOuV-URfi/s320/New+Year%27s+Day+dinner+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3y8X0GP-UEvLe8xaUkvyxRpLyDVN44YgTmZYriHXxh3YTYMY95FVzqMxmcWaLyd8DlVe11uZlOFNQW2B_2IX9p2DWc8Rj78KPxcT7hCyMdXiit8sm-K60rAfZCtjsw8H2GTLUTpgGS-j/s1600-h/Christmas+celebration+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317973013774972034" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3y8X0GP-UEvLe8xaUkvyxRpLyDVN44YgTmZYriHXxh3YTYMY95FVzqMxmcWaLyd8DlVe11uZlOFNQW2B_2IX9p2DWc8Rj78KPxcT7hCyMdXiit8sm-K60rAfZCtjsw8H2GTLUTpgGS-j/s320/Christmas+celebration+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a> To the left is the nakamal (or gathering place) that my extended family built in the middle of their village. We had Christmas dinner here and it was quite a large group of people. Almost all of the decorations were plants and flowers that they had cut and tied to the posts and beams, supplemented by a few balloons. It was very festive. My boss (and aunt-by-marriage) is on the right.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgyoTrkP-se7KhrO47s_2phsGedU9o9B5oLHvQnrknelKW8MIaaVBptmQu7DaZEodC_3RqSZ3yiCbgprRWm5Te2MhOsqnLLn4RM7phQxGrUCCGzF_uUKxCBeBT7qMEQDoeVD0WGy7W8S0T/s1600-h/host+famli+blo+mi+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317972862981885170" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgyoTrkP-se7KhrO47s_2phsGedU9o9B5oLHvQnrknelKW8MIaaVBptmQu7DaZEodC_3RqSZ3yiCbgprRWm5Te2MhOsqnLLn4RM7phQxGrUCCGzF_uUKxCBeBT7qMEQDoeVD0WGy7W8S0T/s320/host+famli+blo+mi+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Here's a picture of my strait (immediate) host family with a few cousins thrown in for good measure. My host papa is on the left, then a cousin, then my host mama behind and my sister in front. A cousin (attending the Anglican seminary on the island) behind and two more brothers on the end.</div><div></div><div>And below is a picture of their house. Very flas. They too have screens and cement floors and walls and a generator which they use for watching movies and music videos.</div><div></div><div>Something that I find really cool is that their land is covered with fruit and nut trees. They grow almost everything they eat and a lot of it is right around the house.<br />A new house is going up to the left of the family </div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi1Lo6xjDM4B0KfY2GHi2Hd7pQQ0kBiaQ4N6SaQPwcgMCyPBt1NKjOOljkY50gjdF8TEb0XFY7hgYjCJVD9kD51-iVaM8lc-K4djdZYfZ2Np4EdwyeH2bQZU3ZQf_RmLiMbhNskaV90-vN/s1600-h/host+family+house,+Vatumamea+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317972863172094850" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi1Lo6xjDM4B0KfY2GHi2Hd7pQQ0kBiaQ4N6SaQPwcgMCyPBt1NKjOOljkY50gjdF8TEb0XFY7hgYjCJVD9kD51-iVaM8lc-K4djdZYfZ2Np4EdwyeH2bQZU3ZQf_RmLiMbhNskaV90-vN/s320/host+family+house,+Vatumamea+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a> house--a custom house for one of my brothers.<br />They were working on the inside walls when I left and still need to harvest the bamboo for the<br />outside walls but the roof and floor were finished.<br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>And introducing Mai. This was taken either at the end of January or the beginning of February. She has at least doubled in size. I can still lift her but she doesn't fit in my lap anymore. </div><div></div><div>She survived the flight to Vila though she did escape her cardboard box during one leg of the journey. She gave the cargo guy quite a shock.<br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8ObGBWK4e99GGzBuJ2ZmA1FgwM4_tgcaXRhDx-j4G3LWhtSdE3S91Cz3Um8Q5laKKVp0JxhbtR6PFNkkFw1evMSpnOs_yzulGzp0wjmpWlfYA1Lgc91n6S4VzCMhKpKHbArf5pH8G_pLI/s1600-h/a+small+Mai+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317972671452816994" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 241px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8ObGBWK4e99GGzBuJ2ZmA1FgwM4_tgcaXRhDx-j4G3LWhtSdE3S91Cz3Um8Q5laKKVp0JxhbtR6PFNkkFw1evMSpnOs_yzulGzp0wjmpWlfYA1Lgc91n6S4VzCMhKpKHbArf5pH8G_pLI/s320/a+small+Mai+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a> She has been to the vet this week and is now de-ticked, de-fleaed, de -wormed, and de-feminized. It's a whole new world. I picked her up yesterday night so she could spend the weekend with me and she has been quite a hit with the other volunteers in my group. Everyone tells me how sweet she is and I have to admit that I agree.<br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC8jerPAb-UJXPYC1bvtCb2cRJUqc6VkPdXX2GNdSqVSy_-Hnvx9LUmXroJB3j4IE_OqnVuwDEeaFSUeoBnl5DEc6P66-j6a26TiKyUwoG3ABO6GP0k2wYvtNwIhaKG_jzH0qGiy74reRo/s1600-h/small+Mai+2+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317972549125597986" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 237px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC8jerPAb-UJXPYC1bvtCb2cRJUqc6VkPdXX2GNdSqVSy_-Hnvx9LUmXroJB3j4IE_OqnVuwDEeaFSUeoBnl5DEc6P66-j6a26TiKyUwoG3ABO6GP0k2wYvtNwIhaKG_jzH0qGiy74reRo/s320/small+Mai+2+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />In Saratamata, I attend an Anglican church. </div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>Originally, my host family and I attended a small church in their village but the roof is a mess and now we all go to the seminary. It's a short walk, church begins at 7:00 am, and it's usually quite full because all of the seminary students are in attendance. The service is in Bislama because the students come from all over Vanuatu and the singing is incredible. I think one of the first classes the novices attend is the choral element of the service because they sing in 3 or 4 parts. Lovely.<br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhij86ZSHaDTC6QmzFcLY5h7kuh10AJa_QHDciZ9oNeOLjy5iXmFExshTRhq93Crrq-9oejeCdQxOZirTXMlgA4IocnIMyxzu6Zo362rISFplsYBTAodxfK5DohCrMnF5b4qlj43h5leqeo/s1600-h/church+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317972375767380322" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhij86ZSHaDTC6QmzFcLY5h7kuh10AJa_QHDciZ9oNeOLjy5iXmFExshTRhq93Crrq-9oejeCdQxOZirTXMlgA4IocnIMyxzu6Zo362rISFplsYBTAodxfK5DohCrMnF5b4qlj43h5leqeo/s320/church+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Just below is a picture of the harbor. This is about a 30 minute walk from my house but I don't usually get the view because that requires a 30 minute walk UP rather than AROUND.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHaBPd8uwJvdtOt772WMXxbA_9QpcYLhkbALyq1rFkY-mxm866gkWsVgYj7RltcbvqxgL60qh90z6tYQp7npkHrg7h_tHuqHBM2mysHNztpBLn64qxM9txnnmESFMqgXU2sURN9zJVIWXu/s1600-h/Lolowai+Harbor+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317972373411308274" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHaBPd8uwJvdtOt772WMXxbA_9QpcYLhkbALyq1rFkY-mxm866gkWsVgYj7RltcbvqxgL60qh90z6tYQp7npkHrg7h_tHuqHBM2mysHNztpBLn64qxM9txnnmESFMqgXU2sURN9zJVIWXu/s320/Lolowai+Harbor+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKVMDkwH0UZCa0TaFZ4pF-m_uYV6usLa5qKkNd5gDunhcK1dxMa9csFQZDz8CC1fb9J0-oEyV44MYBYzT7S4J1Poi-NAN3MRI8LlmE5Bdo6RtdcRzpJERLIWwdw1iZmckxMTvOwGG9ragz/s1600-h/family+garden+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317972179481259218" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKVMDkwH0UZCa0TaFZ4pF-m_uYV6usLa5qKkNd5gDunhcK1dxMa9csFQZDz8CC1fb9J0-oEyV44MYBYzT7S4J1Poi-NAN3MRI8LlmE5Bdo6RtdcRzpJERLIWwdw1iZmckxMTvOwGG9ragz/s320/family+garden+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />These two pictures are of my host family's garden antap and then of my fledgling garden behind the house. Just for contrast. The plants you see along the "path" are manioc plants and they're about shoulder high.<br /><br />My plants are island cabbage, newly planted. I meant to take another picture right before I left because the view has changed a little. It is a now a large verdant cluster of bushes just waiting to be harvested. And my tomato and pepper plants are ready to go into the ground too. Very exciting.<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYzsKuxRLNvtJCQ8zWL6QL1uEe5tQ1B4tEoNr1MYtNtEtwFF1PNKz2Cvw6BLRy3PqSINItNbxckcsQqOya54Cox99b-e5XOugTghp_4hsWkfkpgXf-Er6_NpHzJqGxYwItnCya-rkRDaJ9/s1600-h/before+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317972026896933106" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYzsKuxRLNvtJCQ8zWL6QL1uEe5tQ1B4tEoNr1MYtNtEtwFF1PNKz2Cvw6BLRy3PqSINItNbxckcsQqOya54Cox99b-e5XOugTghp_4hsWkfkpgXf-Er6_NpHzJqGxYwItnCya-rkRDaJ9/s320/before+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br />And that's the tour. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come back anytime; we're always open.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyg3A1ML1WXtkMPOtG4dmc9SayxHGNgN0WtZZKeaBCFiJLbq9c_nBhof0s__ZhTR2r8cwMREhDw1xCUOu3CW2iQjaGSBFHIU5u2jUOg4veZTMvMp1s25cVhee5qCbsjPByURVVgjBM8opM/s1600-h/Muti,+Stevie,+Willie+2+(small).jpg"></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><br />My plan is to write another update and send it home. That will take about 3 weeks so there should be a new update at the end of April. My parents and I are trying to work out a system so that the updates are a little more evenly spaced. </div><div></div><div>Thanks to all of you for keeping in touch. I always enjoy your letters and hearing the news from home.</div><div></div><div>Miss you!<br /></div><div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-70040597107459521772009-03-12T12:52:00.000-07:002009-03-12T17:16:11.744-07:00UPDATE - written 27 ab 2009, posted 3.12.09<div>Hello, everyone! I'm sorry it has been so long since my last update. Technically speaking, it should have been another month before I was able to post anything new, but my parents have offered to type in a more regular update as long as I'm willing to write it and mail it home. So hopefully we'll get into a monthly-ish pattern. I do have access to a computer here but it's most useful for saving pictures, playing computer games and music, and watching movies. Internet access is . . . . limited. Right now the landline phones are down again - I think out of 7 weeks that I've lived in Saratamata, we've had phones for about 10 days. When we do have phone lines, the access is dial up and anyway the office stresses "official work" on the internet rather than personal use so I'm dependent on regular mail for communication these days. I do have a cell phone I can use to call home and call the PC office and talk with other volunteers so I'm not totally cut off, but my communication techniques are limited to those available, say 20 years ago. I will be back in Port Vila for a week or so with the rest of my group at the end of March for a Peace Corps meeting/training session. I'll try to put up some pictures that week.</div>
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<br /><div>It's funny how quickly life begins to feel "everyday" even though so many parts are truly extraordinary. Sometimes, when thinking about writing letters, I find myself thinking, "There's nothing new to write about, nothing to tell." Ridiculous. Even the routine things like house work and my community and my job are different from, or at least I have to do them differently than, in the U.S. So I thought I would spend some time describing a few of the "normal, everyday' elements of my days here in Vanuatu.</div>
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<br /><div>Sleeping under my mosquito net - I use the possessive here on purpose; I am quite attached to my mosquito net at this point. It is a high, filmy white canopy stretched out over my bed and it represents sanctuary and rest. Not just because it's where I sleep, but because it protects me from all the scary, itchy, scratchy things that lurk in the night - mosquitoes, of course, but also cockroaches, mice, beetles, and various moths and small insects that swarm around flashlights and kerosene lanterns. It is such a pleasure to climb under the net for a nap or for the night and escape from all the creepy crawlies in the rest of the house. (The first time something finds its way INSIDE my shelter, I will be devastated, but so far so good.) Yes, it can be tiresome to fasten and unfasten and refasten on those nights when I have to get up three times to tell the dogs to be quiet or to investigate a mouse-like noise in the kitchen or to shut the windows because the rain is blowing in but the irritation is a small consideration next to the peace of mind it brings.</div>
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<br /><div>The dogs - I have gone from a pet-less household in the states to leading a pack of Vanuatu dogs. Mai is the one I lay claim to and take responsibility for, but my yard has been home to 2 of her siblings, her mother, and another big red dog that has lived there for quite a while. I was also caring for another volunteer's dog for a few weeks so that brought the total to 6. Everyday, everywhere I went, 3-6 dogs milling around. I'm sure it provided a lot of amusement for my neighbors. For a while I considered scouring the neighborhood for any other dogs that needed a home and forming a pack I could rent out to run wild pigs, but no need. Things are looking up. First, my temporary boarder, Stew, went back to his owner. Then, I ran mommy dog off. So, for the past few weeks, I've been down to 4 dogs (Mai, 2 puppies, and the big red one) who follow me everywhere. As of yesterday, I'm back to two. One of my co-workers took the littlest puppy and another volunteer took the other puppy yesterday. Relief.</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>Training Mai - In addition to the usual commands of "sit," "stay," "down," and "NO!" our training regime includes necessary commands like "stay out of the office," "stay out of the store," and "no chasing/killing/eating the neighborhood chickens." During working hours, the businesses here just prop their doors open so there's nothing keeping Mai outside except her interest in avoiding my discipline. Of course, she quickly figured out how to stay just out of reach as I chase her back toward the door so now she spends a lot of time tied up. She's still young though, close to 6 months old would be my guess, so we're going to keep working on that. More serious is the chicken-thing since she's killing my neighbors' dinner. But I refuse to give up . . . . at least not yet. The last time she actually killed the chicken she was chasing was about 2 weeks ago and then she didn't eat it so we're making progress, I think. That particular chicken was laid outside the provincial government office where I was attending a workshop, her attempt to pacify me since I wouldn't let her in the building, and it was witnessed by quite a few of the senior government officials as we left for lunch. So embarrassing. I couldn't even pretend it had been another dog because Mai was sitting right next to it with a feather hanging out of her mouth.</div>
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<br /><div>Trips to the store - Gone are the days when ice cream topped the grocery list (it's available sometimes but no freezer to keep it in), when cold cereal was my back up dinner plan (only powdered milk here), or when any kind of salad was a possibility (too few vegetables). These days a typical shopping list is a loaf of bread (and I'm so thankful I can get it), two cans of cheap tuna for the dog, two cans of decent tuna for me (or, if the store has eggs, one can of tuna and 2 eggs), an onion, some chips or crackers, and one maintenance item like peanut butter or sugar or oil or rice. I usually go to the store every two or three days and the list doesn't change. Seasoning options include salt, soy sauce, and curry powder, I can usually pick up an onion and sometimes there are garlic cloves. There is also a market that usually sells the local produce like island cabbage or some other form of greens, manioc, taro and sweet potato, and a wide variety of bananas. Occasionally I can get a cucumber or pineapple. Those are exciting days.</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>It's a 1-2 minute walk to any of the three stores or the market, but it's a little tricky. One of the stores is hardly open at all. Another is owned by Seventh Day Adventists so the store is not open on Saturdays. And the store with the biggest selection of things is closed after about 5 pm on weekdays, Saturday afternoon, and all day Sunday.</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>So no Mojo burrito for lunch and Thai food for dinner one day, with barbecue for lunch and spaghetti for dinner the next. It's aelan kakae (island food, including greens, bananas, and lots of kinds of root crops) or something on bread three meals a day. Fortunately, I like aelan kakae but I do dream about food from home, usually salads for some reason. One night I enjoyed three different salads in one dream - I was attending a lunch meeting where you could choose which salad you wanted: a beautiful fruit salad with watermelon and grapes and cantaloupe, a very colorful lettuce salad with lots of toppings, or pasta salad with chicken and a creamy dill dressing, but I chose all three. Couldn't taste them of course but I still enjoyed that dream. I miss salad. And cheese, I miss cheese.</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>I've never been much of a chef so, when I actually cooked, I ate a fairly unimaginative diet in the U.S. too. Sometimes, though, I think if I WAS some kind of a chef, I'd eat better here. And then I realize you can only combine the same 6 ingredients in so many ways. Even Emeril or Rachael Ray or Julia Childs or that blond guy who picks up women in the grocery store and cooks dinner for their families would find it difficult to be inventive here after the first few weeks.</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>The sounds - here on Ambae you can always hear the outdoors. There's no air conditioning and the windows and doors are always open so, even over the sound of three or four people typing and talking on the phone at work, I can still hear the crickets and birds and wind and rain. I love it. I can also hear the roosters at 4:30 am and the dogs barking in the middle of the night and the cows lowing (at my host family's house, not in Saratamata) but it's still wonderful. I have grown accustomed to the peace - and subconsciously attuned to the generator, which is housed just across from my house. My brain notices when it come on (POWER!), the slightly different sound it makes before the lights go off, and the quiet that comes when the generator turns off.</div>
<br /><div>The quiet is magnified (is that possible?) because one of my neighbors usually takes advantage of the power to play music on his very nice (=loud) stereo so that we can all enjoy it. One night it was the same song over and over again for two hours. I think he must have hit the "repeat" button and then wandered over to chat at someone else's house. Another night we enjoyed the same song about a dozen times; Kenny Loggins of all people. (Tina, I think of you every time that happens. :))</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>So there's a sampling of my Peace Corps experience. Hopefully, my next update will include some stories about teaching here in Vanuatu! I begin to co-teach class 7 (the kids are 12-14) at the local school on Monday. Just one unit, or approximately two weeks, but it will be a great chance to learn about the students here and what kinds of activities are interesting to them. Kinds here tend to be quite shy and quiet so it will be a challenge to draw them out. Just another new adventure.</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>Thanks again to all of you who have written letters/emails or sent packages. (Mom and Dad are printing out messages sent to my gmail account - <a href="mailto:rachel.meiste@gmail.com">rachel.meiste@gmail.com</a> - and sending them to me by regular mail since the Peace Corps address - <a href="mailto:volunteer@peacecorps.vu.gov">volunteer@peacecorps.vu.gov</a> is proving less than reliable.) I REALLY ENJOY hearing your news from home.</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>Jeannette reminds me to update my wish list. I'll do it on the side panel in March, but for the moment . . . I am still enjoying all of the things currently on the list. You may feel unimaginative if you send drink mixes or Oreos or Chex Mix or cross word puzzles (which can be printed off the internet) or whatever, but I am actually using them up so don't feel that you need to think of something new.</div>
<br /><div> </div>
<br /><div>--letters all by themselves are wonderful</div>
<br /><div>--any of the things on the list already are wonderful</div>
<br /><div>--small games that are easy to explain (Go Fish was a big hit, but I couldn't figure out how to explain Gin Rummy if that gives you an idea), maybe travel sized type things</div>
<br /><div>--a Frisbee</div>
<br /><div>--toys for Mai (she's tired of the empty peanut butter jar and the dish rag I tied in a knot)</div>
<br /><div>--boxes of macaroni and cheese</div>
<br /><div>--recipes for sweet potato casserole, bread, pancakes, chips, etc., etc.</div>
<br /><div>--basic recipes using potatoes (I will substitute manior)</div>
<br /><div>-- recipes using cooked spinach (I will substitute island cabbage)</div>
<br /><div> (pasta is only available as Ramen noodles or from Vila so if you have a recipe that uses</div>
<br /><div> spinach some other way, that would be great</div>
<br /><div>--a bread pudding recipe would be stupendous!</div>
<br /><div>(My access to ingredients is pretty limited so if it's more sophisticated or exotic than cinamon or yeast, I'll probably have to wait until I go to Vila to find it)</div>
<br /><div>--and I'm still hoping for some constellation information for the southern hemisphere</div>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-45051439263869610932008-12-01T14:16:00.001-08:002008-12-01T15:12:28.885-08:00Happy Thanksgiving!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGdwZohevxwm4R2Xsd-B5wVj3D2uYPlz0285breP23F8zfqHjqcz0I0f_p9TbG6dwU-updHSNeLlqVrEKZDJLUAytkSb5yUeO_oYr2N2QhQyGYvdlfE3o3xhYS07AyfN6h0SybjyEnlz9C/s1600-h/21+B+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274962378306369650" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGdwZohevxwm4R2Xsd-B5wVj3D2uYPlz0285breP23F8zfqHjqcz0I0f_p9TbG6dwU-updHSNeLlqVrEKZDJLUAytkSb5yUeO_oYr2N2QhQyGYvdlfE3o3xhYS07AyfN6h0SybjyEnlz9C/s320/21+B+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a> Well, it's official. We are no longer trainees, we have the certificate to prove it. This is my group, in our matching aelan shirts and dresses at the swearing-in ceremony. This was my Thanksgiving celebration.<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLf5aaZMIPem_TFK2s54r3UjVpbXvbQwVFgHAMicBfdxjwY_JGE6VpzvkwpI6DujxjO4RuRMo5X3DbVrbRJ3TuvZul3jE3IkpepyHytva6qI1m1Zl-Ci7dScInEHd0-wkDteLnoRnXUASI/s1600-h/under+the+mango+tree+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274960933790290018" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLf5aaZMIPem_TFK2s54r3UjVpbXvbQwVFgHAMicBfdxjwY_JGE6VpzvkwpI6DujxjO4RuRMo5X3DbVrbRJ3TuvZul3jE3IkpepyHytva6qI1m1Zl-Ci7dScInEHd0-wkDteLnoRnXUASI/s320/under+the+mango+tree+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a> During our first few weeks of training, this was a common sight. We had a lot of our classses underneath a giant mango tree, sort of a community meeting place. Unfortunately for our sense of security, it was mango season and we were constantly being bonbarded by mangoes. They are really heavy when falling from 25 feet above. We did really enjoy the fresh mangoes, though!</div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><br /></div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieo1jyUaBCT3JGVntW8lEztZTAGk4pozWBPul0oc4PJOWtAk6rtsl6OoQXv60E5vq9TPaboCbnWqolJAscDXFfm1ASVRhdi0Puae_hMOCf1S3oZql8TzX5ceRjl0rpWSsk8XgzpIsxj0XP/s1600-h/Gloria,+Sala,+Juliet,+Liman+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274960127798110674" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieo1jyUaBCT3JGVntW8lEztZTAGk4pozWBPul0oc4PJOWtAk6rtsl6OoQXv60E5vq9TPaboCbnWqolJAscDXFfm1ASVRhdi0Puae_hMOCf1S3oZql8TzX5ceRjl0rpWSsk8XgzpIsxj0XP/s320/Gloria,+Sala,+Juliet,+Liman+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a> This is a picture of my host sister, Gloria, a distant cousin and his mom, Sala and Leman, and my other host sister in the background, Juliet. While my host family was busy caring for a grandmother who became seriously ill, Leman and Sala came to stay and take care of me. Leman is married to one of the chief's sons, Joe, who would be a first cousin to me. Got that?</div><br /><div><br /></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><br /></div><br /><div></div><div> </div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMV18W5rclD-8CmcWua3pAETph6JkSO-MsslzhqwwEKEn7bXkDF6tRwkeGd7yyLgOfHq3k3Qk3UxLjaIx21MbcDhyphenhyphennsjCbA4p0CORHgsFYrM1McV8f0p2UtzNJz2EQothBXwNHOMTzCrYE/s1600-h/daily+buffet+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274957606169359426" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMV18W5rclD-8CmcWua3pAETph6JkSO-MsslzhqwwEKEn7bXkDF6tRwkeGd7yyLgOfHq3k3Qk3UxLjaIx21MbcDhyphenhyphennsjCbA4p0CORHgsFYrM1McV8f0p2UtzNJz2EQothBXwNHOMTzCrYE/s320/daily+buffet+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a> This is a sample of our daily lunch buffet. The mamas would cook and bring down our lunch each day so we had a lot of choices. The greenish dishes are made with aelan kabis (island cabbage) which I guess is kind of like turnip greens. There are also pancakes and fried plantains. The sauce pans contain various soups with chicken wings or beef and usually ramen style noodles. We also had rice with every lunch. It has become a staple for Mangaliliu and for a lot of Vanuatu, though there is a local-foods movement here that is trying to bring back the manioc and taro as the staple foods.</div><br /><div><br /></div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXHYQtHcjyb-ce8az5G5Id7_VMYajqmzNyBRE0wVK6NGVBHQVij2FKxbTdHXttPTZ-KzaLOrX9K9EopNqVeg0k2IVNTFcNpqlRrXujMHrG0ccPCOFBMT3UDYWJzrBYWgD7Ll3NfZE8_xIL/s1600-h/is+this+possible+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274956594433019602" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXHYQtHcjyb-ce8az5G5Id7_VMYajqmzNyBRE0wVK6NGVBHQVij2FKxbTdHXttPTZ-KzaLOrX9K9EopNqVeg0k2IVNTFcNpqlRrXujMHrG0ccPCOFBMT3UDYWJzrBYWgD7Ll3NfZE8_xIL/s320/is+this+possible+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br />I find this amazing, every day. The waters here are so beautiful that I find myself taking lots and lots of ocean pictures just because each day seems more beautiful than the last. These two pictures are from a trip to Hat Island that we took to visit the grave of Chief Roi Mata, a Vanuatu cultural hero. After arriving on the island and paying our respects to the chief, a number of our papas and brothers went fishing for our lunch. You can see a few of the trainees and papas or brothers roasting the fish over the fire.<br /><br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQpyMUau6lXFunDJeoDCF-rmB5seI9BOW9XWpwIuD7CUGHsqHO8AYZvcizhu15mUdhZ1IUWQH3174xnnPgf4XzV5Ady7kLyxe9EA3k0Uz9zKi7HYqpC6v84dVcNW309yKcXLpga3gk606s/s1600-h/Sandy,+ni+Van,+Justin,+Linsay+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274956388402787906" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQpyMUau6lXFunDJeoDCF-rmB5seI9BOW9XWpwIuD7CUGHsqHO8AYZvcizhu15mUdhZ1IUWQH3174xnnPgf4XzV5Ady7kLyxe9EA3k0Uz9zKi7HYqpC6v84dVcNW309yKcXLpga3gk606s/s320/Sandy,+ni+Van,+Justin,+Linsay+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /></div><div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji8r88QPptx70a3GO3VnDfe-Grkz2hNCnU_O56ggmxpqFd9-3SaJTFXtySuKO9wmknbZv_m8AysywT6oO94T-WWKQ1xHEaWFV47kK_o0PqiEsbdqFU_O2WvKfe1fB4YXsU4NSyH1EG9cJw/s1600-h/one+last+picnic+at+the+bakaralpa+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274956132600189058" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji8r88QPptx70a3GO3VnDfe-Grkz2hNCnU_O56ggmxpqFd9-3SaJTFXtySuKO9wmknbZv_m8AysywT6oO94T-WWKQ1xHEaWFV47kK_o0PqiEsbdqFU_O2WvKfe1fB4YXsU4NSyH1EG9cJw/s320/one+last+picnic+at+the+bakaralpa+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br />My host papa has one brother and three sisters. This picture includes two of the sisters and the sister-in-law. The two trainees pictured are considered cousins. We went down to my family's bungalow, built by some of my cousin-brothers as a guest "cottage," for a picnic and swimming on our last two weekends in Mangaliliu.</div><div><br /><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><br /> </div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Q5BXfO9wZ3REoWvMWaLQUeSrquuN9uC7Cb9cs42g64AdrSz_qqQu5tnqyvcAU0K9JdWseF4GYMfRnUOV5UjjEvDrXT46iWvUi68ze5EVbaD2M-v8NxMcHBuzS9fjiyidE4isk5cK13e4/s1600-h/dinner+at+the+lafet+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274955880411204994" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Q5BXfO9wZ3REoWvMWaLQUeSrquuN9uC7Cb9cs42g64AdrSz_qqQu5tnqyvcAU0K9JdWseF4GYMfRnUOV5UjjEvDrXT46iWvUi68ze5EVbaD2M-v8NxMcHBuzS9fjiyidE4isk5cK13e4/s320/dinner+at+the+lafet+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />This is the dinner for our swearing-in ceremony. I love the decorations here; the people make such wonderful use of the palm fronds and flowers that grow. It was a great party!</div><div><br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /><br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRN213V-QaVgjJu6b-GkyefWqBP3ZFF4ie22awuJbuIEBH37Tz8b9Ahwef0CiYGvR-pSMu0soSGdqTUNn51dqwggLTjja66xCenSf2PRrK3cl240loxVXgBT2ZjTI_IGaCW_RWCr3o2aQR/s1600-h/saying+goodbye+(small).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274955442771477106" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRN213V-QaVgjJu6b-GkyefWqBP3ZFF4ie22awuJbuIEBH37Tz8b9Ahwef0CiYGvR-pSMu0soSGdqTUNn51dqwggLTjja66xCenSf2PRrK3cl240loxVXgBT2ZjTI_IGaCW_RWCr3o2aQR/s320/saying+goodbye+(small).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Saying goodbye to our host families and the rest of the village. This sort of "receiving line" is pretty typical. We have one every Sunday after church too, featuring whoever is a guest that day--new visitors or people who have returned from a trip or a visiting elder. This is only a small portion of the full line of people. </div><div><br /><br /> </div><div>And now we are in Port Vila for a week or so, buying supplies and preparing for departure to our permanent sites. Three of us left today, another 5 leave tomorrow and the rest of the group will go on Friday and Saturday. It's kind of strange actually. In my traveling experience, when you return to the place you started, it's to catch a flight back home. But this time, it's to prepare for the long part of my stay. It has been hard for me to wrap my head around the idea but arriving in Saratamata on Thursday instead of the states will help the concept to sink in. :)</div><div><br />I will try to get back here to the internet cafe one more time to post some pictures of Saratamata and my host family there. I've got to meet some other volunteers at the local "Wal-mart" and pick up the rest of my supplies.</div><div> </div><div>Miss you!<br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><br /><br /></div><div></div>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-29082583322564300012008-11-12T15:19:00.000-08:002008-11-12T15:26:10.418-08:00Saratamata and back in the training villageWe are in Port Vila for the day, visiting the teacher’s college and the provincial education office for Shefa province and . . . . . visiting the internet café.<br /><br />Everyone is back from wokabaot now and it was comical to see how happy we all were to be back and see all of our group again. I had mixed feelings coming back, as we all did. I was looking forward to the comfort of being somewhere familiar again, back with my host family in the training village. And it was great to hear about everyone else’s wokabaot experiences. But when I got back to the training village I remembered how noisy it is. Well, relatively noisy. There are lots of barking dogs and crying children at my house in the training village. My new host family doesn’t have barking dogs or crying children. All they have is one extremely rowdy rooster who thinks dawn comes at 3:30 am. And my new host family is great. It’s just hard to go to a place that is all new and kind of start over again.<br /><br />Once again, I have a really flas (fancy) set up. My host family in the training village is probably the most sophisticated--cement house, flush toilet, inside shower, tile floors, generator, etc. My new host family isn’t that well to do, but they also have a cement house with SCREENS in the windows! Screens! They have lots of fruit and nut trees in the yard and they grow most of their own food--manioc, taro, plantains, coconuts, cabbage, and various frruits that are in season. I have 2 new sisters (one of which lives on Santo with her husband) and 4 new brothers, ages 9 - 22. I’ll try to put up a picture. My host mama knows how to weave the mats and baskets that are so common here so I’m hoping to learn that skill from her. I also have room next to my house for a garden so I’m hoping to get some help with that too while I stay with my host family.<br /><br />The village where my host family lives is about 20 minutes from the provincial education office in Saratamata and from the house that will be mine eventually. I will live with my host family for the first month at least and then move to Saratamata sometime in January. Both villages are really nice, quite small with grass and trees and nice people. Saratamata also has 4 food stalls (cheap food!) and 4 stores including an ice cream store! And I thought joining the Peace Corps meant deprivation. J Still no hot water so that solar shower the ladies from CCS sent will come in handy! And even though I will have electricity for a part of every day, I won’t have internet access except REALLY SLOW dial-up so I’m not sure how often I will get to update the blog. I will still receive the emails you send to <a href="mailto:volunteer@vu.peacecorps.gov">volunteer@vu.peacecorps.gov</a> because the office will send them on but I’ll probably be writing more letters or asking Mom and Dad to post updates for me. And since I will have electricity, those of you who asked about sending movies and music can send away!<br /><br />So we are back in the training village and actually getting some really helpful training. Kath, you would have laughed to see me today and yesterday. In our sessions yesterday, we made letter identification cards and sight word identification cards so we could test kids when the school year begins again. (Summer vacation here is in December and January.) And today, we colored alphabet cards. We also learned how to make our own books so we could do it for fun or teach the local teachers how to do it so they can write books in the local languages for their classrooms. We’ve also learned how to bake in the all-purpose sauce pans that we use here in Vanuatu and we learned how to use the assessment tools that we made. The best session was a Bislama lesson when our teacher tried to figure out how to translate things like “learner-centered instruction” and “differentiated instruction.” Each of those took about 4 lines of notebook paper to explain.<br /><br />My Bislama took some pretty good strides forward this week, maybe because I had to use it more. I’ve started picking up the “tune” of Bislama and I don’t have to think as long to translate what I want to say. I was able to talk to my host sister tonight and I understood her. I had trouble understanding her before, I think, because her European language is French rather than English. But then I had to ask my Uncle Savi to slow down and start again when he talked to me right after that. Small steps, I guess. <br /><br />I guess that’s it for today. I know I write this every time, but I am so grateful to those of you who are writing and emailing and sending packages. I love to hear about what is going on in your lives, the little things as much as the big things. I will post an alternative mailing address for the provincial office in Saratamata but you can use the PMB 9097 address too. The Peace Corps will forward any mail that arrives in Port Vila on to me. <br /><br />Until next time . . . . .Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-36850293937023544612008-10-30T22:44:00.000-07:002008-10-30T23:06:38.269-07:00Wokabaot<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLIwPJKLBpcEXC0rws-vOKagXvmoYV2-ekloP2GZlCTo0q53HESHOmBdBrXVpJ1EKgIDW6Ur3uWbi8ypUOQ2APdxr4eywo_kyv81R5SXf_SqEiWZG9SiTnOyI51NWINO44MJnLx5v4raHJ/s1600-h/training+049.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263195250807215954" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLIwPJKLBpcEXC0rws-vOKagXvmoYV2-ekloP2GZlCTo0q53HESHOmBdBrXVpJ1EKgIDW6Ur3uWbi8ypUOQ2APdxr4eywo_kyv81R5SXf_SqEiWZG9SiTnOyI51NWINO44MJnLx5v4raHJ/s320/training+049.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Sorry about that last update--I’m not sure what happened.<br /><br />Here is the latest. . . . .<br /><br />Placements were announced on Wednesday and I will be going to Ambae (island) and working in the provincial capital of Saratamata. I will be replacing a volunteer who is currently working for the provincial education office and my job description includes teacher observation and coaching, leading workshops, coordinating communication between the provincial education officers and the volunteers, and who knows what else. I am hoping to be able to do some team teaching in the local primary school and to do some curriculum work as well. There’s really no way of knowing exactly what to expect until I get there. The nice thing is that the current volunteer already has some projects going and has made some suggestions about things that need to be done so I feel like I have a head start.<br /><br />On Saturday, I will leave for my wokabaot to Saratamata and I will be there for a full week before coming back to the training village for three final weeks of technical training. The visit to site is kind of an introduction for me as well as a last check to make sure everything is in order, like housing arrangements. From the information I have received, Saratamata is important as the provincial capital and it has electricity and running water and stores but its population is just over 100 people. It’s hard for me to envision the modern/urban elements with so few people. Most of the people who live there are government workers or nurses or store owners or the like.<br /><br />Today was a busy day in the training village. We began with a quick debrief about our school visits from the day before; our group visited 5 different places in groups of 2 or 3. It was our second trip to schools where we were able to spend the day observing, and sometimes teaching. It has been really helpful to see the challenges the teachers of Vanuatu face and strategies they use for teaching first hand. Then a short Bislama session where we had to write and tell a story in Bislama and then a trip to the garden. We headed for a garden that has been planted on a slope and talked about strategies for reducing erosion and how to follow the contours of the land when planting and which trees are good for what uses--straight sticks, quick growers, nitrogen sources, invasive species, etc. The last part of the day was spent prepping a village house for a cyclone. We cut coconut palm fronds for the traditional houses (they help hold the roof down) and found concrete bricks and sandbags for the metal roofs. Good practice since it’s cyclone season here from November to April.<br /><br />We also had a really interesting session with a woman who is working with one of the villages to write down their alphabet. The lower classes at the primary schools are supposed to be taught in the local language, but only some of the villages have that language in print. Janet is working with one of the villages that doesn’t have their language written down yet. She has been working on an alphabet book (A is for apple) for the local language and it was so interesting to hear about the process. She also had some great tips and advice for planning and selecting topics for teacher workshops. Kath, I’ll be calling or emailing for help soon!<br /><br />The kids here are really amazing. Many of them learn two languages right at the start--the language from their mother’s village and the language from their father’s village. Sometimes they just learn Bislama and sometimes their parents are from the same village so they only learn the one language to start. But there is so little printed material in any of these languages that learning to read is a challenge. Most of their knowledge is obtained aurally. Then, when they get to second or third grade, their classes are taught in either English or French. And when they get a little older, they take the other language as a foreign language. It’s no wonder that literacy skills are low when the kids are learning several languages without learning to be competent and confident readers in their first language. I continue to be amazed by the kids and teachers here. They accomplish so much with so little in the way of resources.<br /><br />Several people have asked in emails how my Bislama is coming along. I had a couple of low weeks and discouraging sessions with trainers when I was told that my grammar is good but my vocabulary needs a lot of work. I gradually came to realize that, yes, my vocabulary is smaller than it should be, but that is more easily remedied than bad grammar. So, I do not despair. I talked with the class 4 students at the school on Wednesday. They asked me to talk in Bislama rather than English and I seemed to be communicating with them fairly effectively. I took that as a positive sign. Basically, I have been cheating a bit with my Bislama when I talk to English-speakers like my trainers. For example, one trainer asked me, as part of my test, to describe my house in Florida. I used the term “family room” because I knew my trainer would understand it when I should have taken the time to explain what a family room is. That is not a phrase or concept that is readily understood in Vanuatu. So here’s a little sample of Bislama. (I should probably ask one of my trainers to look it over and make sure it’s acceptable but you guys won’t know the difference anyway. :) )<br /><br />Las Sundei naet, mitrifala trainee i bin mekem piza blong ol host famly blong mitrifala. Lefou (LAY-fow) (aka Katie) wetem Turtong (aka Sandy) wetem mi (Lairipu lay-rrrri-poo --my kastom name which means “woman farmer“) bin pem ol ingrediens long Port Vila long Satadei. Mitrifala i bin pem floao mo yist mo tomato mo capsicum mo salami mo jis blong mekem siks piza. Mitrifala i bin kuk ol piza long oven blong bred mo hemi bigfala oven. Olgeta 6 piza fitim insaed long oven long sem taem. Ol host famly blong mitrifala oli laekem piza blong mitrifala tumas. Olgeta oli askem mitrifala mekem piza bekagen nara taem.<br /><br />Translation: “Last Sunday night, three of us trainees made pizza for our host families. Katie, Sandy, and I bought the ingredients in Port Vila on Saturday. We bought flour, yeast, tomatoes, peppers, salami, and cheese to make 6 pizzas. We cooked the pizzas in the bread oven and it’s a big oven. All 6 pizzas fit inside at one time. Our host families really liked the pizza. They asked us to make it again another time.”<br /><br />There is a lot of English in Bislama. The challenge is the limited vocabulary. It makes a language that was developed TO BE functional, really inconvenient to use.<br /><br />The pizza part is a true story and here’s another one. One morning before I left for school, there was a great uproar of dogs in the backyard. I went back there to get some hot water from the kitchen and discovered that several of the chief’s pigs (I learned they were his pigs later) had escaped from their pen and the dogs were trying to herd/corral them for the chief. I think the dogs got a little carried away (there must have been 5 or 6 of them chasing the pig) because several of them bit into various parts of the pig, supposedly to hang on to it and not just because their primitive selves got the better of them. (I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt here.) Anyway, the dogs were barking and growling and yelping and charging through the grass after the pigs that were snorting and squealing and charging through the grass, all of them being chased by two men with sticks who were yelling and shouting at the pigs and dogs, and there were several mamas in the kitchen watching the chaos and shouting encouragements and directions and laughing at the men and the dogs and the pigs. And then, as the roiling mass of animals passed by my host father’s pig pen, one of the bigger pigs inside the fence decided to enter the fray. It used one of the other pigs in the pen as a ramp and leaped over the fence to get at the dogs. And the mamas started laughing even harder and the men shouted louder and now there were two big pigs instead of one big pig and it was a wild couple of minutes.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>I'm sorry there are no pictures this time. I tried to upload a couple and in 15 minutes, none of my pictures has appeared. I don't have any more time today. I'll try again another day.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Many thanks to those of you who have been emailing and sending packages. It makes a huge difference to be able to hear what is going on in your lives and not feel so cut off! Miss you all. I'll write again when I get the chance--not sure when that will be!</div>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-76016091702949445672008-10-09T22:01:00.000-07:002008-10-09T22:18:40.195-07:00Life in PST<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxBI97BvZImAo3s7cQP2A9JroAQD0MktPMekXuML2xDCtW3YKPBgBKocg3E3JF-Oa5PDQbdqApe91RbvS8tysDUozbYmHB_bDw8Tog0GhsKwWSCe3ypuQdZaRMEl_JRNJrgxyNvRI_e47i/s1600-h/IMG_0507.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255388650485755202" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxBI97BvZImAo3s7cQP2A9JroAQD0MktPMekXuML2xDCtW3YKPBgBKocg3E3JF-Oa5PDQbdqApe91RbvS8tysDUozbYmHB_bDw8Tog0GhsKwWSCe3ypuQdZaRMEl_JRNJrgxyNvRI_e47i/s320/IMG_0507.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX20PAaQWA1czJgQvWoWel0-W8_3uVKdf6wn4h6-zC0w4jM1f9HD94ixAWXCvJ8Q0iSAXfWrY_LqbuQXos64t3u1W4jbqyt6vyFpSpqTUbsh3uXB8RMt-BXtGnKmpP1jZz45zVJKl6vlFQ/s1600-h/IMG_0510.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255388658092735346" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX20PAaQWA1czJgQvWoWel0-W8_3uVKdf6wn4h6-zC0w4jM1f9HD94ixAWXCvJ8Q0iSAXfWrY_LqbuQXos64t3u1W4jbqyt6vyFpSpqTUbsh3uXB8RMt-BXtGnKmpP1jZz45zVJKl6vlFQ/s320/IMG_0510.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSPZ_dfcR-XDHY2cp0IqtAHeY7a3EA5osZZyGt6L0wG8sLhN8yJ3s3hwjqwWkQL9hYsoaQiKYpdcqf3LZaT93rynVCAVl24LKQY0XT4l5ydzMQNk8n5UXQ8T36h7QyLorPrhvssyIHt6hi/s1600-h/IMG_0514.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255388662492516738" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSPZ_dfcR-XDHY2cp0IqtAHeY7a3EA5osZZyGt6L0wG8sLhN8yJ3s3hwjqwWkQL9hYsoaQiKYpdcqf3LZaT93rynVCAVl24LKQY0XT4l5ydzMQNk8n5UXQ8T36h7QyLorPrhvssyIHt6hi/s320/IMG_0514.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7kECVkeLLF_qE6zgktNNFxqVGVaXbAhyYkdbAoJtkbBoCNFw64vTQ3fjik3lj076j3WJa-4KLR8tXiWlM0cX7jIiSrmtcSBhDh4NsDWMPnU-Tp8ihvNufpyV-qsg29EajpkaXtSKsJZQb/s1600-h/IMG_0531.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255388660720246690" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7kECVkeLLF_qE6zgktNNFxqVGVaXbAhyYkdbAoJtkbBoCNFw64vTQ3fjik3lj076j3WJa-4KLR8tXiWlM0cX7jIiSrmtcSBhDh4NsDWMPnU-Tp8ihvNufpyV-qsg29EajpkaXtSKsJZQb/s320/IMG_0531.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div>Me in my "aelan dres," a gift from my host parents. This is my host mother, Anies.<br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><br />Two weeks in our training village have flown by. We arrived on a Sunday afternoon, quite anxious to meet our host families and get a first look at the village. And our first action was to walk back out of the village so we could be properly welcomed. The boys in the village had planned a traditional welcome and, as we walked back into the village, they stormed out of the bushes dressed in custom camouflage (bushes and twigs wrapped around their bodies) and brandishing sticks. It was a bit unnerving actually. After terrifying us properly, they led us to meet the chief. Our host mamas formed a receiving line and we all got bussed on both cheeks and a lei without knowing which mother belonged to which trainee.<br />The village itself is mostly corrugated metal houses or cinderblock homes with corrugated roofs. There are about 30 compounds and 260 people. My host family has been wonderful. My host father, Sael, is quite the entrepreneur. He owns a tour bus, a taxi, a stereo system that he rents out for parties, and is building a tourist bungalow on the beach nearby. We have electricity at night by generator and water in the house. He is working on an indoor bathroom, complete with flush toilet, but it isn’t finished yet.<br />My mama, Anies, has been really patient with me as I practice my Bislama. It takes me 2 minutes to figure out how to phrase my idea and several false starts to actually get it out. However, I understand most of what is said to me so that’s progress. What is need is a lot of written practice to get the words and rhythms into my head. Bislama is, in many ways, a very simple language. The vocabulary is fairly limited and many words have English roots or they’re exactly the same. The sentence structure is straightforward though it takes some getting used to. There are no possessives in Bislama. You have to say “the house that belongs to me” anytime you want to say “my.” “Haos blong me hemi naransaed long solwater.” It can make for some very long sentences!<br />I have three host brothers and sisters: Juliette is 13 and attends French school. She is quite bright and hopes to pass her examinations next year to get into secondary school. Places in secondary schools in Vanuatu are very limited so the 8th class year is known as the “push out” because many students don’t score well enough on their examinations to earn a place. Gloria is 8 and also attends French school, but in the village, and Micah is 4 and has a mind of his own. He will go to English school beginning in January.<br />It is hard to explain how quickly the extraordinary becomes routine but after two weeks, I am taking some things for granted. I still don’t like using the “smal haos” but I’m used to the food and walking everywhere and dodging the mangoes that are falling from the trees and sitting on the ground or hard benches (not many cushions around) and brushing my teeth at the outdoor spigot and waving the flies off of my dinner and the dogs and the chickens and the pigs and . . . . .<br />Actually, our village is pretty spiffy. I think every compound has a water tap so no hauling water. Lots of families have generators. There’s a wide variety of food available because the families have gardens, we’re right near the ocean for fishing, and the capital city is close by for any extras. During the first week of November, we will go on “wokabaot” to visit our permanent sites. It will be another transition, I think, to an even simpler way of living. It all depends . . . . Actually, it sounds like some of us may end up in slightly more developed areas because we’ll be working with provincial directors and not just with individual schools. The head honchos at Peace Corps haven’t told anyone their sites but we’re supposed to find out next week.<br />We have classes every week day--Bislama lessons first, then sessions on the education system in Vanuatu, presentations by people in the education ministry here, presentations about Vanuatu’s economy and areas for growth, sessions on how to write lesson plans J , disucssions with current volunteers about secondary projects, presentations about what to do in case of cyclone . . . volcanic eruption . . . . landslide . . . . bush fire . . . . etc, etc, etc. The best classes though are the practical ones. Yesterday, we learned how to make mango jam and coconut jam. We also spent one afternoon building fires, scraping and squeezing coconut for the cream, killing chickens, and making “simboro,” a traditional dish made from manioc.<br />I am getting more excited and more nervous about my permanent site--how will I be received (sometimes the village doesn’t know you’re coming!), whether it will be easy to find projects or whether I will have to invent them, what my village will be like. We visited two schools today and have talked with a variety of people who could offer us some insight on what the future might hold. The challenges sound enormous but there is also so much potential for growth and improvement. </div><div> </div><div>I've got to sign off--time to head for the office and the bus ride back to the training village. I'll try to get more pictures on next time. Check again in two weeks!</div>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1126565763032125096.post-18192751153970493592008-09-25T23:55:00.000-07:002008-09-25T23:58:57.048-07:00Rats, Snails, and WormsFirst a technical message:<br /><a href="mailto:volunteer@vu.peacecorps.gov">volunteer@vu.peacecorps.gov</a><br />Rachel Meiste in the subject line . . . . will get to me on a weekly basis. (The medical team is going to come out once a week for training sessions and they said they would bring our mail.)<br /><br />We’ve had two more days of training/classes and most of them were spent on medical issues. One afternoon, we packed and discussed the contents of two tool-kit type medical containers. We have several kinds of pain killers, several kinds of antibiotics, several kinds of washes or creams or ointments, bug spray, sun screen, cotton balls, band aids, steri strips, gauze pads, oral rehydration tablets, water treatment tablets, even a malaria testing kit (lancet included). I had to keep reminding myself that this was all “just in case” something happened. We also received a handbook put together by the medical office to help us self-diagnose and self-treat and a book called <em>Where There is No Doctor: A Village Healthcare Handbook</em> that is designed for the whole world. There are some pretty interesting diseases and treatments in there, let me tell you!<br /><br />And today we had a session on food and water safety and all the things you can experience if your food or water isn’t safe. The funny thing is that most of the diseases, worms, bacteria, viruses, etc that we may be exposed to all have similar symptoms and many of them (the viruses) just have to go through their cycle. There’s nothing you can do except treat the symptoms. Somehow that doesn’t make me feel better. But again, I am a relatively healthy person, not particularly prone to accidents, and most volunteers we’ve talked with haven’t been sick more than once or twice in the year or year and a half they’ve been here. Quite reassuring.<br /><br />Everyone has been holding up pretty well so far, I think, though the ipods and books and journals are appearing more often. People come to sit in the communal area in the courtyard but they come equipped with signs that this is personal time. Probably a good thing. Generally speaking, we are with other trainees from at least 8 am to 5pm and usually much longer than that since we’re not encouraged to go places by ourselves. Most trainees do something in the evening--a trip to a nakamal for kava, a movie at a downtown restaurant, dinner at a restaurant or a trip to the market. It is rare that we have or take advantage of time alone in our rooms.<br /><br />In the next few days, however, we’ll definitely be spending more time in our rooms as we unpack and repack all of our belongings. It is a matter of deciding what to bring to the training village, home for the next 10 weeks, and what can stay here for the time being. Some of our things can stay in storage here in Port Vila, but the suggested packing list is fairly long and it includes things we’ll need for our “wokabaot” to our permanent sites. It sounds like we come back to the capital city 2 or 3 times during training but I think they are scheduled outings. No telling how much free time we’ll have to unpack and repack the stuff in storage.<br /><br />I’m also getting some more ideas for the wish list--things that I didn’t think to bring until I got here or things that I thought I wouldn’t need but have reconsidered. Things like Gatorage mix packets. After drinking the green coconut milk (a rehydration miracle fluid, according to PC nurses) and the rehydration solution provided in our medical kits, I will be happy to mix up some Gatorade instead. <br /><br />Our first official Bislama lesson is tomorrow, complete with practice trip to the market to talk with the “mamas” who are there. The Peace Corps often uses the hotel where we are staying and the ladies who work here have begun to ask us more things in Bislama as well. They are really nice about helping us with our new vocabulary. “Olsem wanem?” (“How are you?”) “I stret.” (“I stret” translates something like “It’s all good.”) Bislama actually uses a lot of English words or words that were originally English, but they’re written phonetically so they look different, like “wokabaot.” “Yu oraet?” would be another example. Any guesses? (“ae” is pronounced long “i” like “sight”). They do have multipurpose prepositions which are confusing to me but the trainers promise to do everything they can to help us become conversant/comfortable speaking Bislama in the 10 weeks of training.<br /><br />Friday, September 26<br />Opening your mouth to try a new language for the first time, outside of the safe class environment is a pretty intimidating moment. We went to the market today, a field trip, to try out our first Bislama. The lessons this morning were really interesting. We started with pronunciation and then some basic sentence structures. Susan S., you would LOVE the phonetics of this language! I kept wishing you were here listening in. The mamas at the market were very forgiving and I only tried out a few phrases--”Mi wantem wan raep mango, plis.” and “Wanem nem blong ia?”(What name belongs to this?) One group of ladies was laughing at my pitiful attempts to pronounce an unfamiliar fruit but what can we do but laugh at our neighbors and be laughed at in our turn (I paraphrase J). <br /><br />Tomorrow is our cooking class in the morning and water safety in the afternoon. It is supposed to rain all afternoon so our water excursion should be interesting. Then we pack up and leave for our training village where we will be for the next 10 weeks. There was a possibility that our host mamas and papas would be at the market today, but I didn’t meet mine. That will have to wait until Sunday. We are supposed to come back to Port Vila a few times during training so I hope to be able to update again in a couple of weeks.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280605474561126976noreply@blogger.com3