It 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.
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.
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.
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.
Malpong
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Haka, Heifers, Hostels
Just 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.
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.
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.
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. :)
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.
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.
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. :)
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The 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.
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.
The custom dancers were from a nearby village and you can see the volcano's silhouette behind them on the left.
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.
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.
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."
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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.
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.
The custom dancers were from a nearby village and you can see the volcano's silhouette behind them on the left.
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.
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.
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."
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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.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Another Year is Dawning
For 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.
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.
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 nighttime temperatures in Vanuatu these days are hovering around 90.
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.
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.
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 nighttime temperatures in Vanuatu these days are hovering around 90.
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.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Last Chance Cafe
Actually, 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.
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. ;)
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.
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.
Time to go--my taxi will be here soon.
Bon karea
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. ;)
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.
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.
Time to go--my taxi will be here soon.
Bon karea
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Luganville, Santo
I 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!
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.
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 leaves, not the same day you buy or order supplies)
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.
Bon Karea
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.
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 leaves, not the same day you buy or order supplies)
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.
Bon Karea
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Feast or Famine
FEAST OR FAMINE
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.
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.
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! ©)
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.
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. ©
MALEKULA / PENTECOST / AMBAE
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!
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.
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.
[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.]
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!
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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
7 EVERYDAY EXPRESSIONS
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.
For example.
--Spoken in a tone of wonder -- “You can get lettuce here?”
--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.)
--Discussing routine travel arrangements for the workshop—”Laura is going to stand out by the road so she can catch a truck to Norsup.”
--Any given day—”There will not be power today.”
--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?”
--Any given office—“No copying or printing because we’re out of toner until August.”
--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!)
--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.”
--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.)
--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?”
--Me to Mami Doreen—”How can you tell it’s a woman crab?”
--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.) -
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.
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.
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! ©)
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.
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. ©
MALEKULA / PENTECOST / AMBAE
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!
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.
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.
[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.]
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!
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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
7 EVERYDAY EXPRESSIONS
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.
For example.
--Spoken in a tone of wonder -- “You can get lettuce here?”
--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.)
--Discussing routine travel arrangements for the workshop—”Laura is going to stand out by the road so she can catch a truck to Norsup.”
--Any given day—”There will not be power today.”
--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?”
--Any given office—“No copying or printing because we’re out of toner until August.”
--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!)
--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.”
--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.)
--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?”
--Me to Mami Doreen—”How can you tell it’s a woman crab?”
--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.) -
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