Five Day Ceremony for John Roberts

Wow what a weekend. First off I want to thank everyone that has been writing me. It is so nice to hear about things on the home front. Although, I will admit that yesterday we had a man from Washington DC here to talk with us and at the end he asked if we wanted to know about anything going on back home and frankly I did not.

He came out here to deal investigate that situation with John Roberts. He talked to me for a while about where my thoughts were. It sounds like I am defiantly going there. Last night we had a five day ceremony in Mongalilu. Like I said before they mourn for five days. So last night we had a feast and ended the crying for John. From today on people are to be strong again. It has been a warm and heartfelt few days. These people are so amazing. It is obvious that we make a strong impact on them.

The Chief of Mongalilu gave a great speech about how we are his children and that we were born once in the United States but when we come here we are reborn into a new family. They do this same thing if a NiVans comes from another island. That way you always have family there. When you are adopted into the family you are truly treated like family and they will take care of you as one of there own. On the flip side of that you may also fall into taboos that come with being a family member, like not being able to hang out with your older brother!

I have posted some pics of my Mama, smal sister, mo smal brada. They are so amazing. Anyways, I digress. So we had a feast last night. It was full of all sorts of aelen kakae (Island Food.) The night before the trainees had to help prepare the food. The first part of preparing the food was catching it!!

We started by chasing around the chickens! They do not keep their chickens in a coop so this is harder then you think. We lost one chicken into the bush. I ended up taking a tree branch to the head that instantly drew blood. I know have a fat scab across my skull! We learned from the natives that we don’t need to catch it the nice way. That if we can throw a big stick at it and kill it then that is just as good.
Luckily for us we managed to just catch them with the help of some pikinini. Well once we had three chickens, it was time to learn how to kilim i ded (kill them dead.) One man from our group grabbed the chicken and went for the grab its head and twist approach. This seemed like it work pretty well till he tossed the “dead” chicken on the ground and it ran away. Luckily a pikinini caught him quickly again. He then held the chicken by the legs, in one hand and swung a stick at its head with the other. Every time he swung with his right hand he lifted the chicken up with his left and would miss. It was very funny.

The next guys to try and kill the chicken went with the grab the chicken by the feet and swing his head into a tree. He kept hitting the body of the chicken, which does not kill them very quickly. I ended up jumping in and lending a hand. I then did the last chicken the same way. Two solid swings on the tree and the chicken is ded I finis.

Well after killing them it was on to cleaning them. We were shown on one chicken and then left to do the other two. I did one myself. It is a good experience to clean your own food.

Later that night we helped prepare the manioc, wild yams, and other aelan kakae. Afterwards I went up and watched Home Alone! I know I know. On one hand it seems so primitive and on the other I have some serious luxuries!!

Well yesterday we started off with some bislama classes and then I went for a wokabot witem Elin mo Dan. We walked up to the Chiefs house. He is my Chief Papu because it is my grandfathers brother. We just missed them sacrificing the pig for the feast. Apparently they kill it with three solid hits in the head with a 4 inch thick stick. (Dad how many shots to the head did it take you to take down our pigs?) I told all the men about how we killed the pigs at home and that that one pig we killed five times before he decided to die. If they don’t use the stick then they take a sharp knife or stick and stick them under the front shoulder near the armpit.

We then helped them clean the pig. We shaved it clean so that we could bury him in the ground, Hmmm… It is making me hungry just thinking about our dinner last night. Well we ended heading back and being late for our class. Luckily, they still had two pieces of chocolate which the three of us split (hint hint hint, volunteers loves American chocolate, again that is American chocolate to
Christopher flyr,
PMB 9097
Peace Corps/ Vanuatu
Port Vila
Vanuatu
South Pacific)

Well after all of our classes it was finally time to go up for the ceremony. I have never seen so many people in Mongalilu. We started off with some speeches from the Country Director, our Chief, and the Chief of South River. Our Chief made an offering of food for the people of Erromango, the 19b (Johns PCV group), and those of VDKA (an RTC group.) The rest of us were to eat off of the main buffet table.

But first we must drink Kava to celebrate John. So I went over and grabbed my first shell. Well it was in a big glass and was really about two shells. I then grabbed one more with fren blong mi Noah. Then as I was storion with him mama blong mi came over and said You must go eat now, if you don’t go eat now there will be no food left. So I left Noah and went over and filled my plate.

I started by slicing two big fat ribs off of the pig! I then went down the line filling my plate with wild yams covered in coconut, island cabbage, some laplap taro, fruit salad with papaya, banana, and coconut, curry chicken wings, green beans, stuffed bell peppers, a lot of fish and a nice fresh squeezed lemon aid to wash it all down.

Well as I just finished filling my plate, I was approached by a member of the South River Community. He asked if I was done eating and I said no I have not started yet. He said very good. The Chief of South River wanted to have a shell of the special kava given to them by my Chief. I went over and drank two shells with them and then storion with them. They then gave me some of their ceremonially kakae. It was laplap with a big slice of pork tenderloin on top! Mmmm… I asked the Chief if he liked Kava. He told me that before he would drink it, but he does not drink it any more. But because this was a ceremony for John that it is a respect factor that you can not turn it down.

Well when it came time for them to leave I stood up. WOW!!! So here is the thing about Kava. Your head stay sharp and clear. I really felt nothing until I stood up. But after I stood up I realized I was walking at a 45 degree angle. I was glad to hear that some people were heading down to the nakamal where we have class. It is right next to the water.

We hung out there watching the stars while Noah from Hawaii played the Ukulele and sang songs. It was great!!!! I feel like I am always at summer camp here. This place is amazing. I went to sleep at about 11 pm.

I woke up at about 5 am this morning. I just laid in bed looking out my window at the palm tree blowing in the wind. It was very windy this morning. So windy that at one point when I was like wow I have never felt the wind blow my house and bed like this before. Well turns out there were a 4.8 earthquake this morning.

Well I am going to leave you know. We are heading down to the saloon to have some American eats and watch the series.