Mongaliliu October 6,2007

How is life back in the states? Life here is great! Each day gets better then the last. It is nice to be able to catch what people are saying now. While I still have a hard time speaking bislama I am understanding more and more each day. It is Saturday night here right now. Mitufala I jas kambak long haos blong fren blong mi Ryan. Mitufala I long storian mo lukem family guy. I just got back from my friend Ryan’s house where we talked and watched the Family Guy. He has a Television and DVD player at his parent’s house.

This village is probably one of the wealthiest villages around. Although, I hear at my site I may have a government issued solar charger and 12 volt battery because my site runs the short wave radio for the entire island.

I have managed to get in the water almost every day. It is so nice to wake up and go snorkeling before school. I am the first person in my group to see a shark! I was swimming along the reef and came across a 4’ reef shark. It was absolutely beautiful. Very majestic. You could tell it had a certain confidence that only a shark has in the ocean. It just strolled through like it owned the place. It stayed around long enough for me to get the attention of two other volunteers. We were all pretty stoked to see it.

Our days have been filled with sessions and language lessons. Everyday at lunch the mamas make wan bigfala kakae ( a big lunch) for us. We have started playing ultimate Frisbee on our lunch as well to get in a little exercise. Some days we play in the rain. It is fun while we are doing it, but we pay the price when we have to sit in class all soaked through to the bone.

Today I took a walk with Papa blong mi (my papa) down to Mangis. This is a sacred site that the world heritage project is trying to make into a world heritage site. They would have tourist come through as part of this to help bring money into the village.

On Sunday we all went to Jej (church) and sang songs in their local language. After church we ate and then went back down to Mangis to hang out for the day. It is sucha nice place to hang out with some big trees creating a blanket of shade over some soft sand about 25 feet from the water. A couple of us set up our hammocks (such a great invention!) and took some power naps while listening to other play the guitar and ukulele. We played some Frisbee, climbed the trees, threw around a football, and swam in the sea.

While I was swimming in the ocean I found a cool little tunnel in some of the rock/coral. So I swam down one side of the rock and started pulling my self threw the rocks upside down (don’t worry I did not drown!) As I got to the other side opening, I grabbed onto the rock and pushed myself out with a little force. Well I think I pushed off to hard because I came to a quick stop when my right shoulder slammed into a rather large chunk of coral behind me. As the blood started coming out, I instantly thought of the shark I had seen. Getting cuts in the salt water here is not like at home. At home we say oh the salt water is great for it. But here the water is so warm that it allows bacteria to grow in the salt water that is not good for cuts. Yeah, my first real chance to use my medical kit!!!

Last Thursday we had a jam making session that was fun and educational. We ‘attempted’ to make two type of jam; one coconut jam (more like coconut caramel) and one popo jam (paw-paw, papaya.) We made these starting with the fresh fruit. The papaya we had to scoop out and mash up before mixing it with the water and sugar. The coconut is a little more complex. First you must crack open the coconut. This is where carrying around wan bigfala neif (our bush knifes) come in handy. I am getting pretty good at this. You actually crack it open with the blunt side of the knife.

After you crack it open, you must scrape out the meat of the coconut. Once you have all of the meat scraped out, you must squeeze the milk out of the milk. We did this by putting the meat in a piece of calico, rolling it up like a burrito, and the twisting it like you are wringing out a wet t-shirt. After we spent an hour doing this we added water at a 1:3 ratio, along with the sugar. It was not until a few hours later when we were sitting around the fire, trying to cook the jam, that we realized that we were not supposed to add water to the coconut. So the coconut jam never set. I will have to make some later because it seems like it would be a nice treat on some island bread.

The popo jam did turn out and between Laelarula (Bridgette, my Peace Corps aunt) and myself, we have managed to finish a very large jar of it in about 5 days. It was nice sitting around the fire cooking the jam. While we cooked the jam, we sang songs. With 23 people we can get through a lot of full songs. We have some great guitar players here so they would back us up if they knew the tune.

It has been nice to have another volunteer to eat my meals with. For one, it is a big security blanket. I always know that either the two of us can talk in English or we can explain something if the other does not understand what my host family is saying. I say my family because we eat with my mama or my papa, sometimes her mama will join us (her mama is my grandma), but if her papa joins us, that means my papa can not be any where around.

This culture has some very interesting customs. So it is disrespectful for a man to be near his father in law. He is not allowed to talk to his father in law. If they are in a town meeting and the son in law wants to say something to the father in law, he has to speak through someone else. If you are walking down a trail and the father in law is coming the other way, then the son in law will walk into the bush where he can not be seen until the father in law passes.

The same goes for siblings. If I was to get married then my sister would not be allowed to be friends with my wife. They could say hello to each other but that is about it. If my sister and I were talking and my wife walked up, then my sister would have to leave. Brothers are not allowed to play with each other after about age twelve or so. Most of these customs came about from Chief Roi Mata in a time of war. He set many guidelines that are still followed today. Many of which are very hard to understand from an outside perspective. It is too bad because my Papa is really cool and so is my grandfather. It is a shame that we all can not kakae (eat) together.

Yesterday we went to help build a smal haos (toilet) for the local public school. We had to get empty bags of rice from our mama’s first. One girl asked what an empty bag of rice was and the smart ass in me came out and said it is a bag of rice that is empty. My trainer who is a NiVan could not stop laughing. Well we found out quickly why we needed these empty bags. We had to walk down to the solwota and fill them up with sand and then haul them back to the school. I took three trips to the water and carried four bags. Those years of moving around bags of feed came into play quickly here.

As I was sweating down the trail passing other volunteers I shouted out “who finally feels like a Peace Corps volunteer?” It is the first time I actually felt like I have done something here to help. It is kind of frustrating to sit around in sessions all day talking about what we are going to do. Lets just do it!!!
We had played a hard game of Ultimate Frisbee just before going and helping with the smal haos. After helping them get the sand, we went on a walk to look at some gardens and explore the local edible fruits, nut, and greenery. It is nice to be outside of the normal classroom setting. On top of doing all of this, I managed to get about 45 minutes of Yoga in with some of the other Peace Corps folks. It felt good to get a good stretch on. We are planning on doing this every other day for about an hour. With such a big day I was exhausted. That night we sat around and toktok. After I ate dinner I was ready to crash out for the night.

Tonight I went down and sat by the solwota by myself. I just sat there and enjoyed one of our amazing sunsets. (Monica, imagine those conference room sunrises, but over water.) The clouds light up like they are on fire. They are such vivid colors of orange and red that it is almost blinding. I sat there and watched until the sky line changed from a beautiful sunset to a sky filled with stars. I can see a few more then what we are used to in Sacramento. As I sat there, I thought about everyone back home and wondered what you were doing right then. I then started thinking about all the strong friendships I have already established with my fellow trainees.

I think it is going to be a hard adjustment to go from the comfort of mongalilu to an isolated village far away from the other trainees in my group. When I thought about this before it has always been just a fleeting thought, but today it kind of sank in that I am going to be the only white man ( no political correctness in Vanuatu, either you are a white man or a black man, they just call it as it is) where no one will speak English. It is actually very scary. I am sad that I will be away from all my new friends.
But is that not why I came? I had a heart to heart with another volunteer about this and I was explaining to them that I think that is why most of us came here to begin with. We all are looking for the life experience that pushes us out of our comfort zone, which makes us question our own morals and beliefs in a way that we can not do back in the states.

I know there will be many hard roads ahead of me here, but for now I am here in Mongalilu where life is good. I eat good food. I play hard with good people. I storion with my family. I enjoy incredible sunsets. I eat fresh fruit everyday. I walk down the road and chop down chunk of sugar cane to chew on. I swim with sharks. I eat snails (I ate sea snails today at lunch, Mmmmm Mmmmm Good!) I play cards. I play other peoples guitars ( I am buying one tomorrow if I can find my wallet, yeah not good, I have no idea where it is.) I play with the pikinini. I sing songs.

Through out the day you can hear me say “I love my life!” I think that sums everything up here, I love my life. I so miss everyone back home and wish you could experience a little taste of Vanuatu.