I hear there is a tropical depression

So I hear there is a Tropical Depression up north. You can hardly tell, except from the high winds, the thunder and lightning, and the torrential down pour of water that is pounding down on my bamboo hut. Other then that you can hardly notice!!! With that said let me just tell you how amazed I am at the design of my house. I mean I truly am living in a grass hut with coconut palms for a roof and sliced bamboo shoots for walls, and I yet to feel a drop of water leak through. That is more then I can say for my apartment in downtown Sacramento!! I think we have all been pretty lucky with the weather so far. We are supposed to be in the middle of the hot-rainy season but thus far we have had relatively moderate weather. The NiVans talk about how they notice that the weather has been slowly changing over the past years. I believe global warming is taking its toll down here in the tropics. I think most NiVans have never heard of Global Warming, but they will be the first to tell you that the seasons are changing here.

So today (Sunday) we went in to Vila to say good bye to another trainee. We have now had two people leave our group which leave 21 of us to swear in on Thursday. (Unless anyone changes their mind last minute.) I know emotions are high here and I think we are all over the board with respect to where we each are in our own realm of emotions. Every once in a while I get a reality check that I welcome. Today I was talking with Dennis about where we both were in our journey and if we each were ready to make this commitment.

Right now we are all enjoying our lives in the “Ritz Carlton Mongaliliu,” but soon we will be heading out to the bush or the banks for Dennis. Both of which in their own right are very isolated. In fact I have come to ask the question, “What kind of isolation are you?” because everyone here is isolated in one form or another. I think we are all ready at this point to make this next venture in our journey. When I get down or emotionally drained from thinking about missing my new friends and family here, or being so far away from the solwota, I have to remind myself of how lucky I am to be here in Vanuatu. I never asked to come here. I told the Peace Corps to send me wherever they felt I would be the most needed. I often think about what if I was sent to the middle bush of Africa where the ocean is not even an option to drive to? Or, what if I was sent to the Ukraine where I would be huddled around my furnace drinking vodka (wait that does not sound too bad!) Yeah I think I am pretty lucky to be here with such an amazing group of like minded people,

Right now I am going to enjoy my indulgences while I can. Jumping in the solwota for some amazing snorkeling, (saw a beautiful sting ray about 4 feet from my face yesterday!!!) playing cards like pinochle, canasta and Texas Hold Em! Drinking a kol-kol tusker when I can, for that matter drinking anything kolkol (COLD.) Yeah I get to indulge now, but that will change here very quickly. Soon I will back out at my sight where I will have to learn how to amuse myself with little resources. Actually, I don’t think that it’s a matter of little resources, but a matter of different resources that I am used too.

The first two to three months at site I will have very little to do. RTC’s and schools shut down for Christmas break, same as in the states but for a longer period of time. I have several things that I want to accomplish during this time. First and foremost I really need to get my Bislama up to par. I feel pretty good with it, but I know after two months of only speaking Bislama I will be miles ahead of where I am now. Secondly I have some household project I would like to take care of. The floor of my house is old and decrepit and is in dire need of be repaired/ replaced. I was telling a volunteer in Lenakel (the provincial center of Tanna) about the house and she said I just need to tear it down and build me a new one. I think I agree. It would also give me a good way of making it my house and getting to know the men in my community. I also think I need to build a new toilet. Right now I have a long drop toilet, which is fine, but…. You can here, but not here, here, here, or there, because I think I could fall through. Now I am not sure how far down of a long drop it is, nor do I know what was put in there by previous volunteers, but what I do know if what I have left in there and to be frank I don’t ever want to see it again. So either I am going to build a new floor or just dig a new toilet. I am not sure how long it would take me to dig a hole about 15 feet deep, but it would give me something to do for a few days.

I am really looking forward to having some down time to read, play my guitar, and juggle. Here we are so busy taking advantage of each others company that it seems there is never time to do our own thing. This will change very quickly once at site. I have also been debating on buying a bicycle for my site. The debate is over the fact that I do not want to go in there and be “that guy.” The white man who comes in with all of his flas toys and I am already half way there with my laptop and camera. So I have decided that I am not going to buy a bike. Instead I am going to go back to my high school roots and become a cowboy on Tanna. I can buy a horse for 1,000 Vatu which is about $95-US. I have several men in my village who are cowboys so I told them to keep their ears open to see if anyone wants to sell one to me. The nice thing about a horse in Tanna is that I will never have to feed or water it and when I am done with my service I can make a bigfala kakae for my village and eat it!!!

I have come to terms with the fact that over the next two years I will probably end up eating every kind of meat that exists on Tanna, except Human! The previous volunteer from this site told me about all the wonderful things he has eaten at my future site. Things like goat, pig, beef, horse, grubs, dog, and cat. In fact on Tanna if you see a ca with one ear chopped off it is to show others that it is a pet and not to be eaten!!! I hear it is delicious, but I will let you know after I try it!! Out of everything, it is the grubs that I am most concerned about.

As I was drinking my Starbucks this morning, my Mama came in with her guitar and told Bridgette and me that we were going to sing a song in a local language. This is always fun. These guys hit such high notes that it rings your ear drums. As we were singing the same song over and over again out of the local language hymn book, I asked why we don’t sing more then just this one song. I mean after the entire hymn book is full of songs. Oh what’s that Mama? We are going to sing this in front of everyone at church? Oh well that makes sense then!!

So sure enough at church when they called for the choir Mama blong Mi, Bridgette, Jackie, Brian, and myself got up and sang in local language. I am sure we butchered the song to pieces, but I sure did have fun doing it!! I can only remember one line and it is Togo wo po doko, which means “we are going too.” Afterwards, Chief Mormor gave the sermon which was the best I have heard yet. He is such an animated man that it does not matter what he is talking about he always makes it interesting. He then started talking about us volunteers. He always refers to us as his pikinini. I should preface this by saying NiVans rarely show emotions. They are not allowed to show anger or sadness unless it is at a funeral or a wedding. But today in the middle of talking about us he had to stop and do the sly macho thing that all of us guys do when a tear starts to well up, (stupid allergies!) As I noticed him wiping his eyes I kind of glanced around and noticed that my grandfather and half of the other host parents of us volunteers were all wiping their eyes. It made me sit back and reflect on just how much we impact these people and how much they truly love us as their own children.

I love the family unit of Vanuatu. First off you would be hard pressed to go some where and not have a family member there. They adopt each others children all of the time. If you ever move to another village then a family will always adopt you, even though you are an adult. This way you have family there. Even if you get married and move to your husband or wife’s community then someone will adopt you so you have family there outside your spouse’s family. I was talking with Dennis about his situation in The Banks. I was surprised that him and his wife will each have their own host family there. At first I was like that is weird that you guys have two different host families. But after he explained their reasoning it seems so obvious. If they had only one host family between them then they would be married and be brother and sister, and that is just not acceptable here. Cousins? Sure, but not brother and sisters. I guess my point is that they do not take this lightly; it is not just for show that they call us family. We are now family forever and I think that is awesome!