Garden

Well I finally have done some work around my yard. I had a bunch of pineapple plants close to my house, but they have been buried by weeds and tall grass. So I went ahead and started doing some gardening around it. The tool of choice for everything here is the bushknife, or bigfala knife. I started clearing the surrounding bush and next thing I know I am surrounded by a bunch of pikinini who are now helping me clear the bush. No one asked them, they just came over and started helping. I thought about kids back home and wondered how many of them would do the same thing? Not very many is my guess. They would all be to busy playing their computer games. They helped me move the clippings to an area out in the bush. I thought I did a pretty good job of making it look good over there.

I guess my work inspired one of my brothers because the next morning he was over here with my name sake to help me build a garden. So we cleared out even more bush. After cleared out all of the bush with our bigfala knifes we then moved the clippings and branches back to an area that I am going to use as a compost pile. With what I have put there so far I have already a 5’ L x 5’ high pile of clippings. It is an instant compost pile.

My brother then went and cut down some yellow manioc from someone else’s garden and brought it back for use to plant. So seriously this is how we plant it. We take a tree, cut it into 1.5’ long stick and shove them in the ground. The soil here is so rich that it really does not take much to grow things here. I would like to keep adding to my garden. It would be nice to grow some tomatoes, onions, wild garlic, bananas, and other herbs. Right now I have yellow manioc, pineapple, papaya, a small mango tree, and avoca (avocado.) The avoca is just about in season so I am hoping to find some tomatoes and make some guacamole. Mmmm…. If that is the case then I am going to attempt to make some flour tortilla chips.

I had my first experience making tortillas back in Port Vila. A couple of us decided to make tacos for dinner. None of us had ever made tortillas before and did not have any directions, so it was a trial and error process. The first few we thought were awesome, but then as time went on I figured out the consistency of the flour and the timing on the skillet and then we had some phenomenal tortillas. It was mainly just Lizzie Wolf and me in the tiny kitchen of the formule hotel, trying to make these tortillas. It was probably one of the most fun nights I had in Vila. After they were all cooked up we made the meat and beans. Refried beans here are Sas Tumas! One can of refried beans was about $5-. We almost did not get them because of the price. I am so glad we did though. Hmmm…. Man I would love to be sitting around that table right now with all my peace corps friends eating homemade tacos, drinking cheap wine (when I mean cheap I mean the quality is cheap, but we still pay $10- a bottle for it, it makes 2 buck chuck seem like clos du bois.) I guess the thing I miss most is just the company.

Since I have gotten a cell phone I have been able to stay in some contact with a few other volunteers. I have been trying to get a hold of Bridget who is my aunt from Mongaliliu. Her phone has been down for a week and then yesterday I got a voicemail from her. Today I tried calling her and finally got though. I talked with her for about 30 seconds before the phone cut out. Even though I have a cell phone the service here sucks. They do not have enough lines for everyone so the network is always busy. Very annoying. I was lucky enough to talk to all the Kool Kids from Malekula on New Years Eve. That was very cool. I feel so lucky to know all of these amazing people.