Vila To Smol Pigon

Well in my last email I was just about to head to the airport. As it turns out my airline ticket was wrong. It had said that the flight was at 1630, as it turns out the plane left Vila around 1520. So I got to spend one more night in Vila. I almost had to spend an extra week there, due to an impending cyclone heading our way. They told me we were on stand fast which means we can not leave where we are. We must stay put. Then they told me they were having a meeting about the stand fast in an hour. Well my plane was to leave in an hour. I asked well what should I do. They said just go ahead and catch the plane. So I jetted off to the airport. Why I did not take advantage of an extra week in Vila I do not know. At the time I felt bad about being away so long. I had been gone about 17 days. I learned a lesson here. Do not feel bad about anything.

I came back to my village expecting a big hurrah; the white man is back, everyone come gather around and hear his tales of far off places. Wrong! Nothing of the sort happened. Life was like any other day. There is some small storian before the Nakamal, then some Kava and then sleep. It did allow me to be here to experience a passing cyclone. So I guess that’s good.

The cyclone did extensive damage to the island of Fortuna. I can see fortuna from Tanna. The cyclone passed 7 kilometers on the other side of Fortuna. The winds there I hear were around 165 kilos an hour. The wind was strong enough here on Friday night that I did not sleep all night as I thought my hut was going to blow down. Not that I am against this decrepit house falling down. I just do not want it to happen while I am trying to sleep inside of it.

My house needs serious repairs. Other volunteers who had seen the house here from the previous PCV all say he should have torn it down two years ago. I have massive holes in the bamboo floor that I need to replace. Of course instead of doing that I decided to build a bamboo deck out side my front door. I need this deck for my sanity. For one there is never a good place to get out of the rain. So now I will have my deck to stay out of the mud. Once I build the awning for it I will stay dry too.

I think every time you leave Tanna and go to Vila there is a readjustment period you must go through. I thought I was doing pretty good when I left to go to Vila. But when I got back I could feel the bouts of depression setting in. Depression is a major issue in a Peace Corps Volunteers life. Those that can not find a way to deal with it eventually quit the Peace Corps. I hope I am finding the right ways for me to deal with it. Of course Kava is an anti-depressant so at taem blo yumi everything is okay. (That is not entirely true.) I will admit that after drinking a shell, instantly everything seems not so bad. But that does not help me during the day time, which happens to be when a majority of the time when I am awake.

I have started juggling again and that helps a lot. It gives me something to do that is my own thing. I can think clear while I am juggling and it flat out is just something to do. We all laugh because in the states we have all these things we want to do but never have time to do them. Here we have all the time in the world to do things but just do not have enough options of things to do. So you take up juggling, or reading, or twisting plantana’s leaves into rope. Well at least these are the things I have taken up.

If I ever get stranded on a dessert island with any of you, do not worry I can make rope from just about anything now. This has become my hobby. I will sit in the Nakamal while everyone is doing there own thing and I will just twist coconut husk or Pantanas leaf into rope. Once I get enough I am going to make some necklaces with local shells out of it.

So I think that after I came back to site my village though that I was not happy with our day to day meals of aelen kakae, so they decided to step it up a notch. Apparently someone watched an episode of Fear Factor and thought wow this is what the white men eat. So one night we had Brizene, which is a wood grub that they cook several ways. ( Baldo Viages would be so proud!) They were not to terribly bad. They had a definite wood flavor to them and they were kind of chewy. Not the strangest thing I have ever eaten for sure.

I am pretty sure that eating flying fox is a little more strange. The flying fox is a fruit bat. I see them every night fly over the Nakamal. If during a cyclone or just high winds, they fall to the ground then they die. There hands are on the end of there wings and the can not create enough draft to get lift off the ground. Now these guys do not just sit around waiting for high winds. Oh no, they walk around with short sticks waiting for a bat to fly over and then stonem with the stick. They usually cook them with rice or in a soup. They even kakae its sit sit in its intestines. They eat this because the flying fox only eats fruit and nothing else. So for many this is there favorite part. It is a little odd to have a plate of rice with a flying fox head staring back at you.

Strange huh? Well that brings me to my strangest yet. Do not worry I have not eaten horse, dog, or puss cat yet. But while sitting in the Nakamal one night a brother hands me a small, I mean about the size of a half dollar small, and say here pigeon. This thing is so tiny I ask how now mi save kakae hem? He said just everything so I tossed it in bones and all. The bones are so tiny that the just break up with the meat.

Then from behind me my chief say here and hands me what at first looks like a chicken gizzard or a heart or something. Okay then I realize that it is a cooked small bird. The entire bird including head could not of been the size of a large chicken egg. I said I do not know how to eat this. They said oh you have to take the guts out first. Okay no big deal, I pull open his stomach and tear the guts out. What now? Well just eat everything. Everything. The bones? Everything. The head? Everything! The beak? EVERYTHING! So that’s what I did. I ate the body first. I then built up some courage and tossed the head and beak into my mouth. The tiny beak was crunchy as you would expect. The head was crunchy with a soft creamy filling. Don’t be jealous if you ask nicely I may make it for you when I get home. If you’re nice!