ALL VOL Conference

Where do I begin? I have been so busy lately that I have not had the time or opportunity to write out my thoughts and adventures, and let me tell you I have had a thousand of each! I have spent today recovering from a long All Vol Conference. I went to sleep some where near 2200 last night and did not get out of the shower this morning until close up 1100 am. Wow was that sleep well needed.

Starting last Sunday we checked into Irriki Resort on Irriki Island for our annual All Volunteer Conference, other wise known simply as All Vol. I want to be careful I my description of this event to not portray it nearly as a big party. But let me tell you, if you put 100 isolated volunteers together for 5 days at a 5 star resort, you better be prepared for a good time.

Sunday was a free day and we spent most of it settling into our rooms. Checking out the amenities such as the fridge, washer and dryer, soft mattresses, fold out couch, plasma flat screen television, and the Jacuzzi on the balcony. Many of these things may just seem like everyday things to many of you, but for us it is like hanging out at Hugh Heffner’s house, including the scantly dressed woman. Okay they are not really scantly dresses here, but when you are used to every woman that see wearing an unappealing island dress, a swim suit becomes seems very risqué.

That evening we met for dinner at the watermark restaurant and were served a buffet of Asian cuisine. NO BANANA LAPLAP!!! HURRAY!!! The food was delicious and of course we all ate way too much!! Hind sight being 20/20 and all I think if we had to redo it again we would of ate more!!! Afterwards we had a trivia night up above the swimming pool. Our group 20B got destroyed, right up until the point where we were disqualified. The trivia night was the first leg of the Kuran Kup contest. Us being destroyed on the first night did not get our hopes down for winning the contest though. We still had several more events to compete in. With that said we were not DQ’d from any other event, and we went in to each event with our heads up high even though we were destroyed in each and every event of the contest. I think it was rigged! We had fun though.

The majority of our day was spent in sessions and workshops. I had heard rumors about how the sessions were much like our pre-service training and should expect to be bored. After my third session I asked Bridget if she was enjoying her sessions and she agreed that the session were great! I love all of them besides one which just cold not keep my eyes open in. But the rest I found to be very informative and very inspiring. I hope I can hang on to this refreshed sense of purpose here. That in itself is one of the majority points of All Vol.

The fact of the matter is that Peace Corps Vanuatu is unique to any other Peace Corps country in the world. Even other countries in the South Pacific do not have to deal with the isolation factor like we do here. PNG, Fiji, Solomon’s are all similar in varying degrees of culture, but each of those country is a singular island. Vanuatu on the other hand is spread out over 83 islands. If I wanted to get up to visit my good friends Dennis and Sandra in the banks I am looking at a RT cost of close to 70,000 VT, or 700 US. While that may not seem that expensive to fly from one end of the country to the other, remember that this country is smaller then California. It is also very difficult to get there because the planes can not always land and to many places once you have flown to the nearest island with an airport you have to hire boat for close to hundred bucks.

My point being that every other Peace Corps country in the world has the opportunity to see the other volunteers on a regular basis. But here in VT if we did not have ALL VOL you could go your full two year service and never meet 75% of the Volunteers in the Country. With that said I feel so lucky to be a part of this organization. The people are what make it so special. I feel privileged to be a part of their team.

Being able to meet and storian with these guys helps put my frustrations in check. It seems to be a natural part of the process. The last night of the conference we had a Roast for our Country Director Kevin George. July will be his last month here as CD. We are all nervous about the new CD and are of course sad to lose KG. He has built this program to what it is today. I had so much fun and everyone I think laughed until there sides hurt.

I was lucky enough to start the evening with three of my favorite people here in Vanuatu. When my dad came out to Vanuatu he brought me two bottles of Provenance wine from St. Helena. (Thank you Aunt Diane!!!) Well I grabbed the bottle of 2005 Merlot and headed over to Dennis and Sandra Melo’s room with Bridget. The Melo’s had a room that looks directly over the harbor to the west. What could be better then a beautiful sunset shared over a great bottle of wine, while nibbling on some gourmet California Chocolate, with such amazing people.

Well as we poured the first round of wine I was shaken by the distinct BOOOOOOOOO sound made by our favorite little tourist boat. So as we drank the bottle of wine trying to share in the magical monet of the sunset a GIANT cruise shipped blocked our view of the setting sun. It had to make a wide turn so it actually blocked our beautiful view twice. But as we all say here, Ahhh Vanuatu! That is just the way things go here. I would not have traded a minute of time though.

So now I sit and recover from the 5 days of working hard and playing even harder. I will be here in Vila for a few more days as I have some smol work to do. I finally had a break through at site and am working on a project for the 5 Mama’s groups in my area. They want me to make a dvd of a life project for them. I am using it as a way to get some time with the Mamas and maybe open some new doors to work directly with them.