Port resolution

Well my necklace making class went great, besides for the fact that the students flattened my role of rope. At first the boys did not seem interested. When I told people to come up and cut their rope the girls jumped right up, but the boys kind of hem hawed around. In the end the boys really dug it and wanted to know different ways to braid them. It is island bling bling I guess.


After my class I was supposed to walk to Tuhu School to meet Brizz. Brizz is a fifth year volunteer here who works in Vila. Tuhu is about a 45 minute walk from my house. Well I was feeling lazy and never made it down there. I tried calling Brizz but that was of no use. The next afternoon I was pan frying some horse in BBQ sauce, when I heard a truck pull up. I went out side and there was Brizz walking my way. Two Twix bars in hand. Yes it was nice to see him, but even better to see the Twix!! It turns out he never made it to Tuhu and was just then on his way there. I made plans to walk down Thursday after class and drink kava with him and Brett.


Thursday afternoon rolled around and I was still feeling lazy. Here in Bislama I would say “mi mi les long wokabot.” ( I am sick of walking.) So I decided that instead of walking the 1:45 to town I would walk the 45 minutes to the main road and try and catch a truck. (I do not know why I have been feeling lazy lately. I think it may be lack of protein. I have bought some peanut butter and have been feeling better.) I found Brizz in town and found out that it would be just him and I drinking kava. We Nakamal hopped to two different kava bars. The kava was decent, nothing great but decent none the less.


Friday morning, Brizz and I jumped on the office of Education truck and headed to Port Resolution. Port is on the South Eastern part of Tanna. Up to this point I had only been as far as Mt Yasur. Port is beautiful. Port Resolution is where Captain Cook first came to shore in Vanuatu. He had seen the glowing lights from Mt Yasur and came to investigate. When he got here and tried to ask the locals what this place was called, they were confused. So Captain Cook picked up some dirt and asked again what this was called. The locals finally caught on and told him Tanna. Of course that was not the name of the island that is the name of what he picked up. So the translation of Tanna is Ground.


It is a beautiful bay and I decided that while Brizz was working with the school I would go for a walk and explore the area. There were about five yachts in the bay. I saw two girls rowing their dingy into shore so I walked down and storied with them for a little while. One of the girls was from France and the other was Connecticut. I heard a truck up on top and thought it best to head back up there. The two girls came along with me.


As we were walking we talked about there journey and what they thought of Tanna so far. They had been here a few days already and said they had really enjoyed the island and the people. As we were walking we passed a Nakamal that had several men in it. One of the men came up and started talking. I thought he was talking to the two girls but it turns out that the truck had come looking for me and headed down towards Sandra’s house, (Another PC volunteer.) As we walked away the American girl asked, now what language was that in? I said wasn’t it English? She said nope. Huh it must have been Bislama then. The language is so much like English I sometimes have a hard time believing that English speakers can not figure out what the people are saying.


I found Brizz and we got back on the road and headed towards the volcano. Brizz had never seen it and was looking forward to going. I was excited to see it in the day time, even though I know that at night it is more spectacular. We got to the gate and the gate man wanted to charge both of us 2250. I explained that I had already paid once. He asked me where my receipt was. I told him one of my brothers in my village used it to roll his tobacco. He said sorry you need a receipt. Every other time I have been here this has not been an issue. But this guy was not budging so I told Brizz to have fun and I jumped out of the truck and spent my time waiting, harassing the gate keeper for his rubbish fashion. Okay not really, there was a string band doing a benefit so I just hung out wrote some letters and listened to the string band.


When we finally got back to Lenakel I ran into the gang and got to say goodbye to Matt Dewitt. He had to head back to his village so that is the last time I will se him in Country. I met up with Sultan and we hung out with the JICA and GAP volunteers until it was time to meet Brett for kava. The Kava was horrible. I had not eaten very much all day so I was expecting the kava to really kick. No such luck. The first two Nakamals did nothing for me. The third one it started to kick.


I wish people could see this last Nakamal we went to. If this place was in the states, there is not a one of you who would dare to walk into this place. The closest I can describe it too is the seediest back alley of the worst part of Harlem. A tin shelter off in the corner with five guys huddled around a small fire. The only other light coming from one light bulb hanging high in a tree. The only sound is the guy in the bushes throwing up. We all talked about how at home none of us would ever put our selves into this kind of situation. But here in Vanuatu, well it is just our life.


Saturday morning I rode out to the airport with Brizz. I had a package waiting for me from Peace Corps. Inside the packet is site development form. Peace Corps is sending me to the islands of Fortune and Aniwa to do site development work for possible new volunteers, actually possible sites for me. Peace Corps has decided to explore the option of changing my site. This is due to the fact that I am the fourth generation and fifth volunteer here. The school runs great. I feel that I could be helping more in a place that is not already sustainable. We will see if that holds to be true.


I am very nervous about this. For one thing, I really love the people in my village and will miss all of them. Secondly, Tanna is awesome. Our weather is probably better than any other island in Vanuatu. There are nine volunteers on island that I can go see anytime I want. We meet for lunch every Friday in town and storian. We have two real restaurants and one with homemade ice cream. We have more stores then we really need. There are two flights a day, so I can get mail fairly easily.


I could end up on an island like Aniwa, where they have never had any volunteers before. The closet bank is on Tanna, there are no restaurants, and they only have two planes a week (sometimes, less depending on the weather.) Well I guess we will see what I think in a week from now.


I am excited that tomorrow Elin and her Dad are flying into Tanna and I am going to go hang out with them for two nights. Oh yeah that’s one more great thing about Tanna, everyone eventually has to come here to see Yasur!