Vanuatu Adventures

Wan Yia Ded lng Papa Blong James

2008-07-29T05:46:00.001-07:00

After hanging out in Lenakel for a bit I decided it was time to try and catch a truck back on top to middle bush. The truck dropped me off at the bush market about 45 minutes from my house. As I walked up the bush trail I ran into some locals who told me that my village had something going on. It turns out it was the one year dead for my brother James father.

I walked into the Nakamal at about 2 pm and was immediately handed a shell of kava. We drank kava all afternoon and storied about life, until it was time to drink our custom shell when we would all go wan wan. I kept seeing one man who I had no idea who he was, but he never came to shake my hand so I assumed we had met before. Finally after about 40 minutes of him making busy work in the Nakamal he came over to shake my hand and when he said “oh yes brata blo mi.” I realized it was my brother James.

One custom here is that when your father dies you can not shave for one year. I have only known James to have a very full beard. He always looked liked some shady character that you would not want to mess with. That day being the one year mark of his fathers death he could finally shave. What a difference, I never would of known it was him if he hadn’t spoke to me.

My village was very interested in my journey to Futuna and Aniwa. I told them all about the adventures and everything that had happened there. I then told them that Peace Corps was going to change my site and man that did not go over well at all. Some people were pissed off. Some people were sad. It was very hard. I mean I have broken up with girlfriends before and that is hard, but to break up with an entire village. Ouch.

Yesterday, Relvie from Peace Corps came and gave a toktok to my community about me leaving. It was very hard. Some of the men cried while trying to explain their thoughts. In the end they decided that it was custom to pull out my custom name and that because Peace Corps had broken the contract that they would be responsible to buy a bullock for us to eat at my last kakae. Peace Corps has no intention of buying us a bullock but it was nice try.

It is a strange feeling to know that I am almost out of here. How will I get my stuff to Vila? When does the ship come again? What will it be like to say goodbye to these people that I call brother, sister, mama, dada, tawi, and uncle too? It is going to be hard I am sure. Well it is finally a suny day so I think I am going to walk down and see Noa and if he is not there just go swim at the waterfall.

Vila

2008-07-29T05:45:00.001-07:00

There is a feeling that comes over you when you first get to Vila, Oh man do I smell like the islands. When you are at site, especially on Tanna, you tend to let go of some of our usual hygiene. It is so cold here in Tanna right now that only showering once a week is normal. So when I got into Vila after being in Futuna and Aniwa for a week all I wanted to do was take a shower. Of course as is usual with life on the islands this did not go as planned.

I got on the wrong bus at the airport. This is not to say there is a bus route or anything of that nature, but I should know better to get on a bus that already has people on it and not ask where it is going. What usually takes only 15 minutes took me over an hour. By the time I made it to the Peace Corps office I found out that Micahel, Roxy, Jade, and Bridge were all meeting for dinner at La Casa Pizzeria. So I marched my way down to them and had some pizza with them. The Pizza was alright, but the company was awesome. It is so nice to come in and talk with people of your same culture.

The plan was that I was only going to come into Vila for 5 days. I wanted to be back to Tanna for our Fourth of July celebration. Well After storian with my Country Director about my site visits, I explained to him I was worried that we were only looking in the TAFFEA Province and that maybe the perfect job was elsewhere. He agreed and we discussed some other options. After which he decided to send me to Emao for another site visit. My time on Emao was very short as I had to be back in Vila by 1pm. If I was going to miss my Tanna Party I surely was not going to miss the Vila celebration.

My trip to Emao was short but the place is beautiful. I did not feel the same attraction to the people as I did on Futuna, but I the job sounds very exciting to me. I mean after all I will be able to snorkel almost everyday and call it work! If only I was being paid for it. My time in Emao was also ahrd because I was so excited about who was in Vila and mean while I was pulled out to go to a different island. Oh well alls well that ends well.

I made it back to Vila in time to see Lizzie and Bridget heading out to Pango, where Lizzie lives. I decided to just stay at the Cyber Café until they came back. While I was on Emao they had all got together and had a small party and made Jello Shots for the party that night. Our party was our at sea and we had to be to the wharf at 1430. There was about 15 of us who went out on the ship.

The ship resembles a pirate ship and in fact usually when people hire this ship the captain and all the guests dress up like pirates and sail around the island. We had different plans. The captain is from America and along with him and two other Americans we set out to celebrate America. We had food and drinks and of course the Jello shots. My friend Jack who is on Malekula had sent me a Cuban Romeo y Julieta cigar, so I had tried asking the captain if there was a smoking section. Well the Captain did not hear me but one of the young girls, maybe 9, did.

She told me it was a non-smoking ship and then gave me a lecture on why smoking is bad. I was kind of teasing her about it and finally she said well wait… You can smoke if…… lets see here….. Okay you have to go swimming with us and do anything I tell you! I asked anything? She then thought about it and said okay you have to let me push off the boat and into the water. I agreed to the conditions and told her I would even pretend I did not know she was going to push me in.

Well we never anchored off to go swimming until we got back to the harbor. At this time it was already dark but I had made a promise to her so I pulled off my shirt and climbed over the rope and just hung around until she came running across from the other side of the boat and gave me a push. This lead to everyone else jumping in and we played in the water for about an hour or so. We had the music blasting and when we were not swimming we were dancing.

After hanging out on the ship and talking with Josh, man America on another ship, I decided that sailing around the world is a very economical and responsible way to see the world. Right now it is just day dreaming but when I am done with Peace Corps you never know what will happen. I think a sailing from west coast to east coast via the Panama Canal would be a good start. The night came to an end and we climbed in the dingy and set off for the main land. It had been a long day so we just went back to Susan’s house and hung out and made dinner.

This trip to Vila has been much quieter than my previous trips. We never went to Voodoo to go dancing, even though we did dance a few times at waterfront. It was nice to just have quiet nights and sharing stories with each other. We were staying at Susan’s house with a full kitchen so we took full advantage of it. One night Susan made a big pot of Popcorn and she put me in charge of the butter. Well I decided that butter was not enough so I made a caramel sauce to put on it. Mmmm… it was soooo good. Well that turned into me making fudge and chocolate and various other surgery treats. On one of the mornings I got up and made us all Scrambled eggs with cheese and onions fried up in the grease from the real bacon I had just cooked up. Man I miss American food. I love my Tanna soup but, nothing compares to the tastes of America.

I ended up being in Vila for two weeks. Man time flies around here sometimes. As always it is hard to say good bye to everyone. We have such strange relationships here. We make these wonderful friends and then we only see them every two or three or six months. It is really hard. I gave Susan a hug goodbye as this is the last time I will see her in Vanuatu. She goes home well I think she is already out of this country. I waved goodbye to Bridget at the airport and climbed on my plane back to Tanna. I had only gotten two hours sleep the night before so when they plane took off, I passed out.

Coming back to Tanna knowing that I only have two weeks left here was very strange. I felt sad as I hung out at the Mama’s market in Lenakel. Seeing Sultan and Tim and Nathan made me realize how lucky I am to have other volunteers on the islands. I am really going to miss Sultan. We always have a good time hanging out making fun of each other.

Futuna, Aniwa, and Customer Service

2008-07-29T05:44:00.001-07:00

It has been three weeks since I last updated my journal. I have so much to write and share and I have a feeling I am going to forget most of it. I had left my laptop in Tanna thinking I would not have power in Futuna and Aniwa. Well I started my journey by heading back to Futuna to try this site development back again. I was happy to see that my luggage made it with me this time. I had been given a name to ask for when I got there, so I asked for the headmaster, nini.

Nini? Oh sori hem I stap long plaen. (Sorry he just got on the plane.) So the one of the people I was so supposed to meet with would not be back until I was leaving. Awe Vanuatu! Well I met Brian who is a teacher at the school and he took care of me. Before making the 45 minute hike up to the village we stopped and had some lunch at Ruth’s house. I tell you these people are amazing. They had no idea I was coming and yet in ten minutes I was eating a good lunch and have a good stori with these guys.

The hike up to Harold bay was pretty intense. There are no trucks on this island. There is only one bush road that goes around the edge of the island. When I mean edge I really mean the edge. The island is built like a cake. So on one side of the road is straight up and the other side is straight down about 350-500’. It was pretty intense. They arraigned to have a meeting with me and the key people of the village the next day. So the first night I just hung out with everyone. I had so much fun with these guys.

I was only there for three nights, but felt I made better friends there then I have in Tanna in 7 months. For one thing Brian is very well educated so we talked politics and the future of Vanuatu. It was great. WE stayed up till about 11 pm every night talking, playing the guitar, and singing songs, while drinking fresh lemon grass tea. I did go to church there more then I have since Mangaliliu. It was worth it to be able to eat with them. We ate nawita (octopus) with rice and soup. Mmmm… I could go for a bowl right now!

The terrain of Futuna reminds me of northern California, rocky coast line with shear cliffs and beautiful waves breaking in. On the second to last day, Brian and I walked down to Mission Bay which is where the airport is located. After dropping my stuff off at Ruth’s house, Brian and I met up with a few girls and walked down to the sand beach. Once there they asked if we wanted to go to the swim hole. We both were indifferent because we did not want to swim, but finally they said come on lets go.

So we ended up at this swim hole that was so incredible. I wish I had my Nikon with me to try and capture it. It is almost like a natural infinity pool. It is a like a huge tide pool, deep enough o dive head first into it. During high tide the water comes up high enough o put water into the pool. Water runs off on one side into the ocean and when big waves come they dump into the pool. I ended up swimming for about 30 minutes in the water, jumping and diving off of the rocks. I can not tell you how beautiful this place is.

Well the next day I had to get on the plane to go to Aniwa. I was really sad to leave all of these great people I had just met. They gave me a beautiful mat and a Futuna Basket. I said my goodbyes and then jumped on the plane to head to Aniwa. In Aniwa I ran into David Stein and two Italians there working on a wind power project. I ended up eating my meals with all of them. The one Italian, Antonio, was great to talk too. He has worked with many world organizations and has lived in various African and Middle Eastern countries along with South America.

The people in Aniwa were nice as well but I did not have the same feeling as I did in Futuna. The people in Futuna seemed really eager to have a volunteer to help them with various projects; where as in, Aniwa they seemed eager just to have a volunteer. I got to snorkel a few times in Aniwa which was really nice. It has been a long time since I have been in the water. Of course this is all going to change with my new site.

Well on Sunday I found the public phone and called the Peace Corps resource room to find out who was in town. I got to talk to Elin and Jade from my group. They informed me of the murders that just took place in Vila. We had 19 prisoners escape and they are now armed. They murdered two people in town after they had escaped. I believe half of them have been captured. The prison system here is a joke. People get weekend passes to go home and at four pm when the guards go home, so do some of the prisoners!

After talking with them I called up to Tongoa to see if I could talk with Bridget. She has had to put up with me and all my stressed about my site and moving sites. It has been nice to have someone to help me get these things out of my head. After making the site visits I felt sure I was making the right choice by leaving Tanna, but was left confused about where to go. She said she was heading to Vila the next day and that I should try and come in.

Well the next day we had a Custom ceremony in Aniwa. It was from the boys coming out from hiding. After they circumcise the boys, they must hide in the Nakamal for 30 days or so. After they come out they have a big feast and custom dance. It was really cool to see it. I then packed up my stuff and headed to the airport. At the airport I decided that maybe I would go into Vila. This way I could talk with other volunteers about my decision and also talk with Kevin George, my Country Director.

If I had only known how angry this trip was going to make me I do not know if I would of gone. To fly from Aniwa to Tanna is 4,900VT. To Fly from Tanna to Vila is 12,890VT. To fly from Aniwa (via Tanna) to Vila is only 12,900VT. I told the guy in Aniwa I wanted to change my ticket so that I was only paying the difference in price. He said no problem and that when I land in Tanna to take care of it there. Okay no big deal.

When I landed in Tanna and talked to the guy he said sorry your ticket is used so nothing I can do. I was like hey man the guy on Aniwa told me to take care of it here. He said that if the guy on Aniwa had called him first it would not have been an issue! This pissed me off and I was like hey can you call the main office in Vila and find out if there is anything they can do? He said No they are at lunch. I called him out on his blatant lie, because I knew for a fact that the Van Air office always has someone inside working.

I saw that the last truck was about to leave the airport so I thought screw it I will just go to Lenakel and deal with Sam at the Van Air office. As I got to the truck someone called me back to tell me he was on the phone with Vila. I thought great told the truck goodbye and walked back up to the man I had been dealing with. He was on the phone with Vila. Now then, having worked in service related industries for some time, I expect thing to happen a certain way. All I wanted was for him to try and help. Maybe ask them hey here is what happened, is there anything we can do for him? But this is what I heard him saying, “I already told him it is against our policy and that I won’t do it for him, so now I want you guys to tell him the same thing.” Then he hands the phone to me.

I was so livid. I talked to the lady on the phone and it sounded like she was going to make the change for me, then she asked to put him back on the phone and he once again told her he would not, and then hung up and told me they said no. Man I have never been so pissed here in Vanuatu. I called him a tipskin and that his rubbish fashion is exactly why Man Tanna has a bad name in this country and then used a few more choice words with him. I made my way to the road and started walking to town. Luckily after 30 minutes a truck came buy and picked me up.

I went in and explained everything to Sam and the office. He called up the customer help number (why the first guy never did that I do not know.) They tired helping me but nothing came of it, but a bunch of sories. By this point I was determined to go to Vila. I asked Sam to do me one favor. I told him that I would pay full price right now, but to call up the office and inform the manager that I would be in office when they opened in the morning. I could hear the girl on the other end saying, but why is he coming in? Ya but..

Well I did not go in the next day. By the time a slept on it I was like, whatever just let it go? Then I had lunch with Jani and started telling her about it and I got al fired up again. After Lunch I went into the office and sat down with the manager. She was very nice and by the time I left I had a credit for the difference of the tickets and she gave me a 20% discount on my return ticket to Tanna.

Day trip to Futuna

2008-07-29T05:43:00.001-07:00

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I set my alarm to 0645, something I was not very excited about doing. Unfortunately I was not sure whether my check in time was at 1000 or that the plane left at 1000. I of course had not packed yet so I needed to get an early start. As it always seems when you need a good nights sleep something interferes. For me it was the new dog living on campus. I grabbed the only thing I could find to throw at the dog, but every time ai went outside the dog was no where to be found. The alarm went off at 0546 and I felt like I only had a couple hours of sleep.

I got up and packed my bag for my week long trip. Most of what I packed was my camera gear. I left with out eating breakfast and started down the truck road. After about 15 minutes I was picked up by a passing ruck. This took a lot of pressure off me missing my flight. I got to town and got my ticket updated for the flight then the guy said check in was actually at 1100 and the flight was out at 1200. I had plenty of time so I walked down to Aunty Mary’s for lunch. It was pretty sad as I was the only one there. Not that I mind eating by myself, it is just that this is where I would always meet to the volunteers who just COS’ed/ I then went to the post office and pick up some mail. Two new magazines!!! I grabbed out some money from the bank for my trip. I hope it is enough. Peace Corps never put the money for this trip in my account so I am just guessing on how much to bring.

It was around 1100 when I began heading to the airport. In town it is easy to catch a truck heading that way. When I got to the airport the plane was already there but I had to wait to check in until all the Vila people finished checking in. I got al checked in and then I hung out with the Japanese volunteer for while. I ran into the English guy from the ther side and storied with him as well.

At around 1300 the guy finally said the plane to anychum was leaving. He would not let me go. It turns out the plane goes to anychum and then back here to tanna before going to Futuna. So I waited go go. Finally the plane came back and as I waited for them to callfor the boarding I started talking with some NiVans. I finally walked out to the plane to see what time we were going and they were just shutting the door to take off! I ran and got on the little plane. This is the smallet plane I have ever been in in my entire life.

There was only three of us on the flight and I was sitting just behnd the co-pilot seat. There was only one pilot so I could watch what she was doing and look out the front window. Futuna is pretty scary looking on the approach. There is a small landing strip near the solwota and then the island goes straight up to 330 meters. It is like a big cake, no foothills, just a straight wall of bush.

When I got out the plane I waited as they unloaded the entire plane. Then as they were beginning to load the plane I asked, Hey basket blong mi stap wea? Where is my luggage? Well turns out it was still on Tanna. I asked the pilot if there was room on the plane. She called to Aniwa and said there was one empty seat. But I would have to sit up from in the co-pilot seat. The fact that she was a beautiful 24 year girl did not make my decision very tuff.

It was really cool to sit up front. I was a little scared on the landings being able to see everything. The run ways start right on the edge of a cliff and she puts the plane down about 2 feet into the runway. We landed in Aniwa and picked up some more passengers, before heading back to Tanna. As we were landing in Tanna I looked out and saw Noa fishing on the reef. He looked up and we waved to each other. When I got off the plane the runway guy came up and said Hey we forgot to put your bag on the plane! Gee really? Why do you think I am back!

We rescheduled my flight for Monday and I will be back then. Can you imagine this in the states? You fly somewhere and they forget your luggage, so they just let you fly home and re book the flight? Only in Vanuatu! The pilot was very apologetic but I told her I had been here long enough to expect stuff like this to happen to me. Awe Tanna!!

Day two with Elin

2008-07-29T05:40:00.001-07:00

We woke up at an early nine am and headed into the kitchen for breakfast. We were all kind of dragging and were looking forward to a good breakfast. We had bread and butter and jelly, along with some instant coffee and some milo. I think Sultan and I ate a loaf and half each of bread. We were having a hard time deciding what we were going to do with ourselves all day long. We decided we would head down to Port Resolution for the day.

A guy from Jungle went and waited by the road for a truck to come by. He found us a truck and having a little knowledge of how things work here asked how much? The guy said 500 each, each way. This means it was going to be 4000VT to go 30 minutes down the road. We ended up getting it down to 2250VT for the whole trip. They dropped us off near the beach and once again I became jealous of how other volunteers live. (There is a volunteer in this community)

The beach was absolutely amazing, so incredible. We hung out on the beach, swam in the water, walked down the way collecting shells and looking at cool things in the tide pools. After a few hours we decided to walk up to the Yacht Club and see if they had any cold drinks. They had cold tuskers and made us lunch. When we first asked about lunch it was egg and rice for 750VT. We were like come on who set this price you? She said it was her brother and then went and talked to him. She came back and told us 500 each but not to tell the four English speaking tourists next to us that were paying 750 for the same food.

We ended up riding back to Jungle with the Swiss couple. They were very nice and we had a good stori for a bit. By the time we made it back to jungle it was time to head up the volcano. Of course the truck that was supposed to take us was already at the top with another tourist. We waited, go go, and then finally decided just to walk to the road and try and catch another truck. When we got to the main road the Jungle truck came and picked us up.

Remember a couple of blogs back when I said I went to the volcano with Brizz and they would not let me in because I did not have a receipt. I explained that my brother smoked my receipt and the guy said well to bad so sad. And that even if I had my receipt it would only entitle me to half off of the 2250 entrance fee. Well: We pull up to the gate and the driver says Olgeta oli Pis Kops. (They are all Peace Corps.) The guy smiled and waved and we drove right in with out paying! Awe Tanna!

The volcano was only at a level two. This is the first time I had seen a level two and was kind of disappointed. Every other trip up I have been scared to death that I was going to die. But a level two I was never even worried. Well One did give me a little shake. I hauled up all my camera gear and got some decent shots. Of course even the best shot does not do justice to the volcano.

When we came back down to Jungle we went straight to dinner. It was the same gcouple form the previous night, us, and a new guy named guy. He was from England. We were going to invite them all to come hang out in our room and storian but he was on the phone and the Swiss couple disappeared. I assume running away from the crazy Americans. We shared a bottle of wine, listened to some tunes, laughed a lot, and then passed out! We had to be up early if we wanted to catch a free truck to Port in the morning. It was free because the owner had a tourist council meeting in Port so he was going there anyways.

We ate some crackers and drank some coffee with Guy while we waited for the truck. While we waited the bill for the weekend came. It was going to be 11,000 each for Sultana and I. This is for two nights. We went and talked to the owner and explained that this was not cool. We both live on Tanna, not as business men but as volunteers. We always send Peace Corps to stay there, including about 11 different people in the last month. And that mainly we just want to let him know that we look out for them and hope that they will look out good for us. The price then came down to 7,000 each and then 6,000 and then finally 5,000 each. I felt okay with this price.

It is not that we do not mind paying, but do not try and rip us off like some tourist. We know how it works around here. We both decided that from now on we are sending people to stay in Port Resolution. There are beautiful beaches, it is only and extra 500 to hire a truck to the volcano, and it does not seem like they will try and take advantage of us. Although on one of these trips I hope to stay in the tree house which looks really cool.

Guy came with us to Port and hung out all day. He was a pretty funny guy, that Guy. He had us laughing hard as we all shared stories about traveling. He was talking about his fiancé and how wonderful she is. We all agreed that a woman that says yeah you go ahead and go on holiday for 6 months while I plan our wedding is a pretty good catch. We think that this is her ace in the whole when ever she wants anything in the future. You know, remember that time I planned our entire wedding while you gallivanted around the South Pacific? Well….

After a while the truck came and picked us up. This time they found two more tourists and agreed to take them back to the airport as well. The back of the truck was already filled and we still had two more tourists to pick up along with their luggage and all of ours. We manage to fit it all in, although I was worried that we may fall out of the truck. We stopped at Tuhu and Sultan jumped down. We then drove another 10 minutes and dropped me off.

There is a bush market where my half road is so they all jumped out and looked around. One of the ladies had to go Pis-Pis (pee) so she asked if there was a toilet there. This gave Elin, Randy, and I more time to storian. They asked this is your village, No. See that road there. No? Well that little trial? Take that 45 minutes north and that is where my house was. It was hard saying goodbye to them. I had such a wonderful time. I kept telling them it was sensory overload with them there. Just too much fun!

Well I still have not packed for my trip and honestly I probably won’t until morning. Swim trunks, a blanket, and my camera. What else do I need! I am a little nervous about this trip. I have a lot of decisions to make here soon. Nobody on the two islands even knows that I am coming to do this site development work. It should be very interesting and a good learning experience for me as well. I told my brothers that I am going to Aniwa and now they have all put orders in for oranges. Apparently Aniwa has the best oranges in the South Pacific, better then AU and NZ. I think I can manage to bring a few home. I also heard that it is taem blong naora blong solwota long Futuna, (Lobster season in Futuna.) So I am hoping to eat lobster every day!!! We will see.

Ta.

Eiln and Randys first day

2008-07-29T05:38:00.000-07:00

So I am probably not in the right mind set to be writing about these last few days right now, but I am supposed to be packing for my trip to Aniwa and Fortuna. What a better way of putting that off then by writing about my adventures. So Monday morning I woke up to my usual routine; wake up earlier then I want, annoyed by the singing pikinini, go out side and sit on my door step, someone bring me a big bowl of Tanna soup, and then storian small with some of my people. I then packed my bag and headed down to Lenakel.

When I started to walk down I sent a text message to Sultan that I was heading down and we should meet for lunch. Well on the walk there I quickly realized that a black shirt was the wrong thing to wear. While it was only about 75 out it felt like a 101 in that shirt. It did not help that I was hauling around my back pack camera bag with my tripod. I got to the main road and hoped and hoped a truck would stop and pick me up. Well a truck did stop but it was going in the opposite direction. As the truck approached I noticed it was all yungfala’s from my village. I should have expected the flying nuts heading my way, but before I could I took one right where it counts. They all got a big laugh out of this. Got to love the Tanna sense of humor!

They convinced me to jump in the truck and head all the way back to my village before heading back down. So off we went back to my village. We unloaded the sand beach and then headed back to back down to Lenakel. Riding around with my brothers is pretty fun. They are so goofy. They sing out to every girl we pass and make fun of the little kids.

When we got into town I saw Sultan and the JICA (Japanese Volunteers,) along with two random Americans. The two Americans have been in Sultans village doing some kind of church work.

Sultan and I cruised around town. I stopped into the JK Nalas store and bought and ice cream cone. It is 120VT for a generic Drumstick and I am hooked on them. I probably eat at least two on every trip to Lenakel. We ended up hanging out in front of the post office/ bank. This is our usual spot. When it was time for me to head to the airport and pick up Elin and her father, I asked if Sultan wanted to cruise to the airport with me.

We caught a truck that ended up heading down to some school right on the solwota. This school grounds are so incredible. It seems like somewhere to have a resort not a public school. Well after sitting there for ten minutes we thought we should just walk down the road and catch a different truck. Well before another truck came this guy came up again and gave us a ride the rest of the way. I tried to give him 200 for the ride but he wouldn’t take it. A lot of people treat us like we are one of there in-laws here.

When we got to the airport I found the guy from Jungle Oasis. I told him the two people he was picking up were friends of mine and that I was going to go with them. He said okay and then a few minutes later he asked a question that seemed odd to me. He did not know that Elin and her Dad, Randy, were coming, even though they had already paid, (probably more then they should of because they did it through vila.) The driver was at the airport to pick up a parcel. There plain landed and I walked out past the security, one of my brother cousins, and gave Elin a huge hug. I laughed because she said my dad is getting out our luggage. I told her Elin this is a real airport they bring it to you. Elin got to ride in the extra pilot seat of the 8 seater plain. That must have been a cool view.

We threw there stuff in the truck and headed down the road laughing at the Vanuatu. The driver only came to pick up a parcel, never got the parcel, but got some tourists by he did not even know had already paid for the truck service. Awe Tanna! We twisted Sultans arm to come with us. He gave us a bunch of excuses like he didn’t pack anything and had no change of clothes. Then we found out he bought a new tooth brush, some snacks, and some other goodies and came to the conclusion that he was well packed for the trip.

The ride out there started to get chilly as we headed through the bush. Luckily our jackets were pretty easy to get to. I loaned Randy my rain jacket and through on my fleece. If he wasn’t there I would have worn both of them. It is so cold!! We kept getting “closer” and closer and closer. We would not have known this if it was not for Sultan who kept telling us, yeah were closer now.

When we got to Jungle we could not decided if we wanted to go straight up the volcano or wait until the next night. We opted to relax and go eat dinner. We did not realize that dinner was going to be such an experience. We had a lovely smelling steak with rice and veggies. I was focused on cutting my steak into tiny bite size pieces, when I looked up and saw everyone having issues with there steak. Randy said he could not even cut his, Elin on has a butter knife, and Sultan has the whole steak in his hands trying to tear off a piece with his teeth. I felt bad for Swiss couple we were sitting with because were having fits of laughter about the steak. Elin said well Chris is eating his. I explained well you just have to cut it into a small enough piece that you can swallow it. Sultan was almost crying when he said he was afraid to even try and swallow it. Poor Randy hardly ate anything. Of course Sultan and I made sure everything but the steak did not go to waste. When the guy came to clear our plates he said yeah the mit hemi strong huh? Olgeta oli bin kutem no gud. (the meat is strong huh? Yeah they cut it the wrong way!) So this guy knew that we were eating tough steak. Awe Tanna!

After dinner we went back to the room and had a night cap of Jim Bean and coke. Elin had her ipod and speakers so we drank and listened to the sounds of the Beatles and the Beach Boys while listening to Mt Yasur rumble in the back ground. We laughed so hard and had so much fun with each other. It felt like being at summer camp. The next morning we had no idea what the day was to bring. We were just hoping it was not more of that steak!

So while I was writing this I got a knock on my door. My room service had arrived. It was a nice bowl of Tanna soup that smelled like a wet dog. Then I saw a junk of meat int eh middle. My first thought was wow I finally get to eat dog! But, then I noticed that there were also intestines in the soup as well. Ah yes, Flying Fox intestines! Yummy!! I have of course eaten everything but the intestines. I have just have not been able to bring my self to do that yet. The leg of the Flying Fox was a little bloody, I hope bats don’t have salmonella!!

Port resolution

2008-07-29T05:37:00.001-07:00

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!

Naora and Jackie Long

2008-07-29T05:36:00.001-07:00

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Coming back to Tanna has been an adjustment bak bakagen. Saying goodbye at the airport was hard to do. Several of my friends were there to say goodbye, each of them trying to get back to their islands. I think one or two of us wish that we could spend a few more days together. I would argue that our Peace Corps experience is harder then any other out there. I am sure everyone PCV in Every country says this but here I think its true. We are isolated more then any other country. I guess I just feel it more now that I have just spent the better part of two weeks getting to know all the other volunteers, most of whom I would never had met had it not been for All Vol.

So, we gave some big hugs at the airport and as I headed to the plane I kept looking back to see a pair of hands waving goodbye to me. I am truly sad to be leaving my Peace Corps family. I can only imagine how hard it will be to say goodbye in December 2009. As I got off the plane in Tanna it did feel good to be back home. For one thing, my wallet needed a break of Vila. Vila is more expensive then California. At $4- a beer and no lunch cheaper then $10 bucks your small volunteer paycheck goes pretty quick. As we say here, Vila hemi kakae everi samting. Well Jackie, her sister, and Jackie’s daughter Jackie Jr. were on the plane with me back to Tanna.

When we got of the plane I got to storian with them a little longer. I introduced them to their driver who would be taking them to Jungle Oasis. This is the same place my father and me stayed at when we went to Mt Yasur. I was going to hop a ride with them, but saw Namke and his entire family at the airport. I said good bye to Jackie and her family and I climbed into a different truck with Namke and the family.

I was disappointed to not be able to storian with Jackie a little longer. I was also hoping to show her my site, but that just did not work out. I got back to my site just in time to drop my gear off and head to the Nakamal. It was nice to drink a shell with my brothers and dada’s. My brother Lucas told me everyone was down making a new house at another village (Housing is a sore subject for me has mine is probably the worst PCV house in Vanuatu.) He asked if I wanted to go down their in the morning and we could kakae naora blong solwota. We had eaten Naora for wasmaot (wash your mouth) at the Nakamal. Naora is small crayfish, but Naora blong solwota is spiny lobster. How do you turn that down? Well I didn’t. At 8 am the next morning Lucas and I were heading down a bush road to a small village near the solwota. It was about an hour and half to our tawis village.

With in five minutes of shaking hands with everyone, I was sitting next to a fire eating a bowl of Tanna soup with a full spiny lobster draped across the plate. There was not a piece of edible meat left on that thing when I was done. Even the smallest leg was cracked open and devoured. After we ate, Lucas and I headed to the Nakamal and drank a small pikinini of Kava. Once everyone else showed up we headed down to the solwota. The last half hour was incredible. This will be a must see for anyone coming to Vanuatu to visit me. Rolling green hills give way to sharp jagged cliffs lined with coconut palms which drop straight on to the black sand beach. We took a bunch of photos and I snorkeled around for a while. The visibility was not that good as it had been raining a day before.

My Tawi Rexson had been diving and caught some fish and a small nawita (octopus.) We grilled up the fish and the nawita and ate them on the beach. As I was eating my last bite of Nawita I heard someone say hey there’s Noa running down the beach. One of my brothers ran down to tell him I was down there. He came over and we storied for about an hour before he had to head back to a Nakamal to watch the olfala kutem kok blong oli pikinin, (circumcision ceremony.) As Noa said goodbye we packed up to head back up the hill. More then anything I just wanted to get home to my bed.

Well we stopped at the Nakamal and it became clear I would not be sleeping in my own bed that night. We had a couple of shells and headed up to get some dinner. I was kind of annoyed but really could not do anything about it because I did not know the road back to my village. I slept in a house at the Kindy school. I froze my butt off all night long. It was so cold. I had two small blankets and just could not get warm. When I finally got up sometime around seven I walked to the village and huddled up with everyone around the fire. They offered me some yam for breakfast but I just was not in the mood for it.

I am glad I held out because an hour later they handed me another bowl of Tanna soup with a giant lobster on top. Not only that there were two more on the side! I only ate one because they said if I did not finish it that they would wrap it up for me to take on my walk about. They wanted me to take photos of them at a nearby waterfall so we headed out to take some more photos. I am learning that when someone wants to go to a waterfall, be prepared that you will be scaling a cliff to get to the bottom. I slipped once and thought for sure I was going over the cliff. Luckily I grabbed the root of some tree and managed to hang on. It only would have been a 20 foot drop to jagged rocks, but I was thankful I did not have to chance it. Once to the creek bed everything changed. It was so beautiful. We swam around and jumped off some rocks into the pools.

The hike out was not nearly as bad although to say I was not scared most of the time would be a lie. I thought man I have got to show this to the crew when they come out, but then I realized Hulsey would need to do some laundry when we got to the bottom. Half way up the cliff we stopped and drank green coconuts. They call these tusker coconuts, because they are almost carbonated. They squirt when you open them and bubble as they go down. They are my favorite coconut on a hot day.

Once back to the village I packed up my gear and headed out with my tawi Rexson who was going to show me a shortcut to get over to Jungle Oasis to see Jackie. He walked me about two hours through the bush before we got to the main road. Once I was on the main road I thanked him for his guide services and I went on my way. It took about 5 hours to get to Jungle Oasis. I was so happy to be there and could not wait to see the look on Jackie’s face. Well that would have to wait because apparently they took off that morning to go back to the west side of Tanna! So I turned around and started walking home. Thank god they packed up those Naora for me, because that was the only food I had. I am also lucky that rexson gave me small water bottle.

Walking through the Mt Yasur ash plains I felt like I was deserted in the Mojave Desert. As far as the eye can see it is only volcanic ash fields. My water was empty and I was thirsty, not a good combination. I finally passed a truck that I waved down to get a ride. The problem is he was only going about 100 yards before turning off on a side road. I still asked if he would drive me that far as I needed a break. From where he dropped me off it was only about 100 yards to a hospital clinic who I knew had water. So I had a pikinini run and fill my bottle up. I drank the first bottle in one go and went back for more.

I met some nice people on the way. They all got big goofy grins on there face when I greeted them with dawit lanaeyu., which is good night I their local language. They could not believe how far I had walked or that I was trying to head back home. As I was just about to crest the snake hill, (called snake hill because it is so steep the road has to zigzag back and forth like a snake) a truck was heading my way. Usually you stand at the side of the road and try to wave them down. Not today though! I was not taking any chances. I stood in the middle of the road till he stopped and then told him where I was going.

They got me to the half road near my house which is only about a 45 minute walk to village. I had walked a straight 8 hours with pretty much no breaks. I was beat!!! My phone finally came into village and I was happy to hear some voicemails from various people. I gave a call up to Tongoa and storied with Bridget for a while. It was nice to be able to download the days events with someone in English.

As I walked passed the Nakamal my brother peter tsk tsk tsk’ed me and gave the sign for a shell. So I walked in a grabbed a shell. Not having but 24 ounces of water to drink over an eight hour hike, that shell of kava hit me like a ton of brick. I sat down next to a fire and next thing I knew I was passed out. I tried to fight it, but the my tired body and the warmth of the fire just put me out. I woke up to my brother handing me another shell. I stayed awake for a while linger but then decided to end it all and go home. I had some hot tanna soup with the family and then called it a night. I was out cold!

Friday Night Dance off

2008-07-29T05:35:00.001-07:00

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Friday night we met up with Charlie and Nancy from group 19A. We went down to a small beach near the Waterfront restaurant. Charlie and Nancy put together a small picnic of cheese and crackers, and tapanade. They also brought some glasses to pour the Provenance 2004 Merlot in to (tank yu tumas bak bakagen Aunt Diane!!) We sat there enjoying the wine and company until we headed over to the Waterfront for dinner. The Waterfront is one of my favorite places to go in Port Vila. They always have dinner music and it is open aired with a Natangora roof. So you are covered but still feel like you are out side and the fact that it is right next to the marina doesn’t hurt.

I decided that it was such a nice night that I would go all out and get the beef fillet. Mmmm,,,, was it good!!! Of course the conversation was free flowing and enlightening. Charlie and Nancy are such amazing people. After we ate and finished our last dinner drink, Charlie suggested we move into the bar area and maybe do little dancing. While I am not sure what there exact ages are I believe they are in there early fifties but dance and have fun like they are twenty.

I love the music here because it is fun stuff to dance too, olsem Carlos Santana and evri samting olsem. Well Bridget and I had been swinging to any song we could and getting a lot of complements from some people. There was another couple in there ripping it up as well. There style was much more structured then ours. Next thing I know me and Bridget are walking off the dance floor to catch our breaths and wipe the dripping sweat off our faces when the owner jumps up and grabs the microphone and sings out, “Okay folks! We are going to have a dance off here tonight with these two couples!”” As he is saying this he is pointing to us and the other couple.

It turns out that the other couple teaches various Latin dance classes, olsem the Salsa and tango. Well we got out there and gave it our all and the crowd called it a tie. So the owner bought us all Margaritas!!! After the dance I went over to say thank you to the owner and give him a hard time. He said “yeah, I know they are instructors and all, but they are just soo… well you guys are just so Free when you dance. You guys were so much better then them.” It was a nice compliment, but the other guys did have some cool moves. Afterwards we were storian with them and they said they want us to come to class so we can exchange some moves, because they did not know a lot of the swing moves we were doing.

Peace Corps has been such a crazy experience so far. I have my ups and I have my downs, but the one constant is that I am always amazed that right now, right here, this is my life, and I got to tell you it aint so bad!!!

Santo

2008-07-29T05:34:00.001-07:00

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Well we arrived in Santo at about 6pm on Friday night. We did not really know where to go, but my PCMO had recommended the Decos Stop hotel. BY my pis kops standards this place is flas we flas. It has a restaurant, bar, and a swimming pool that all looks over the harbor. We got settled into our room and then came out and sat by the pool drinking a tusker before going and eating dinner. The food was alright. It was way better then beachcombers in Efate. My dad ordered the creamy curry fish and I got the steak. It was a fat steak but had very little flavor to it. There were muscles on top so that was a nice surprise.

I think we both ended up asleep by 9pm. This morning we both got p and lounged around while eating the continental breakfast, which consisted of popo, pineapple, grapefruit, bread, and juice. Afta breakfast we slowly got ready to head to town. Not knowing what Luganville had to offer we just walked from one end to the other. It is noticeably smaller then Vila but still much larger then Lenakel.

We found a spot to swim by Unity Park and ended up storian with three tourists. One was an Aussie, the other from Toronto, and a girl from Dublin. We had a nice chat with them until the rain came and we decided it was time for lunch. We found the Ocean King Café just in time. As we sat down the sky unloaded and dumped rain for about an hour and a half. After eating our fish and chips we decided to wait out the rain by having another tusker. About the time we decided to go the rain cleared up and we were able to walk home.

On the way home we found Aquamarine dive shop. There is an ex-PCV that works as a dive master there so we got set up to dive the SS Coolidge tomorrow. I am pretty excited about this dive. I do not think the visibility will be that great due to the recent rain fall, but it will be nice to dive none the less. Now we are just back at the hotel resting until it is time to go get some kava.

Well it is almost lunch time on Sunday. We just finished our first dive on the SS Coolidge. The first dive was awesome. It felt so good to throw on the tanks and get in the water. This ship is huge. Saw some cool sea life in there. There are also the old 3” guns and gas masks down there. The history of the ship is pretty cool.

Man after diving the Coolidge twice I completely understand why Rob quit the PC to become a dive master here. What a life he has. He dives twice a day, six times a week! Yeah I could handle that.

On our second dive we dove with Dan. He took us down to the medical supply cabinet of the ship. This was very cool because we actually penetrated the ship. This was my second time doing a penetration dive, the first being on the wreck of the Rhone, in the BVI. This apparently was my dads first. It was incredible. You get to a certain hole in the ship and then you just begin letting your air out of your BC and just drop into the cargo hold area. The only problem with the dives is that you are at about 30 meters so your dive time is not very long. Oh well it was incredible. I think both me and my dad felt like little kids down there. You could actually pick up the old medicine bottles which still had the prescription drugs in them. These were the drugs that soldiers in Vanuatu were waiting for during WWII. The history of the ship is pretty incredible. A brief synopsis is that the captain was a civilian so the military never told him the top secret info that there were mines places in the harbor and that there was only one safe route. The captain was worried about attack so he just put the petal to the metal and rammed to mines before beaching the ship on the shores of Santo. It was a very orderly evacuation of about 5,000 soldiers. Then as the tide began to go out the ship fell on its side and rolled back into the harbor, where it still sits today. I believe there were only two fatalities on the whole blunder.

Later that night I went stayed out in the hotel dining area drinking a beer and talking with some fellow travelers. I spent most of the time talking with a German man named Wolfgang. We just storied about what I am doing here in Vanuatu and if there was any hope for this country.

The next day we were up early to go to the Millennium Cave. Wolfgang decided to come with us. It turned out to only be the three of us on the tour. This is one tour I did not mind paying top dollar for. There are so many things here that I feel I should not have to pay for because I live here. This was worth every penny. Our driver Jonathan picked us up from the hotel and then we headed into town to grab some bread for lunch.

The first store we went to had no bread. The second store I went to had no bread. The third store I went to had two loaves of bread so I grabbed them, but before I got to the counter Chinese man came and said that bread was not fresh. I thought maybe it was just baguette or something. The fourth store had no bread. Finally Jonathon decided we should just got to the baker. So we bought our bread straight from the bakery. To this moment I regret not buying bread to eat on the way out there. Because I only bought one loaf for me and one for my dad, I had to suffer the whole ride out there sitting next to fresh baked bread that smelled incredible!

The truck ride out there was about an hour or so. We parked close to small village where we found our guide. Jonathon and he walked us into the bush to find the cave. The hike in took about an hour and half. The olfalas did good. The running joke was it was only a half hour a way. On Tanna everything is “long we little bit,” but I guess on Santo everything is “only 30 minutes away.”

We had to climb down old bamboo ladders in some areas. It was pretty sketchy! When we arrived to the entrance of the cave I realized we had made the right decision. This thing was amazing! I do not have the vocabulary to even describe this thing. We had to bring flashlights because once inside the cave it is blacker than black! Not only are we hiking through a cave, it is a cave with a running river through it. At many times we were waist deep wading through the water. It took about an hour to get to the other side of the cave. The cave is about 30-60 feet high, depending on which part of the cave.

When we got to the other side we had lunch and swam in the stream. It was nice end to a great hike. Well it really was not the end because we had a two hour hike back out of there. When we got back to the bus we were all wiped out. I looked back and my dad was passed out in the bus. I rode up front and storied with Jonathon. When we got back to Luganville we dropped Wolfgang off at his hotel and then Jonathon, my dad, and myself all went to Nemos Nakamal. Jonathon parked his bus on the other side of the Nakamal because we did not want his friends to see his truck in front of the Nakamal. When I asked him why he said if they knew he was there they would come find him, knowing that he had been giving a tour that day, i.e.., he had fulap money! This is known as finding a sponsor. This is not like an AA sponsor. People come to the Nakamal with no money and look for a sponsor, someone to buy them a shell.

Stret Papa In Vila

2008-07-29T05:33:00.000-07:00

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The past three days have been filled with all sorts of adventures and thrills. I picked my dad up from the airport on Tuesday at 0930 in the AM. We then jumped into a bus and headed into town. I had booked a room for us at the Room with a View hotel. It is one of my favorite value hotels in Vila. The second floor has a veranda with breakfast tables and lounge chairs and a great view of Vila harbor. After we dropped his bags off, we walked down to the Nambawan café for some coffee. It is a great café that sits right on the harbor water.

We were both getting a little hungry so we decided to get some lunch. I gave him his choice of where he wanted to go. One of the choices being the Mamas market to eat like the locals eat. He thought that sounded great. I think he was a little surprised to see the tables covered with flies and the fish still to have all its bones in it. There was not even that many flies there. He will be in for a real shock when he sees how our kitchen floor looks in Lounotuan.

I figured we would hit the extreme ends of society in a short time so we headed over Irikki resort to grab some beers at the swim up bar. Every time I am there I have a hard time remembering this is Peace Corps. After a few hours at the pool we headed back to the hotel to shower and nap. It was coming up on taem blong yumi, (time for kava.) so we headed down to Shefa Nakamal for some Kava. I was impressed that he had two shells. It is too bad that the kava was weak so he did not feel any of the effects.

The next day we lounged around until we decided to go to the Mele Cascade Waterfalls. These are some of the most magnificent waterfalls I have ever seen. The best part is being able to swim in the different pools of water. I think we both had a great time. Of course when we were walking up the falls I thought it best to take our shoes off because of the mud. So we ditched out shoes, shirts, and sunglasses on the side of the trail. Well apparently in the two days he had been here he had not built up his island feet.

I guess it is a sign that my feet have grown accustomed to walking around dry leg, with out shoes. On the way back down he was tip toeing the entire way. When we got to the half way point where our shoes had been I noticed everything was gone. One of the security guys had picked them up and taken them down the road. This made for a very long walk for my dad as he delicately maneuvered down the rocky trail.

When we got to the enterance of the falls there were no buses to be found. I did not expect there to be one anyways. So we just started walking down the road. We came along a little store where these two French tourists were hanging out. I had actually met these girls a few nights before. We storied with them for a little bit and I storied with the shop owner. After a few minutes we decided to keep heading down road.

As we were walking a truck full of people started yelling Kaltao! Kaltao!, as they passed us. It was some kids from my training village heading back to mongaliliu. I think my dad got a kick out of me being recognized everywhere I went. Being a white guy in the middle of a Melanesian country I do not blend in very well.

When we got to the end of the road we could have grabbed a bus, but instead opted to walk along the beach for a while. We ended up by the ferry for Hideaway Island so we decided to head over and grab a beer. This was the first time I had been over there. It was very nice. We order a beer and then sat in some plastic lounge chairs and watched the sun set. The whole time talking about how “yes this is my life!” Not that my life is like that all the time, or for that matter hardly ever, but every once in a while it is my life and I love it!!

ALL VOL Conference

2008-07-29T05:24:00.001-07:00

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.

ALL VOL Conference

2008-07-29T05:24:00.000-07:00

From Wanem mi Stap long Vila

2008-03-15T11:38:00.002-07:00

So I was sitting in my class room the other day when I got a phone call from Elin. Elin is from the island of Malekula, but had been in Vila for a week or so. She had called to let me know that she had received an email from my dad that my grandmother Flyr had passed away. She had already informed the Peace Corps medical staff who she transferred me to after talk with me for a few minutes. The Peace Corps staff was very helpful in calling my dad from their satellite phone so that he could call me back on my cell phone.

My dad called me a few minutes later and we got a chance to storian for a bit. Apparently my grandmother was watching Saturday morning cartoons and just dozed off to sleep. Not a bad way to go. Not to long ago I received a Christmas card from her. The only thing she had written on the inside was a J smiley face with an arrow pointing to it that said “That’s me.” It still makes me laugh when I look at it.

Well I decided that I did not just want to sit in Lounuotuan, so I told Pis Kops I wanted to come in so I can use some real communication devices to call home. The Pis kops nurse said she would have the country director call me. Well if I waited around for a call I would not get on a plane that day. I packed a small bag and said good bye to my village and then started hiking to the airport. I called Elin back and she was a big help by calling the airline and saving me a seat. About 2 hours into hiking a truck finally came by and I caught a ride into town to get money out of the bank and then headed straight to the airport.

Before the flight I met a guy who stopped me as I was walking by and said “So you are one of the famous Peace Corps Volunteers I keep hearing about.” I said I do not know so much as being famous but yes I am. Actually Peace Corps had an incredible name here. We are very well known for coming and living olsem (how) the Nivans live. Also, with our 3 months of training, we all speak really good Bislama. Although, I am realizing the better my Bislama gets the worse my English grammar becomes.

I had a good talk with him and actually ended up grabbing a shell of kava with him when we got to Vila. He has been here one month and has been just walking around. He said people kept confusing him for a Peace Corps Volunteer. I told him it was because he carried an aelan basket, had a beard, and smelled a little funny. He was a pretty interesting character and an amazing artist. He showed me his sketches of Tanna. They were pretty impressive. He did a great job of capturing the essence of Tanna.

Well our plane ride was exciting as always. We were on an 18 seat plane. One of the planes where the pilot literally turns around to tell you there is an emergency card in the seat pocket and how long the flight will be. There is no locked door protecting these guys from terrorist. There happens to be a Nivan girl in front of us who apparently really does not like flying. She kicked and screamed and balled the entire flight. That in its self is annoying, but I am used to pikinini crying when they wee the white man coming. So it was not big of a deal to me.

Now then because of her fit she also stunk up the place. As the Nivans would say, trousers hemi fulap, (She crapped her self.) It was so bad I could see it coming out the bottom of her diaper. I felt bad for the mama who was trying to control her. She had her hands full. Literally. It was a very welcome relief for that door to open and get some fresh air.

Once back to the peace corps office I hooked up with a bunch of 20B people. For various reasons there was 1/3 of our group here in Vila. We all went out for dinner and had a great time sharing stories and crazy tales of our sites. They are such amazing people. Group 20 B is the best group ever in Vanuatu. We get along so well. We all write letters to each other often and stay in touch more then any other volunteers do.

I was sitting on the beach in Lenakel the other day and opened up a package from Evelyn who was in Vila for a workshop. Inside the package was 4 tuskers and a note saying hey thought it was time for me to settle up on that bet. She may have once bet me a 6 pack of tusker that the next card I was about to turn over was NOT going to be her card. 6 Tuskers later, she does not bet on card tricks with me anymore. J

Well it was Elins last night and her flight back to Malekula was for 0645 in the morning so we decided we just all needed to stay up all night. Elin finally made her flight back and the rest of the day has been spent working with peace corps staff. I will be making some random calls home so if you get a cal from an unknown number it may be me!

Dawet lanaeyu

Best day in Tanna

2008-03-15T11:38:00.001-07:00

Best day in Tanna!

So at one point this afternoon I thought to myself, wow this has been a great day. It started off with me waking up to either Mt. Yasur’s stomach growling or an earthquake. Hemi semak. It shook my house and my bed. It must have been a big one as it lasted a long time. I went back to bed and did not wake up again until nature started calling my name around 0730. I got up and started cleaning my house.

I do not think the person before me ever cleaned this place, so I went through and rearranged my bed and got rid of some stuff that I feel I do not need. I turned my bed around and moved my radio/desk. At one point some Mamas came over to see why half of my house was sitting out front. They then notice the condition of my floor and became distressed over the condition and lack of response to my earlier requests to the men to get me Bamboo to fix it. So apparently we are having a work day on Saturday to rebuild my home. I will move into the office of the school while we finish the repairs. Not only are we rebuilding the floor, but we are putting a new roof on as well.

Next thing I knew it was time for kakae. I had one brother walk over with a box and ask if I had some oil. He said he would cook something special for me if I had some. Well special is right. Now before I tell you what I ate I will just warn a few of you to turn away and skip these next few lines; I know I am going to get some flack from a few of you. So we fried up some meat and ate some small rice. It is probably one of the best meats I have ever had. It is too bad it is not on any menus back home, (Maybe McDonald’s, but who knows.) So what was it? Well first off it was the heart, which even before from eating cow heart, I know it is one of the best roasts you will ever have. The heart is the most active muscles in the body. Now then I must clarify that when I said that this was the best meat I have ever eaten before, that I was so hungry I could eat a horse, literally. It was so good I ended up have it at the Nakamal for navanu (wash out) and then again for dinner. Everyone here agrees hos hemi stap auntop. Hemia namba wan from se taem we wan man emi kakae wan samting mit blong hem no stap long tut blong yu. (Horse is the top. It is Number 1, because when you eat it the meat does not get stuck on your teeth.)

After lunch I went with Lucas to go find some green coconuts. He climbed up a coconut tree pretty close up to my house. Then he tossed down about 8 coconuts. We cracked some open with our bush knifes and chugged them down. These guys are so amazing with their bush knives. It is like an extension of their arm. Mothers in the states would flip out at how young the babies are that hold small bush knives. Everyone must have bush knife save (Know how) in order to function around here. I practiced cutting out a green coconuts with out breaking the actual coconut. I was not very successful so we had to eat a few more. I have a long way to go to be as save as these guys.

As we were walking back, Lucas said he needed to exercise because he was so full. So I pulled out the Frisbee and taught a few people how to throw. They are picking it up pretty quick. I am hoping that I will be able to teach them Ultimate Frisbee. After some Frisbee we kicked around a soccer ball for a while. Then it was time for them to teach me a game. We played Ponget which is like lawn bowling. I say that with out really knowing what lawn bowling is.

We each have three steel balls about 1 pound each. One person then throws a little ball about 15 feet away. In our case the little ball was a nut from a tree. You then take turns tossing your steel balls as close to the little ball as possible, you take turns like you would in shuffle board. It was pretty fun. These guys are intense. They have great aim, too.

While we were playing, I had an uncle come over and ask if I would go karem wan samting long makem wan plei plei blong mi. Other words he wanted me to go grab my juggling clubs and give them a show. I have been doing this a lot lately, but that’s okay. It is a good excuse to practice some. When I came back I also brought some sunflower seeds (Thank you so much for sending them.) I then had to teach them how to eat them. They were all amazed that I could fill my cheek up with them and eat one at a time. I told them they had to learn to eat one at a time first.

After our sunflower-seed-eating-lesson Lucas and I walked to his garden and pulled some Kava. Once back in the Nakamal we I ended up drinking two shells back to back. I have never been so drunk on Kava in my life. I had to lay down. This is not a bad ting. After laying down I try and meditate for a while. When I walked to the bathroom ( a hole hiding behind some bushes,) I could hardly walk. Even right now I can feel the effects of the kava and it is now 0100. I had some horse again for dinner. Man that was good stuff. I want to make a sandwich out of it tomorrow. Some fresh aelen bred and then some mustard. Mmmmm… That sounds great.

So this was the first day that through out the entire day I kept thinking, “wow this has been a really good day. I have a few more since then and I hope their frequency increases. I am sure that they will. Everyone says that the first six months are the hardest part. Most people go home with in their first six months. Now that skul (school) is going I am staying pretty busy. Now I have lesson plans to prepare and then classes to teach. This helps take up a lot of time. It is all about filling up time.

Before I had said that I was not going to buy a bicycle because I felt it was flas we flas (flashy.) Well I think I have changed my mind on this. I live in this absolutely incredible paradise and I might as well enjoy it as much as possible. Also, with a mt. bike I can cover some serious ground and see more of the island. This would make me more effective in reaching some of the coffee farmers. And most importantly, this place seems made for mt. bikes. I saw a Man Tanna riding one the other day so at least I am not the first person with one. I will look into this when I am in Vila.

All-You-Can-Eat-Pizza

2008-03-15T11:37:00.001-07:00

I am sitting down here by the white beach bungalows where the Tanna Coffee Factory and Brett’s house is located. It is about a 30 minute walk from Lenakel. I came down here on Friday where I have been hanging out with the other volunteers. We came down to have a big all you can eat pizza night at the Leniae Palms resort. (It is just some bungalows not a club med.) Apparently a few of the volunteers did this last night and crawled away in pain because there was so much food.

Well we have all been very excited for this. We talked about it all day and planned out our other meals accordingly. We all wanted to make sure we were hungry enough to devour some pizza. Well they are a little slow bring out the pizza, but when they finally bring out the first two trays of pizza we all become very quiet and just begin devouring the pizza. There was chicken pizza, beef pizza, vegetarian, and my personal favorite the lobster pizza. With 7 people and only two trays of pizza they were gone with in 5 minutes. As we sat there waiting for more to come Ann the owner of the bungalows says hey Peace Corps I think we should give a hand to the guy that make this possible, the cooks, who are sitting at a table next to us.

I turn to Sultan and say, shouldn’t they be in the back making more pizza? Well finally after sitting for a while we ask one of the Nivans when more pizza was coming out. He said that that was all of it. Instantly we all got very irritated. We all felt deceived. The bungalow there is hit or miss. We had actually already been making plans for next month’s pizza night there, but after our disappointing experience last night we are going to move our business down the road.

It isn’t like we did not get enough to eat. After eating three scoops of ice cream I was pretty stuffed. It is just the fact that they should have told us up front that they were not doing all you can eat anymore. The owner is kind of sketchy at times. One theory is that they lost money last time so they put a limit on it. We all would of paid more if it meant being able to eat till we wanted to puke.

Oh what a night!

2008-03-15T11:36:00.001-07:00

Wow what a night this has been. It is 0333 on Wednesday morning. I have been awake for a while. I actually went to bed fairly early last night. I had gone to the Nakamal at about 1800 had one shell and then took a spel. Well for my Navanu I ate cooked banana with avoka, man it was tasty.

For some reason I felt a little bit off. I only drank one shell and went home before 1930. I walked straight back to my hut and shut my door. Usually after the Nakamal I go eat with Namke and his family, but tonight I just did not feel like it. That should have been my first sign something was not right. I just wanted to climb in bed and go to sleep. I started reading Catch-22 and read about 25 pages before I gave up and just gave into sleep. I looked at my watch and it was only a little past 2000.

All night long my mouth seemed to be super dry. I did not want to get up and walk across the house (ten feet away) to get some water. Well finally at one point and I am not sure what time it was, I could not take it anymore. I got up and poured me a glass of water from my water jug. I drank the whole glass in two gulps, but then I started to feel really funny. I had the strong and quickly approaching sensation that I was going to puke.

I opened my door so I could get outside to the bushes to troat, puke. This is when everything went dark very quickly. I am not sure if I completely blacked out or what, because I feel like I felt the whole thing happen. The old bamboo close to my door snapped scratching up my leg pretty good. Meanwhile, I fall forward and slam into the ground in front of my house. I just lay there, thinking wow I do not feel like I have to puke anymore.

This was not one of those; oh I fell so get up. I am pretty sure I blacked out, because when I was on the ground I did not want to move. I still felt funny. I had my headlamp on, so I reached up and turned that off, so that I could just lay there in the dark on the cool wet ground. Luckily I had missed a log with my head about 5 inches. I had a log there because I am going to finish my deck tomorrow, depending on how I feel that is. I pulled the log a little closer to use it as a pillow. I then just laid there thinking, wow this is not good.

I finally pulled myself up, after about ten minutes and tried wiping the dirt off of me. This was pointless. Luckily I had fallen asleep with a t-shirt on so I pulled that off and climbed back in bed. When I got into bed I was shivering. I am in the middle of the hot season in the south pacific, there is only one reason you get the shivers and that is when you are sick. I then started thinking man when is the last time I took my malaria prophylaxis. I am still in the window of coverage so I do not think it is malaria. I also feel a lot better now.

I think I will be replacing my entire floor soon. Well, I am going to try and go back to sleep for another four hours. Dowit Lanaeyu (good night in local language.)

Lonosunen

2008-03-15T11:35:00.000-07:00

The day after we hiked Yasur we were both pretty beat. We decided that we would head down to the hot springs, but when we found out we would have to pay a thousand vatu each we decided against it. We had lunch at the bungalow and paid them what little money we had. I actually had another 1,000 VT but thought we should have at least something for an emergency fund, so I held on to that.

We then headed down the beach in search of the next village of Lonosunen. It was better then an hour walk across a rocky shear cliff. There was more then one moment when I was a little worried about out path. We finally made it to the beach in front of there village and drained of energy. We jumped in the water after talking to a few locals. They said we could either sleep on the beach or better yet come on top to their village and sleep up there.

We stayed in this village for two nights with out any money. It turns out that the family we ended up staying with there abu is the papa of my host brothers wife. Abu is grandpa. The first night they actually put us in a bungalow, but the next day said it was no good that we had to eat up top and then walk down back to the bungalow so they put us up in an extra house. They fed us at every meal and were really nice to storian with.

On Monday morning I woke up to some one crying at about 0300. When I say woke up I mean I was awake because I was tossing and turning all night, due to a sun burn I had acquired earlier in the day. It turns out the crying was not going to stop before we left. This is due to having a ded in the village. At some point in the night an elderly man passed away. They call this having a ded (dead.) When they have a ded they all wail for hours on end. Usually at least one person is wailing at all times.

Well Noa and I took off at about 0600 heading back to middle bush. We said are good byes and thank you to our hosts and then headed on our way. They said the road was pretty flat on the way to the main road. I am not sure what they meant by flat. I guess they mean there were not a lot of pot holes, because by no means would Noa or I consider that road flat. We were both exhausted from the four previous days of hiking and this road just seemed to keep going up. After every corner you could here us mumble g-r-e-a-t, more hill.

When we finally made it to the main road we could hear trucks coming. The very first truck to pull over was the guy who took us out to south Tanna to begin with. Well he said he would give us a deal and only charge us 1,000VT for the both of us. I told him that because he charged us tourist prices on the way out here we had no money left and would just walk. This is not entirely true. I had the 1,000VT but I wanted to shame him a little bit. So the next truck that came by we waved down and jumped in the back.

So someone asked me in a letter, “what do I you miss most from home.” They had guessed driving. I was thinking about this when I was standing in the back of the pick up flying down the road with the air cooling my sweaty face. I am not sure what I miss most from home, but I know when I go home the thing I am going to miss most, is riding in the back of pick ups every where I go. It was always one of my favorite things as a kid before the laws were changed. Every time I am in the back of one here I feel like a kid again. Of course it is a little more dangerous riding in the back of a pick up here. I have gone full airborne and landed two feet back on some ones lap. I would not be surprised if one day I write home saying, so I feel out the back of a pick up. One thing for sure I am building some strong hand and arm muscles from holding to the railing for my life.

As we came up to Middle Bush Noa was ready to get back to his village. I had the truck drop him off on the shortest half road to our area. I gave him some small directions even though he had been down the road once before. I continued on down to Lenakel to hang out get a decent meal and check my mail. Well when I got back to my village I asked if they saw Noa. They told me he came through around half past ten. I thought what? How could that be? They told me he got lost and ended up down in some village about 45 minutes south of me. Crazy kid.

I mean while went down and wrote some letters in front of the post office. Check my mail and headed down to the mama’s market. I ran into Matt who lives about an hour forty five away from me. We sat and I told him of our adventures over the weekend. We then headed down to Leniae Palms for lunch. I had a hamburger with grilled onions, a fruit plate with pineapple, po-po, and passion fruit, and of course followed it all up with a big scoop of mint chip ice cream on a cone.

As I walked up the road back to my village I had passed the man in the truck who I had shamed earlier and I gave him a wave and I continued up the road. As I walked up behind the truck I was going to ask for a ride. But when I saw it was him I thought no, I am not giving him another 100Vt to take me to my half road. So I just started walking. The rule is if you wave a truck down it is 100VT, but if they stop and pick you up it is free. Well just before the big hill that I was dreading walking up because I was exhausted and it was 1330, the hottest part of the day. The same man pulled up and softly said find a place in the back. I am pretty sure he is trying to make up for me shaming him. Shame here is a big thing. When ever some one does something that is rubbish fashion you usually respond with something like you have no shame? Well anyways I jumped in the back and felt a sigh of relief as the truck drudged up the big hill.

I had them drop me off at the market that has a half road to my place. There was another truck there and a guy from a neighboring village was in the back so he told me to jump in. I can tell that the longer I am here and the more people get to know me, the less I will have to walk with out someone picking me up. I have made my own rule that I am not going to wave trucks down. If they stop then right on, I will take the ride. But I am not going to wave them down. It is not the 100VT that keeps me from doing this. I just like walking and I certainly can use the exercise.

Well it is 0921 on Tuesday morning February 12, 2008 and I get to teach my first business class in 40 minutes. Last night they told me they changed it so that I am teaching two hours before lunch and two hours after. I told them that this is no good. For one they just can not make decisions regarding me with out my consent. And secondly I do not have a second class planned out yet. So we will see what happens today. I am very nervous about this as I still do not feel my Bislama is that great. Any one that you asked will argue with that. I am very functional and can talk with anyone about just about anything, but I guess it is just my nature that I want it to be perfect. I was explaining my worries to Matt and he reassured me that no matter how bad it is it will be great on Vanuatu standards. Back home if I was doing a presentation or leading a training workshop it would always be a great session. But here talking in a second language I am worried about how things will go. I guess we will see in 30 minutes.

Mt Yasur!

2008-03-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

I had walked down to Noa’s house sometime last week and we talked about heading down south. We kept saying yeah when are we going to go to the volcano? When? Finally we said okay next weekend. The plans were made. Well as well as one can make plans to go some where that he has never been, nor does he have internet to look up places to stay. But if I learned anything with Jeff in Europe (other then his A/M issue J ) is that things will just somehow work out.

So Noa walked down to my house at about 0800 and we headed off on our journey to Mt Yasur. In the wrong direction, now this was actually on purpose. To walk to Mt Yasur is about a 6 hour walk. But Lenakel is only an hour and a forty five minute walk down hill and we can catch a truck from Lenakel. We spent the day getting mail, (thanks again everyone who is writing. The post man is getting to know me vary well thanks to you guys) and buying supplies for our trip. It was so hot in Lenakel I think we each bought an ice cream bar or two in each store we went into. Some of those stores we went into just to buy another ice cream bar. Noa almost bought a one litter jug of mint ice cream, but the store did not sell spoons.

Well Noa secured us a ride from a guy who told him it was a 1,000 VT (each) for us to get to the other side. Being that neither of us had been there we thought this sounded about right. Well it turns out that the usual price for tourist is 2,500 VT and that he was giving us a special deal. Well turns out the black man price is only 500VT so I get a littler perturbed because, well this is crap. He then takes us to his brother’s bungalow which is fine because we do not have any idea where to go. We think well we will stay there one night and then find out if we can sleep on the beach. He tells us 2,000 a night. Well the guys kid tells us its only 1,500 each so we say okay.

We head down to there Nakamal to meet the owner of the Bungalow. There is about 45 men at there Nakamal because the chief is making a big tok tok about the rubbish fashion of the yungfala. The chief comes over and shakes my hand I storian with him for ten minutes while he asks me where I am from, what do I do, what did I before Pis Kops etc. He ends the conversation by saying okay now go stand in front of these 45 men who you do not know and tell them everything you just told me. Huh?

Well disrespecting the chief would get us no where, so I got up and gave a short tok tok about myself. I even introduced Noa but then thought Noooo hemi mas makem wan tok tok bakagen. So I said Noa your turn get up there. I went back and storian with the chief. When he found out we were staying at the bungalow he said no way. You just come and to the Nakamal and we will find a home for you. Well we thought we will just stay there one night and then come down and find a place for free.

We found out the gate fee for the Volcano was 2,250 VT a person and after doing some calculating, taking in to account Noa only had 2,500VT I realized we were short on funds. So then after spending the night at the Big Bang Bungalows we had to tell the couple we could not afford another night and see the volcano. She says it would be no good for us not to stay there so we ended up staying two nights with food for 3,600 VT (about $36-,) for the both of us.
That second day we played in the salt water and then came back and played in a small fresh water river. The water was too warm to really be refreshing but it was nice to get clean. At about 1730 we started to make our trek up Mt Yasur. They had told us we had to pay a gate fee of 2,250 a person. So they took that and said one small boy would run it around the mountain to the gate, but we would take a short cut. Well The bungalows owners brother takes us up on top. Once up there he tells us how great it is that we are Peace Corps and that the tourists over yonder all have to pay a gate fee but because we took the short cut we do not. Oh really? Hmmm… So as it turns out they just told us that and then pocketed the money. Not that it was a lot of money but I felt burned. The next day we packed up and moved down the road.

But before we go there I guess I should describe Mt Yasur to you. First off lets talk about this “short cut.” It was a grueling and scary hour walk up a steep and dune of ash filled with super sharp lava rock here and there. How did these rocks end up out here? It is common for lava to fly out of the rim and land on the side of the Mountain. At a few points on the hike I think what are we doing. I am beat. I want to just go sit in some AC and drink a gallon of cold water. But then I got to the top. I should mention the name of the bungalow we stayed at was the Big Bang bungalow. I mention this because from our Bungalow we could feel the vibrations shake our beds from Yasur.

Well once on top and that first rumble roared through my body, it was all worth it. So they say that Yasur is the most active and the most accessible volcano in the world. Now the only other volcano I have been on is Nguna, which is dead, and Lassen which is dormant. But Noa lives in Hawaii and told me about the volcano there. That you are behind a fence and if you look way over there you can see some activity. Well let me tell you, Yasur gets up close and personal.

Several people have died at Yasur, from slipping down the mountain or more likely getting hit by flying molten lava. You are so close that you looking almost straight into the lava. Every few minutes it erupts with a big rumble that vibrates threw your organs and then spews flaming molten lava high into the air. I am guessing at least one hundred feet about my head. You have to be careful because if it hits you then you will probably die. Luckily for us the wind was good and I felt safe most of the time. A couple of the big ones gave us a little fright.

When the lava blasts into the air you would think that it would shoot up like a bottle rocket or something, but in fact it looks like a floating ember just floating high in the sky. Then it turns back and hits the sand with a loud thump; reminding you that it is bigger then a bowling ball chunk of molten lava flying through the air. I got some great photos of the action. I felt alive up there next to the volcano. We stayed for about 45 minutes before heading back. Oh did I mention the sun was setting when we began this journey.

On our walk back down we ended up losing the path several times. I kept telling the guide I think we are to far right. Oh no we are all right. Then a few minutes later Hmm I think we missed the road. Oh do you? Let me guess over to the left? Yup, so several times we had to hike back up and find a new route. This is not so bad but I am walking bare foot and end up puncturing my foot on a sharp lava rock coming down. No shoes while hiking a volcano? Hey that’s how we roll here in Tanna.

When we finally made it to the bottom we decided to finish off this great trip with a swim in the river. What a refreshing way to end a trip. The cheap bottle of also helped in our celebrations. We sat there and shared the bottle with the guide while swimming in the river and looking up at Yasur turn the sky a beautiful orange color while throwing lava high into the sky.

Vila To Smol Pigon

2008-03-15T11:27:00.000-07:00

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!

Brisbane and back

2008-01-27T19:20:00.000-08:00

So it is Monday afternoon here in Port Vila and I am getting ready to head back to my village on Tanna. I am actually looking forward to getting back to the village life there. I have not done any reading while away from my hut, so it will be nice to get back and relax. Do not get me wrong I have enjoyed all my friends and all of the debauchery that has ensued. These past two weeks have been a little crazy. Brisbane was not that exciting. Well I take that back, I was only there for 72 hours so I did not have time to really se anything exciting there. I did et some good food and had some cold beers as well. I even found a little time to catch a movie. I went and saw American Gangster. I thought it was a great movie.

I ended my time in Brisbane on a bad note. As I was heading to the airport I had stopped a the Queenstown mall for once last look around. While there I thought I would take a picture of the people crossing the crosswalk near the mall. The reason is that on any given crossing there are more people crossing the street then the six surrounding villages have people living in my area of Tanna. Well as I wrap that up a young kid walks up and asks if he was in my photo, to which I reply I hope not because then the photo will be ruined. Well he gets in my face telling me it is against the law to take peoples photos and that I had to delete it or he was going to sue me. I just laughed and put my camera bag in my basket. Well he gets right in my face and I can tell he is super drunk. I start to get a little lippy and ask what are you twelve? Well I guess I was way off because he was very proud of the fact that he was indeed 14.

I decided to just walk away and go into the nearby starbucks and get some coffee. He continues to follow me and I just ignore him. Once inside Starbucks he starts making a huge scene and telling me he is calling the cops. To which I am just fine with. So he tells the lady at starbucks to call the cops and she does not. I try to encourage her to so we can end this situation. Well He finally gets on the phone and I guess calls the cop. While he is on the phone everyone in the store is asking what is going on and I kind of explain it. I do not know how this is going to work out because I am the foreigner in the group here.

Well once off the phone he tells me we have to walk to the police station to which I reply no you go get a cop and bring him here I am waiting for my coffee. He then grabbed my shirt which I was not okay with and I then not so nicely removed his hand and bent his elbow back and told him never to put his hand on me. (I may have used a few choice words in there too.) He then said or what or what? I am 14 what are you going to do. Well I did not know it at the time but all the guys who had been sitting at their tables were now standing behind me and one shouts out I am 16 I will kick “butt” right here. The kid finally left saying he was going to go get his friends and come back I told him I would be the guy sitting here drinking coffee and taking photos!

Earlier in the day I did get to hold a Koala so that was fun. They really are as soft as you would think they are. I also got to pet some kangaroos and see some flying foxes. I had taken a leisurely boat ride down the river to a Lone Pine Animal Sanctuary. It was fun, but I wish I had gone to the museums instead. I did have a nice conversation on the boat on the way back with a couple from California and their daughter. They had fulap questions about my experiences in Vanuatu. While explaining to them what I do and what I experience in the bush, I realized that I have grown accustom to many little things that any one in the western world would most likely freak out about.

One example is I was sitting at a pub in Brisbane. I was sitting on a bench near a railing. I noticed out of the corner of my eye a pretty big cockroach cruising the rail behind my head. It then crawled down on to the bench and made its way over to a group sitting on the other side. Well it was two girls and three guys sitting on the bench. However, you would of thought it was all 14 year old girls sitting there, because they all screamed so loud and jumped up off the bench like the thing was going to eat them.

I guess I did not freak out because it is not uncommon for me to come home at night, check my sheets before crawling in, and flicking away a cockroach or giant spider. Also, explaining the water situation was difficult. I kept telling them no my drinking water is 45 minutes away. Yes I really do carry a bucket of water 45 minutes in each direction just to be able to have fresh to drink and brush my teeth with.

I also told them about eating the green pigeon, i.e., the green parrot, that I ate the entire thing of, leg bones and all. Man I hope I do not come back crazy. I think all volunteers are a little crazy just for signing up, but I think after being in the bush for a while we become a little more crazy. Don’t think I need a straight jacket yet, but we will see after two years.

It was nice to get back into Vanuatu where people understand my now painful English grammar. The biggest one is that to say “yes” here we say uh uh, like the way we say no back home. So every time my dentist asked me a question that seemed to be an obvious yes answer I would answer uh uh, and he would look at me confused and then question my answer. I finally had to tell him that if I said uh uh I meant yes. We also say yes with just our eye brows. Kind of like doing the hey whats up eye brow head nod to your buddies, but here it is just the eye brows, your head does not move. Another catch phrase I love using here is No. It is a long dragged out nooo with kind of a uh at the end. Anytime someone’s asks you a question that you do not want to answer you say nooo.
It really annoys some of the Peace Corps girls in my group, because we never give straight answers any more. Noooo nomo.

On Friday night we had a BBQ at the Peace Corps Nurses house. She has the best house here. Nice swimming pool, with an amazing view of the Vila harbor. We BBQ steak, chicken and sausages, and Jane provided us with a lot salads and green beans and side dishes. At the BBQ I was talked into volunteering at the bar, where her daughter Erin works. It was Australian day so they wanted to have big event. I accepted after I was told I would get free drinks and BBQ and being that I would end up at rumors anyways, I might as well not pay for anything.

What a night that turned out to be. I am pretty sure they lost money on the bbq with me grilling and them supplying the Heineken. At one point I ended up behind the bar and playing DJ. The owner was a little drunk and for some reason thought I was the new “official” chef for moorings restaurant. At one point I was looking for Erin and could not find her. Turns out she was out taking care of the BBQ. I asked her why she did not grab me and she said that I was in the middle of entertaining the bar with a story and she figured if she dragged me away then she would be stuck entertaining them. Either way I guess I was working. I BBQ for a while then shut the grill off as there was no action. By the end of the night I was hungry and thought I would fire it up to make me a sausage. I ended up selling about 75 at that point. I was hard selling everyone who walked buy. They really were a good deal so it was easy. Only 100 vatu. I would tell people come on name one thing you can buy for a 100 vatu in Vila? Usually they would say man your right I’ll take 2!

I had a great time and I think Erin is glad that I helped out. I met a return volunteer from the Ukraine. I had a lot to explain when I told her I was a PCV. She could not figure out how my BBQ at an ex-pat bar could be considered Peace Corps work. It did not help that I told her I am here trying to promote Sausage as a sustainable meat source for Vila.

Well I need to check in at the airport in an hour so I am going to go grab once last meal at Jills Café and then head off to the airport. I miss everyone a lot and hope all is well, where ever you may be at this moment.

Take care and Lukem yufala,

Christopher

Garden

2008-01-15T21:34:00.000-08:00

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.

My walk down to lenakel

2008-01-15T21:28:00.000-08:00

Well I was supposed to get up and got to White Sands with Namke, his wife, and papa blong Joseph, but it was raining and that kind of gave me an out. Namke was at my hut at about 0500 asking if I still wanted to go. I ended up going back to sleep until about 0900. I got up and did some reading. I am in the middle of The Search for Captain Zero. So far I have really been enjoying this book. I think my Dad will dig it too. I just finished part of the book where he ends up in this little surf town called Sayulita. Sayulita is where 9 other guys and I went for Jeff Hulseys Bachelor party. I think the mosquitoes were worse there then they are here.

I then ate some lunch with Sophia and we played the guitar and then some wild rounds of seven lock. Seven lock is one of everyone’s favorite games here. I think it I okay, but it does not leave much of a challenge. There is not a whole lot of thinking to it. I would rather play something like pinochle or canasta.

Well at about 1300 I headed down to Lenakel. Of course five minutes into my walk it began to pour down. I posted up under a tree for a bit, until it lightened up enough for me to push on. I had never walked this path down to Lenakel before. It is a very nice walk. It is flat almost the whole way with only a few rolling hills. At the very end it drops down pretty quick, so I imagine the first leg heading back would be a real lung burner. It took me exactly one hour and forty minutes to get from my house to the post office, even with stopping for the rain.

When I got down to the TVL store to buy a refill card for my mobile phone, I realized I left my pouch with my evri samting at my hut. Lame! I ended up buying a new phone as mine will not hold a charge. So hopefully this phone is okay. It was very cheap. Only 7,000VT and it came with 2,000VT worth of phone credit. The phones are all pay as you go. Tomorrow is Kranki sundei so if you put time on your phone you get double value. This will give me 4,000 VT worth of credit, plus another 4,000 from two other cards I have.

Well my whole purpose in coming down today was to house sit for Jessica. As it turns out there trip got cancelled due to a land dispute in Anewa. Anewa is a small island close to Tanna. Well we went the Nakamal last night and had a few shells before coming back to her house, cooking up some soup, and then watching ELF. Does not seem to matter how many times I watch that movie I still laugh the whole way through. “I like Smiling, Smiling is my favorite!” “Wow he is an angry little Elf.”

Well yesterday after going to get my new phone I headed over to the Bank/ Post Office to try and get some money out of my account. I had left my passbook in my little pouch up at my house, so I had to have the manager’s approval. I then went to the post office side but the post man was not there. I headed out side and he was sitting on the bench. I asked him if I had any samting inside and he pointed down to the bench where I had a stack of mail. It is pretty cool that he knows who we are and does not charge us for a post office box. He just holds our mail until we come in.

Well I was parched from my walk down with out any water, so I found a kol-kol grape drink that came in what looked like a soda can but was made out of plastic. I chugged it in about two gulps. With my thirst not quenched I went and bought a kol kol tusker and headed down to a little beach cove between the mama’s market and the wharf. I cracked open my beer and started reading my mail. As I was laughing out loud from stories from friends both here in country and those back home in the states, I thought about how not much in the world could compare to that moment in time.

Mail is such a wonderful thing. I do not think I could have been any happier then at that one moment in time. Laughing out loud I got a lot of looks from other locals enjoying the beach. It really made me miss everyone, both PCV’s and everyone at home. It is so nice to hear stories from home. I know to everyone at home they think oh well nothing new is happening here, but even just hearing about little stuff at home is a big deal here. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning getting every present I wanted.

I woke up this morning and found out that Jessicas new little puppy that I was to watch is very sick. It seems to have real hard time breathing, has thrown up everything in its stomach, and will not even lift its head for food. I suggested we cut up a piece of penicillin and give it to her. Hopefully it will make her better.

I am not sure what today will have in store for me. I think at some point I will head to Leniae Palms and get an ice cream cone or two. I need to make sure my dairy intake stays up so that when I go back into Vila and treat myself to a phat brownie Sunday from Jill’s, I do not get sick. It is very common for PCV’s to get sick when they come back into Vila; due to the fact that while at site there are no dairy products. Then you come back and eat cheese, milk, ice cream and everyone gets sick. I figure if I eat ice cream every week or two I should be able to keep enough dairy in my to keep me from getting sick in Vila.

How did we end up here?

2007-12-10T00:21:00.000-08:00

So somehow I always want a peaceful night at hoe and end up undertaking some grand adventure. Last night I headed over to two volunteers house, where we made some vegetable and cream cheese sushi rolls, drank wine, and attempted to play clue. They decided it was time to watch a James Bond movie and I decided it was time to go back to the Formule and go to sleep. After the 20 minute walk back to my hotel I was ready to sack out for the night. As I walked through the hotel I hear, “hey look what the cat dragged in! Perfect timing we are heading out!” To which I responded “Sori Fren, bae I go long slip nao.” (Sorry friends but I must go to sleep now.) Well some how I allowed them into talking me into just going out for one beer. This was at 2230; I finally went to sleep at 0530 this morning.

We started off at the Waterfront where we got our groove on. The band was happy to see us back there, as we were the life of the party the night before. The previous night we danced until the place closed down. They even came up to me and Bridget after we were swinging and gave us each a shot. I asked “from wanem?” and she said because we were the best dancers out there! To which I replied, “mitufala i stap danis nomo, hemi no gat wan narafala man i danis long placia!!” (We are the only two people dancing!) She laughed and gave us out drinks. I hope we were not that bad? But this night the place was full of tourist and so we danced a little but decided to head down the road to the Voodoo bar.

As we left a man said hey you going to Voodoo? I will give you a ride. So we climbed into the back of his pickup and headed to the Voodoo. We danced until about 0330. I am not sure how, but not one person from our group bought drinks that night. Every time we headed to the bar someone bought a round for us. I met all sorts of interesting people from various places. Each one with there own interesting story as to why they were in Vanuatu.

We ended up getting a ride home from the same guy who drove us to the Voodoo. Wow what a ride that was! Once back to our hotel we decided it would be a good idea to go swimming so the four of us climbed in the pool and did not get out until sometime after 0500. I love this group of volunteers. Everyone is up for anything.

Well after getting a few hours sleep I got up and started packing up spices and gear to take to my site on Monday. I must say I am a little worried about the ship ride to site. I think it is about a 24-36 hour trip. This is not like a ferry in the states or Europe. But I will say more about that after I make the journey.

Well tonight we had heard about the water dancers and some fire dancers doing a performance at The Sebel, which is a very nice hotel. I walked out the back door of the Sebel into the pool yard that over looks the ocean and Irriki Island. I looked around at all the well groomed people in their nice designer shirts and dresses. I quickly realized that I was way under dressed. As we walked down the steps to the pool there was a waitress holding tray of beer, and then a waitress holding a tray of beer, and a third with red wine. We walked past as I we knew that those drinks must be expensive. The four of us laughed as it all seemed so strange. We looked like a bunch of dirty hippies in the middle of high society philanthropy. Well next thing I know a gentleman is getting our attention and telling us to come the steps. I had a feeling our luck had run out and he was about to say I am sorry but you must leave. I would have said okay and left. But No! He says here grab some wine or beer or champagne. Then they came by with platters of shrimp and other tasty little treats. I was in complete awe. Why was this happening? Well after about 30 minutes of being there someone asked us what table we were at. Ummm… table? That was our cue for exit stage left. Apparently it was a private affair for some vary wealthy business owners. Oh well. We had a great time crashing their party. I am still amazed that we lasted there as long as we did.

Swearing in and saying goodbye

2007-12-10T00:20:00.000-08:00

Well training has come to and end and we are all now official Peace Corps Volunteers. We had to go through a swearing in ceremony which seemed to take forever. I heard from the staff that this was the longest swearing in ceremony that they could remember. All in all it was a great day.

The day started by Mama blong mi gave me a new island shirt. I was confused as it as different then all of the other swearing in shirts and dresses I had seen. Well it turns out there was some confusion among the Mamas and some used one pattern of calico and others used a different one. I like mine the best! It is bright orange with a map of the Vanuatu islands on it. I then found out that my tarti (grandmother) had made me a custom, ceremonial mat to wear. We were all supposed to wear these and do a custom dance with Chief Mormor, but again there was confusion so not all the Mama’s made the mats. I felt like my Tarti had put all that work into making it I should wear it. I do not know how to really explain what it was. I guess you will have to look at the pictures online for this one. Otherwise, just think grass skirt.

At the beginning of our ceremony we all walked down to watch some kustom water dance. This was performed by a group of women up in The Banks (northern islands.) It was absolutely awesome!! Again this is going to be hard to explain. So the women who are wearing traditional mats around there waists, yellow leaves around there biceps, and a green lei of leaves around there neck. Kustom ceremonies always look straight out of national geographic. The women walk into the ocean and form a horse shoe looking circle. Then, one woman starts the beat by moving her hands through out the water. She is then joined by all the women doing the same rhythm. Swoosh… Boom… splash… splash… splash… swoosh… boom… splash… splash… splash… It reminded me of the Broadway show Stomp, where they use all household items to make music. The music made by these ladies was awesome! It was truly amazing to see and hear.

They do dances that celebrate various things in the sea, including dolphins. I am not joking that in the back ground of them making this dance, there was about 5 spinner dolphins doing double flips and jumping in and out of the water! This is the same spot that we swim in everyday, but this is the first time I have seen dolphins there!!! Truly amazing!!!

After the dancers were finished we headed back to our seats to begin the long line up of speeches. There were speeches given by the Chief, the Chairmen, our Country Director, local dignitaries, and U.S. Ambassador to Vanuatu, PNG, and the Solomon Islands, Leslie Rowe. Through out the speeches we had some entertainment provided by my group of trainees. We made a little skit about survivor. Then we did superlatives, i.e. Most likely too… I wont go through them all but my two were: Most likely to have his feet look like Dan’s at the end of service (Dan is in our group and has the grossest feet you have ever seen, and with all my feet injuries mine are on there way!!!) The other was most likely to show up at ALL VOL (all volunteer conference) with my beard braided into a Namba. We then sang parody of the 12 days of Christmas, which was the 12 days of training. It was pretty funny.

At the end we stood up and put our hands on our hearts and gave the swearing in pledge. It was official, we are no longer trainees!!! We then headed down to have kava with the Chief. By the time we had walked down to the kava there was already a full line of PCVs waiting for Kava. Now luckily I had been given advice from a volunteer who swore in six months ago that the old volunteers had drank all of the kava before any of the new volunteers could have any! Well that was not going to be acceptable to me on our swearing in day, so I had talked with the Chief and the Chairmen the previous day and told them that I thought that was rubis fasin, (Rubbish Fashion.) So we decided that the kava was to be Tabu until the new PCVs, the chairmen, and our language trainers had a toast of kava with Chief Mormor. A few old volunteers were like hey the line is over here. Ummm… yeah sori fren (sorry friend) new volunteers drink first in this village!

We then had a big kakae with all types of lap lap, yams, beef, pig, fish, pumpkin tops, cabbage, and a bunch of other goodies that I can not remember now. After we finished eating we put on a little fire show for everyone and then a group of young men from a nearby village performed a ceremonial war dance which was pretty awesome! Very intense! I think I may have been a little scared from their intensity. That is until they finished the war dance and then grabbed pompoms and started line dancing. It looked like they should have been an opening act for the Village People or a cabaret in the Castro. This place never stops amazing me.

Well once the pompoms were put away we fired up some tunes and started dancing. When I say some tunes I am referring to the five songs that they all love, Babylon, Akon, island paradise, Hips Don’t Lie, and string band! All night long was the same song over and over. But what ever, we danced our hearts out. So our dance floor is just crushed coral about 25 yards from the salt water. Now there may have been some tuskers that helped motivate us to dance until 2 or 3 in the morning. The little kids out lasted all of u volunteers. I think they were still dancing when I got up at 7.

At one point I started pushing my friend Liz. I was trying to grab her arm and push her to the side. She was getting irritated thinking that I was just being mean. But I swear all I was trying to do was move her out of the way of the sea snake that was slithering through the middle of the dance floor. These things are very poisonous! It was probably not the best idea for me to try and pick him up from right behind his head. As soon as I touched him he flipped around towards me. At this point a Ni-Van saw what was going on and came over to help me get him off the dance floor and back to the ocean. Only in Vanuatu can a deadly snake slither through the dance floor and not disturb the dance. Everyone just kept on dancing while we got it out of the way!

The next morning was a little rough. We had to load our gear up at 0700 and then say goodbye to everyone in the village. They lined up and we gave hand shakes, hugs, and kisses all the down the line. I think the entire village was there. I got to my Mama and she just had tears running down her face. She was absolutely the best mama in the village. I am really going to miss her a lot. If anyone ever comes and visits me here we will spend a couple days in Mongaliliu so you can meet them. I picked up Asana my little sister and threw her in the air trying to break some of the sad tension. It helped a little but man; even right now I can feel the sadness from missing them. When we got to the end of the line we climbed into the bus. As we drove away the Mama’s, Papa’s, and all the pikininis followed the bus and waved until we were out of sight. It was like straight out of a movie. I mean things like this just do not happen in real life. I tell you what, you want to feel loved, then come be adopted by a Ni-Van family!!

My New Nakamal

2007-12-10T00:19:00.000-08:00

The Nakamal experience in my village is pretty amazing. First off let me just say that everything in middle bush revolves around Kava. We typically head over to the Nakamal between 1530 and 1630. The late afternoon is simply known as “taem blong yumi.” (It’s our time.) If someone says this to you then you know it is time to go drink kava.

Let me first describe what my Nakamal even looks like. Most Nakamals in Tanna are situated close to a large banyan tree. Ours is huge and provides shade to a majority of the Nakamal. There is actually a natural swimming pool at the top of the banyan tree; there is also a small three sided structure that everyone sits at to storian. They also use this for when it rains, as a storm would not prevent them from drinking kava! The rest of the area is open dirt surrounded by hedges and trees. There is a small log spilt in half used as a table for wash out food.

When I first arrived at the Nakamal I was worried about what this was going to be like, but it was such a great experience. Everyone sits around and storians. Now then this is kustom Kava so the men chew it here. At first I thought for sure that I was going to be drinking the spit from young boys, but this was not the case. Kava is a root and the men first clean it with coconut husk. Then they take big bites out of the root, it makes this crisp crunchy sound like biting into a crisp apple. They then chew the kava, turning it into a pasty mush. Once they have chewed it into a mush they spit it out onto a leaf.

So I laughed so hard to my self when I first sat down. These guys have roots hanging out of there mouth which is filled with as much kava as possible. It reminded me of Chubby Bunny, the old 4-h game where you have to fill your mouth with as many marshmallows as possible a then say chubby bunny. I think I was reminded about this because even though their mouths were filled to capacity they were not going to let that stop them from talking to me in Bislama! So here I am new to there language and they make it even more difficult for me by talking with there mouth completely full. It defiantly amused me.

So when they spit chewed kava on to a leaf they count how many people are there and divide it equally among everyone. Well that is not totally true. If they lots of kava then everyone will drink a full shell, but if they do not have that much then the chief will always get a full shell and then as a guest they would make sure I was taken care. After that they would divided the rest. Even if I was to try and argue and be like no I only want an equal share, they would not do that. They will always make sure that a guest gets the best kava, the best food, the best cut of pig, etc, etc etc. They are truly amazing people.

After they spit the chewed kava out they are not allowed to touch it again. Only a boy you has not started shaving (pre-pubescent) is allowed to “was” (prepare) the kava. Also if you have slept with a woman you are not allowed to touch the kava either. It basically means that only pre-pubescent boys are clean enough to make the kava for us. The boy then takes the appropriate amount of kava for one shell and someone else pours water into his kava and he begins to wash the kava. The final product is then drained into a single shell. I think kava is so good here because it never sits. They make it and then you drink it. When you get kava in a ready made Nakamal it has been made in bulk and could be sitting for a couple of hours.
The chief is the first person to drink his kava followed by any guests and then everyone else. I am not sure how they decide whose turn is next. When you drink your shell you are supposed to say a prayer to god and then you drink your kava ns when it is gone you spit and then sing out. When you sing out you are respecting your ancestors and praying for them too. This is kustom religion here in Tanna. My Chief has actually blocked church from my village, Kustom nomo!!

After you drink your kava you go grab some food off the table that the men’s wives have prepared. As an unmarried man I can eat as much of that food as I want because I don’t have a wife to make me diner afterwards. I try and grab a respectable amount and sure enough they always bring me another big piece of lap lap or pig. Which I gladly accept as it would be rude not too.

As people begin drinking the kava you can tell that the sounds of the Nakamal disappear. By the time the last person drinks his kava the place is silent. People head off and sit by themselves and build small fires around the Nakamal. You then sit there and pray. I find this to be a great time to mediate and just think. I can’t even think of half the stuff I have thought about in one week. But I know I had some in-depth inner monologues going on. One thing for sure, I am going to have lots of time to be able to think about what my beliefs are on evri samting. (Every something is my favorite term in Bislama, you don’t say everything, you say every something. I find if funny.)

At a certain point you will see one fire get a very bright and then you know someone is making the maca, which is the second round of kava. Again these shells are huge! They are about five times as big as the ones in Vila. People begin to leave at various points. There is no pressure to drink kava but I can tell this will be the place that I am most effective. There is one man here named James who is an intellect. He loves to talk about history of the US and of Vanuatu. I think I am really going to enjoy talking with him.

On a side not, women are not allowed at the Nakamal. SO much as to if they see a girl they will throw rocks at them...

I hear there is a tropical depression

2007-12-10T00:17:00.000-08:00

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!

Halloween mo Walk about

2007-12-10T00:16:00.000-08:00

Wow has it been a while since I have written anything in my journal here. I guess the last time I wrote anything was just before Halloween. So I will try and pick up from there. I know I am going to miss a lot of the emotions that I have gone through, but that is okay. So on Halloween, we put on a celebration here in Mongaliliu. We did face painting, carved pumpkins, set out mats to hand out candy (it did not take long for the pikinini to learn those famous American words: Trick or Treat!), made a shark Piñata, and us guys dressed up in the girls Aelan Dresses. I think everyone had great time that night.

The next night was Friday and we had another Tantric Yoga class down by the beach. This has been a Friday night custom that I am really going to miss when I go to site. When we finished class we sat around playing with fire and storian.

Well Saturday was the big day. It was time for walk about. My Mama woke me up at 0500 so that I would not miss my flight. I think it was very nice of here, but because I had just gone to bed at 0455, I was not exactly ready to get up. Luckily for me, my truck was not leaving until 0830, so I was able to get in a solid 1.5 hours sleep. Leaving for the airport everything seemed so surreal. Noa and I boarded our plane and we were off to land unknown. We arrived about an hour later in the Lenakel Airport where we were met by Noa’s future counterpart and two other volunteers that are currently serving in Tanna.

My site is in middle bush. Middle bush is not exactly what I was expecting. My site is about 1,000’ elevation and it sits on top of a large plateau. Well the first day was spent hanging our and storian with the locals in the village. I will tell you that I was very worried about my first nakamal experience here. I had heard the stories of the gigantic shells of Kava and I had been having serious reactions, like gagging. I had also heard about how they chew the kava here. Well I must tell you it is the best Kava I have here in Vanuatu.

So here is the Nakamal experience: It is large open area covered by an ancient banyan tree, there is a small covered area for when it rains, and men build small little fires to storian on by. When we arrived we sat down and began chatting with some men. We did this while they chewed the Kava. So here I was worried about understanding Bislama and I find out that I will spend every night trying to learn Bislama while they have there mouths overflowing with branches and roots of kava being chewed in their mouth. I mean they actually have sticks hanging out of their mouth. What they are trying to accomplish here is turning the roots into a mush that can them be washed by the young boys. They make one shell of kava at a time and the shell is huge. Imagine the largest coconut shell you have ever seen, that is what they use to drink the kava. In Vila we drink 100 vatu shells that I have to choke down with about 5 big swallows. This kava is about a 500 vatu shell and it takes about 1 minute to drink the whole thing. Luckily, it is the best kava I have had. It goes down like water. After you drink your shell the mood changes. Everyone begins talking quieter and quieter. Then after the last man has drank his kava, everything goes silent, expect for the locust which take there cue and began wailing there songs in the bush. By the way no woman are allowed in the Nakamal. It is men nomo. In fact if they see a woman walking by they will throw rocks at them (or so I have heard, I never saw a woman approach the area.) The women do contribute to the Nakamal experience by cooking food for there husbands to bring and share with the other men. After we drink our shell we grab food that the woman have prepared and we wash out the horrible taste of Kava with some good aelan kakae.

Tantric Yoga in Mongaliliu

2007-10-30T17:46:00.000-07:00

I am sitting here in Mangis about a 20 minutes hike north from Mongaliliu. This place has become our little sanctuary away from the village. It is a short hike and it is a beautiful sandy beach under some huge trees. A few of us set out hammocks up and take turns taking naps on this lazy Saturday afternoon. I do feel a little productive today as I helped my Mama make some Pima Coleslaw. The Pima Coleslaw has earned a permanent place among my condiments at my dinner table. It is nice and HOT!!!

As I woke up in my hammock with my book lying across my chest I thought back on how wonderful this last couples of days have been. On Thursday after lunch we divided our group into those who are teacher trainers and those of use that are Regional Training Center Advisors (I am an RTC Volunteer). Well the teacher trainers sat through yet another toktok, while we headed up into the bush and began building a karen (garden.)

When we arrived to the spot it was about 2 feet deep with vines and shrubs and plants. You could not see one inch of dirt due to all the plants. So we worked in pairs to clear out a section of land about 40’ by 40’. After we cleared the lot some of us headed a little deeper into the bush and began cutting down trees using our bush knives. The ideal tree was about 20 feet tall and about 3 inches thick. We then hauled these trees back to our empty lot and turned some into fence posts and the others into rails. You may be wondering what we used for nails? Or more likely it never crossed your mind, so I will just tell you. We headed into the bush again and found a special tree that we cut down and peeled the bark off of to make rope. We then took our straps of bark and tied the fence rails to the fence posts. It was really one of the best days that I have had here. When we finished we all sat around admiring the work that we had completed as a team.

At one point we all learned a valuable lesson from one of our fellow trainees. He thought it would be a great idea to clear out more bush and expand the garden even more. Well at this point we had already spent a grueling two hours clearing the bush and everyone was tired and trying to catch a little shade before going to get the trees. So he tried to rally the troops and got a little snappy with us saying “COME ON GUYS!” WE NEED TO CLEAR THIS BUSH OUT LETS GO!” Well I don’t respond well to people telling me I need to do anything, especially when they are not doing anything themselves. So I grabbed my bush knife and said “I am sorry, is something wrong with your bush knife, because you are more then welcome to use mine!” To which he replied oh well I have a blister. Lesson is: Don’t tell people to do anything that you are not willing to do yourself!

When we finished we headed down to the solwota and spent the rest of the afternoon playing in the water and watching the sun drown into the ocean. As I sat there watching the sunset and started getting emotional at the thought of this wonderful place. I am so lucky to be here in Mongaliliu. This place is amazing and so are the people who call this piece of paradise home. In a week I will be heading off for my wokabaot to my permanent site. Being in middle bush is going to be awesome, but I am going to miss the ease of walking 100 yards from my house down to the solwota to swim or just watch the sunset.

Well that night the chief came and got me and told me he wanted to take me and his host son up for some kava and storian. He bought a shell for Brian, McKenzie, and me. This shell was filled to the top, so it was more like two and a half shells. He talked about how we should drink kava by looking at the moon, saying a prayer, and then drinking it in one go. I had a hard time getting it all down but did manage to do so. A little later McKenzie asked if I wanted another one, to which I “should” have said no. But of course I said sure. My body was revolting before I even started drinking it. And after I did drink it my body was just a little angry at me. I had to walk into the bush where my mouth watered with the anticipation of throwing everything up that I had just drank. I managed to keep it down and came back to the group where I had a great conversation with the chief. I felt bad that I had been out so late and wanted to get home for dinner.

When I got home there was no food sitting on my table which I thought was very strange. Maybe mama was upset that I was not there earlier. Well it turns out that it was Jackie’s seventy-second birthday and she is my cousin by way of host families. So we headed to the chiefs house and had a big feast. I love how family gets together for anything here. It always has such a warm feeling. It is a good thing too because as Jackie found out it is tradition to have a bucket of water thrown on you for your birthday. My grandmother said come here I think your dress is dirty, while Jackie’s Mama came up behind her to dump the big bucket of water over her head.

My Mama then asked me oh when is your birthday Kaltao? I told her but then said but I am save (understand) to their little game. My grandmother laughed and said she was going to throw it through my bedroom window which is about three inches from me head. I told her on November 16th I am going to close and lock my window, to which all the Mamas laughed.

Well all day Friday we looked forward to our Friday night debauchery. We were to start the night off with our first Tantric Yoga class followed by a fire and hanging out on the beach. Well I was just sitting down to diner with my Ted Laelarula ,(my aunt Bridgette) when my papa walked up. I had literally just scooped my dinner on my plate when he asked me “ Kaltao, yufala i kakae i finis?” (Have your finished eating?) I told him no and he said good and that I needed to come drink Kava. I told him no, that I did not want to go. I recounted my horrible experience form the night before and explained I needed a night off. He told me that my grandpa had already bought it for me and he was waiting.

Well how do you tell your grandfather no? Here, you just don’t! It would not be kosher. So I pushed my plate back and headed up with my papa to go to hoas blo papa blong Noah where the kava was being made. I am glad I went, as this was one of the best kava nights I have had. Not so much because of the kava but more so because the sense of community and the camaraderie that I saw and felt there. It was absolutely amazing. Noah then pulled out some wine which just hit the spot. It is really nice to get the kava taste out of your mouth. I talked with the Chief about the white men who I saw in the village earlier that day. They are from the TransPacific Real Estate Company. There are a lot of land disputes in Vanuatu right now. So this is a very hot topic. Pis Kop is trying to do a lot of education on the selling of lands right now. There is no way we are going to stop the locals from selling their land. Our goal, or the goal of many of us, is just to make sure they are making educated decisions, hoping that that they think about the needs of their pikinini before just selling the land for a quick buck. In Vanuatu they have a saying graon i laef. (Ground is life) With out ground you have nothing.

I looked at my watch and realized I had five minutes to eat and make it to Yoga. I told one girl I don’t think I am going to make and to apologize to Jani because she was really counting on me being there. But it was just out of my hands. Well I go to sit down and my Mama walks up and tells me that the dog ate the entire diner off the table and that she sent my papa to go get more beans and tin meat. I told I wanted Rice only (rice is the only thing the dog did not eat, and I was fine with just having that, especially after all the Kava.) But she insisted that I could not eat just rice. So I had to wait for my papa to go to the store and bring back the beans and meat. I scarf’d it down and then excused my self from the table. I felt a little bad about eating and running but I really wanted to make it to Yoga

I made it just in time. There were actually a lot more people there then I had expected. In our morning yoga we usually have only 4-5 people, but tonight we had about 20 people. I think most were curious about the myth behind Tantra. I am so glad that we had such a great turn out. We gathered in a circle and used our kerosene lamps for light. It is hard to explain exactly what we did, but I think the main thing was to take you out of your comfort zone and become vulnerable to the others in the group.

Some of us volunteered to make an inner circle in the group, where we faced out towards the rest of the group. We would spend about 3 minutes with the person in front of us before the outer circle would move to the left. While the person was in front of you we had different task with each person. The first person we just stared into each others eyes, looking to see the beauty or divine light in that person. As we rotated the circle the tasks turned to telling that person all the things you fear while they listened. After two minutes or so you listened to what they feared. As the outer circle rotated around it went on to telling what you loved, hated, etc. It was a truly wonderful bonding experience.

We then broke into groups of four and took turns walking around a person in the middle whom kept there eyes closed while we whispered things in there ears things that we loved or admired about them. We did this until everyone had a turn. I think this came at just the right time for our group as different clicks start to get frustrated with other people in the group. It was such positive experience and I am looking forward to us doing it again.

When we finished the yoga it was time to play! Jani had ordered some fire Poi and we were going to put a show on for the rest of our group. I think they were all amazed, but more importantly though, it just felt great to play with some fire. There is nothing like the sound of fire whooshing past your head while big circles of flames leave trails of light buzzing around you. I love it!!! I am going to look for something to blow fire with next time I am in town.

We then just sat around a beach fire sharing stories and laughing. That is until someone came down with a pile of mail! You have no idea how nice it is for volunteers to get stuff from home. I don’t think it even matters what is inside. Just getting that letter or package feels so good. Thank you all for the letters that you have sent. Please keep them coming. I promise there is mail heading your way too. I hope all is well.

Lukem Yu,

Kaltao

PS- Big thanks to Marcy, Monica, Tracey, mo Lex for the packages. I can’t tell you how much myself and all the volunteers appreciate it. Although, I think we all ended up with tummy aches. Thursday night we are making a Halloween celebration here, so I am going to bust out that package of Candy Corn for all the pikinini. I am sure they are going to love it! We are also going to carve pumpkins, have apple bobbing, and one volunteer made a shark piñata!

Kokonas Krab

2007-10-23T22:31:00.001-07:00

Once again, my mama made some great dinner. So my aunt Bridgette and I stuffed our selves. Well I had to use the small house after, so as I excused my self from the floor, Bridgette gave me some crap about not coming back. Last week, I had gone to the small house and did not come back for four hours, because I ran into some volunteers and headed to the salwota with them.

I assured her that I would be right back. Well…. On my way back I leaned over my neighbor’s wall to say good night and they offered me a plate of coconut crab. Well I have had mixed emotions about coconut crab because some people say they are becoming endangered. But this was already dead and it would be wrong to not honor the crab by eating it. OH MY GOSH!!! It is so sweet! Coconut crabs have huge claws that they crack open coconuts with (or your arm if it is in the way.) Because of their fruit diet they have very sweet meat. Mmmm…. About 30 minutes later Bridgette came walking by and of course gave me a little more crap about not coming back home. OH well, I could not turn down the crab.

My Papa and Brother went out the next day to try and catch some Kokonas Krab for us, but they got scared by a wild puscat and ran away before finding any crab. Luckily my grandmother had gone out and grabbed some snails and hermit crabs for dinner. I know, I know. Half of you are going that is disgusting and the other half is saying Hmmm? A little garlic and some olive oil and wa la! The hermit crabs are huge. There claws are only a little smaller then the red rock crab we get back home. The sea snails are amazing too. I was eating them thinking man I wish the “crew” was here to enjoy these.

Well the rain persisted yet another day. I am sick of the rain. I did not even want to go to school today. It did not help that all of the pikinini had the day off because of school. It seems only fair that we should get the day off too. I ended up just staying in and storian witem family blong mi. We sang some island songs and talked about some land disputes going on near by. Land disputes are a big thing here right now. It is a shame to see people sell off their land for so little money. A lot of volunteers ask themselves the question of why these kids need to learn English. They grow their own food, they take care of each other, and they will probably never leave their island. One volunteer explained it best when she said that she teaches these kids English in hopes that one day when someone comes to try and buy their land that they can make an informed and educated decision on whether it is a good idea or not.

Well it is now Tuesday night October 23, 2007 and the sun is back! What a beautiful day. Of course I had a full day of classes so I did not get to enjoy it as much as I would have liked, but I still managed to get some ultimate Frisbee at lunch. I also had a chance to talk to Kevin George about my possible site. Now all this can change tomorrow, but it sounds like I will be going to the middle bush of Tanna.

I am excited about Tanna because it is fulap witem kastem mo kuljer, (It has a lot of Customs and Culture,) more so then any other island in Vanuatu. It is also home to Yasur (google it) the largest volcano in Vanuatu. They talk about having ManTanna there. Which to my best guess mean it is full of machismo. The women have many taboos and are not allowed to go into the Nakamals. If the men want to have a meeting they merely say women yufala I mas go nao, (You women must leave now.) I believe that Tanna gel I drea aontop ( The Tanna women do not wear any calico up top. No shirts, No full island dresses, only grass skirts.) I imagine it being very National Geographic like.

The only down fall that I see so far with middle bush Tanna is that it is in the middle of the island, so I would be about a 2 hour walk from the solwota. You can tell that I am already spoiled here in Mongaliliu. I only have to walk about 100 yards to be down sitting on a rock next to the solwota. I guess that a two hour hike is better then a two hour drive though. I am looking forward to finding out for sure if this is going to be my site. Kevin told me he should know for sure tomorrow, which by the time I send this it will be tomorrow.

I hope everyone is well and please keep the emails coming. By the way apparently there was a typo in my volunteer email. The actual email address that you can send me emails to while I am in the bush is volunteer@vu.peacecorps.gov You can send me emails here and the office will print them and bring them to me at the training village. If you had emailed me before at the previous address and wondered why I never responded it is because it was not a good address.
I hope to hear from everyone.

Ale tata,

Mi Lukem Yu,

Christopher Flyr

Sandei afta Nguna

2007-10-23T22:30:00.001-07:00

Well it is Sandei (Sunday) night here and I am lying in bed typing another email. There has been a lot going on since my last entry. I had written my last entry while sitting in the Pis Ko office. I always feel rushed using there computers, because there are only 5 of them and a whole lot of volunteers waiting to use them. As I left you last time, I was just heading out the door to go to the “Saloon.” We were told about its great American style food and beers, and that they would have the series on. Well we piled into a taxi van, which gave us bus fair prices, so we were pretty stoked. This place is on the outside of town.

As I walked through the old saloon style doors, I could not laugh to myself as I thought what in the world is this place? It was about as cheesy as it comes. The bar stools were saddles and they have a talking fish on the wall (rolling… rolling…. Rolling on the river!) Turns out that they do not serve food and do not even have a TV! So we stood in the road for a bit till a bus picked us up and took us into town to Shooters. The buses here are just mini vans and they cost about 100Vatu to go to most places. We had a good lunch at Shooters. The food is okay, but the company was great! We ate with several current volunteers who gave us some valuable insight into what life is going to be like in our villages.

On Thursday we were divided into groups based on our language skills. I am in the intermediate group. A couple days earlier, when Bob from DC was here he told about how he hated all the people in his group that picked up the language like they were natives. Well I fully understand what he means now. It actually put me in a bad mood and made me a little antisocial that day as I buried my head in my Bislama books to study. I know it is just an ego thing and I needed to get over it. The nice thing about Vanuatu is no matter how bad of a day you are having, you are still in Vanuatu!!

Well Friday did not start off much better for me. During my first session of the day I found out that I will most definitely not be going to South River, Erromango. The day before Kevin George (Country Director) met with the village and they are going to wait till the next group of volunteers, so they may have some time to grieve. They also have a custom where they will have to burn his house down. I understand that this is probably best and I knew the entire time that there was a chance of me not going there. But mentally I was already there. I had been researching the island, preparing myself for the 8 hour walk and so forth. So when I got the news I felt a little deflated. As of right now I do not have a site. Wokabaot is in 2 weeks, so I imagine I will have one by then.

Friday night we went to the local public school here in Mongaliliu for a fundraiser event. It was a 200 VT to get in, 100 VT for a shell of Kava, and 200 VT for some aelen kakae. They had several performances by the pikinini and from some villagers from the island of Lelepa. Even the rain did not stop us from having a great time. The kids sang songs and did various local dances. The adults from Lelepa did a song that they acted out, about Father Christmas. (A littler early I thought for Christmas stuff, but then I remembered that Halloween is next week and you guys probably already have Christmas crap on sale at your local retail store!) We danced with all the pikinini in the rain for about two hours. Besides the fact that everyone was fully dressed, and the music came from a keyboard that made everything sound like a 80’s Nintendo game, and there were no hippies or drugs, it really felt like it could have been Woodstock. Dancing in the rain must have some therapeutic benefits. I felt like one of the little pikinini. The Mamas loved it! They are still talking about the white men dancing. The next morning it was the first thing I heard from Mama blong Elin, is oh you must be tired from dancing all night. Well I was a little tired and the fact that it was 0600 when I was talking to her did not help.

We had to be up early so that we could catch a truck to the Nuna Island. The truck was to pick us up at 0700 and with all the rain I would have been fine if we had just cancelled. Why is it raining so much? Well there was the first Cyclone of the season up in the Banks (the most northern islands in Vanuatu.) It apparently dissipated before getting to far south, so our trip was still on.

Well the truck did not get here until about 0830. This is standard around here and to think that anything is going to happen on time is a waste of frustrations and emotions. We loaded our gear into the back of the pickup and climbed inside. We were piled on top of each other and because they had covered the back with a tarp to keep the rain off of us, we began sweating instantly. Luckily they pulled over about 30 minutes into the trip and took the tarp off. The rain was way better then sweating, plus this way we got to see where we were going.

We arrived at a small wharf about an hour later where we all piled into two small boats. These boats took us across the sea to the island of Nguna. We were heading there to go to another fundraiser put on by the volunteer in that village. Once we got to Nguna we had to hike up hill into the middle bush for about 45 minutes. Her village was incredible. They had a small prayer and toktok when we arrived and then gave us lunch. Mmmm… I love the aelan kakae! We then headed down to the tourist area which is on top of some very steeps cliffs that head straight down to the breaking waved below. It was beautiful. It reminded me of the northern California coast like, except for the sea foam green colored water.

Later that night they had a BBQ and a string band came and played for us. Ahh…. BBQ. We had BBQ chicken and Steak! The steak was so good! We looked like a pack of starving wolves taking down a baby lamb when they brought another plate of steak in for seconds! Mmmmm…

After dancing and sitting by the fire for a while we all retired to our nice comfy concrete floor that we were sleeping on. We are required by Peace Corps to take our government issued life jackets with us anytime we get on a boat. It is kind of a pain, but they double as a great pillow for occasions like this. When we woke up in the morning it was still raining and about half of the group opted to stay at the center while the rest of us hiked up to the top of Nguna.

Nguna is a inactive volcano. They told us it was an hour hike. Wrong! The trail was up a bush road. If you asked me what a bush road was yesterday, I would of told you it is just a trail. Well that would not do justice to what a bush road really is. A bush road is a path that goes in the most direct route from point A to point B. It does not matter what is in between. There would never be a switch back on a bush trail. If you want to get to the top of the mountain you walk straight up it. This is exactly what we did. They had just cleared this trail for us a few days before we arrived. The hike started off in the heavy bush which is rain forest like conditions. Every once in a while we would come across a volcanic rock wall. These walls have been here for who knows how long. We believe that they were once used for terrace crops by the early NiVans.

Because the trail was freshly cut there was cane stalks sticking up from the middle of the path, about 4”-5” high. I was worried the entire time about slipping on a wet rock or grass and having one of these stalks pierce part of my body. Well after about an hour of walking through the jungle like conditions we ended up out into the tall grass.

The grass was taller then I am, but every once in a while the wind would blow it down and you could look out and see the ocean and other islands. Did I mention there is was a cyclone in the northern islands? This is the worst weather Eddie (the current Mongaliliu volunteer has seen in his 18 months here.) Well after the 2 hours we finally made it to the top of the hill. The sky was grey and raining pretty hard, but the first of us that made it up there got a chance to look inside of the crater.

The crater looks like something straight out of Jurassic Park. There were huge palm trees and thousands of floral plants. It was truly beautiful. I took a couple of pictures but I am not sure how they turned out yet. Well the last half of our group showed up about 6 minutes later. Now I feel bad for this group because even though they were just 6 minutes behind, they only saw grey clouds in any direction. Visibility changed from a ¼ mile to about 20 feet! I made every ones day when I pulled out some starburst gummy candy. After a good hike everything just tastes better!

Well we spent about ten minutes there before we turned around to hike straight back down. Well some of us hike others I think slipped and fell there way down most of the hill. By the time we got down to the village it was time to get straight on the boats and head back to Mongaliliu.

Well, this email turned into five pages so I cut it in half and turned it into two attachments too hopefully make it easier to read. I hope all is well back home.

Ale, Lukem Yu

Christopher

Five Day Ceremony for John Roberts

2007-10-23T22:29:00.001-07:00

Wow what a weekend. First off I want to thank everyone that has been writing me. It is so nice to hear about things on the home front. Although, I will admit that yesterday we had a man from Washington DC here to talk with us and at the end he asked if we wanted to know about anything going on back home and frankly I did not.

He came out here to deal investigate that situation with John Roberts. He talked to me for a while about where my thoughts were. It sounds like I am defiantly going there. Last night we had a five day ceremony in Mongalilu. Like I said before they mourn for five days. So last night we had a feast and ended the crying for John. From today on people are to be strong again. It has been a warm and heartfelt few days. These people are so amazing. It is obvious that we make a strong impact on them.

The Chief of Mongalilu gave a great speech about how we are his children and that we were born once in the United States but when we come here we are reborn into a new family. They do this same thing if a NiVans comes from another island. That way you always have family there. When you are adopted into the family you are truly treated like family and they will take care of you as one of there own. On the flip side of that you may also fall into taboos that come with being a family member, like not being able to hang out with your older brother!

I have posted some pics of my Mama, smal sister, mo smal brada. They are so amazing. Anyways, I digress. So we had a feast last night. It was full of all sorts of aelen kakae (Island Food.) The night before the trainees had to help prepare the food. The first part of preparing the food was catching it!!

We started by chasing around the chickens! They do not keep their chickens in a coop so this is harder then you think. We lost one chicken into the bush. I ended up taking a tree branch to the head that instantly drew blood. I know have a fat scab across my skull! We learned from the natives that we don’t need to catch it the nice way. That if we can throw a big stick at it and kill it then that is just as good.
Luckily for us we managed to just catch them with the help of some pikinini. Well once we had three chickens, it was time to learn how to kilim i ded (kill them dead.) One man from our group grabbed the chicken and went for the grab its head and twist approach. This seemed like it work pretty well till he tossed the “dead” chicken on the ground and it ran away. Luckily a pikinini caught him quickly again. He then held the chicken by the legs, in one hand and swung a stick at its head with the other. Every time he swung with his right hand he lifted the chicken up with his left and would miss. It was very funny.

The next guys to try and kill the chicken went with the grab the chicken by the feet and swing his head into a tree. He kept hitting the body of the chicken, which does not kill them very quickly. I ended up jumping in and lending a hand. I then did the last chicken the same way. Two solid swings on the tree and the chicken is ded I finis.

Well after killing them it was on to cleaning them. We were shown on one chicken and then left to do the other two. I did one myself. It is a good experience to clean your own food.

Later that night we helped prepare the manioc, wild yams, and other aelan kakae. Afterwards I went up and watched Home Alone! I know I know. On one hand it seems so primitive and on the other I have some serious luxuries!!

Well yesterday we started off with some bislama classes and then I went for a wokabot witem Elin mo Dan. We walked up to the Chiefs house. He is my Chief Papu because it is my grandfathers brother. We just missed them sacrificing the pig for the feast. Apparently they kill it with three solid hits in the head with a 4 inch thick stick. (Dad how many shots to the head did it take you to take down our pigs?) I told all the men about how we killed the pigs at home and that that one pig we killed five times before he decided to die. If they don’t use the stick then they take a sharp knife or stick and stick them under the front shoulder near the armpit.

We then helped them clean the pig. We shaved it clean so that we could bury him in the ground, Hmmm… It is making me hungry just thinking about our dinner last night. Well we ended heading back and being late for our class. Luckily, they still had two pieces of chocolate which the three of us split (hint hint hint, volunteers loves American chocolate, again that is American chocolate to
Christopher flyr,
PMB 9097
Peace Corps/ Vanuatu
Port Vila
Vanuatu
South Pacific)

Well after all of our classes it was finally time to go up for the ceremony. I have never seen so many people in Mongalilu. We started off with some speeches from the Country Director, our Chief, and the Chief of South River. Our Chief made an offering of food for the people of Erromango, the 19b (Johns PCV group), and those of VDKA (an RTC group.) The rest of us were to eat off of the main buffet table.

But first we must drink Kava to celebrate John. So I went over and grabbed my first shell. Well it was in a big glass and was really about two shells. I then grabbed one more with fren blong mi Noah. Then as I was storion with him mama blong mi came over and said You must go eat now, if you don’t go eat now there will be no food left. So I left Noah and went over and filled my plate.

I started by slicing two big fat ribs off of the pig! I then went down the line filling my plate with wild yams covered in coconut, island cabbage, some laplap taro, fruit salad with papaya, banana, and coconut, curry chicken wings, green beans, stuffed bell peppers, a lot of fish and a nice fresh squeezed lemon aid to wash it all down.

Well as I just finished filling my plate, I was approached by a member of the South River Community. He asked if I was done eating and I said no I have not started yet. He said very good. The Chief of South River wanted to have a shell of the special kava given to them by my Chief. I went over and drank two shells with them and then storion with them. They then gave me some of their ceremonially kakae. It was laplap with a big slice of pork tenderloin on top! Mmmm… I asked the Chief if he liked Kava. He told me that before he would drink it, but he does not drink it any more. But because this was a ceremony for John that it is a respect factor that you can not turn it down.

Well when it came time for them to leave I stood up. WOW!!! So here is the thing about Kava. Your head stay sharp and clear. I really felt nothing until I stood up. But after I stood up I realized I was walking at a 45 degree angle. I was glad to hear that some people were heading down to the nakamal where we have class. It is right next to the water.

We hung out there watching the stars while Noah from Hawaii played the Ukulele and sang songs. It was great!!!! I feel like I am always at summer camp here. This place is amazing. I went to sleep at about 11 pm.

I woke up at about 5 am this morning. I just laid in bed looking out my window at the palm tree blowing in the wind. It was very windy this morning. So windy that at one point when I was like wow I have never felt the wind blow my house and bed like this before. Well turns out there were a 4.8 earthquake this morning.

Well I am going to leave you know. We are heading down to the saloon to have some American eats and watch the series.

Tradgedy in Vanuatu

2007-10-23T22:27:00.001-07:00

Well we went to class this morning only to be presented with some bad news. One of our fellow Peace Corps Volunteers in Vanuatu was killed yesterday. He was helping the village do some clean up work. They were apparently cutting down some branches out of a tree. A young boy was in the tree cutting a small branch that fell and knocked down a larger branch. That branch fell on top of both John (PCV) and a local NiVan from the village. Both of them were killed instantly. John will be flown back to the United States on Sunday. His body will be accompanied by Jane our Peace Corps Medical Officer.

The village is mourning the death of both of their brothers. When our PCMO went out by helicopter the village had already dressed John in his best clothes and have given traditional mats and flowers for the his parents back home. They also tried to give them the biggest pig in their village (this is a huge deal in Vanuatu, pigs are a sign of wealth and status, so giving one away is about the ultimate sign of respect here), The helicopter pilot had to refuse though.

As is custom in Vanuatu, no work or play is to happen until the body is buried. The teachers have canceled all of our classes for the day. We sat around talking about what had happened for about an hour and then said a short prayer for John and his family. The PCMO then pulled me a aside to go for a short walk to storion.

Even though I have not met John, I probably know more about him then anyone else in my group. John is the Peace Corps Volunteer that I was to replace in Erromango. SO every chance I have had to talk to a volunteer about where I am going I would always ask about John and the village. They would always laugh and say “oh john…” and then tell me some funny story about him. The PCMO is concerned about how I feel going there after all of this and that if I have any real concerns that I need to voice them before I go.

I know from the Peace Corps point of view they are going to want to get some one in there. The villagers are already concerned that this will ruin their relationship with the Peace Corps. I was to be the last phase of the 3 phase project in South River, Erromango. It is a pretty heavy weight to bear. I have a lot to think about. It will be some big shoes to fill and I worry about how the villagers will respond to me after this tragedy. Deep down I already know the answer. When I interviewed with the Peace Corps I had refused to put down where I would like to go, or not go for that matter, because I wanted to go where ever the Peace Corps felt like I was needed. Well that seems to becoming obvious here.

Tomorrow we will go into Vila to have a memorial for John and storion with other PCVs that knew John best. I have talked to the PCMO and we both agreed that it may be good for me to write a letter to John’s parents and let them know about the stories I have heard about John and that if they need a liaison between them and the villagers of South River, Erromango that I would be honored to do so.

I am not sure if this will make the news back home or not. I am sure that in a couple of days that you will be able to google it and find some stories. There are already people from Washington heading this way to talk to the volunteers. There are about 3-4 deaths a year in the Peace Corps, that is out of about 8,000 volunteers.

Mongaliliu October 6,2007

2007-10-23T22:26:00.000-07:00

How is life back in the states? Life here is great! Each day gets better then the last. It is nice to be able to catch what people are saying now. While I still have a hard time speaking bislama I am understanding more and more each day. It is Saturday night here right now. Mitufala I jas kambak long haos blong fren blong mi Ryan. Mitufala I long storian mo lukem family guy. I just got back from my friend Ryan’s house where we talked and watched the Family Guy. He has a Television and DVD player at his parent’s house.

This village is probably one of the wealthiest villages around. Although, I hear at my site I may have a government issued solar charger and 12 volt battery because my site runs the short wave radio for the entire island.

I have managed to get in the water almost every day. It is so nice to wake up and go snorkeling before school. I am the first person in my group to see a shark! I was swimming along the reef and came across a 4’ reef shark. It was absolutely beautiful. Very majestic. You could tell it had a certain confidence that only a shark has in the ocean. It just strolled through like it owned the place. It stayed around long enough for me to get the attention of two other volunteers. We were all pretty stoked to see it.

Our days have been filled with sessions and language lessons. Everyday at lunch the mamas make wan bigfala kakae ( a big lunch) for us. We have started playing ultimate Frisbee on our lunch as well to get in a little exercise. Some days we play in the rain. It is fun while we are doing it, but we pay the price when we have to sit in class all soaked through to the bone.

Today I took a walk with Papa blong mi (my papa) down to Mangis. This is a sacred site that the world heritage project is trying to make into a world heritage site. They would have tourist come through as part of this to help bring money into the village.

On Sunday we all went to Jej (church) and sang songs in their local language. After church we ate and then went back down to Mangis to hang out for the day. It is sucha nice place to hang out with some big trees creating a blanket of shade over some soft sand about 25 feet from the water. A couple of us set up our hammocks (such a great invention!) and took some power naps while listening to other play the guitar and ukulele. We played some Frisbee, climbed the trees, threw around a football, and swam in the sea.

While I was swimming in the ocean I found a cool little tunnel in some of the rock/coral. So I swam down one side of the rock and started pulling my self threw the rocks upside down (don’t worry I did not drown!) As I got to the other side opening, I grabbed onto the rock and pushed myself out with a little force. Well I think I pushed off to hard because I came to a quick stop when my right shoulder slammed into a rather large chunk of coral behind me. As the blood started coming out, I instantly thought of the shark I had seen. Getting cuts in the salt water here is not like at home. At home we say oh the salt water is great for it. But here the water is so warm that it allows bacteria to grow in the salt water that is not good for cuts. Yeah, my first real chance to use my medical kit!!!

Last Thursday we had a jam making session that was fun and educational. We ‘attempted’ to make two type of jam; one coconut jam (more like coconut caramel) and one popo jam (paw-paw, papaya.) We made these starting with the fresh fruit. The papaya we had to scoop out and mash up before mixing it with the water and sugar. The coconut is a little more complex. First you must crack open the coconut. This is where carrying around wan bigfala neif (our bush knifes) come in handy. I am getting pretty good at this. You actually crack it open with the blunt side of the knife.

After you crack it open, you must scrape out the meat of the coconut. Once you have all of the meat scraped out, you must squeeze the milk out of the milk. We did this by putting the meat in a piece of calico, rolling it up like a burrito, and the twisting it like you are wringing out a wet t-shirt. After we spent an hour doing this we added water at a 1:3 ratio, along with the sugar. It was not until a few hours later when we were sitting around the fire, trying to cook the jam, that we realized that we were not supposed to add water to the coconut. So the coconut jam never set. I will have to make some later because it seems like it would be a nice treat on some island bread.

The popo jam did turn out and between Laelarula (Bridgette, my Peace Corps aunt) and myself, we have managed to finish a very large jar of it in about 5 days. It was nice sitting around the fire cooking the jam. While we cooked the jam, we sang songs. With 23 people we can get through a lot of full songs. We have some great guitar players here so they would back us up if they knew the tune.

It has been nice to have another volunteer to eat my meals with. For one, it is a big security blanket. I always know that either the two of us can talk in English or we can explain something if the other does not understand what my host family is saying. I say my family because we eat with my mama or my papa, sometimes her mama will join us (her mama is my grandma), but if her papa joins us, that means my papa can not be any where around.

This culture has some very interesting customs. So it is disrespectful for a man to be near his father in law. He is not allowed to talk to his father in law. If they are in a town meeting and the son in law wants to say something to the father in law, he has to speak through someone else. If you are walking down a trail and the father in law is coming the other way, then the son in law will walk into the bush where he can not be seen until the father in law passes.

The same goes for siblings. If I was to get married then my sister would not be allowed to be friends with my wife. They could say hello to each other but that is about it. If my sister and I were talking and my wife walked up, then my sister would have to leave. Brothers are not allowed to play with each other after about age twelve or so. Most of these customs came about from Chief Roi Mata in a time of war. He set many guidelines that are still followed today. Many of which are very hard to understand from an outside perspective. It is too bad because my Papa is really cool and so is my grandfather. It is a shame that we all can not kakae (eat) together.

Yesterday we went to help build a smal haos (toilet) for the local public school. We had to get empty bags of rice from our mama’s first. One girl asked what an empty bag of rice was and the smart ass in me came out and said it is a bag of rice that is empty. My trainer who is a NiVan could not stop laughing. Well we found out quickly why we needed these empty bags. We had to walk down to the solwota and fill them up with sand and then haul them back to the school. I took three trips to the water and carried four bags. Those years of moving around bags of feed came into play quickly here.

As I was sweating down the trail passing other volunteers I shouted out “who finally feels like a Peace Corps volunteer?” It is the first time I actually felt like I have done something here to help. It is kind of frustrating to sit around in sessions all day talking about what we are going to do. Lets just do it!!!
We had played a hard game of Ultimate Frisbee just before going and helping with the smal haos. After helping them get the sand, we went on a walk to look at some gardens and explore the local edible fruits, nut, and greenery. It is nice to be outside of the normal classroom setting. On top of doing all of this, I managed to get about 45 minutes of Yoga in with some of the other Peace Corps folks. It felt good to get a good stretch on. We are planning on doing this every other day for about an hour. With such a big day I was exhausted. That night we sat around and toktok. After I ate dinner I was ready to crash out for the night.

Tonight I went down and sat by the solwota by myself. I just sat there and enjoyed one of our amazing sunsets. (Monica, imagine those conference room sunrises, but over water.) The clouds light up like they are on fire. They are such vivid colors of orange and red that it is almost blinding. I sat there and watched until the sky line changed from a beautiful sunset to a sky filled with stars. I can see a few more then what we are used to in Sacramento. As I sat there, I thought about everyone back home and wondered what you were doing right then. I then started thinking about all the strong friendships I have already established with my fellow trainees.

I think it is going to be a hard adjustment to go from the comfort of mongalilu to an isolated village far away from the other trainees in my group. When I thought about this before it has always been just a fleeting thought, but today it kind of sank in that I am going to be the only white man ( no political correctness in Vanuatu, either you are a white man or a black man, they just call it as it is) where no one will speak English. It is actually very scary. I am sad that I will be away from all my new friends.
But is that not why I came? I had a heart to heart with another volunteer about this and I was explaining to them that I think that is why most of us came here to begin with. We all are looking for the life experience that pushes us out of our comfort zone, which makes us question our own morals and beliefs in a way that we can not do back in the states.

I know there will be many hard roads ahead of me here, but for now I am here in Mongalilu where life is good. I eat good food. I play hard with good people. I storion with my family. I enjoy incredible sunsets. I eat fresh fruit everyday. I walk down the road and chop down chunk of sugar cane to chew on. I swim with sharks. I eat snails (I ate sea snails today at lunch, Mmmmm Mmmmm Good!) I play cards. I play other peoples guitars ( I am buying one tomorrow if I can find my wallet, yeah not good, I have no idea where it is.) I play with the pikinini. I sing songs.

Through out the day you can hear me say “I love my life!” I think that sums everything up here, I love my life. I so miss everyone back home and wish you could experience a little taste of Vanuatu.

Day two in Mongaliliu

2007-10-23T22:24:00.000-07:00

Day two in Mancalilu.

I woke up an had some gud kakae (good food) in the morning. We started our classes today. We had two Bislama language lessons in the morning and then had a speaker from the Ministry of Education. I could hardly stay awake through his talk. The class was at the Nakamal (meeting place) down by the salwota (ocean) and I was enjoying the view. After his long and drawn out talk, (it took one and a half hours to what I could tell you in about 8 minutes) we headed up to the Mango tree for lunch.

The Mamas prepare food for lunch everyday. It is so good, but I know I should not get used to it, because there will become a time when I wont be able to rely on their cooking. Some of the kakae we eat is: fried banana fritters with coconut butter on top, aelan kabis (island cabbage,) fruit salad with bananas, po-po (papaya,) and coconut milk, faol (chicken) prepared ten different ways, pumpkin with coconut on top, maniok, and Taro, plus ten different kinds of fruit juices.

After our big meal we had two more sessions that seemed to take forever. The problem with these sessions is that the people leading them are not good public speakers and they have a hard time conveying their message. Between sessions we did manage to get a good round of Frisbee in.
After class was done for the day I ran home and got m mask and snorkel and headed out to sea. Wow this place has some great diving. While there is not as much life in the water as NorCal, there is still some amazing things here. I saw a giant clam the size of a 17” computer monitor. Coral so white that it looked like it had diamonds on the ends glowing in the sunlight. I saw a strand of sea snake eggs and about three good sized lobsters. The pikininis are great divers too. We had about three kids swimming diving with us. Parents back home would freak out at what kids here can do. They go swim in the ocean at about 5 and 6 by themselves. They swing bigfala naif (machete) around as soon as they can hold one.

Later that evening I went and had some Kava with my uncle. It is much different here then in Vila. Instead of being at some business, it was just in the front yard where one of my fellow Pis Ko volentia lives. We sat out side and storion (told stories) while I stared up at the stars. In the early evening I have a great view of Scorpio straight over head and later in the evening I can see Orion, but he is upside down.

When I came home, my Mama put out dinner. After which we sat around, sang camp songs, and I did some magi tricks. The kids loved it. They just eat it up and are always toktok one more, one more plis. I was thinking that because of my big swim and drinking kava that I would get some great sleep. WRONG!!!!!

I woke up at a little before 1 am because one corner of my mosquito net had fallen down. No big deal, it only barley woke me up, but then I felt something crawling across my arm and I quickly swatted it away. My first thought was man that was a huge spider. So with my curiosity wanting to see it I grabbed my headlamp, not really thinking too much of it. Well what I thought was a giant spider and was big ugly handredleg (centipede.) I was about 6”or 7” long. You can guess how quickly I jumped out of bed. I had my Bigfala knife in my hand in no time and was no about to go on a hunt. I lit my kerosene lantern and put on my headlamp. I knew I could not just cut him in half because then I would have two angry centipedes on my hands, so I looked around and found a biohazard plastic bag. With the bag and machete in hand I went looking for the beast.

I found him on my mosquito net I a hit him with my knife. This made him very angry and he stood up on end preparing to fight back. Centipedes have a serious bite to them; with their gnarly poisonous pinchers they are pretty intimidating. I somehow managed to scoop him into the bag and I tied the end in a knot. Not knowing if he could eat his way through the plastic I put that bag inside of a dry sack and sealed that as well. When I hung that bag up on the hook I scared a spider about the size of a tennis ball and he went scurrying off. The spiders are harmless and eat mosquitos, so I was glad for him to be here.

Let me tell you, trying to go back to sleep after a giant centipede has walked across you is not easy. Every time I closed my eyes I could only see the hideous creature that I had just battled. I finally did fall a sleep and had terrible nightmares about killing a centipede with my knife and it growing two heads back almost instantly. I should tell you that I also took my melfoquin earlier that day. Some of you may remember the bad wrap melfoquin got back after Vietnam, when the three vets came home and all brutally murdered their wives? The only link between all three was the melfoquin. It can cause extremely bloody nightmares, so bad that some people have to be switched to doxycyclin. The problem with doxy is that you must take it everyday or run the risk of getting malaria. The melfoquin you only need to take once a week, so your chances of forgetting your pill and getting malaria are decreased.

Well I am laying in bed typing this out and I am still freaking out because I can here things scurrying about and I am afraid it is going to be another handredleg. But tomorrow we must get up early to go into Vila where hopefully I can send this out to you guys. Well good night. Me and my Bigfala knife are going to sleep now.

October 1, 2007

2007-10-23T22:23:00.001-07:00

It is 0333 on Monday morning, for everyone back home in California it is only 0933 on Sunday. Happy Birthday Cassandra. By the time I get into town to send this it will probably be a week late. I am laying in my bed of my new home for the next 9 weeks or so.

The day started with a lot of packing. It reminded me back when Jeff and I took our trip to Europe, trying to find the perfect arrangement of clothes and gear into a my bag so that I could be as streamlined as possible. I feel like a have a ton of stuff, but then I look at my colleagues and realize I have half of the gear that they do. In time I will see if they brought too much or I did not bring enough.

At 1400 or so (island time,) we climbed into a couple of buses (mini vans) and headed for Moncalilu. Moncalilu is only about 20km away but takes about 40 minutes to get there due to the steep hill and the horrible condition of the sealed road (pavement.) The crushed coral road is actually in much better shape then the sealed road.

Once we all arrived at the village we headed down the main road to meet the chief. We came to the village entrance where a man dressed in only a little grass mini skirt and a band of flowers around his head blew a conch shell three times. It was a very beautiful sound, what we did not know was this was the call to the warriors which interrupted the beautiful sound of the conch with there war cries has they bombarded our group. They ran at us with spears and clubs, screaming and crying. They did a great job of hiding as no one in my group had seen them. The group was made up of all men and some young boys. It was a great welcome.

We were then escorted by them to our chief where the country director and he exchanged ceremonial kastam mats. After some brief thank you talks and a short prayer we had an adoption ceremony were we all were adopted by a host family. I feel very lucky to have been put with the family I was.

They are a young family. My father, Sasa, is 36 and my Mama, Kathleen is 28. I have three Ti’s (siblings.) The oldest is Luke (pronounced with a strong e), age 10 followed by Asana, age 6, and then little Frances. Frances is only 2 but will surely be a future rugby player. He is like a little ox. Kathleen is also pregnant again and I will have another brother or sister in February.

Kathleen’s father is my Papu, or grandfather. He is also the Chiefs twin brother. I have not found out yet how his brother was selected over him. My guess is that his brother was born first. We all live on the same lot, which comes with great privileges like a light bulb on my porch for when the chief runs his generator. Don’t worry I do not have any other electricity in my house. By the way even though I live with a host family, I actually have my own traditional house to my self. So it truly is made out of coconut palms for a roof, woven bamboo for siding and a tree in the middle for a center support. My floor is made of woven mats. I have a raised bed, with a mosquito net surrounding it. There is one table (no chair) and a shelf. Oh and of course my kerosene lantern to light it up at night. I will send a pic when I get a chance.
Now while this was the first time I have ever seen or met my family, I know for a fact that that Noah has seen my Tarti (grandmother) and my Papu’s brother, as he is not only famous here in my village but has been on a major television show back home in the states. When Survivor was filmed here in Vanuatu they filmed it here in Mongalilu, actually right in my new backyard.

When the cast arrived by Cruise ship they sent out a canoe to get the new contestants. The person paddling the canoe is actually my host Tarti or grandmother. After the contestants came ashore they were greeted by my Papu’s brother, the chief. He only spoke to them in our local language (not bislama) and gave them a shell of Kava.

The chief also performed the pig killing ceremony and wiped the blood on the contestant’s faces. My Mama and the pikinini all laugh when they tell this story about how the people looked away in horror when the pig was clubbed to death. For them this is just life and there is nothing strange about it.

I did not realize when I saw that Survivor was filmed here that I would actually be living in the same village it was filmed. My family recalls the story while laughing and giggling. They have very fond memories of the Survivor experience. At least for the American version, two more Survivors were filmed here after, one being Australia and the other France. They said the Americans were the most hospitable. They hired the villagers for almost everything, would feed them the left over food, and left all of there tools and wheelbarrows behind for the villagers.

We discussed this over kakae (food/dinner) tonight in front of my house. My grandparents are also hosting a Pis Ko volunteer. So she instantly becomes my aunty, or in Bislama my Ted Bridget. We will be having most of our meals together as a family unit. It is a nice time to storian, or share stories. My Mama is great. Her sister told her to take the tulok down to the welcome ceremony for everyone to eat, but my Mama said no we will just let our family enjoy it! Just so happens that tulok is my favorite dish here, so both me and my ted Bridget were very excited to have it for dinner, along with some hot Lipton tea.

I slept pretty well, until about 0300 and then about 0330 the roosters began there first wake up calls. It is now about twenty to five and if I do not fall back a sleep I may get up and go for an early morning swim before class. The ocean is about a 45 second walk. Ahhh yeah! What a life!!!!

October 1, 2007

2007-10-23T22:23:00.000-07:00

The Nakamal

2007-10-23T22:21:00.000-07:00

After our first day of class we decided to venture out and meet up with some current volunteers at one of the 133 Nakamals in Port Vila. The Nakamal is the local Kava bar. Kava is the national drink here in Vanuatu. Only in the city can it be enjoyed by both women and men. Once out in our villages only the men will be able to enjoy in the Kava. In fact a man at he cultural center ask you know what it means when someone says “its my time” or “its 4:30 do you have time?” Both of these refer to heading to the Nakamal.

Well in our hopes to meet up with the current volunteers we ended up at a different Nakamal. The Nakamal is distinguished by its colored light in front of the business (home.) This Nakamal had a green light and as we got closer we could smell the Kava. Even though the volunteers were not there we opted to stick it out instead of going back out in the rain.

This Nakamal did not have an amazing view of the ocean but instead was an enclosed back yard with benches and tables. They are set up so that a small group between 5 and 15 people can sit around and socialize. You do no drink the Kava at the tables. You head to the drinking area, say a small prayer or find your place of inner refuge and then chug your Kava. After spitting out the bad taste you head back to your table and enjoy the conversations of your friends, whether they are old friends or friends you just met.

On this night I had 3.5 shells of Kava and was definitely feeling the effects. At one point we lost all eliktrisiti. So the owner brought us a candle and we continued to enjoy our socializing. After a couple of hours there is was time to eat. So we headed in to Vila and went to Shooters.

Our days in class seem long and can drag on. I am looking forward to learning some Bislama and being able to put it to use. During lunch yesterday I went down to Mamas Maket and had lunch with some other volunteers. The Maket is amazing, like I said before it is about the size of Denio’s produce area except it is in a square. The Maket is open 24 hours a day except Sundays. The reason it is open 24 hours a days is that it you never know when items will get there.

After lunch half of the group headed to the cultural center. It is a small museum about the size of the California Indian Museum. The ol fala gave us a tok-tok on the history and culture and various issues they are having in passing down the oral history’s. Due to Christianity many of the traditional stories and kastams are being lost. The cultural center is trying to get these histories written down and preserved.

It was at the Cultural Center that I started to feel vary ill. I ended up with a 102 degree temperature and a very bad sore throat. The nurses took care of me and after about 12 hours of rest I feel much better today. I still have a sore throat but at least no headache or fever. I had some crazy dreams through out the night about an old friend in DC who offered me an electric blanket but then I ended up outside, sleeping on a door step. I think this was because of the fever. I was sweating the then freezing. Good times!!!

After I finally got up I went outside and talked to a couple of the guys staying with me. They told me how much I was missed at the dinner last night. We then ate breakfast and left for class at about 7 minutes till 8:00. The ol fala in front asked if he could be dropped off first and we said no problem. Well what is normally a 5 minute drive took us 35 minutes. The gentleman who asked to get dropped off first needed to go to the airport which is in the opposite directions. A couple of the Ol Falas with me were a little disturbed and I head to explain, hey its island time. I love island time!!! Nothing here starts on time. It is very hard to get used to as an American. I still feel rushed sometimes to get somewhere on time but end up getting there and waiting 15 minutes. That’s island time for you.

Well today I learned a lesson in the grocery store. I bought some snacks including some cashews. What I learned was that you should always look at the price because those cashews cost me $16-US.

After lunch I had my interview you with the country director. His name is Kevin George and seems like a genuinely great guy. During my interview he told me that it was between two island for me and more likely (80% chance, though neither him or I could tell what 80% meant besides that he was 20% unsure.) of heading to Erromango. The post at Erromango would be about the most remote Pis Ko post in Vanuatu.

On Erromango they do not have any vehicles. I would be dropped off at the airport and then hike in about 8 hours to my site. The nice thing is that the village is on the coast and I would hopefully be able to do some diving. I must admit it is a little intimidating to be that remote. There is one more volunteer on the island and he is about a 5 hour walk from my possible site.

I also found out more about our training. I will be in Port Vila until Sunday. On Sunday we will be trucked into our training village of Mongalilu. This is about 20km away and takes about 45 minutes to drive down the crushed coral road. While in our training village you can write emails to me at:

volunterr@vu.peacecorps.gov

Make sure to put Christopher Flyr 20B in the subject line.

They will print this out and bring it to me in the training village. I can then write down on paper and hand back to them and they will type it up and send back to you. It would be great to hear from everyone.

Hope to hear from everyone soon,

Christopher Flyr

Second Day in Port Vila

2007-10-23T22:20:00.000-07:00

On my second morning in Port Vila, I woke up around 0600 came out and sat on our balcony for a couple hours. The place we are staying in is a B&B so the owner brought out a full spread for us. We had baguettes, Nuttella, jams, and honey, along with some bangers and a little sausage that reminded me of chorizo. Then there was the plate of fruits, papaya, mango, grapefruit, little bananas the size of fat fingers, and breadfruit. Breadfruit is wonderful.

After breakfast we headed down to the water were Ryan and myself went for a swim. The water is so salty that a literally was floating on my back with my hands resting behind my head, just as if I was laying on the grass to take a nap.

Due to everyone being spread out in Vila, we decided the night before to meet up at Irriki resort. There is a free ferry that takes you to the island and runs 24 hours a day. The ferry picks up next to the Mamas numbawan maket, which is the largest “farmers” market in Vanuatu, about the size of the produce area of Denios. This too is open 24 hours a day except on Sundays when they are closed.

So the resorts are free to use as long as you buy something. And no one is coming up to you asking whether you did or not. The beer is expensive at about 400VT about $4-. But when you factor in you are using there five tiered swimming pool it makes it well worth it. We stayed there through out the day. Just as we were about to leave a massive dumping of water came through so we all opted to give another 400 VT to the bar tender and sat out the heavy rain drinking another tusker.

Yeah I know, 3rd world developing country, so apparently in the Peace Corps world they actually refer to us as the BEACH CORPS. I can not describe to you how beautiful this place is.

Later in the evening we ventured out to the rainbow nakamal. Kava is almost an expected event, at least for the men. The women can only drink Kava in town. But in the villages this is how most things get accomplished, drink some Kava and talk with the local chieftains.

Today was our first day of class. Nothing too exciting, until lunch that is. Because it was our first day they had a huge potluck of local food. There was so much food, I tried to take one bite size portions so I could try it all, but still only made it half way down before my plate was full. A couple of the dishes were kind of bland, (lap lap) however, everything else was amazing, tropical fruit salad, baby coconut, some tulak, which reminds me of a hearty stew but in solid form. It was incredible.

Vanuatu

2007-10-23T22:15:00.000-07:00

I am sitting here in Auckland, New Zealand waiting for my connecting flight to Port Vila Vanuatu. The flight from LAX was just under 13 hours. I must say Air New Zealand has to be the nicest airline I have ever flown on. Every seat had on-demand entertainment. So I watched three movies, had access to pause when needing a bathroom break or a stretch. I managed to get about 3 hours of sleep in as well.

I met up with my Peace Corps group (20b as we are known) in Los Angeles just a couple of days ago. It is amazing that we have 23 people in our group from all over the United States, from Maryland to Hawaii, again from 21 to 72 (her second time serving,) and instantly we act like we have known each other forever. The comfort level is incredible amongst our group.

We did two days of orientation in Los Angeles. This consisted of mostly PC (Peace Corps) protocol and regulations. There was also some great unintentional team building. Some how I instantly became the tour guise because I was from California, it was hard for them to understand that Nor Cal is so far away from So Cal.

We have had our share of hiccups along the way. On the way to the airport we had a shuttle bus pick us up and deliver us to United Airlines. Well we found quickly, but not soon enough, that we needed to be on United Airlines sister company, Air New Zealand. Well our shuttle bus was gone and now we needed to get 23 people to the opposite side of LAX with two carry on and checked bags each plus a guy with two surf boards. Not an easy feat. Along the way we had to take an escalator downstairs. As easy as that sounds, they we doing construction on the bottom and there was little room. I was the last one done and had to run up the escalator because I could see person after person falling on top of each other with no where to go. No one was injured and most of us laughed pretty hard about it.

In LAX they told us we could not check our bags all the way to Vanuatu and would need to claim them and go through customs in New Zealand. Well it turns out they should of checked them and we did not have to go through, but because we had to claim our bags we needed to stand in the customs line of the largest airport in New Zealand to retrieve our bags. While standing at the very end of the line I saw a sign that said flight crew and diplomats. Hmmm… worth a try? So I headed off to the diplomatic line, where there was one flight attendant ahead of me and passed right on through. I explained to the guy the situation and that 22 more people would head in behind me. Fastest customs experience of my life!

Well that brings me to sitting here in the airport where I just had a spicy salmon role and a kirin beer to wash it done! Life is pretty good. 8 hours from now I will be arriving in Port Vila and that is when the real adventure begins.

Well like always things do not go as planed. We all decided to check in right when the crew arrived and good thing because it took us two hours to get our crew through. While we never had an issue on the other flights here they are very strict about the weight of your luggage. And to make it tougher you can not just pay extra to get it on. So we had to rearrange many of our bags. I was okay but my carry on was two kilos over weight so I had to empty a bunch into my check in bag. The flight was pretty good. I was in the back of the plane against the wall that does not allow your seat to recline back. But the stewardesses were great. I have never seen so many drinks served. When they finished serving drinks they started over again with more. I had some NZ wine, which left something to be desired, but then I saw that Brian a fellow volunteer had ordered a Tusker which is the Vanuatu national beer, and more then it being the national beer it is the only beer. So if you don’t like the taste you learn to like the taste. I think it is pretty good. Reminds me of a Heineken. Being at the back of the plane did have its advantage. Turns out the exit is at the back of the plane, Dale and myself were the first to down on to the tarmac enjoying the first sights of our new home. Holy Crap is this a dream? There was a group of people yelling and waving at us (I think?.) Turns out they were some volunteers and staff there to greet us. But before we could get to them we had to go through customs again. The line zig zagged back and forth and then out the door. Then I remembered we are NOT visitors, we are now residents so we got in the line with one other person! Feels like we are kings here.

After grabbing our luggage we headed out side and were welcomed by the staff. After being here only one hour I was Leigh’d! They gave us some beautiful flowers made by one of the local mama’s. They then wrapped us in a very colorful skirt and handed us a coconut with a straw. What a life!!

This place is amazing. After a short tour of town and an orientation, where they gave us 16,600 VT for spending money we headed to our hotel. Unfortunately we are all split up. So the women are in one hotel and then four guys at another and four of us on the outskirts. Of course being the farthest away as its advantages. We are staying at a place called a room with a view. I am currently sitting on a balcony looking out to the bay. If I had a sling shot I could hit the water.

After a short shower we headed over to the Nakamal (kava bar). We got there just in time to see the sky turn fire red. Is this real? Seriously! I can not believe that I am here in the Beach Corps, I mean the Peace Corps! I had a four shells of kava and a couple of tuskers. The kava is made from the peppercorn family and tastes like peppery wheat grass. Instantly my lips went numb. It is hard to describe the feeling. I would tell you that son the voices dropped and we were all wrapped up in conversations and admiring the view of the ocean below us. I LOVE this place. After spending a few hours there we trekked about 3 miles over to L’Hostelete for dinner. Prices in Vanuatu are about as expensive as they are in California. For a small personal pizza it was 1,000 vatu, which is about $10US.
After dinner we headed back to our hotel.