My New Home

This is my new home, hiding there behind the banana trees. It is a kastom house made of banana leaves, mostly. The floor is earth, covered in coral, then banana leaf mats and then pandanus mats. The day before I left to come to the US, the village put a new roof on it and it is made from, yes you guessed it, banana leaves. So there was one less worry about the trip here - nothing inside would get wet anymore!

I arrived in the states on the 5th or 6th - hard to say given I lived the same day twice, I think. The Peace Corps was very supportive, diligent, fast, and caring about getting here in time to see my mother. I had about 5 days with her before she died and now I'm wrapping up the last few details (like this blog) before I go back. I don't want to say more about this in a blog. Everything is disorienting about the trip from jet lag (the obvious), to lack of coconut trees, surf and kerosene lamps. It took about 32 hours to get here and only about 50 to get back. I'm hoping to find 2 Tuskers (the local beer) in the fridge at the hostel I'm staying at when I arrive as :33 am next Monday. Yes, there are people in the Peace Corps who take care of you. :-)

The people in my village now say I'm "woman Tanna" because I can make roof pieces (minaboy se nema in local language) long with the rest of the mamas and east some green things like tree leaves (napalanga) and weeds that only grow after planting yams. Yam planting season has just finished and it will be about 10 months before they are ready. Vanuatu yams are not like our yams. These are HUGE, long thick tubers that are pretty starchy, but very good boiled with coconut cream and salt. Yams or sweet potatoes are called kumala and some are very sweet. They're pretty good too with coconut cream and salt. As a matter of fact, just about everything is good with coconut milk/cream and salt. My mama (Jenna) makes simboro which is island cabbage with grated manioc rolled inside and then boiled (with coconut cream and salt added after it is cooked). It is also known as quanengyen in local language which roughly transated into Bislama means sit sit blong horse or in English horse shit. Ok, no more language lessons, but it is fun.

Speaking of language lessons, my son Tom (he refuses to call me sister mainly because that would make me older than him in the family and that seems to be untenable because I'm a girl), is learning English and asks me the most amazing questions like, "what is the difference between character, attitude and behavior?", or "what is the difference between prediction and prophecy?" or "what is philosophy?". He's doing a practicum in the village as part of his degree in divinity school and these seems to be burning questions in his understanding of explanations of the bible. Just when I think I'm forgetting how to use the English language myself, he pops by and lays one of these on me. :-)

Here are a few of some other memorable moments: Chief Ronnie asking me if all of the teeth in my mouth were mine (seems that being 51 with all of your own teeth is amazing); watching a man with a bush knife in one hand and a hatchet in another run in front of a truck clearing the bush away from the edges of the trail so it could get through; being asked to dance in front of 500 people to bring luck to the village futbol (soccer) team and then being hugged and kissed on both cheeks by the woman who asked; walking out of the classroom for grades 1 and 2, hitting my head on the low doorway and landing on my ass ---- for the 3rd time (by the way, the only word in Bislama for the soft posterior part of the body is ass); going home from a storian with the family of a chief and carrying not 1, not 2, but 3 lobsters for dinner and then having dinner with a French surveyor (conducting a cultural impact analysis as part of evaluating the efficacy of a wharf in Port Resolution) who just happened to bring 1 kg of filet with her because she knows protein is scarce - so steak and lobster!!!!

Well, the list goes on - like by brother Samson walking 2.5 hours to pick up a box of mine and carrying it back again - just because I didn't want to come back to the States with it sitting in someone's house for another 4 weeks (long story, won't go into it here). Or Chief Ronnie making a Tamafa for my mom - it is a kind of prayer or petition made in the nakamal by men only when they drink kava (which is also for men only). Hey, Samson tells me if his new baby is a girl, they are going to name it Sandra!!

Check out the next entry for more info and another picture.