Back From Walk About

I haven't made a post in a while because time in Port Vila has been limited, my google blog wouldn't come up a couple of times when I had the time and my Mom has been sick and I've been focusing my internet time on her and my family. So, to catch everything up to date:

In the training village, I learned a lot more Bislama and so if words in my blog are spelled strangely or my sentence structure has gone to hell you'll know why. My host family has showed me how to kill, clean and cook a chicken. I've introduced them to fried chicken. The trainers have helped us hone our bush knife skills by clearing a new garden with them. Clearing the garden consisted of hacking down trees, vines and everything else you can image in a tropical forest on a hill side and then waiting 4 weeks to go back in and plant glicidia (not idea how to spell it, just sound it out) trees because it somehow helps with both erosion and putting nutrients in the ground. Yes, I have a very good bush knife and I've become pretty proficient although it still takes me 3 cracks to get a coconut open. Other training has been pretty mundane and as an introduction to a variety of topics it is necessarily general. Other highlights of village life? Well, we've lost 2 volunteers so far who decided to go home early. There was a huge Mother's Day celebration that the entire village participated in. The mamas were called up by name and all of their childen gave them gifts. There were songs by the children, skits and cake for everyone. We also got see our first kastom wedding which was a 3 day affair. Lots of dead animals and animal parts, which was very good since protein is a scarce commodity. Lots of people, dancing, singing, crying. I'm being really brief because when I get to see a kastom wedding in my village, Port Resolution on Tanna, there will be a lot more to say. Tanna is one of the most traditionally kastom islands in Vanuatu.

I just spent about a week at Port and loved it and Tanna within about 20 minutes of arriving. Of course, it could have been the beer, but then again the feeling stayed with me the entire week. And thanks to Larry, the volunteer I'm replacing, I've learned that there most of the ideas I might have from the United States about what is proper have absolutely no relevance here.

Port was very nice. I stayed at the Yacht Club - now, don't go getting any fancy ideas about the accomodations based on the name. The bungalows were custom houses (pandanus and banana leaves) on a cement base. The bathroom and shower were in a cement building about 500 feet away and the top half was open to the forest, the sky and any onlookers who happened by. And, the shower was cold. They only turned on the generator for a little electricity at night after a couple of yachts dropped anchor in the harbor.

My kastom house does not have a cement floor, but it does have a veranda of sorts. It is in pretty good shape, but the roof on the kitchen house and the smol house/swim house (bathroom, shower combo) needs to be rebuilt. The toilet is a cement slab with a hole in it. Larry, the volunteer I'm replacing, has built a seat (of sorts) out of pandanus roots to sit on. It is starting to break down however and if he doesn't get it replaced before I go, we'll have a couple of weeks of overlap and I'll get his help to make a new one. There is no running water in around the house, but it is just around the corner, so taking a shower may consist of pulling a lava lava up over my boobs and squatting under the water faucet. A real plus is that Larry has actually landscaped the entire area around the house and keeps it immaculate. And, he has even set up an area for working out with heavy bags of coral for weights, chin up bar and other stuff that I'm not sure what he uses it for.

The village is called Irapow and has about 150 people in it. There are another 6 villages that make up Port with a total of 10 chiefs and about 500 people. The farthest village is a 45 minute walk away. Port is about 1.75 hours over a really rough road from Lenakel where the airport is. The road goes around the base of the volcano through an ash plain which is truly remarkable! The nearest volunteer is about 2.5 hours away walking. It is pretty kastom and has a lot of ceremonies going on. The Toka is happening this year - a 3 day dance with men and women each having different parts. You might want to google it to get more info. There are definitely parts that I do not want to be around for - you'll know them as you read info on it.

There are sand beaches all the way around the port - a black one, a white one and two others that finally have the waves big enough to surf. There are hot springs in the hill across the bay and boiling hot water bubbling out of the black sand. Me and my counterpart (Dorothy) and one of my sisters walked over there one day and boiled some eggs, bananas and napalanga leaves in the water, rinsed them in the ocean and had dinner.

My host family is really nice and mama, Jenna, reminds me of a big black nanny from the South. She's got 4 pikininni and a few others she takes care of ranging in age from 27 to 8, not including Larry and me. Turns out I'm her number one pikininni because I'm 51 and Larry is 1 year younger and so has become #2. And, the 27 year old won't call me sister and insists I'm his smol mama - so I've finally become a mother - in name only.

It has really helped having Larry to show me around and help me navigate the transportation and layout of Tanna. A lot of volunteers have had a rougher time on their walkabout. Some had to walk 5 hours to get to their site only to find out the village didn't even know they were arriving. Others couldn't get out of Vila because the rain made the grass landing strips on other islands too dangerous for the planes to land. Some travelled with chickens and pigs. Others had no bathrooms or swim houses but had a handy waterfall and stream nearby so were okay. One guy went boar hunting for 3 days! We're all chillin in Vila until tomorrow when we go back to the training village. But, we're all ready to start working now and the idea of cooling our heals for another 4 weeks is almost unbearable. I heard I'm getting 2 weeks of business training given by a 3rd year volunteer who is 20 years younger than me. Like that is going to be useful! I think I've got more practical experience than she has years alive. Do I sound like my patience with the training has been exhausted? Well, it has.

Lots of possibilities for businesses in Port and yet they need tourists, but to get the tourists they need a wharf which will require blowing up the reef. You see the challenges??? And that's not mentioning things like setting up a coop to sell things other than rice and sugar, dental care, crop rotation (so the kava will grow better), etc. And, there is a small problem with rats kakaeing money (kakae = eat).

Everything really is going well though I'm going to be hard pressed to get enough protein and will probably raise some chickens and might even buy a piglet to raise up just for a protein "feast" sometimes. So, I may be asking for care packages on occasion with all kinds of protein related things even if they come in a can (or jerky) as long as it isn't tuna, sardines, mackerel or cheap corned beef.

Port has no electricity, just a few solar panels for the telephone and the yacht club. And the internet in Lenakel is dial up and sending 5 emails an hour is the fastest anyone has every been able to do. So, I'm thinking snail mail..... And there's a July 4th party in Lenakel with all the Tanna volunteers I'm looking forward to.

Sorry if I'm jumping around - may be a sign that I'm missing something in my diet - like meat maybe???? There's plenty to eat and it is good, but it is yam (like our white potato) taro, manioc, kumala (like sweet potato) and lots of island cabbage and a few other vegetables. You can really fill up on it, but you have to eat a lot all the time to compensate for the lack of protein. And I just can't eat like that - so, why was I trying to diet before I came???? Join the Peace Corps, lose 20 lbs!

My sensibility about things has changed a lot and the idea of a hot shower feels sinful on one hand and totally unnecessary on the other. And, what was it I needed all those shoes for??? Barefoot is fine.

Rats are a big problem and I'm going to need to get at least 1 cat and probably 2. Seems that both Larry and the volunteer previous to him both experienced rats running across them while sleeping! So, my food stuffs have to be in heavy duty plastic containers or in tins. They've even been eating toothpaste and the plastic cooking oil containers! I'm inheriting Larry's dog, Tusker too. Tusker is all black and is about 1 year old. He's wonderfully friendly and seems to get along well in the village although there have been a few run-ins lately that has Larry worried. We'll have to see what happens. By the way, Tusker is the name of the local beer. It's cheap and will get you buzzed and it tastes like piss water - which I no longer notice. So yes, Larry likes Tusker and hence the name of his dog.

Well, not too much else going on. I'm redefining my relationship to Buddhism (right speech because everyone lies and no one expects the truth from you, and causing no harm because the rats, mosquitos and ants will carry you away if you don't get rid of them first, not to mention having to kill chickens and pigs occasionally), and to alcohol (since I can't drink kava on Tanna because I'm a woman, alcohol quite a nice alternative), and to underarm hair (why was it most women have been shaving for decades???). Well, I'm being a bit facetious, but this place really challenges why one does the things they do because a lot of it just isn't as essentially important as the basics of life - food, fun and people.

The people here have everything a human being could need or want. It is interesting to see the effect of outside influences creating need where none every existed before. So the wanting of more things (including better health and education) creates an awful lot of unease in people. Yet everyone freely acknowledges they have everything they need too. Let it roll................