Kastom Culture and More

The first picture was taken in the nakamal of David's first shave.

This picture was taken at the circumcision ceremony that happened after the boys had spent 3 months in the nakamal following their circumcision with a bamboo knife. The two young boys in the center are 8 and 10 years of age. The women are all relatives. A nakamal is a place where men drink kava, storian and conduct "kastom" business. Every family group has one and some have ceremonial significance as well related to sacred stones and other objects. The age at which the circumcision occurs depends on when the family has enough money to pay for the cost of the ceremony. Hugh amounts of food, pandanus mats and baskets, kava and pigs are exchanged. The pigs arrive at the ceremony alive and one of the men kills them with a big wood mallet. The meat is used to make a hugh feast afterwards. After the gifts are exchanged, the men dance and then the women dance. Afterwards, the women began preparing food for the feast which starts at night and finishes the next day. It started raining shortly after the dancing, so I'm not sure if the feast was delayed because it is hard to cook over fire in a rainstorm or if it is just the way things like this happen. I do know that one of the men stole some kava which resulted in a community meeting at which he was fined a pig and a stumpa of kava. In addition, there were accusations of black magic because it rained. I heard there was going to be a meeting about this but I'm not sure what the outcome was.

There are quite a few yachts that anchor in the bay and a lot of tourists passing through. I talk with some of them occasionally and sometimes share a drink or dinner with them. I've met some very nice people that I hope to stay in touch with when (or IF) the internet starts working again in the provincial offices in Lenakel.

As you saw from the first picture, I've got a lot of banana trees around my house, so I eat a lot of bananas. I also east a lot of papaya, manioc, kumala and taro. It is mango season now, but I suspect they'll pretty much be done by the time I get back though. By December, the pineapples will be ready and I can't wait. These are the best pineapple I have ever tasted. I hope to start a garden soon and during the rainy season, I think Jenna will start to teach me how to weave mats and baskets.

For now, I'm finding realistic expections for what can and cannot be accomplished in two years. I thought I had it pretty straight before I arrived, but didn't really understand the context of the work. I go into Lenakel every 3 weeks or so for some kava and beer and to storian with the other volunteers. It is my mental health break. Some of the best advice I heard was to set some goals and objectives, and keep them in mind while doing everything else that comes up. Sometimes I do say no to requests for help, but for the most part I look for opportunities to bring the goals and objectives into what I'm doing and not make what I'm doing solely about them.

In other words, finding the flow of life here, going with that flow while at the same time keeping an eye on where I'm going so I don't get too lost or off track.

US culture: When I left Vila I spent about 3 days in Lenakel on Tanna to celebrate July 4th with the other Tanna volunteers (John Roberts, Aaron, Erica, Kendal, David, Michael, Matt, Matthew, Brett, Jessica, Tony). Real potato salad, sweet potato pie, meat and beer and margueritas for some. All of it was good and I experienced something I thought only happened in cartoons. The piece of meet I put on my plate refused to be cut with a knife or with my teeth. When I put it in my mouth and pulled, it just keep stretching and stretching until, like a rubber band, it smacked me in the face. In spite of meat being a rare commodity for volunteers, I chose to give it to the dogs. And volleyball and a bonfire and ....

We then went to see the Mt. Yasur volcano in the evening on the way to Port.

Watching Trucks

The first picture is some of my family. Starting on the left and going clockwise: Marta, Rehab with Charlie (Silvie, the French teacher is his mom), Wendy, Tom, Mama Jenna, Pilot or Jackson. Rehab, Wendy and Pilot are Jenna's children. Tom is my "son", and Marta is a relative staying with Jenna while attending school. Not pictured are Samson Jr. and Sr. and Ester whom I've never met.

The second picture is Ellen in face paint for the circumcision ceremony.
Watching trucks - it is a national past time. Whenever anyone hears a truck they stop, look, wait, watch and then pick up the conversation where they left off. Sometimes people just sit beside the road and wait and watch the trucks, sometimes I do too. But, watching trucks is definitely something I'm getting good at. Along with walking long distances. I don't think twice about walking an hour to get someplace and I only think briefly about walking 2 or 3 hours.

Once I arrived back here, a lot of people asked me what I do. So, let me tell you. I do a lot of talking - storian (story on) and am building relationships. Sometimes we talk about how their business can come antap (on top) or improve using a basic budget and something that explains cash flow and profit. Other times we talk about how to start a business. And at others it is how to build up businesses, the local economy in such a way that it doesn't degrade the essential qualities of kastom and community living that makes Vanuatu and Tanna a place like no other. I also teach at the local school three times a week, help write letters, give workshops, help write grant applications, help develop business plans, and help people with their college class homework. I try to facilitate and not do. I do what they ask me to do and try not to tell them what to do or how to do it, although I will tell them what I think. I've talked with 13 people with existing businesses and another 10 who want to start businesses. In addition, there are existing projects (battery project, cultural center, Hurricane Ivy school rebuilding to mention a few), that require my support in various ways. I even teach a little about computers when the laptop is charged and people stop by - like at 9:00 pm the time the headmaster just got his laptop and the battery ran low and the message wasn't very clear and he was afraid he had broken it somehow.

Other people ask me if I am enjoying it in Vanuatu. Enjoying isn't exactly the way I would put it, but I can say that there isn't anywhere else I'd rather be or anything else I'd rather be doing. There are very, very good days and some very, very bad days and a lot that are just good or just bad and even some days where all of these things happen. I'm not sure I can explain how this happens because it is the little things that make the biggest highs and lows. There are some things I don't like, like worrying about rats. And some things that always make me smile like at night when every spider reflects my flashlight - glow in the dark bugs! Or when the land crabs just put their shell right where you always walk and make you trip or the way Jenna wrinkles up her nose asking me what I want without words. I'm learning to ask for more help and discovered the power of lollies (candy). If I want or need something, all I have to do is ask one of the pikinini and they'll take care of it for me - for a lollie. And, I learned that no one expects me to do everything that the mamas do - like cook, make roof panels, do my own laundry, work in the garden, clean my own yard. They respect me for doing it but tell me I don't have to!

I have a cat name Targe (like the way we say the name of the store, Target, when we're trying to make it sound fancy) and Tusker. Targe finally learned how to kill rats and so I think I'll keep her for awhile - and I hope she's still there when I get back. I knew she discovered rats when I came back from my once-every-three-week trip to Lenakel and found what looked like the largest, ugliest hair ball I've every seen on the floor of my house. It wasn't and then I knew what it was and my rat problem has been minimal since. Tusker was Larry's dog and as long as I feed him some meat he is my dog. For the most part though he belongs to Jenna and my host family first.

One last note on kava. When the men do any work on my house or garden, I buy them a stumpa of kava (a big root). When the women do any work, I cook something they haven't tried before and feed them.

There are 3 main religions in Port: John Frum, Presbyterian and Seven Day Adventist. There are some others in the area like Beloved and Living Water, but I don't know much about them. John Frum is an interesting religion and I suggest the following websites for a brief description. http://www.mircea-eliade.com/from-primitives-to-zen/196.html

See the next post for the last of my notes

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.