Getting Into Things #1

Ok. Where to start? I’m in Vila for about 10 days for some R & R and a committee meeting on gender and development. So, the hardest part of updating this blog is remembering everything that has happened since the last time and then writing it. I’m doing better at keeping track of things and other than being time-consuming, the stories below were easy to remember. This is pretty long and I’ll post it in several segments.

I got back to Vila after being in the States and took about a week to recover. Lots of kava and sleep and only a small bit of work – which means about 50% of the time. I was a bit afraid of going back to site because I wasn’t sure I could handle the lack of running water, a pit toilet, rats and dirt. Funny thing was all of those things were easy. Every part of going back was easy. This is the first time I’ve been back to Vila in 4 months and before I left everything had gotten very hard. So I’ve learned what every volunteer here learns – take a break every 2 or 3 months. Four months is too long.

Everyone took good care of me when I got back, bringing me food, making new coconut leaf mats for my veranda and kitchen (half of which mysteriously disappeared one day), helping me carry bags and bags of coral from the sand beach to replenish the coral walkway between my house and my toilet. I’ve even found some mamas to drink kava with – all on the sly of course! I made a small garden close to my house after cleaning out all of the batteries, glass, plastic and broken sandals from what used to be a burn pile. My two sisters, Rehab and Wendy built a fence of coconut leaves to keep out the chickens and pigs and I planted butternut squash, zucchini and cantalope. If that darn volcano hadn’t been spitting ashes all over the place for about a week, I’m sure it would have done better. But I can’t complain, there are about 10 butternut squash and a lot of the people in the village are intrigued by this new vegetable as well as how I planted them. One family gave me a part of their garden to plant some other things like beans, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, cabbage and beets. Jacobed spent a couple of hours cutting down all of the grass and trees with her bush knife and the next day the two of us cleared everything down to the ground, turned it over and planted seeds. When I get back I hope to see something has come up and survived. Most seeds sprout in about 2 to 4 days – every kind of seed, but the soil has a lot of volcanic ash and it soaks up the heat of the sun and then proceeds to fry those delicate young shoots when they come up unless there is sufficient shade. Lots hope all of those banana trees in the area provide it.

One morning shortly after I got back, I decided to sleep in which means 6:00 am. I had just heard the first roosters which meant it was around 4:30 and the sky was starting to get light. I put on an eye patch (kindly provided by Quantas Airlines), turned over and was finding my way back into a dream when Pilot, my brother started playing his guitar and singing – loudly. I looked at the clock, 4:53 am (!), and started composing sarcastic comments – in Bislama which is no easy task. I got to the part where I started to say (in my mind) something like “don’t you know people are trying to sleep” and realized the whole politeness, privacy and personal consideration thing that we in the States based so much of our interactions on just doesn’t play here. The whole paradigm for singing and playing guitar is totally different here. Later, I just asked him what he was so happy about.

That same day, I went to the smol house (toilet) and notices a bunch of people hanging around in the trees on the other side of mamas laplap fireplace. Thinking someone was stealing a chicken or something I looked and looked and then heard my brother sing out calling me over. As I found my way through the bush I realized my mama, two sisters, Samson my brother and 2 other youngfala were standing around a dead pig, a big dead pig. It was one of Rehab’s mama pigs and I was afraid they’d found it dead. It turns out they had just killed it and were cutting it up. Samson walks up to me and hands me a big green leaf with an even bigger piece of pig loin laying on top of it. “You go cook, sista” was all he said. After thanking him I asked why they had killed the pig. It seems that the pig had a “strong head” and kept jumping out of it’s fenced in area. Since it wouldn’t stay put and behave itself the only thing to do was kill it. Being a strong head is definitely detrimental to your health, pig OR human.

I ate so much pig that day I thought I was going to get sick. I’d heard about the meat gorging that some volunteers encounter but thought they were exaggerating. They weren’t. Besides about 1 pound of meat that was still warm, Samson brought be a skewer with ribs on it a little while later. Within 3 hours, the bunya (all kinds of taro, manioc, kumala, leaves of different plants and trees, onions and yes, more meat all cooked inside a giant parcel of banana leaves inside a pile of burning hot volcanic rocks), was done and I got two big plates of food along with more meat. Just when I didn’t think I could eat any more, another plate of meat arrived at my house. And yes, I finished it too. By the time the sun went down and I was headed to the smol house once again I thought there just couldn’t be any more food coming my way. As I got to the toilet, Pilot handed me another plateful. Of course I couldn’t say no and I took it back to the kitchen. However, this one I fed to Tusker, my dog, who hesitated for about half an hour before he could eat any more. It was about 2 weeks before I could face the thought of meat again.