October 31, 2008

Going to Paama Island!

I leave for wokabaot (site visit) on Tuesday to check out Paama, my home for the next 2 years. It's a small island north of Efate (Port Vila) and south of Ambrym. Lindsay, the gal I met in Chi will be in Ambrym which is only an hour boat ride. I will also have a PCV about 30 min from me in Liro, Paama. I will write more and post pics when I am back.

I have heard/read up on Paama and it's known as the island of rats!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :( Since there are no snakes on the island (my mom will be happy), there is a rat infestation but I've also heard that many have been exterminated so hopefully they won't be too much of a nuisance. I am right by the water, however swimming is minimal or not at all because there are sharks. Hm...

My house has cement floors and running water but I'll have to walk a few meters to get to the smol haos. As long as it's just mine, I will make it work.

More later. Continue to update me on what is going on in your world! volunteer@vu.peacecorps.gov (sub: AMY) Once I am on Paama in Dec, I may not be able to get emails so thanks for sending!

October 24, 2008

Rats, sleep, kava and a bride

These past couple weeks have been a roller coaster ride, albeit a slow one. I have limited time to be online when we are in the city so I type these up at the training village to then upload. Sorry if I am not able to type more personal emails. HOWEVER, I would love to know what is going on in your life no matter how eventful or not. Even current events and pop culture would be great to read about. (volunteer@vu.peacecorps.gov subj: AMY)

So…torrential rains one day and then a hot day followed by a cool one…it’s pretty unpredictable now but summer is coming and so is cyclone (hurricane) season. We’ve learned ways to deal with natural disasters such as cyclone, mud slides, bush fires, flooding, earthquakes and volcanoes. Vanuatu sits just on the “ring of fire” from which the archipelago was formed. Peace Corps safety and security is very thorough and we feel well cared for but ultimately the Ni Vans have lived through them for years and we will just do as the villagers do. Just hope this isn’t the year for anything too extreme.

About half our group got sick last week but luckily I did not. However, it is bound to happen. The thought of being sick in the smol (out) house is terrible! I have a new friend in my custom house…a mouse and he’s been doing laps around the rafters above, getting into some food and keeping me up at night. AH! Then there’s the mosquitoes who love me and cases of dengue fever have appeared in Vanuatu which is carried by morning mosquitoes. It causes a migraine, fever and just feeling miserable for 6 weeks. So, now every bite I get during the day, I diagnose as dengue fever. AH!

I never realized how sound proof our western lives are…sleeping here can be difficult when you have roosters crowing at each other from across the village, dogs barking while bullying the pigs, people laughing and talking and a string band video or actual string band playing. It’s great music but not all the time! Then the little critters I’ve mentioned. Geckos, frogs, chickens…it’s a zoo over here.

The Bislama classes are coming along but I am still not proficient. They say it will come by the end of training. We leave next Monday for “wokabaot” where we live at our sites for a week, meet the community and take inventory of what settling-in supplies we will need. I have no expectations but do hope I am near the ocean at least.

Today, back at the village there is a bride-price celebration happening. Preparations have been occurring all week and essentially, once a woman is “blocked” by a man or in our words, engaged, it is then followed by the bride-price, similar to a dowry in which the man’s family comes to the bride’s village to “pay” for the woman. It’s more symbolic now…mats, calico, island dresses, shirts, food and yams but still costly. Then a wedding will follow in December. Interestingly, most couples have kids before all of this happens since it sometimes takes time to prepare for the bride-price and wedding. Even more interesting is that the family name passes through the woman! Fantastic! J

Kava…so Peace Corps Trainees are only allowed to drink it on weekends and in many of the outer islands women are not allowed or can only drink at home and not at the nakamal (kava bar). On a side note, other than at home, men and women are very much segregated. Women cook together and men fish and drink kava together. So the affects of kava are not strong and some batches differ in degree. It’s often just a nice chill buzz, makes you lethargic, decreases appetite and too much can make you pass out or nauseous. As I’ve mentioned it smells and tastes terrible but nonetheless it’s enjoyable…really. For the Ni Vans, it’s less expensive than alcohol but drinking both (called kale) has been blamed for belligerent Ni Vans.

Pics from the village

One of the host papas caught this shark just off our coast

Under the mango tree...where we often meet and eat mangoes from...

My back yard...a daily activity


Making kava




My custom house on the left...while I am here, the family lives in the tin house on the right. Peace Corps pays them a daily allowance to feed us everyday.

The inside...nothing is on the ground to prevent creepy crawlies from getting in there!


My host sister Shirley (age 7) and bro Jecob (age 5)


Host Mama Larina (age 31) and Papa Stephen



Kids (Pikininis) welcoming us to the village



Country director Eddie and wife Debbie














October 9, 2008

Village Life

Only a short amount of time in the big city today...we only get here every 2 weeks so we can access email so apologies for the rambling...also pics to come.

The 21 of us arrived at Mangelilui which is just an hour drive from Port Vila (where you will fly in to visit me!) on Sunday two weeks ago to chanting and singing young boys dressed in leaves and dancing around us. We were then welcomed by Chief Mor Mor…a stout and jovial man. We all met our host families who we now call mama, papa, sista and bratas (my English spelling as since gone downhill now that we are learning Bismala). I arrived donning an island dress that my mama sent to Villa for me. Not entirely uncomfortable but swallows us whole. Woman are not allowed to wear pants or shorts. If you are seen without a skirt or lavalava on, then a fine is a pig or a mat to the chief. We can play sports and exercise without them at least.

After our welcome, we go with our host family to our custom house…much bigger than I’d expected. It’s basically a small room with thatched coconut leaf roof and the inside is blanketed with island cloth and coral floral with mats on top. Beds have mosquito nets, no electricity for all…only if you have a generator which my family does for the kitchen area from 7p til 10p. It gets dark by 6pm however so mood lighting of candle in my house every night. How romantic all by myself!

My host mama is Larina who is 31 and host papa is Stephen who is 28…even so, I still call them mama and papa. I have two sisters, Shirley (age 7) and Lyndiana (age 11) and brother Jacob (age 5). They are a warm and happy family.

Most of our days are Bislama classes, lectures about the culture, econonomy, school system with speakers and panel discussions. We even had a test last week! We often have class on the beach…not sandy as we all know but of coral. The snorkeling is phenomenal and right in our back yards. Sunsets are inspiring and stars are full force and brighter than I have ever seen them.
Fresh, ripe, off the tree mangoes fall daily and are favorite snacks while chickens and their chicks peck around, pigs and piglets rustle through the leaves for scraps…. Bucket showers and smol haos (out house), I am still not getting used to. I have become even more low maintenance that ever and seldom look into a mirror…probably a good thing! The creepy crawlies have been minimal so far for me but they are there and freaking me out nonetheless. Sleeping at night has been a journey in itself…the odd sounds…chirping geckos (or like a kissing sound), rustling legs, whistleing beats and the wind running laps through the trees. It’s not easy falling asleep and forget going to the smol haos to use the bathroom.

There’s also the threat of creeping…this phenomenon is actually a form of dating in Vanuatu. If a fella wants to “talk” to a gal, then he will scratch or knock on her door late at night so if you open it, you’ve invited a suitor. Best to just ignore it or yell NO! but then responding could mean yes?! Either way this is freaking the Peace Corps girls out a bit but no worries, Mom and Dad…we are safe since we live so closely to our host families.

We have been fortunate enough to experience a few special events in the village. A marriage, ordination of a chief and sadly, the mourning of the chief’s brother. There’ been visitors often and family gatherings. They have been welcoming and gracious for us.

Today…we had a “culture” exercise where we were split into four groups. Group 1 made fire, Group 2 opened coconuts to make coconut milk, Group 3 made simboro (manioc grated and then wrapped in island cabbage.) and Group 4…get this…killed a chicken! Yep, I said (typed) it! I won’t go into details and sorry to the weak of stomach. (I made simboro, by the way.)

Gosh...there is still so much more to say and that I am forgetting. Some days are great and some days are kinda depressing...but isn't that how life is? I hear some things are looking bleak in the US so part of me is glad to be away from the chaos. I am yearning to call, at least text y'all...

Week two is about over and we have eight more in the training village. Week five or six, we are going to visit the village in where we will be living for the next two years and we are anxious to know where we will each be. Of the 21 who started, 19 still stand and are holding strong. We’re bonded as a group and created “talk it out Tuesday” so that we can vent to each other and prevent anyone else from leaving. I’ve vented about the bugs, missing home and awaiting letters from home! ;) This is not going to be easy...

We will be sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers officially November 28 and head to our village early December. Am I really doing this??? Missing you all on the northern hemisphere!

volunteer@vu.peacecorps.gov (subject line: AMY) They will print and bring to the training village.

Peace Corps Vanuatu
PMB 9097
Port Vila, Vanuatu

The first days of our journey...in Port Vila

I look forward to showing you all who visit me, Port Vila…it’s a small town with all the essentials. There is even a Chinatown so my parents will love it here! Tap water is drinkable here which wonderful. The supermarket sells fantastic fruits such as pamplamoose which is similar to grapefruit and papaya, called popo. You can get Doritos for 5 bucks although, I’ve enjoyed their local snacks which are far less expensive. There’s even a “movie in the park” as known in Chicago on a couple nights with the ocean sunset as the backdrop.

A couple nights ago, a recently retired Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV)…who served a max of 5 years invited the trainees to her house where she was house sitting. It was a mansion of the house with a view and access to the lagoon. A few of us jumped in for a night swim…it was quite scary diving into dark water but we went for it. What we soon saw made it all worth the apprehension. When we waved our arms and feet around, bio lumeniscents (probably butchering the name) would glow…they were tiny sparkling lights shimmering in the black ocean water all around us. It was an amazing sight. There was a casualty…when getting out of the water I did get a few pricks from a sea urchin but the pain was brief and the stingers were out in a day. It was definitely all worth it.

Yesterday, we spent the morning and lunch at Jane’s house…she is our PCMO or Peace Corps Medical Officer, a native of Australia. Her house had an amazing garden with tomato, pineapple, passionfruit, pamplemoose, broccoli, cauliflower to name only a few, a pool and amazing view of the ocean. She had a nutritionist come to show us all the local foods we would be seeing at the markets which we will soon be preparing for ourselves. Realzing that we will not have a refridgerator, I am still trying to fathom exactly how I’ll manage.

We also learned how to open coconuts (or kokonas in Bismala)…which consists not only of the brown miniature bowling ball looking nut we all envision but it is also enclosed by a stringy wood-like thick outer shell. With a stake in the ground you plunge the coconut onto the stake and use it to pry the outer shell off. While the Ni Van’s can do this in seconds…it took us at least 20 minutes, if not more and a lot of muscle and sweat. We then learned to use a bush knife to crack open the coconut and scrape the insides to make coconut cream. This is used for cooking as much as soy sauce is used in Chinese foods.

The afternoon was sunny and beautiful as we headed to get on a catamaran for our water safety training. Mike, a dive shop owner explained some survival tricks such as putting out a fire with a can of coke and the many uses for a trash bag. After our talk, we were given life vests which PCVs are required to have with us when traveling by boat and we had to show that we could jump in correctly. We then had the rest of the afternoon to snorkel. Thanks Damian for the snorkeling practice…I felt very comfortable and was even giving some pointers to a couple beginners. The reefs here are amazing and I hope my village has access to the water. So many colorful fish and sea life…we even saw a couple of men spear fishing.
Last night trainees were invited to Voodoo club and I represented 21B and was the only one who went out…I’m thinking this is our last night of freedom so why not? There was a small dance floor and screen which showed the music videos…which kept me mesmerized…while I can do without TV, it made me realize that I’ve not had the visual stimulation for quite some time now! They played Daft Punk which I was thrilled about. We danced, sweated and the bartenders would light up the bar with flames. It was nice to get out for the last night out…we leave today for 10 weeks to our training village.

Mangelilui, our training village is where we stay with host families and are essentially adopted by our host mamas and papas. They are told to only speak Bislama to us so we can learn it quickly. We will have classes during the day…language, culture and technical training and then eat dinner with our host families. My host mama’s name is Larin and host papa is Stephen. They have two daughters and a son. During this time, we will truly get a feel for village life. We will essentially be rising and falling with the sun. The heat, humidity and rain will soon be arriving and I’ll see just how well we can handle that!