A friend of mine in Des Moines asked me to write something for his website on Buddhism, the Peace Corps and my experiences. I wrote the following which proved to be too long for his purposes and he suggested putting on my blog instead. If you're not interested in anything Buddhist related, skip this post and read the next one which is just about my last 4 months in Vanuatu. There are stories here too. And my personal practice is just that - personal. I do not share my beliefs with people in my village. But my beliefs inform my work and relationships.

Here you go:

When I first arrived I found many differences that were strange, unfamiliar and sometimes just plain unpleasant. As I moved through the first 10 weeks of training, gaining more understanding of the culture, economics and history of Vanuatu, I gradually began accepting and even enjoying the differences. During training we learned from other PCVs that nothing is at it first seems and not only should we observe intensely for our first 6 months, but we should also ask the same question at least 5 times before assuming we knew the truth of anything. Why? Well, everyone lies. At one point, I considered it impossible for the culture to survive should everyone make an effort to tell the truth instead of lying. Did this make it right, or at least acceptable? Although I don’t have a lot of Buddhists texts lying around my grass house (actually coconut leaf not grass), I was pretty sure lying was a big no-no in the teachings. So I pondered….

I once had 3 chickens (faol in Bislama pronounced fowl). Now, I have one. I received the first one in a sorry ceremony from an oldfala named Toama because he came into my house one night which kastom (rules of conduct embodied in the culture) strictly prohibits. It was a big fluffy boy. The second one I traded for some flour (using kastom economy rather than money to promote the economy) and it was a young girl I named Mary. The third I received from one of the bigfala oldfalas named Philomon and since it too was a boy I gave him Philomon’s name. Life was good. I fed them a little bit of rice, coconut flakes laboriously scraped out of each coconut after it had been husked, old bananas and anything else they could scratch. They came to my call and ate out of my hand. They greeted me in the morning. Ok, you know you’ve been in Vanuatu too long when you become emotionally attached to your chickens. Occasionally, one of them wouldn’t show up but I learned not too worry. They were growing up and the boys were finding girl friends and Mary, well, she was doing a lot of running away. Then, for several days, I didn’t see Mary and began to worry. There are a lot of youngfala boy who grab any faol and eat it when they’re hungry. I asked my family if they had seen her and they said yes, they thought she might be laying eggs. I even caught sight of her briefly one day. Then nothing. Every time I asked my family, they said they had seen her that morning. But I never saw her again. What happened? Was my family lying? Why? Why was it necessary to lie? Knowing that they were lying led me to believe they had killed and ate her, and I was not feeling favorably inclined towards them for awhile. As I prepared to write this, I thought again about this example of lying. I’ve learned more the culture and realize that their lying was a way of protecting me from being sad or angry. It was their way of taking care of me. So, does the flexibility required to deal with this apparent ambiguity of intent versus the teaching against lying mean I can conclude that lying is ok? What do you think?

Recently, the expatriate owners of a bungalow on Tanna left Vanuatu abruptly. I heard the story of their departure from 3 different people and they somewhat agreed upon the following: The kastom land owner had gone to court to expel them from the country because they had come here originally as missionaries and stolen land and were running a business. They were given 24 hours to pack up and leave. Everything in the business was carted off to another bungalow. Then another story surfaced. These owners and the expat owners of a second bungalow were run out because they broke the law that said expat owners of bungalows must have 15 or more bungalows while Ni-Vanuatu businesses only need to have 5. The story told by representatives of the owners told a different story. The first bungalow owner had fought and won 3 court battles with a man who claimed he owned the land. After surviving the burning of several bungalows and continued threats on their lives, they left because their health had deteriorated. And although they had come as missionaries, their village had asked them to make and run the business to employ village members and pay the village royalties which they did. They just won another court battle and their property can now be sold to a Ni-Vanuatu business. The second bungalow owner was thrown out, but it was because he tried to re-sell his leased land to other expats which was explicitly prohibited in his original 75-year lease. So, all of the stories I heard were false in varying degrees. Why? What is the intent or purpose of these lies? What is THE TRUTH? Is there only one?

Lastly, every man here will tell you the story of how he or his family came to hold their position within the power hierarchy of the community which extends over a large geographic area and is governed (so to speak) by nakamals and tribal affiliation. If you talk to enough people you find that no story collaborates any other story. One time I tried to understand the lineage of one family to learn who they were related to. What we call uncles and aunts are sometimes called the same thing on Tanna but they could be called mamas and papas too depending on whether they are brothers of your father or sisters of your mother. It is also important to understand who is married because if someone is your tawi (in-law), you can’t talk to them about things like reproductive health. So, as I explored this one family I heard three different stories. Finally, I asked the head of the family why every story was different. I learned that no one will tell you their true story because if they do it will reveal too much about where they really came from and thus not only give away their power but also compromise the power of others. Basically, if one man tells the truth then the “house of lies” used to structure village activities, communication, relationships rites and respect would fall down. Then where would they be? There is only one time the truth can be told. Ownership of land is determined by family lineage. Land disputes can be settled by kastom law when one of the men involved asks for a meeting in the nakamal. A group of judges listen to each man tell their stories. Since they really do know the true history of each family they know which one is telling more of the truth and then decide in that person’s favor. No one but the judges and the disputing men may be present. So the truth is conditional. And it must remain hidden from everyone except a few people. And, and and and…. Well things are really different here and sometimes thinking too much gets you nowhere. I have decided I must accept things the way they are, not judging nor endorsing, and sometimes being totally confused but living my life according to my beliefs. A lot of people trust me.

It’s official. My extension request has been approved and I will be staying for another year. I’m happy about that most days. There have been some days though where I’m ready to quit. Not too different from the first year, but I don’t take myself as seriously as I used to when this happens.

The Women’s Center Project is going well. The new building is under construction. The village is adapting to building 2 buildings at the same time: the women’s center and a new dispensary. This is not easy and many would like to work on only one of them until it is done and then start on the next one. I don’t blame them either. It takes about 10 days for 25 people to carry enough sand and coral from the beach to pour the footings and floor for the dispensary alone. They use empty 25kg rice bags and the beach is about half a mile away.

The Windmill Project is still delayed waiting for the windmill tower to be fabricated. The local contractor has had very poor luck with fabricators and is now working with the 5th. The hope is that it will be finished and arrive here in May. This has been a major source of frustration for me because the project was funded and the money disbursed in June last year. And one of the donors is unhappy enough that they are threatening to ask for their money back. And I can’t do a damn thing. And there are a lot of people and projects depending on the power it will generate. Enough said?

I’m excited about a water and sanitation project the community is developing. I’ve been in a stalemate with them for along time over “my big project”. They kept asking me what I was going to do and I kept asking them what they wanted me to do. In January we had that discussion again. This time I put 5 boxes in front of them, each one representing a different project that I had heard some of them talk about at various times. If I was going to stay another year, what did they want? They told me!!!! Yay! Now the Water Committee is starting to develop the project scope and gone to the 5 nakamals representing 6 villages and obtained their support. The most exciting part is they are doing it.

I recently did an adolescent reproductive health workshop (sex education) for a group of youngfala boys. BIG step for me, a woman, to teach something like this to a group of males. They told me it was okay because I am an oldfala. Lots of very interesting questions, like “is it true that if a young man sleeps with an older woman, she will poison his blood?” I am now the major condom supplier to the village.

When I go back next week, I plan on doing some movie nights using videos created by Wan Smol Bag. WSB is dedicated to teaching about the environment, health, domestic violence, tourism, voting rights and other things through workshops, plays, peer educators, books and videos. A lot of their materials are aimed at young people.

So, work life is good. My guitar playing is coming along and I’m toughening up my fingers. Some of the guys are teaching me to play chords and picking and I hope to learn enough to play one of the John Frum songs with them. February 15 is the yearly anniversary of John Frum. I joined people from my village to watch the flag raising, marching and kastom dancing. Chief Isaac lifted up a new paramount chief and it was a woman! A woman born in Vanuatu to Asian parents. Me and Nate, another volunteer, talked with her and learned Isaac felt it was time for a change and after observing the changes in the world over the last 28 years, it was time to bring a woman into power. There are a lot of mixed feelings about this, only some of which are related to her being a woman. Some people are concerned because of her political connections. Others because of her financial motivations. Which stories are true? How will it turn out? Maybe that is part of why I’m staying – I want to know the end of the story.

Port recently received a shipping container of donated items from a Seven Day Adventist (SDA) organization. Lots of bicycles arrived along with carpet, couches, clothes and toys. After taking a look around I walked back to the village and came upon Wilson carrying his oldest son who is maybe 5 years old. He was sobbing his heart out. He wanted a bicycle so much, but didn’t get one. All of them were old, some in better shape than others. They’re getting a lot of mileage too, but flats are a problem and some of the chains are starting to slip and no one knows how to repair them.

You know you have been inVanuatu too long when you have learned how mother hens wean their chicks from their side.

Snippets:

· I ate my first turtle and my first flying fox (BIG bat) last month .

· A new fishing boat now catches fresh tuna and pouillet every few days and I can buy 1kg for $4.

· Bella, Pilot’s pig, is black like Tusker, chases chickens like Tusker, sleeps with the cats like Tusker, digs holes next to the house like Tusker, lays down and asks for its belly to be rubbed like Tusker.

· Nathan came for an unannounced visit – he walked 19 hours straight around the outside of the island and I found him sleeping in my house when I came back from the garden.

· Manuapin started a mama’s market and it is making about 4 times the money made by my village’s market. They tell me it was my idea. I think all I did was ask them where they went to market and where people from the South went to market and didn’t the people from the South have to go through their village to get to the nearest market. Now they want a women’s center too.

· The owner of the truck made a big “thank you for your support” lafete for the village and his boat caught a lot of fish, including a 50kg shark. Too bad the shark is their totem and they couldn’t eat any of it.

· My toilet fell down on Christmas day. I had a new one 3 days later. I have never ever gotten any kind of work done that fast in the village before.

· My host brother, Samson, went to New Zealand for 7 months to pick kiwi and apples. I miss his company and he took care of all those little things: cutting branches off trees, security for those difficult walks, fixing my house, storian over kava, putting up new roofs, finishing off leftovers, clearing bananas…..

· A woman friend came to see me one night because she had just learned her husband was living with another woman in Vila and wanted my help.

· A man asked me to help him write a resignation letter from a community development committee. He is the recognized head of one of the 5 families on the committee. It is a secret and why he resigned is a secret. Officially, I know nothing.

· A developer asked my help in finding someone he could trust to run his development in the Port area and identifying alternative energy constraints. Officially, I know nothing.

I’m learning local language and can do some basic sentences. It helps when I sit with the mamas and try to say something and they all laugh at me. No really, it helps. They don’t think I’m so scary when we laugh and they’ll help me say something right and then teach me more.

Chief Ronnie died at the end of January. He was a very sweet hold man and not just because I kept him supplied in chocolate. The nakamal had a big meeting with people from all over southeast Tanna because people believed someone was making magic that killed him and Chief Tobay last year. Old man Sarowe accused Ronnie’s son, Johnson. Johnson accused Sarowe. Yata accused a man who has been dead for 8 years. After about 6 hours, everyone got fined for lying. A few weeks later, a klebber or witch doctor, came and cleared the village of the “sick”.

I’m not too worried about cyclones anymore. Prophet Fred, another John Frum leader, has prophesied that Tanna will be safe until 2016. I am a little worried about tsunamis though. Lots of earthquakes originating deep in the ocean relatively close to us in the 7.5 range on the Richter Scale. And that volcano on Ambrym has quite a few people worried at present. Seems it is building up for a big bang shortly. Mt. Yasur on Tanna was more active last year than this one, but in the 2 years I’ve been here it’s shape and size have noticeably changed. You did know that Vanuatu was more prone to natural disasters than any other place in the world, didn’t you?

Now for a fun story. A couple of weeks ago I broke a tooth. It was hurting enough that Peace Corps flew me to Vila for a day. It had been raining for most of 2 weeks and the usually dry riverbed by the volcano was a raging black torrent filled with volcanic ash, trees and bushes. Our truck stopped and we were waiting for it to go down enough to cross – maybe 1 or 2 hours. A truck arrived on the other side to pick up the tourist we were carrying, but it too could not cross. One of the men went up stream and found a place he felt we could wade across. Since me and the tourist were on the same plane and didn’t want to miss it, we followed a group of men about half a mile up stream where one of the guides tried to re-cross the river. The current was too strong and he couldn’t. We walked further up stream, got in the water, tried to cross, got out of the water, walked some more. After another unsuccessful attempt, I suggested they look for a place where the river was at its widest because the current would be less strong there. They found one, tried it and then carried our bags across. The water came up to their thighs. By the time we started to cross the water was over our waists and it took 2 men for each of us to make any headway across. We went downstream about as far as we crossed. We were soaked with black ashy water, but on the other side. We climbed into the truck and off we went. It was raining so hard by then that the road too was flooded with about 6 to 8 inches of water – for the entire hour drive into Lenakel. We had about 10 minutes and went into a toilet, stripped, rinsed our clothes out in the sink, re-dressed with clean, but wet clothes from our bags and made it to the airport about half an hour to spare. I met a wonderful new friend, Ruth, and we both agreed that without each other neither of us would have attempted the crossing. It was scary but fun!!

That’s it for now. If you read this, send me some of your stories. What’s happening in your life?

Here are a couple of pictures to show you I'm having a wonderful time in tropical paradise. A little sarcasm, sorry. It's not all fun and games, but New Years was fun and the first picture shows what happens when a bunch of volunteers gets together to celebrate. We went to the volcano first and saw a fireworks show before heading back to the treehouse bungalow and starting our tribute to the new year. We got started around 11:00pm so we had to catch up pretty quickly. Around 2:00am I decided it was time to go home, rounded up my host brother, Samson, and started walking back. It's only about 3 miles and usually takes about an hour. Little did I know that one can get more drunk the more they walk. I do know a straight line is the shortest distance between 2 points, however, it took us about 1-1/2 hours and I can only attribute that to the fact that we did not walk a straight line. When we got back to the village, everyone was singing bonani (kind of like choraling at Christmas) and Samson went in search of his wife, again not in a straight line. I thought it was best to get to bed. Not a typical new year's but it was a lot more interesting than last years.

The other picture is my current abode: Nipikinamu, tail of the fish. It was taken from the hill on the other side of the bay a couple of days after the party when me and a few volunteers went hiking to see the places where steam comes out and paint our faces with multi-colored hot clay. The volcano may be 8 miles away, but the entire hill is hot - hot on the feet, hot air, hot sun - really hot. And no, we don't think about what that means in terms of danger. It's hot and that's it.

Well, that's the fun part of living here. On the work front, I'm extending which means I'll stay until around June of 2010. Why? Well, my projects are coming along very slowly just like everything here. I feel if I left now I'd leave them half finished and I plan on concentrating on finishing them and then making them sustainable after I'm gone. Kind of like putting icing on the cake. I'm also learning to play the guitar.

I hope I’ve told some wonderful stories and given everyone an idea of what life is like in Vanuatu in my previous posts. I don’t know what you all think about what you’ve read, whether this adventure is romantic or idealistic or altruistic or unbelievable and surreal or unnecessary and pointless. I’ve been here long enough to have forgotten what it was like to learn how to live here without electricity, running water, cleanliness, or anyone to talk to who knows what life is like in the US. I take for granted the things I have to do just like I did in the States. So the other day I started looking at what I do just to live here that was not related to some kind of work or building and cherishing relationships with people. Here’s some things I found:

I walk across the village and say something to everyone I meet. It is pretty much the same thing: I’m going where? And they are going where? A ten minute walk to another village can take half an hour and while I’m there, it may take two hours before I leave because I sit and talk with first one person and then another and sometimes a group of people. If I need to go see someone in my village, it may still take two hours. A group of women may be sitting under a tree weaving, eating, washing or just talking and I’ll sit down with them for a short time. There is always something to talk about and when there isn’t, I listen and practice learning the local language which they enjoy teaching as well as laughing at me. Sometimes, I walk about just to visit with whoever I run into. Most of the children are no longer afraid of me and they sing out “Sandla” as I go by so everyone knows I’m coming.

Charging batteries for the flash lights, radio, camera, clocks with a small portable solar panel is high on my list. It only takes about 8 hours to fully charge 4 AA batteries. Then there’s charging the laptop, mobile phone and MP3 play using the village’s 60 watt solar panel. While this only takes about 2 hours for each one, it does cost me about 500vt (or $5/week). No light switches, and the cost of electricity is around $20/month. Water needs to be carried from the standpipe every 3rd day for drinking, cooking and dish washing – that’s about 12 gallons at 8 pounds each for a distance of only 150 yards. Since I also like to bathe every day, sometimes 2 or 3 times in the summer, I also carry a bucket with about 3 gallons a little bit further to my toilet/swim house each time. Sometimes there is no water and I go to one of the pumps about ¼ mile away and then boil my water for drinking. I used to be proud that I could get by on 900 gallons of water a month in Santa Fe. Now, I wonder how I could use so much.

The coconut leaf house is slowly being eaten by termites which leave these little itty bitty grains of something (wood?) scattered like around like someone has taken a handful of sand and poured it in one place. So every day, I use a broom made from coconut leaf spines to sweep the floor and veranda of the house. But, before I make the bed and before I go to bed, I also sweep the bed. Sometimes, I even sweep the bed in the middle of the night after I come back from the toilet. I light the kerosene lamp around the time the sun goes down. Don’t really need it for light because I have a head lamp, but it’s almost like having a real lamp. Sometimes I light a candle, but the risk of burning down the house is real and if I’m very tired I won’t because I’ll forget to blow it out before I fall asleep. Well, comfortable lighting is comfortable lighting regardless of the locale, candles are a potential fire hazard any place, but where is that termite exterminator guy???

No one wears sandals in the house, but that doesn’t mean the pandanas leaf mats are clean. Sometimes I wonder why I wash my feet because 2 minutes after I walk back into my house the bottoms are black again. No carpet cleaners and water ruins the mats, so sweeping is the only thing that can be done – and learning to live with dirty feet.

There is no hot water unless I boil it. If I’m cold, I’ll do that for my bucket bath, but most of the time cold water is fine. Dishes are always washed and rinsed in cold water. It works fine so why do we insist on water so hot it almost scalds the skin? I keep wash bowls covered tightly to keep the cockroaches and rats out. I think it affects the integrity of the wash water a little bit more than I think acceptable. Speaking of roaches, they generally don’t bother me except when I get up in the middle of the night to use the toilet and have to shoo them away from the small chair-like thing I sit on. Rats haven’t big too big a problem because my cat is VERY good, but I check the house every morning to make sure she hasn’t left a half-eaten one under the bed where it will lay forgotten until an unpleasant odor permeates the house. How do I know this? Experience! Again, no exterminators and learning to live with dirt. It helps to take everything out of the house once every 3 months or so and put it in the sun. It really dries out the mats and gets rid of the mildew smell. And, since I came back from Australia, I realized I haven’t seen a single ant. Maybe the massive quantities of glow-in-the-dark spiders have something to do with it.

Washing clothes takes me about 3 hours once every two weeks. About normal except that I hand wash everything, use a scrub brush and hang everything in the sun. I usually choose a day when there is little chance of rain, but the weather changes pretty quickly sometimes, so I have moved the wash to my veranda and waited as much as 2 days for everything to dry. No washer, no dryer but I think my clothes actually come out cleaner.

You can set your watch by some things in the village too. Since most people don’t have watches, they watch the sun. So about an hour before the sun sets is kava time. Almost every man in the village disappears and if I have been trying to find them all day I have to give up about a half hour before kava time begins. Sunday afternoons are reserved for practice by the soccer and volleyball teams. It’s a great way to start the new week spending a couple of hours watching them play. When the village fills up with children it means they are either on their morning break (check the sun), lunch break (check the sun) or finished for the day. The chickens really start crowing around an hour before sunrise, but it is a myth that they signal the rising sun. One or two always are crowing at some time during the night. So, no watches or clocks to be watched to make sure everything gets done before the end of the day. And no pressure to achieve more than is possible because there is always tomorrow.

Throw out time and still get people together to make some work? They know about the meeting, but they come when they are ready and have finished other things that need to be done first, not when the clock says 8:00am. I go and sit under a tree along the edge of the soccer field with a book, pen and notebook and wait. Somewhere around 2 hours after I arrive, enough committee members have joined me to have the meeting. Oh, I don’t arrive at 8:00am either. It depends on what I need to get done too. Sometimes I’m not the first one.

If you ever find yourself wanting to plant a banana tree – don’t! They are such dirty trees which have to have their dead branches cut every 2 weeks. They fall down on things – like my toilet – and break them. Their leaves shade the roof of houses making them rot quicker. They’re just way too heavy to carry easily when their fruit is ready and you have to hack them to pieces to move them. There is also this tree with a small red berry that the children love. They spend hours climbing through the braches searching for fruit, first one group and then another. The trees don’t seem to mind. I think trees are pretty much the same around the world – they are food providers, make a mess and give children some place to play. There are just different trees here.

Gardening – did I mention the garden is about 2 miles away? It is a lovely walk through the bush and one I enjoy. It is a long way coming back with a full basket or a rice bag full of manioc or corn though. Needless to say, there are NO grocery stores – the garden in the grocery, the variety is limited and you really, really must want something to work that hard to get it back to the house.

I chase chickens out of my kitchen. I chase my host mama’s cats away from my cat’s food. I put leftovers in my house at night to keep anything from opening the saucepan and eating it. By the way, food keeps for about 12 to 24 hours without refrigeration just fine as long as it doesn’t have mayo, coconut or fish in it. If it smells, I don’t eat it. I’m still amazed at how long some things keep and haven’t gotten sick by following the smell rule. Have all of the nutritionists, FDA, etc. been lying to us all of these years? Why is my blood pressure lower, my heart rate slower, and I can eat those recommended 2500 calories and still lose weight? Although a freezer and microwave sure would help when I’m dead tired and need to spend 2 hours cooking before I can eat. Oh well, there is always boiled dry manioc or white rice with a can of tuna and salt.

A lot of my day and energy is spent just living. Maybe I’ve said all of this before as part of the stories, but being in Australia makes me once again see the vast divide between our way of living and that of the people here. I see that we in the US have a lot more than the people here, but we exert just as much effort to live; it’s just different. We are healthier, better educated and have a higher standard of living. Are we happier though? I also see how much I’ve changed and what is important to me is still changing. It was hard getting used to the idea that the kinds of things I wrote about here were just as important as “working”, that spending time with people just talking was “working” even when we didn’t talk about any project, and that it was ok to read a book or draw or play the guitar to just take care of me. And, well yes, there is a time and a place for all work and I’m learning find it’s place too.

Last, I hope you all don’t think there is any complaining going on in this post. There isn’t. This is the way it really is and I guess I just want you to see it clearly. It is hard. I’m amazed and proud at being able to do this. Can you see yourself here, if only for a few moments, to try and understand what it is like?

PS (first!): I'm loading this from Tanna on a dial-up connection so it is VERY slow. Next time I'm in Vila, I'll add some pictures - especially of my buchi (namesake) - Sandy

Just back from Australia and find myself with plenty of time in Vila for a change which means I get to write a LOT about everything that has happened in the last – oh my – 5 months! First, Australia was FANTASTIC. I met up with a long time friend of mine, Martha at the airport at 11:00am in late October with a bottle of wine and 2 glasses. Well, actually 2 coffee mugs. After a delicious lunch we indulged in massages and some great Greek food, thanks to a young man I met in the airport in Sydney who not only recommended it but worked there. New friend and he might visit Vanuatu next year! We stayed in Melbourne for a few days and then headed to Alice Springs and Uluru (Ayers Rock) for a 4 day outback safari. We were a little surprised to find ourselves watching the sunset at Uluru with glasses of champagne in our hands! Seems we got upgraded to the “deluxe” tour because not enough people had signed up for the 4 day basic tour. That meant wine with every meal, no cooking or cleaning and permanent tents with real beds, sheets and pillows. We DID NOT complain. However, I wanted to sleep in a swag, under the stars and did that every night. If the Peace Corps could provide mattresses like those inside the swags I think they’d make a lot of volunteers happy. We did a lot of hiking and it was hot, like 38 C or 100 F. We saw wallabies, wild camels and witchety grubs. One guy even ate one – a big white worm that is supposed to taste like raw egg – no thank you! At one creek, me and a couple of other people swam across to the other side and took a walk down the canyon. The water was incredibly cold, the canyon beautiful. As we entered, a chorus of sound stretched out in front of us – some kind of bird or animal early warning system.

We saw a lot of wildlife, learned a lot about the history of Australia both socially and geologically, and drank a lot of wine. Oh, and ate a lot of good food! Wine was a major theme or our stay in the Adelaide area. Thanks to Martha, we got a private tour of the Molly Dooker winery and I must say that I learned to love Shiraz as a result. Since most of their distribution is in the US you might be able to find it and try it too. We went to Kangaroo Island, the Great Ocean Road, and lots more. I could spend the entire blog just on our trip. Great company, great scenery, great food and of course, great wine!

I also got to see a dermatologist and had a basal cell carinoma removed which was good even if I do have “the mark of Zorro” on my forehead. It is healing nicely and I had the last of the stitches removed after I returned to site. The only advice from the PC medical officer was to keep it clean. I tried exploring my writing style on this topic since I found it somewhat ironic that the one thing I can’t do at site is keep anything clean.

Ok, now for a little bad news, just to get it out of the way. Tusker my dog (and Larry’s) got hit by a truck at the beginning of July and died. We buried him with some bananas (his favorite) and his toys and planted petunas and marked the edge of his grave with upturned Tusker beer bottles. Seems appropriate, huh?

We also lost my namesake just 3 weeks ago. Ester Sandra struggled with a respiratory problem for a long time and after all of the kastom medicine failed, she went to the hospital. Apparently “hart blong hem i kat fulap toti” (her heart was filled with dirty) and after she recovered from her cold/pneumonia, they gave her medicine to take for her heart. She and her mom were also given medicine for “sik blong faol” (illness coming from chickens). She fought really hard. I only wish she had learned to smile more.

The oldest chief in the village died last week too. He was the titular leader of the nakamal and I’m unsure what his passing will mean in terms of village politics. I’ll probably not find out anytime soon and I may be gone before anything happens anyway.

Two other chiefs tried to kill each other recently, but were unsuccessful. It appears Jimmy was upset about a pig and used something akin to a 4x4 piece of wood to knock Phil upside the head. Now, if it were anyone but man-Tanna, the blow would not only have knocked him down but also killed him. Phil is over 80, but is recovering from the cracked skull and concussion. His two sons weren’t real happy and so they beat Jimmy up or rather down to the ground and kicked the living sh*t out of him. Several broken ribs later he too is recovering. He had friends though and they weren’t happy either and so men from 7 (yes not 1, but 7) villages went to Phil’s place and tore down all of their houses and destroyed a lot of their things. The word went out to all of the women who were in the gardens to go back to the village because the gardens are close to Phil’s place and the men were going to be looking for Phil’s family in the gardens if they didn’t find them in the village, and if they would “kil” (hit, beat up) anyone they found. Me and a friend of mine, Jacobeth, we on our way to the gardens and decided to go anyway, but we hurried. This basically means we only stayed in the garden for 2 hours not 4. One of the leaders of the nakamal by the 7 villages sent word to the men in our village to stay out of the fight because the fight would only come inside the village if they brought it there by interfering. After, some men from the South were planning on going to the village and make the same damage to the houses belonging to Jimmy’s family. However, they haven’t gotten around to it yet. So everything was a little interesting for a couple of days, but ultimately safe.

Seems to be the taem (time) for raos (fights). Lots of village meetings about things like women leaving their men, women fighting with women over men, jealousy over sharing cigarettes or other things, disrespect for elders, stealing, etc. Yaoma kils the tamtam early early and everyone starts to gather under the meeting tree. The talk goes on and on and on, anyone with something to say waiting politely until the previous speaker is finished, pausing briefly, and then standing up and speaking. The talk goes on and on and on until the issues is decided, the fines levied and payments made. One side usually pays something like a pig and some kava and the other side does too. I haven’t seen a one sided fine come out of these meetings yet. Maybe that’s what the sori ceremonies are about because they are definitely one-sided.

I almost found myself in one of these meetings too. Seems I was slow in paying to charge my mobile like everyone else here, but he didn’t like it. Seems too that it is ok for me to answer his phone and take messages when he is gone, but not to use it to make calls which I pay for. And finally, I learned it is not ok to ask the same questions about some other donor activities that other members of the village ask. After some yelling - by him, shoving and pushing – by him, and a LOT of calm words by me, we came to an understanding and he apologized. If he hadn’t, I would have had to go to Yaoma and ask him to kil the tamtam. Not because of the supposed rightness of my position – there is not kastom about the matters we differed on, but because he physically and orally assaulted me – which is village business because I’m their Peace Corps person. Finished now – at least in theory. Sometimes I’m a bit confused as to what standard I’m expected to live at sometimes – like man-Tanna or not?

All that aggression was good for something though. The Nipikinamu Futbol Team won the All-Tanna Futbol Championship this year! YAY!!! They almost won last year but the title-holding team refused to play the final round. This year they beat their asses!! And won 200,000 vatu or roughly $200. Next year, the tournament will be close to my village and so I’ll be able to watch the preliminaries as well as the final. The village is planning a celebration around Christmas and I’ll be presenting a framed team picture to them. They used the money to start a small business selling mazut (gasoline) to taxi trucks.

I’ve also helped one mama start a tobacco selling business. Okay, not the healthiest lifestyle modeling one could do as a volunteer, but you could say I’m modeling how to start up a business from the bottom up. Basically, I buy local tobacco at the market and give it to Kasu. She sells it piece by piece, gives me money to cover the cost of the tobacco and keeps the profit. For every $10 of tobacco, she makes about $5. Next, I worked with her to save it until she had enough to pay for the tobacco herself. And lastly, I took her to the market and showed her how to buy good tobacco. So now all her profit goes to paying school fees for her 5 children. It has been so successful in fact, that 2 other people in the village, using their own money to start, are also re-selling tobacco. Now, Kasu is moving onto selling cigarettes and phone cards the same way.

Using this as a model, I’m also in the process of helping my host brother, Samson, start a kava business. And, next year, after “taem blong spel” (time for resting), I’ve found another mama who wants to start a business making clothes and I’ll help her to buy the clothing material. If the “monkey business” thinking prevails, their might be a lot of people with small businesses here before I leave. (Monkey business: monkey see, monkey do. The language is ni-Vanuatu, not white man, should you be wondering – so don’t go and get all sensitive.)

I’ve also drunk a lot of kastom kava in my kitchen in the last few months. Enough that I decided to spell or rather my body said, “no, you ARE NOT putting that in me” and I had to listen. Too, some oldfalas asked me to accept their direction which was not to drink in my kitchen anymore. Okay, I could see that for kastom kava, because after all, it is kastom, but no kava? Well, when I got back from Australia, I asked my brother what the status of the problem was and he told me, “hemi go lus long bush” (it got lost in the bush). No problem now.

Speaking of going loose in the garden, you might have gathered, I have a garden now. Or did. When I got back, everything I had planted was pretty well finished. It is incredible how quickly things grow here. I planted 5 different kinds of cabbage, lettuce, carrots, beets, tomatoes, beans, peppers, onions and melons. The first time Jacobeth and I went to the garden I had no idea where we were. She and Marta (her auntie and kind of like mother-in-law) decided to hide it so that no one would steal what I grew. That also meant we had to break bush just to get there. I can find it on my own now about 3 different ways, but there is not way I could describe how to get there. It is about 1-1/2 miles from the house, uphill. When we need to carry back food, we weave coconut leaf baskets and use a kind of rope vine to sling the basket on our backs. We usually fill them with manioc, taro, corn, kumala and pumpkin as well as all the other green vegetables. They are heavy!

There have been a lot of kastom ceremonies and between May and September is when most of them occur. Some related to binding a man and women together, getting married, circumcision, first sick moon, first shave and first hair cuts. There were also a few memorials to people who had died and their graves were covered with cement and head stones erected. We had about 2 a week for 4 months. It seemed like the mamas did nothing but weave baskets and mats, and cook. When a mama receives a basket or mat or food, she keeps a record of who she got it from. When that mamas has a kastom ceremony of some kind, the first mama will make enough baskets or mats to return what she received. Some mamas make them even when they don’t need to because they know they’ll need them in the future, so it is a kind of banking ahead.

This year, 5 boys were circumcised and the ceremony involved 3 families. The boys went to the nakamal at the end of the first school term and were circumcised with a small bamboo knife. Bamboo is incredibly sharp. Ouch! Need I say more? After healing, and in time for the start of the second school term, the boys went back to school. When the families were ready for the ceremony, everyone brought a lot of water tar, yam, mats, baskets, calico (fabric) to the nakamal and made 3 very large piles. Pigs, nannys (goats) and bullock (cows) were carried or led inside the area too. The women dressed up in grass skirts, face paint and chicken feathers. Everyone goes to the nakamal. Then most of the men came from the solwata (salt water) with the boys and they walked around the edge of the nakamal before sitting down. One or two men then used a very large club to hit the pigs over the head and kill them. Sometimes it took 3 or 4 bashes before they were sure it was dead. They did the same for the nannys and then slit the throats of the bullock. The dogs ran around lapping up blood from the ground. Everyone from the families and surrounding villages then walked around to the young boys and their families and shook hands and gave a small gift to the boys, like soap or crackers. Finally, the men hauled the animals off to different houses, mats, baskets and calico were given to grandmothers of the boys and distributed around to other women, and the women started cooking. The rest of the day was spent cooking and talking, then eating and resting. Around 9:00pm the music starts in the nakamal and the women put on kastom dress again. Everyone goes to the nakamal and dances kastom dance all night long, until a little after sunrise the next day.

One mama made me a grass skirt – Kaha Ellen, another painted my face – Nani, and I joined the women both in the morning and for about 3 hours of dancing at night. I then quietly slipped off and went to sleep. I woke around 8:00 and could just hear them finishing as I made tea.

I also went to a first sick moon ceremony. Here, a young girl passage into womenhood is first celebrated by cutting her lower back in a series of inverted Vs with a piece of bamboo or glass. Any young girl who was away at school for her first sick moon and missed having a full ceremony can also be cut at this time. If she is not cut, the bad blood cannot come out and she will have problems with pain and bearing children as she gets older. All of the witnesses are cut too, but on their upper arms, ether in an small line of inverted Vs or in a star shape. I now have a star shaped scar on my arm. After, all of the women from her family go down to the beach. A mixture of grated coconut, some kind of leaf and coconut “hair” is mixed together. Everyone uses it like soap to wash first their cuts and then their entire body. All at once, everyone runs into the water and rinses it off. No amount of bacitracin is as soothing to an open wound at that mixture. It was warm from the sun and felt absolutely divine! When we came ashore, everyone put on dry clothes, the girl was dressed in kastom dress and her face painted. Her aunties were also in kastom dress. Everyone was given some kind of plant stalk and we started walking back to the village. We were joined by 2 of the girl’s uncles. Their job, and ours, was to protect the feathers in her hair from being snatched by any young man because if they were able to take it, then she would have to become his wife. Well, that was what happened in the past, but now that part isn’t followed. As we started to run, we were surrounded by young men with bigger, thicker and harder plant stalks, whipping us to get to the girl. Speaking from experience, when you get wacked with one, it hurts. There are some rules though. They can’t hit you on the head, face or front of your chest. I got so mad from being hit, I used my stalk to hit back. Unfortunately, the only men in site were the girl’s two uncles. When we got back to the village, everyone was laughing from the run and because the two uncles thought it was hilarious I hit them. So, to laughter and lots of talking, more food was prepared and cooked. Later we all ate.

Just a few more notes about life in the village and then I’ll talk a little about work. We’ve had quite a few large yachting groups come through, one with over a 100 people. At times I’ve felt like a tour guide. Lillian and Napua (Nelson) had a new baby girl and named her Lily Eleanor, the second name being my mother’s. Some men came and stole Enid one night and an uncle found her the next day and brought her home. Dawa likes to chew kava for me and Samson, and after taking a group to the volcano at night, stops by to eat whatever I happen to have cooked. Nathan and Noa, 2 volunteers from the other side of the island stopped by one day. They were trying to talk around Tanna in 4-1/2 days. Nathan had a backpack with all of the essentials. Noa arrived at Nate’s place with a taro and his dog. I made a dehydrated chocolate cheesecake I’d been saving for Nate, they slept and in the morning I found Nate had left sometime in the middle of the night to finish his walk. Noa hung around for a day, made friends, drank kava and caught a truck back to his sight the day after. I heard a story about papaya (po po). Some are very sweet and some are just ok. If you feed the skin or parts of a sweet one to the pigs, it will spoil the tree and the rest of the fruit will just be ok.

Now onto work. This could be another lengthy chapter, but I’ll try to keep it short. Right before gong to Vila in May I had a talk with the village about projects falling down and down reluctance to continue providing funds in areas where this had happened. When I came back, 3 mamas met me at my house and took me to the Mamas Market to show me it was open and operating. It has been running well since then. Their goal with the market revenue is to build a permanent house just for women. So, after things went well for 5 months, I asked them if they really wanted a women’s center. They said yes and told me the kind of building they wanted, what they would use it for and how they would manage it. I wrote a grant application and it looks like it will be approved in early December. The Cultural Center has a strong committee now, but not a lot of community support, so the building and its offerings continue to languish. The equipment for the rechargeable battery project was repaired and it is being used to charge mobile phones. In 10 weeks, they have raised 25,000 vatu (around $250). We also determined the limitations for recharging AA and D batteries – it wasn’t sized incorrectly and doesn’t have a large enough solar panel – and they plan on using the revenue to buy upgrade the system in about 6 more months. We’re still waiting on the supplier to bring the windmill, but a committee was organized and it is beginning to define a constitution and bylaws. And finally, I did a used battery cleanup project, making a contest for the children to see who could find the most batteries. They got one piece of candy for every 5 batteries. In one week, I had over 1,500 batteries laying around the house and ran out of lollies (candy) 3 times! I also approached the builder of a new bungalow about encasing the batteries in the cement floors and walls of the new bungalows he was constructing to protect the environment. So, the boy with the most batteries won an expanding egg that after being placed in water grows into a lizard. His family was a little concerned it would grow a real lizard, gecko, because people here are afraid of them, but I told them it was just rubber. Later they came back and asked me how big it would grow. I thought it was going to be about a foot long, but when it finished, it was over 3 feet big! Now, everyone wants one or something like it. Great fun!

And lastly, after my refreshing break in Australia, I’m having a lot of fun most days. My relationships with people are growing stronger. I still get very angry inside about how women are viewed and treated here and yet I’m developing a big sister friendship with some of the young men that is teaching me more about what they really think and how kastom strongly limits their freedom to act as they want in some matters, and teaching them (I hope) women can be part of their team and not just objects. Big hope, somewhat naive perhaps, but hey, that’s me sometimes. Things now are less about people taking my advice or doing what I say and more about how they find their own way with new knowledge and me learning how something new and different and really good can come out of the synergy of different ways/views/ideas/beliefs. And, losing the arrogance of believing that my way or the American/Western way is the best way for all people. Now I know what they mean when they say a volunteer gets more out of the experience than they put into it. None of us want that, but it is what happens.

Shoot! I loaded these in reverse order! Try reading Frankly Speaking #1 first and then ready backwards. One day when I came back from Lenakel, I found Tom Escar sitting at my mothers with a bloody arm wrapped in calico. Seems he found one of those plastic wrist bands on the ground and put it on his arm. He was taking it back to Mary when Mary’s man, UN, saw him and became jealous. UN chased him around the village trying to cut him with his bush knife and after scratching him a few times was able to cut him on the arm down to the muscle. The local Aide Post worker poured betadine on the wound and then packed it with some kastom leaf to stop the bleeding before wrapping it in clean calico. The next day the police came and took Tom and UN into Lenakel and then took Tom to the hospital for stitches and arrested UN. A week later Tom pulled out 2 of the stitches chopping wood. Another time I went to Lenakel it was raining. I mean RAINING! In Lenakel there is a low area through which the main road runs and I usually walk to the market using it. On this particular day it had a deep stream of running water. It didn't look too bad and so I started across. I had to brace myself and go pretty slow because it was really bad - even the trucks wouldn't use it. After shopping in the rain, eating in the rain and waiting for the truck to go back in the rain, we left. At the volcano there used to be a big lake but in 2002 it was washed into the sea because of a large rainfall. When we got to this spot, it too was filled with water. I screamed out to stop because I wasn't going to be in the truck when it got washed over the edge of the drop off. Everyone got out and some of the men waded across and found th shallow spots. So the rest of us pulled up our skirts, shorts or whatever and followed them across. The truck then followed us. The stories that were being told before we arrived at the water started back up again, but now they had another one to tell.

Back to work topics: it took me 6 tries to have a village meeting with enough people to discuss what the community wanted to do with the projects previous PCVs had started and had subsequently fallen down. They committed to a community work day to fix the buildings for 2 of them. I called them last week and found they had made 2 work days. Now, it is time for my work with the committee to begin again. I’ve not wanted to bully or in any way act like the colonial government and some ex-pats act here towards Ni-Vans and I still don’t want to. But, I’ll be starting with gentle pushing in a direct way. Then I’ll start nagging.

Due to donations to the Peace Corp Partnership Program as well as the German Embassy and the European Union, Port will be receiving a 12 meter retractable windmill. I don’t know if any of you who read then made a donation, but YOU did it!!! Without your help there wasn’t enough funding from the other sources to make it happen. This is be an exciting project which may, if there is any way for me to create sustainability, help the community to move ahead in some new ways.

Wish I had more stories to tell here and ones that are fun, but it has been a period of transition for me and it is not finished yet. I’m feeling a little too serious. This “work” is challenging, but the non-work stuff, the people, relationships, environment, personal learning, are all wonderful. I’m redefining what I want to get out of my experience here. When I came I heard volunteers say they got more out of their experience than they put it. I said I wouldn’t let that happen; I would give more than I got. Now, I realize I have no control over what is happening and it will happen this way regardless of my efforts. I haven’t run out of approaches to try yet and so there is still some “work” to be done. There are some small successes and they make the weeks of stagnation tolerable. At the same time, the living experience, the friends I’m making, the adventure of being here and seeing the world in new ways, are far from intolerable and I guess, just living is pretty wonderful. (However, after 5 days at Iririki, a top end resort with jacuzzis in every room, never ending lagoon-style pools, great food, fantastic service, TV, internet and HOT water, I do miss some things in America.)

A last note: Paddi, my doggy companion for the last 12 years, died in April. Although she had been sick since January, it was very hard reading the status reports in chronological order until the last one. The image of her sleeping under a lilac tree next to another loved dog is close to my heart. We leave so much behind. Until September...

This is my namesake, Ester Sandra. She's about 3 months old in this picture. Although she had a bit of a rough start, she is doing fine now. Ester is her kastom name and Sandra is her English name. My host brother, Samson, and his wife, Shelley are the proud parents. Sandra is their firstborn. Mt. Yasur is at Level 5 which means it is very cranky. I was visiting a bungalow operation up by the volcano and in between the explosions happening every 5 minutes, I could hear the thud, thud, thud of huge rocks landing on the ash plain nearby. We’ve also had a number of sizeable earthquakes, most of them in the ocean. I woke up one night wondering who was rocking my bed. When I sat up and turned on my torch I realized the house and everything in it was swaying. I learned later there was a 6.3 earthquake a little NW of Tanna. At times like these, I remember Vanuatu to prone to more natural disasters than any other place in the world. Remember the cyclones from the last blog??

Rats have become a minimal problem in the last few months and I rarely see evidence of them in the kitchen or house. With the new roof on my kitchen, I finally was able to hand calico under it to block some of the “dirty” from falling down, and put new calico on the table tops with a clear plastic coating – makes cleaning easy and I can almost believe it’s a safe environment to cook and eat out of.

The kitchen has also proved to be useful in another way. I’ve never had kastom kava, kava that is chewed rather than pulverized in a meat grinder, and when Matt D. was visiting, some men agreed to come to the kitchen to prepare it. Some of then scrubbed it, some chewed it, some did the final preparation. None of it did much to improve the taste, but it was a tad bit more smooth.

A young 12-year old boy drowned last month. We were all woken around 2:00 am because people were out searching for him and me and some mamas sat around to storian for awhile. His cousin had seen him after they had all returned from the solwota (salt water) and called out to him, but he just looked at him and didn’t say anything. He was carrying a puffer fish, the kind with needles sticking out all over. They found him in the morning and buried him on the 3rd day. The mamas were wailing, crying and flailing the ground around the boy. The mourning went on for 5 more days and then everyone worked together to make a big feast and eat together. I helped scratch manioc and Tanna soup. A klebber (a kind of magician) was called in to find out why this had happened. Some of the stories circulating were: the boy’s father hadn’t killed a pig for Day Blong Yam for the last three years; the boy’s father had tried sorcery to hurt another man and hadn’t done it right so it had come back to harm him; someone had killed the boy on land and hid him in the water. The klebber found some bad stones in 6 houses and removed them so he could destroy them later. His sister could actually smell them and so she went into the houses first to find them, but the klebber was the only one who could touch them and so he followed her into the house to remove them.

April 1st is Day Blo Yam which means it is the first day that yam can be harvested from the garden and the reef is opened for all kinds of fishing, not just kastom ways (nets, spear guns). When Larry, the PCV I replaced came to visit, my host brother arrived with a lobster and gave it to me for dinner. He then took Larry to the nakamal for kava. I think I got the better deal. There are two main family groups at Port. Those that are the keepers of the yam and others. The others harvest and prepare the yam and give it to the keepers in a big lafete on April 1. The others can then eat yam starting 5 days later. Not having had yam for close to a year, I was really looking forward to boiled hunks of yam with coconut cream and salt. It was as good as I remember and sitting here writing this I am happy to know I’ve got two 3 foot long yams waiting for me in my kitchen when I get back.

Before I start, I’ll just say I’m in Vila now for our annual All Volunteer Conference and In Service Training. Two and one-half weeks of daily conferencing and nightly partying. There have been parties every night – do you have any idea how many volunteers are born in May??? That and there are about 16 volunteers leaving because their 2 years are done. I hate to disappoint all of you who know me well, but I’ve been to bed early most nights and up early every day and have had only 1 very mild hangover. You believe me, don’t you?? This is the first of 3 posts about the last 3 months.They say there are ups and downs here and a lot of volunteers go thru a pretty big transition 8 to 12 months into their service. I suppose that pretty much sums up my last few months. In spite of the tone of my last blog, I was pretty angry and frustrated during my last visit to Vila. In going back to site I decided to approach things differently. Basically I had been making a lot of work for myself to keep busy and thinking “I” could make things happen. When I went back I realized my job was to facilitate, train and guide; it was not to do things. “I” can’t make a battery project work; “I” can teach how to run a project, “I” can encourage and coach while people are learning, “I” can support. But, it takes the community working together and individuals committed to the project to make it successful and sustainable. “I” can’t fix a community if it is broke. So, I’ve started spending more time just involving myself in the community and less time thinking about work and making work.

When I went back, Matt B. came with me. I had had a safety and security incident immediately prior to leaving and he went back with me to carry a message from me to the nakamal. On Tanna, women cannot go to the nakamal at night when men are present and they are drinking kava. That’s when “business” is conducted. (You might want to notice at this point in this blog that I am a business volunteer and I can’t do business the way business is done here.) Anyway, Matt told them that if there was one more incident I would ask the Peace Corps to move me to a new site. After several days of deliberation, the bigfalas asked me if I would be ok with a sori ceremony. Out of respect for kastom I said yes and became the happy mama of my very first chicken.

A couple of weeks later, a mama asked me for 1000 vatu to buy flour for making bread. This is another year of the kastom economy which means encouraging the use of kastom for buying and paying for things instead of money. I suggested trading a chicken and a mat for the money and I became the mama to another chicken – a girl this time. A week later I was visiting another village in the Port community and they sent me back with a 3rd chicken. I almost have a herd of them. I feed them rice and scratched coconut every morning and night. When they see me they come running and follow me around. At different times during the day, they come to visit me while I sit on the veranda or while I’m cooking in the kitchen. At night I make sure they’re all safely perched in a borau tree and say good night to them. My first chicken, Toama (toe am ah), has become fat fat and I don’t know how I’m going to break it to him that he’s going to become dinner in a Malakula style laplap shortly after I get back.

Looking back, I realize I’ve had another volunteer visiting me every weekend since I was last in Vila. Their friendly, helpful presence in my days has helped me. Aaron from Erromango. Larry and Matt D. The tourists are starting to arrive again and that is a mixed blessing. The last one I talked to was a bit angry because I had been in Port for 10 months and hadn’t done anything. I didn’t think it polite to discuss my two 25 page trimester reports while he was on holiday and so excused myself from his presence.

The first picture above is how Port got its name, Nipikinamu, Tale Blong Fish, fish tail because from antap (on tap at my host mama's village) the whole peninsula looks like the tail of a fish. The second picture was taken at one of the sewing workshops I taught.

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.

Speaking of pigs, I think I finally convinced my neighbors that I would kill their pigs of they didn’t pen them up. After giving the 3 warnings obligatory by kastom law and those damn things once again tore up the few remaining plants and dislodged the “nice, white” stones bordering my garden, I slowly, thoughtfully and very quietly retrieved my bush knife from the kitchen and got within 3 feet of one of them before it saw me and ran. I chased it, yelling and swinging my bush knife, over to their compound. It ran right towards their big bigfala (for protection???) and then stood still. There was a group of men sitting close by under a tree just watching. I once again said I’d kill their pig if they didn’t pen it up and they all just looked at me. I walked over to the pig and stuck it with the knife and it squealed. I didn’t actually stick it, more like poked it and it didn’t squeal too loud, but I think I made my point. One of them got up, put a rope around one of its legs and dragged it to the pen, squealing constantly and even louder than before. When I got back to my house, I just sat their laughing. It was about 2 months before the next pig incident. Hemia olsem! That’s the way things are here.

I try to follow the Buddhist idea of causing no harm, so it was with great trepidation that I poked the pig. I didn’t know how sharp my knife was and I really didn’t want to hurt it and it was white and oh wow, would even a small cut show. No worries, pig skin is very thick. But I extend this idea in other ways that are less easy. For awhile I was getting visits every night by hermit crabs pulling their shells along on their back. One even played with my big toe one night, tickling it with its antennae. One of the old women told me the hermit crabs carry stories from the black and white sea snakes (the poisonous ones) and then asked me what kind of dreams I had been having. Just the night before I had woken up from a dream in which whatever was happening made me laugh and my laughing woke me up. So now when the mamas collect hermit crabs to go fishing, I take a few of them out of the can and put them back in the bush. Probably doesn’t make up for the ones I use to fish with though. K And since I went fishing last, the hermit crabs have stopped visiting. However, these huge, I mean huge, land crabs have started visiting at night, usually after I go to bed. Their scrabbling noise wakes me as they crawl between the coconut leaf panels in my roof or dig their way under the walls. Haven’t found out what they portend yet.

Fishing in the ocean was interesting. Fishing with a bamboo pole and a piece of hermit crab on my hook and standing in the middle of the reef as the tide was going out. It doesn’t go out very far in 4 hours and those waves can be real killers. I think I spent as much time on my ass trying to get my feet back under me as I did fishing. I did catch 2 fish though and was so excited when I finally figured out how to do it. Just the lightest tug and then I had to pull hard but not too hard. I went fishing with one of the mamas who yelled out to me hold on tight and kill it so I could put it on a string made from the spine of a coconut leaf. (side note: have you noticed yet that coconut leafs are an integral part of every part of life here???). Kill it? How was I supposed to kill it with waves knocking me around and nothing sharp to cut it with? She told me to wait and waded over to me, took the fish firmly in two hands and put it in her mouth and bit down. I think she broke it’s back. There was blood dribbling down her chin and the fish was awash with blood. She took it off the hook and put it on the string and tied it back around her waist. I’m thinking shark or barracuda and she’s walking around the reef with bloody fish hanging from her waist. No gat. At least that what she said. So the second fish I caught she told me again to kill it and I knew what to do. It took everything in me to put that thing in my mouth and bite down. I stood there spitting out scales for 5 minutes! Petoooey, petooey, petooey.

Not everything is distasteful in Port. I met some yachtees from New Caledonia who seemed intent on filling me up with fine wine and food. I was just walking on the road one day when they approached me and invited me to lunch and then dinner… on their yacht. We had wine and fois gras, wine and lobster, wine and cheese, wine and coconut cream dessert and wine and chocolate. They had lots of questions about the people in Port. Although they were French speaking, they knew enough English for it to be an enjoyable evening for the conversation alone.

Another pleasant moment came when my “son” Tom gave his farewell toktok to the Presbyterian congregation. He thanked me for helping him understand English better and told everyone that I might not know why I had come to Port Resolution, but he knew that God sent there for a good reason. After he finished everyone got up and said something good about him and his work as a lay minister. I, too, got up and said some wonderful things but also thanked him for reminding me that when I didn’t know was making a difference I would also remember him and what he said.

Just another day in the life of a volunteer: brushing my teeth in the rain (after all I don’t have a bathroom let alone a bathroom sink), using disinfectant wipes to clean my pandanas toilet seat, sweeping my bed before and after I sleep, opening cans of tinned fish to feed the dog and cat along with some cooked rice – every day, cyclones (look up Cyclone Gene, a category 4 cyclone, and you’ll see just how close it came to making my site non-existent), brushing ants off my book, body and computer. Waking up to the occasional crunch crunching of Target (my cat) eating a rat. I just wish she’d eat the whole thing at one time and not leave parts around for me to find in the morning.

Shortly after I got back in October I was on my way to Lenakel and me a young tourist at one of the bungalows along the way where I had to wait for an hour and a half. I started talking to her and asked her what brought her to Tanna. She had just finished a job in the Antarctic and was doing a little vacationing. Her name was Allison but told me to call her Sandwich. I remembered that my ex-stepson, Matt, had worked there for part of about 3 years and so, on the off chance that she might know him or know of him, I asked her. Not only did she know him, but he was one of her best friends there. Then she just looked at me, and asked me if my name was Sandra. How could she have known? It turns out Matt told her to look me up if she came to Vanuatu and had told her some good things about me. We spent the morning storying on as we rode in the truck. Amazing was all I could think. Amazing stuff does happen here and it is true the world is a very small place.

Lots of stories, lots of work too. I’ve learned how to make an island dress and have been teaching the mamas how to sew on hand crank sewing machines. To think that I remember some of that stuff from the Home Economics class I took in junior high school! I had lots of help from one mama, Juliet who has been sewing for many years. I made one skirt in a different way than the other mamas and she wanted to take it with her to Vila but a tourist bought it before I could give it to her. I’ve also taught some cooking workshops and that has been a lot of fun. I’ve learned how to make pizza with a manioc crust and ketsup for the sauce! One day I even spent 6 hours teaching mamas some new recipes, packed my bag and walked 2 hours to the volcano to catch a truck to Lenakel and spent the weekend there just to share time with a volunteer who was having his 23rd birthday. Sitting at the volcano, too tired to climb to the rim, I watched the lava missles come over the edge while the eruption popped my ears. I would have napped but for the company of 3 young ni-Van girls who just wanted to storian (story on).

I recently taught a workshop for managing family money and spend a lot of time just talking with people about their projects or doing one-on-one training in running their existing business. I’ve been working with one young man who was taking some upper level classes in preparation for becoming an accountant. Not only did he pass them but he did well enough to get admitted to Teachers College which takes less time and money to finish. Makes sense though since he was teaching classes 1 and 2 and the local primary school and this year is teaching classes 3 and 4.

I’m learning that I need help and all I need to do is ask because everyone is waiting for me to do that. If I want any kind of food, I just need to ask. I now go and talk with people just because I want to storian and not because I have some kind of work that needs to be done with them. When things aren’t working it isn’t because I haven’t done enough, it is because I can’t do it for them. It is hard being a facilitator when you’ve been a doer and yet I know if I do everything for them, when I leave nothing will last. So, I’ve learned to let go too. Let go of not getting a truck back to site, let go of the toilet caving in, let go of air conditioning and refrigeration and exquisite food. For lunch today I had 2 beef nems (kind of like an eggroll but much much greasier) and french fries. It was fast, it was hot and it was cheap. However, I did get a massage while I was here…. So I haven’t let go of everything or maybe it is just that I’m taking more care of me than before. I just know that I really don’t know anything any 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.

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.

I am now officially a Peace Corps volunteer. After completing 10 weeks of training, we all were sworn in this past Thursday. It was a hectic week with the villagers creating a floating stage on the sanbij (sand beach)and an enormous covered seating area big enough to hold us, all of the Peace Corps staff, distinguished guests (ambassadors, government ministers and pastors), other guests and the entire village. After many prayers, introductions and speeches (about 3 hours worth), we raised our hands (or put them on our hearts) and recited the Peace Corps oath. The ceremony ended with a last picture being taken of all the new volunteers as the sun set in the background. Then we all drank kava, shared in a lafete (feast) in our honor, danced, sang songs and generally kept the entire village awake until around 3:00 am. Maybe not the best way to say thank you to all the wonderful people of Emua who gave us a place to stay, fed us massive quantities of food and generally put up with our Amercan ways. In any case, early the next morning we all got together again and said our good byes by shaking the hands of every villager before loading into the trucks and heading to Vila.

I'll be here for a week getting ready to go to my site - buying food, pots, utensils, etc. - everything to set up a new household - and do it on the $300 the Peace Corps gives us to settle in! Plus, I'll be running around gathering information to take with me, anything from making copies to finding out if some people are really planning on blowing up the reef to build a wharf. I'm also tracking down info on building ovens, painting t-shirts, quilting, and starting a chicken operation - just a few projects that might happen.

Speaking of noise, I just want to describe a typical morning meditation so you get an idea of village life: So, the first rooster starts to crow around 2:00 am. I know this because he belongs to my family, sits in the tree above my room and has not sung me back to sleep - ever. I get up around 5:45, have a cup of tea while studying Bislama or reading and then sit around 6:30. My host papa sometimes gets up after this and pees outside my window before heading to the solwota to watch the waves come and go. By this time the fire in the kuk (kitchen or cook) house has been lit and the smoke is filling my room. The rooster has quieted down, but Leon (my host-sister's 4 year old) is either crying or yelling or better yet, kicking the tin wall of the house - the wall outside my room. He could be kicking the dog or cat too and then there's animal crying noise. On a good morning, Kalman will be riding around in his truck and using a loud speaker to make announcements about meetings or anything the whole community needs to hear about. On quiet mornings, there's only the sound of the crabs digging in the coral, the rats running across the roof or the rain pounding on the tin roof so hard you can't hear anything else. I think you all get the idea. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to meditate UNLESS there is fulup (plenty) noise after this. :-)

I know a lot has happened since my last post, but a lot of it escapes me now. Did you all know there are whales in these parts?? During one of our field trips to a site that is being considered as a World Heritage site, we spotted some whales about 5 miles away, just playing around the island of Lelepa. Than last weekend, my host-papa yelled out, "welfish, welfish" and everyone ran to the solwota (salt water) to watch the whales jump and blow water off the cost of Pele for about an hour. Pele is about 8 or 9 kilometers away from the northern coast of Efate where the training village is. They must have been huge because we could see about half their bodies rise up out of the water. So, imagine about 20 people just sitting and watching the horizon patiently, the silence punctuated every few minutes by ahs and oohs. After some time, people just started wandering off. I went back to the house to spell (take a nap or rest). After laying down, I felt a little sprinkle of wetness on my arm and thought, "how nice, it must be raining a little and it is coming in through the window." However, I soon remembered that even in the most torrential downpour, water DOES NOT come in through the window. I looked up and found a gecko clinging to the side of one of the ceiling beams looking down at me. I'd just been peed on by a gecko!

We had another earthquake the night we swore in. Since I couldn't help but be awake listening to the same song being played at high volume 30 or 40 times in a row, I was surprised to first hear a roaring sound and then feel the whole bed and house shake. It was louder than the music which is really saying something about the roar.

I had my first experience with too much kava a couple of weeks ago. I drank my first shell and right after, one of our trainers arrived and I wanted to buy him a shell too. I thought I'd join him for a 2nd one, so I basically drank 200 vatu worth of kava in one gulp. Well.... the first thing I noticed was that my hearing became very acute. All of the sounds around me were magnified - crickets, string band music across the park 2 blocks away, conversations. Next, my vision started doing what it has only been known to do when I've been very, very, very drunk. They say that you just need to sit and listen to the kava talk to you. Well, in that state, it is not possible to do much more than that. Talking is fine as long as the other person isn't expecting any quick response, but standing or trying to move would be a big mistake. I won't be doing that again soon. It is funny though because the strength of the kava varies so much that sometimes it doesn't affect you at all and at others it whaps you upside the head. And then there is the taste. For something that tastes that bad, you'd think I wouldn't drink it again. Perhaps these comments can attest to the some underlying fallacies in the concept of aversion therapy???

I'm now the proud owner of 3 island dresses. Some of the volunteers who have been here a year have 15, so I'm off to a good start.

My host family took me to their village (Siviry) a couple of weekends ago and we visited some caves there. One is filled with water that rises and falls with the tide, but is not salty. You can even take a kayak to the back of the cave through a narrow opening and get access to trails that go further into the mountain. After we went snorkeling and just walked the beach. And then.... kava, of course!

The night before the swearing in ceremony, I was awakened by a bunch of men's voices outside. Some of the young fala from the village had been out fishing all night and had just brought back stringers full of fish. My host-papa called everyone over to see. About 12 hours later, the fish found their way into the lafete and our stomachs. I really had to think before eating them because refrigeration is not part of this scene. The fish hung outside, uncovered for a long time before they got cooked. No one got sick and I'm learning some that some of the food precautions I've been brought up with are a little overly cautious. Another night, after a wedding ceremony, I was also awakened, but this time it was because a wheelbarrow arrived with a quarter bullock in it. Since my host-papa is the oldest in his family, he then used a bush knife and axe to cut up the meat, scoop it into piles and then hand it off to each of his related families. We had ours in soup the next day and it was delicious. Different, huh????

We did a little review of the way we all were when we first came to Vanuatu and how we are now. Some of the big ones for me are: taking a shower twice a day before and now taking a shower every 3rd day is just fine; being polite about asking for someone before and now just yelling the person's name at the top of my lungs from 1/4 mile away; not wearing the same clothes more than 1 day before and now wearing them for a week before changing; not knowing what was being eaten before and now, not only knowing, but not being picky because hunger is a great equalizer of taste.

I don't think I've told all of you yet, but Vanuatu is the 3rd most dangerous place to live in the world according to some people. That's because the quantity, severity and variety of types of natural disasters here is quite impressive: cyclones, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanos to name a few. I'm living about 20 minutes from one of the most accessible and active volcanos around. I feel quite safe in knowing that if it should decide to really blow, not only will I be the one reporting it to the Peace Corps, but I will also need to go into the highest danger zone first before being about to get away from it. Yes, a little sarcasm can be read into that statement. I think I'll just go for a swim or just hitch a ride with one of the yachtees in the Port. By the way, there's a 4th of July party in Lenakel on Tanna and a lot of people are going to see the volcano the next night - including me!!

And finally, one of our field trips was to visit about 7 places on North Efate that have cultural tours run by Ni-Vans. Got to see my first kastom dance and I immediately responded to the drum beat. I also have a whole set of places to take people should anyone come to visit.

I'll post a few pictures soon, but I need to get them small enough to upload without taking all day to do so. Love hearing from all of you too.

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................

We're in the training village now and it is really beginning to feel like the experience I expected. It is a little bit like camping all the time. There are pit toilets and outdoor showers, mosquito nets, lots of sunscreen and a walk on the beach every morning. The papa in my family is a small chief in the village, so not the main chief, but one of severl smaller chiefs. He and his wife are in their 60's. My sister and her husband have 2 children, Junior or Choo Choo who is 10 and Leon who is almost 4. Nem blong mi papa i (my papa's name is) Michael and he retired from the Ministry of Education around 1992. He speaks good English as does his daughter, Dorana and son-in-law, Obid. And, both Dorana and Obid speak French. So, I'm learning Bislama, some traditional language AND French. Until now I did not think I remember enough Spanish to have a conversation with anyone, but it looks like I know enough to really confuse the Bislama language. My Ni-Van (pronounced nee-van) family is very patient and are good teachers.

Every morning we have breakfast together and then send me off to classes being conducted by the Peace Corps training staff. At lunch, all of the village women make lunch and we have this huge buffet lunch. Our trainers tell us that we are very lucky because all of the women are very good cooks and that the last class wasn't so lucky. I believe it! Some of the volunteers are not liking the food too much though. Getting enough protein in the training village is definitely going to be a problem though. When we came into town today, I immediately went to the store and bought a hugh chicken leg.

In the evening, we storian and toktok (tell stories and talk) and I learn more Bislama and more about Vanuatu, Ni-Vans and village life. Sometimes it seems as if there is too much information/knowledge we need to absorb and sometimes it seems as if things are not moving fast enough. I guess I'm in that in-between world all volunteers find themselves in before learning aelan taem (island time).

It is actually getting hard to not spell and write and think in English at times too. All very exciting when I'm not scared to death, but it is all becoming easier.

lukyu bekegan, tata (look you back again, bye for now),

Sandy

Gud moning, olsem wanem? I gud tumas tedei. Good morning, how are you? I'm doing very well today. Bislama is pretty easy compared to some languages plus we hear it all the time. We went to the mama's market Friday and got to practice asking what things were and how much they were. Found a thing called a custad apel (custard apple) which has this hard green outside kind of like crusty leaves, but when you peel that off, the inside is filled with a sweet white custard like paste and big black seeds. You just spit out the seeds - really good. Leave it to me to find all the best food! Vegetables and greens of all kinds, some with equivalents and some not. Like pumkin tops - the tender green vines growing on pumpkin plants and aeland kabij (island cabbage).

And, I'm now the proud owner for my very own bush knife! We learned how to use it to clean the husk off of coconuts and pop the eye to drink the water inside as well as crack it to get to the coconut out. The liquid is a natural rehydration substance plus has an enormous amount of protein and vitamins. We're learning an incredible amount in a very short time. Well, let's say we're hearing about an incredible amount, the learning will probably come with more experience.

We're heading to our training village today and I'll be staying with a host family that has 3 children (2 girls and 1 boy) as well as tu oldfala (2 older people). I'm looking forward to actually doing something with all the info we've been given and experiencing life here first hand.

I think I sent you all the email address you can use to get to me while I'm not connected, but if you didn't get it, let me know and I'll send it again. Can't post it here though.

Got to run and finish packing...

It is wonderful. Upon arrival we were greeted by Peace Corps staff and volunteers who presented each of us with a lei and a lava lava. My lei was quite remarkable - big white flowers. We headed to a very nice hotel with a pool (albeit 15 x 15) and a very friendly resident cat. After dumping our stuff we all had our first experience with kava. Very bitter, causes the tongue to get numb, but what a great way to relax after all the stress of travelling. The next day a bunch of us headed out to the beach and spent the day snorkeling. All those tropical fish! And giant multi-colored clams! And blue, yellow, pink coral. Fantastic.

It is hot and humid and today we got our first rain storm. But it is starting to cool off and people here are actually cold! We've started learning all about malaria, Bislama and rules and rules and rules. We'll be here in in Port Vila until next Sunday and then we head to the training village. I'll be able to get online until Sunday, but it will then be another 3 weeks before I'm somewhere with technology.

It's a great group of people I'm training with, 24 in all. They range in age from 22 to 65, so I'm really glad I'm not the oldest. And, there are a couple in their 30's and 40's, so quite a diverse group. Even some yoga instructors, aromatherapists, massage therapists, and Buddhism practitioners - I fit right in!!!

The mad dash at the last minute is over and in the last 2 days of orientation in LA I remembered only 1 thing I forgot to bring - my scuba diving certification card. Not irrecoverable. And, so far so good. And, I'm not the only one to bring duct tape, aroma therapy, art supplies and spices! There's 24 people in our group - pretty good size. They're a fun group, lots of energy, lots of different backgrounds, but we all have some of the basic things in common that brought me to this point. Feels like coming home to a people I've known for a long time.

For now, we're sitting in the LA airport with a 4 hour wait until we leave. Making new friends and because of that had an invitation to the United Ambassador Club and am sitting quietly, relaxing and taking advantage of the free internet. Don't expect much such luxury in the future, but it's a nice cushion for starting out. By the way, there are a number of people who brought computers and solar panels and had more than 80 pounds of luggage - no problems checking in. However, that 40 lbs of back pack I'm toting along with a 20 lb case filled with electronic equipment might be the end of me. :-)

Hi all!

This is my first post to this blog dedicated to my travels and adventures in Vanuatu with the Peace Corps. Since I left Santa Fe last July, I've already done quite a bit of travelling - mostly back and forth across the Midwest, but also to the East Coast, Santa Fe and an absoluately amazing vacation to Cambodia and Thailand. I've been busier than I ever was working full-time, and even more stressed at times. Guess that is just a state of mind and gratefully, it is temporary.

I'm leaving in 2 days!! - April 11th - for LA and a couple of days of training and then a LONG flight to Vanuatu. I'll be posting stuff here occasionally, but I don't know how often since my access to the internet will be limited. I'll have a laptop with me and other electronic devices all self-respecting technology geeks are loath to be without. Electricity being a scare commodity in the hinterlands of the outer isles of Vanuatu, I've even become a little bit of a geek about solar power and am taking a portable solar panel for recharging all of the batteries needed. What a cool little device it is! 28 oz folded up into 11" x 8" x 1". I had the best time testing it out on a cloudy day - hee hee. Well, I guess you would have had to be there. I've also managed to load more than 35 GB of music onto my computer in prep for loading into my new Zen MP3 player. However, it only holds 30 GB so something has to give - kind of like giving up some of the things that won't fit in the suitcases or cause their total weight to be more than 80 lbs. It has been Hard getting 2 years worth of stuff into 2 bags. Ugh!!

On the home front, my mother has been quite ill lately and has been cause of much concern as well as time. I'm not sure which is more difficult - leaving my parents for maybe the last time or leaving my pets. I hope they'll all be around when I get back.

I'll try to upload some pictures from time to time, but just now, with high speed internet access, and only 1 picture, it was taking FOREVER. Of course, that is relative given that I'm feeling there is a lot to get done still before I leave.

Hope you all are well and enjoying spring - wow, to think only 6 weeks ago I thought the snow would never leave. Then overnight, everything was green and today the amount of it is almost blinding.

I think you can post comments to my blog, but might need to set up an account with google. You can also register with www.weblogs.com to get notified whenever I make a change to the blog so you'll know when there are new posts - might be easier than checking every week and not finding anything. I have to be somewhat circumspect about the contents of the blog since I'm working for the Peace Corps (aka US government), but can always be reached at the email address I sent you all awhile back. I'd love to hear from all of you and please don't be put off by my lack of response - I might be far away from the internet for long periods.

Be well all - Sandy