At a meeting in preparation for close of service, 2 months before departure we were instructed that when we get back to the US everybody is going to ask us how are service was and tell us they want to hear all about it but that their attention span is probably shorter than they express. The reality is that after two minutes of hearing your story most people’s eyes will glaze over as they mentally go over their grocery list. So I’m trying to sum up my service in two minutes. I think I got it down to 5 minutes. Here goes:

Vanuatu is an archipelago of 83 small islands in the South pacific with a population of 250,000 people. Due to this isolating environment of lots of little islands with rough terrain in a big pacific ocean, it is ridiculously cultural and linguistically diverse; over one hundred completely distinct languages for only 250,000 people. The people and islands of Vanuatu were not unified as a country until both the French and the English simultaneously colonized them at the turn of the 19th century. As a result they speak a creole of native languages, French, English all mixed together which is called bislama.

In my area at least, the people were not poor because they have a strong family support system, a diversified portfolio of income generating options, they own the land they live on and they grow all the food they need. They earn around $3000 per year and are pretty self sufficient. The main areas where they fall behind are in education, health care, and infrastructure. On average people have a 6th grade education and it can take between a few hours to a few days to get to the nearest hospital, always over rough terrain and with very unreliable and expensive transportation. The country became independent in 1980 and has been slowly but surely climbing out of the status of least developing countries and is now on the border to joining the ranks of developing countries. To catch a glimpse of the whirl wind pace of change, just think that every Vanuatu airplane pilot or computer systems manager is the grandson/daughter of someone who lived in the stone ages.

After two months of training near the capital in September and October of 09 I moved to the second biggest island, Malekula in the village of Lamap. Lamap was the former capital of the French colony and has many vestiges of this including French language, French schools, French Catholic Church, and some tasty French cuisine. Of course they also left rotting old cement structures like old government buildings without rooves, power lines even though there has been no electricity in Lamap since independence, land disputes and even an old tennis court with night lighting that doesn’t work.

The Lamap Ecotourism project

For the two years I lived in Lamap I worked as a business advisor to a grassroots ecotourism project as well as to a new community-run vocational school. The ecotourism project balanced community environmental needs with the income generating power of the growing tourism industry. Through ecotourism products such as hiking tours, snorkeling, cultural festivals and island entertainment, the community was able to afford environmental project such as waste management, coral reef monitoring and clean up, marine protected areas, environmental education campaigns, and the promotion and introduction of solar power lighting.

The vocational school was only three years old when I arrived and had never finished a full year of school. The manager, managing committee, and I faced many challenges as we couldn’t find qualified teachers that would take the salary we could afford to pay. After just settling in to site our head teacher stopped coming to school and so did most of the students. We changed the salary system to allow for more incentives and bonuses without over straining the budget and managed to attract two new teachers who finished out a full year in 2011. We lowered the reliance on school fees with secondary income generation projects integrated into the students’ studies. We also got the school recognized as an education institution, got it to fall into the guidelines required by the government in order to allow us to give out certified diplomas so our students could graduate and go on to higher level technical schools.

This was my host mama for 2 years. Miss her!

As secondary projects I assisted the local women’s association in getting up and running again and did some hygiene and sanitation projects trying to move away from open sewage toilets to water seal toilets built from cement. I also learned some of the local native language, lots of local stories, learned to weave mats and baskets and drink lots of kava, made lots of friends, chilled out and read a lot of books while hanging in my hammock in my bamboo hut.

My Favorite Grandma/kava drinking buddy and our favorite nakamal owner (the taller one)

Vanuatu is a beautiful place with such friendly people who accepted me as family immediately. I learned a lot of lessons from them. Like to complain is to ask for help. So don’t say you’re cold unless you want the shirt off the back of the guy sitting next to you. Also share everything with everyone, even if it’s your last one. So what? They’re just material things. The joy of giving is worth more than any one thing. My time in the Peace Corps was such a great experience; I would readily do it over again.

These are just some of my many new skills that will be rendered absolutely useless and soon forgotten upon returning to the good old comfortable usa.

1 Killing and dressing a pig, chicken or fish

2 Doing anything and everything with a machete

3 Gardening in the tropics. It’s easy as long as you don’t bury it upside down it will grow. I’ve had particular success with peanuts, pumpkin, cucumber and onion

4 Reading the secret meaning behind what ni-vans are saying, i.e. reading ni-vans minds. It takes a lot of cultivation of relationships, observation of behavior, and analysis of motives to understand even a basic conversation. Essentially people lie expecting that you know their lying. So then it’s not really lying, if you have an understanding that one person is lying. At least that’s the local theory.

5 Staying clean without running water

6 Cooking like a ni-van: Cutting food without a cutting board, using my hands as a cutting board while sitting on a stool 5 inches off the ground.

7 Using coconut milk in every meal

8 Catching crabs with my bare hands and bare feet and tying them to a stick with a vine.

9 Baking delicious cakes, bread, and quiches in a pot over a wood fire

10 Speaking Bislama sign language, (also speaking Bislama (Pidgen English) for that matter)

11 Hiking barefoot all day long

12 Sleeping without a mattress

My apologies in advance for another work rant about the difficulties of getting things done in Vanuatu.

The ecotourism project’s busiest month should have been June however many of the committee members were busy in the capital. So I was stuck being the only one freaking out about all the work that needed to be done. I could have just let it go and said hey this is their project and if they are in Vila well then it’s their fault if the work doesn’t get done. Anyway I didn’t do that. The biggest work was preparing the venue for the big tourism events coming up over the yacht season. The first event was going to take place on Thursday the 16thonly ten days away. However our venue had no roof, or chairs or table and there were only 10 days till the event. I get the tour guides together to try to make a plan to work on the house. They say ok let’s do it this Friday. I go talk to the chief to arrange his support to get more community members there. I then make an announcement at the two community churches to let the community know that they are expected to come give a hand.

On Friday, I go to the prospective venue and there is no one there. Nobody, not one person, showed up to work. I just stayed at the house all day waiting. Honestly it wasn’t so bad waiting. I visited a good friend who lives across the street and met a tourist that was passing through. I still felt pretty disrespected. Plus I was freaking out because of the approaching deadline. But I also knew that the fact that they disrespected me could be my best bet to get the job done.

That night, I go to my host family and tell them the story over kava. They were appalled. “They made you wait all day and nobody showed up!” (by the way the people saying that should have been there too.) The mamas in my host family then go walk with me to the various workers houses and shame them with the story of how they made me wait all day for them. The word gets spread all over about the horrible offense I suffered (though it really wasn’t as bad they make it out to be). All this sympathy drummed up a lot more support and awareness than my announcements and meetings. It just goes to show that people pay more attention to gossip than what’s said in church. Next thing I know the chief is coming to me saying he’ll have the whole community down there Wednesday. “You no worry You no kick.” I tell him that’s cutting it a bit close but he says well that’s our way of doing things here, wait till the last minute.

The American in me couldn’t deal with leaving it to the last minute so I managed to recruit some boys to get building supplies for the house on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday when I go to the venue low and behold 30 people are working away on the house. It was a miracle. For the first time in my Peace Corps experience everyone who said they’d show up, actually did show up. As I walked up to the group and grabbed a knife to help descale the fish for lunch, I couldn’t help but smile and laugh. You have to go about things in the most roundabout way to get results in this country. But I guess I’ve kinda got the hang of it. Look at me, I used my cultural knowledge for community organizing.

Thanks for the attentive ear. I feel a lot better now.XOXO

and some lows

I’ve had some low points in the past 20 months; all of them in the first 9 months of service. It has been pretty much all uphill from there. They would include:

1. Feeling out of place in the training village,

2. Getting stared at and pitied in my first 3 months in my community,

3. The time the teachers stopped showing up and the school closed for a term,

4. Getting bed bugs,

5. Being medically evacuated for diphtheria in May 2010.

But let’s not focus on the negative. I think the highs make up for it:

1. Moving to my very own cute as a button little thatch house after living with a host family for 5 months.

2. Getting little baby Marie Antoinette during my first week in my comunity. She was so tiny and fluffy and full of fleas!

3. Organizing 30 self important busy community leaders to build a venue for the tourism events.

4. Organizing 50 self important yachties to attend our tourism events in one of the most remote places on earth.

5. Finally being able to tell a good joke in Bislama and making my friends laugh.

6. Peering over the edge of Marum Volcano with Virginia in Dec 2010. Plus the trip to Australia over Xmas/New Years. All 3 weeks were a high.

7. Nina’s Visit! Land diving wooo!

8. Visiting other volunteers in Vanuatu; Justine on Maewo, Amy on Lamen, Robert, Gaia, and Jason on Pentecost, Hali, Zoe, Laura, and Jake on Tanna, Zoe and Whitney on Santo, all my peeps on Malekula, Ambae, Alisha on Ambrym, Desiree on Nguna and Alexia and Kalli in Vila.

9. Electricity and meat vacations: Meeting up with the other volunteers on my Island, organizing beer pong tournaments, snorkeling, and eating lots of meat; Karen, Sandra, Ricky, Andrew, Marie, Neill, Josh, Sara, Yegor and Jeff

10. Helping out with all the youth leadership camps (called GLOW/BILDs) in Wowo, Lakatoro, Lamap, and Blacksands. Soon to come one last camp in Emua my training village.

11. Having a kava bar named after me. And enjoying a good storian session with my oldfellas over kava.

12. Painting huge world map murals with Neil, and an environment mural with Amy. Soon to come another world map in my community.

13. Hiring Karine to teach at the vocational school. You Yes Karine! She literally saved the school from ruin and took heaviest the burden from my shoulders.

14. Realizing my students have actually mastered the material I’ve taught them.

15. Seeing my projects functioning properly on their own as I finish my time and prepare to leave.

My auntie the other day says to me, “Stephanie, when you go back, your family won’t even recognize you. You look like a ripe banana.” It took me a sec to realize she was commenting on all my freckles. At least that sounds better than pizza face.

I still haven’t gotten the hang of taking eggs from the chicken that lives in my kitchen. The other day she flew out the window, presumably to peck around outside for food. So I took her egg and got ready to fix myself something to eat. I put the frying pan on the fire, greased it, and then just as I was cracking the egg on the edge of the frying pan I hear this screech right in my ear. I jumped I was so startled. Then a wave of embarrassment, then shame came over me. Apparently the hen had been watching me the whole time from the kitchen window sill. And she was screaming at me and chewing me out for killing her baby.

Then after a second or two of feeling like the worst infanticidal murderer ever, I remembered that it’s just a stupid bird and shooed her away. I had to remind myself that it’s her job to make eggs for me. But I still felt bad for her, having to see her egg cracked open into a frying pan, right in her face. I wonder if she even knew it was her egg or if she was just screaming because she’s a crazy bird.

Four months more in the Peace Corps! This is the home stretch people. I just wrote a to do list of everything I have to accomplish before I leave and I realized I could get it all done in one month if we were in the States. But no, here in good old Vanuatu, it will take me 4 months to complete all that stuff because every time you plan anything there is just a 50/50 chance people will actually show up and do what they said they would. But the good thing is I know I can get it all done and leave here feeling like I did something and have something to show for my two years. We’ll see how that plays out.

I’m jealous of all my friends in the states enjoying summer in the city. I miss US most during the months of Jun-Aug. In the winter, when everyone’s telling me about blizzards and unbearable cold in the states, I feel all smug like, ‘ha well it’s 85 degrees here. Who’s made the more sensible decision now?’ But just the mention of the word ‘July’ summons up images of drinking cold lager in the hot sun out on some porch (or roof) surrounded by friends. Banterific! Or midnight bike rides to a sweet swim spot or my favorite 24hr Italian bakery. Outdoor concerts, festivals, backyard bbqs, beach trips, road trips, etc. In other words, the best stuff life’s made of. But alas I’ll just have to live vicariously through facebook for one more summer. Enjoy it my little ripe bananas, and then write me to tell me all the juicy gossip.

I out new pics up on facebook. I'll blog again soon. XOXO SteBlau

Today has been a great day! A year after our local post office was robbed and shut down it has reopened and I received lots of letters and packages. The oldest being the letter from Dossie dated July 18th 2010. And more recently an awesome birthday package from Justine. I also received a Halloween package and two Christmas packages and a cinco de mayo birthday package. I ate half the Halloween chocolates and a bowl of cheesy tortilla soup. And I feel kind of sick but am loving it.

Nina was just here last month on her way back to the states. I was meaning to visit her on my way back but she beat me to it. It was a nice excuse to travel around the country. We visited the island Pentecost where they have a peculiar ceremony for celebrating the yam harvest every May and June. They build tall towers out of sticks and vines 40 ft high and jump off of them into the dirt with a vine attached to their ankle. It’s sort of like bungee jumping. It was really impressive. After that we were supposed to head off to Yasur volcano, which is the most magnificent approachable active volcano on earth. Unfortunately it was being a little too active and consequently not very approachable. Peace Corps forbid me to go so we decided to hop on a small passenger ship heading to the island just to the south. That ship should have arrived at 6 pm but instead it showed up at 1 am. We got on only to find out that it was not stopping at the next island but going directly to the capital city. 12 hours after our 3 hour tour had started, we finally reached the capital and spent several days lounging pool side at various resorts to make up for the time we’d spent on the boat. It was good fun to catch up with Nina and hear all the Friar news. Nina quote, “So it seems like the theory behind Peace Corps cuisine is ‘it’s better with Peanut butter.’” Yep, so true. Biscuits: better with peanut butter; ramen noodles: better with peanut butter; spoon: better with peanut butter.

Here's a video about Land Diving, the Nangol Ceremony

I’ve been here for a year and a half and there are so many things that still make me crack up inside. I could be in a serious meeting but then the area council secretary will start digging in his nose while talking to me and I just lose it. At least it never gets boring.

1. Although it is sold in the shops, nobody ever has toilet paper:

In fact, most people don’t have toilets. But those that do are totally confused about them. In the hospital for example, they built the toilet stall to the exact size of the toilet. It’s so small that you can’t close the door unless you are already sitting down. So you have to pull your pants down and then close the door. Another thing that cracks me up is when the toilet is facing the wrong way. It’s like people don’t know where the front of the toilet is. Here are some drawings of actual toilets I’ve experienced here:

Speaking of sanitation practices, did you know it is customary here to wash your hands after every meal? This unfortunately is not the most effective method of preventing the spread of disease.

It is not impolite to pick your nose in public, while having a conversation, while eating, or where ever. In fact some people grow one fingernail longer than the others for the job.

Also one polite way to burp is to say “OHH!” louder than the sound of the burp so it just sounds like you are surprised by something rather than just burping.

2. Names:

Some common Vanuatu names I’ve encountered: Rock, Coozy, Tito, Fanny (that’s my name here), and the very common family name Bong. I eagerly await the day that I will find a way to use the phrase “He’s got more Bongs than a Vanuatu phone book,” in conversation.

There are a couple families in my area that have named all their kids with variations of the same name. My favorite of course is the family that named all their children variations of Stephanie. There is Stephanie, Stephan, Stephana, and Stephano. I have to admit it is a lot easier to learn everybody’s name when they're named like this.

3. My English class dynamics at the Lamap Vocational School:

-Rachel 15, 5th grade education 0 years of English in school

-Ilene 16, 8th grade education 8 years of English

-Calixto 21, 10th grade education 4 years of English, forbidden to speak with Lidiana

-Cindy 20, 10th grade education 4 years of English, teen mother

-Anika 17, 8th grade education, 2 years of English, teen mother

-Lidiana 18, 6th grade education 0 years English, forbidden to speak to Calixto

Calixto and Liliana are forbidden to talk or sit next to each other or work together due to traditional law that you can’t speak with certain cousins of the opposite sex. And all the other girls are just too shy to talk to him haha. So between the different maturity levels, education levels, language levels, social taboos etc. you can see how this class can be rediculous at times.

Other good news:

I just went on a great three day hike to a small village deep in the bush. It was such a great break from Lamap because it's not humid, it was about ten degrees cooler, there were no mosquitos, and lots of fresh water to swim in. Plus so much great food. You can catch prawns in the river. We collected shellfish and even fresh water eel. One day we went wild pig hunting and caught one! Also the village has a big herd of cattle. We ate meat at every meal.

Also they just put up a new cell phone tower across the way and as of next week I will have cellphone service in my house! Happy easter to me :)

Love you all

Miss you much

XOXOXO!!!

Did not get the best nights sleep but was eternally grateful early this morning when the people in my village woke me up at 2am to move to higher ground after they'd heard the Tsunami Alert on the radio. Apparently the Vanuatu tsunami alert was for 12am-3am so we were a little late. A text was sent to me to warn me of the tsunami alert earlier in the evening but we don't have cellphone reception in our village! There were strong waves reported in the Solomon Islands but not yet in the northern islands of Vanuatu at the time we headed up hill. It was extremely unlikely that we'd get a tsunami but we live in a very low lying northern facing village just a few feet from shore, in bamboo houses no less, so even strong waves could be dangerous. So I grabbed my pillow and my dog, Marie, and headed out into the pitch black.

Then the whole village crammed into one house on top of a hill and tried to fall asleep while the patriarch of the group insisted on blaring the radio. I tried to fall asleep while listening to the radio reports of people calling in and saying they had moved their village to higher ground between every song of string band music, reggae and random 80s pop. This resulted in me falling asleep and dreaming of witnessing a tsunami attack on our village. The water drew back and we could see all the fishes flopping on dry land and then Marie went out to chase them and then it crashed down on us and i'm running running running until I woke up in the morning. We weren't really in any danger. But I think what happened to similar small villages in American Samoain 2009 really hit home for the people of Vanuatu.

Although it was hard to sleep with the radio on it just goes to show that radio is no where near dead. Yeah it may not be the place to make it or break it in the music world but it has it's place. It's the best news source for all of the smaller pacific countries since they all have big rural populations without tv access or power. I'm sure it's the same in other rural areas in the world. Having a story of another village moving to higher ground in between every song though redundant is a constant guilt trip on those that haven't taken any action yet. Peer pressure you know, if they weren't being reminded constantly on the radio they would just be like nah I'm going back to bed.

Dj: Hallo what is your name?

Caller: I'm a chief in Tisman.

Dj: Hallo chief what's going on where you are?

Caller: Well we've moved everybody up the hill and we're all here together.

Dj: ok well that's good. you stay put.

*stringband song starts*

Then today I got on the internet and found out what all the fuss was about. Holy ichi ni san shi tsunami! Check out the youtube footage below. Biggest Earthquake ever recorded in Japan! Massive tsunami eating up the northern coast! We have it so lucky on the East Coast of the States, the occasional Blizzard is nothing compared to the constant barrage of earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, and hurricanes these islands out in the Pacific are getting.

Tsunami in Japan

More tsunami in Japan

I heard this folk story on the Vanuatu National Cultural Center's radio show which airs I think on Wednesday nights on Radio Vanuatu. So it must have been the 8th of February. Anyway I thought it was kinda funny and would be good to share. It's abridged and paraphrased and also translated from Bislama. The story teller was a cultural center field worker working on Ambae Island.

And it goes a little something like this:

One day a man was hunting for birds deep in the woods a far walk from his village (Of course he was wearing Nambas the traditional dress of a large leaf wrapped around the penis and tied at the waste with a string). He was shooting down the birds with his sling shot and he caught lots and lots and filled up a big basket with all the birds he had caught and then started heading back to his village. Then a lesipsip (a jungle devil dwarf) came up behind him and said "hey can I have one of your birds to eat?"

img: A Vanuatu Devil, possibly to the lesipsip variety

So the man gave him one and the lesipsip took a minute to devoured it ravenously. The man started to walk off when the Lesipsip came up to him again asking again "hey can I have one of your birds to eat?".

But the man said "No I need to take these birds back to my village to feed my family."

"Well if you don't give me a bird to eat I will eat you, so can I have a bird to eat."

"Ok" the man said but he was scared now because he had made the devil angry so he threw the bird on the ground as he ran away. After the lesipsip had finished ravenously eating the bird he ran after the man. The man kept throwing birds down and running away for quite some time but he was getting tired and he wasn't losing the lesipsip.

img: Some more Vanuatu devils, maybe lesipsips, I don't know I've never seen one.

So the man tried climbing a white tree (certain type of tree found on the island that has lots of gooey sap under its bark). He climbed up high in the tree and the Lesipsip laughed and said "you think I can't climb up there and eat you?"

"Wait! if you just peel all the bark off the bottom of this tree I'll give you a bird to eat."

So the lesipsip tore all the bark off the tree and then said "hey can I have one of your birds to eat?"

The man gave him a bird to eat then he said "hey can I have one of your birds to eat?"

"No I just gave you one"

"Ok well I'm coming up there to eat you then"

But when the lesipsip tried to climb the tree his hands just slipped on all the sap from the tree. You'd think this would be the end of the story but no... The lesipsip went and sung out and called 9 friends to join him and they all piled one on top of the other until they could reach the man. At this point the lesipsips were angry and so they say "give me all your birds to eat or I will eat you!"

So the man had no choice but to give them the all the birds. He emptied his basket and the lesipsips ate ravenously.

When they were done they said "give us another bird to eat or we will eat you."

"But I've already given you all the birds, I don't have any more."

"Don't lie to us. We can see that you are hiding one. It's wrapped in a leaf we can see it"

When the man realized what they were talking about he stood up in the tree took off his nambas and peed all over the lesipsips. This caught the Lesipsips totally off guard and they all lost their balance and fell down dead. Releaved, the man got down out of the tree and quickly ran home.

img: This is the kind of outfit the man would have been wearing.

I can't believe, in less than three weeks my amazing friends and family have helped me to collect over $1,600 to buy computers and sewing machines for the vocational school I work at. Perfect timing too because here I am in the capital, Port Vila, ready to purchase the supplies in time for the start of the school year. My local conterparts, the manager and teachers, are so surprised and excited. They didn't think it would be possible to collect such a sum in such a short time. They will surely be glowing when I hop off the boat next week with 2 computes and 3 sewing machines so we can start the two new courses, home economics and computer science this february.

Thanks once again from the Lamap Rural Training Center.

Warm wishes,

Stephanie

As you know I'm serving in the Peace Corps down in Vanuatu in the South Pacific. One of the projects I'm working on is helping a local grassroots vocational school grow and better serve its small community. The school is hoping to add two new courses in 2011, Home Economics and Computer Science. But they can't get enough funds from the local community to buy the supplies they need to expand.

The community has invested a lot in creating this school over the last three years because they see that the many area youth that only go to middle school don't have the skills to succeed. The community has raised funds to create the school, build a two classrooms, buy a computer, and run the school for 3 years but now we need your help. We're trying to raise $1,600 over the Christmas holiday to buy two more computers and three sewing machines so that the students will have what they need to succeed this year.

Christmas is the time to give and think of others. I know a lot of you like to donate to charities in others' names as Christmas presents. So now you can give a donation gift through this secure online donation website run by Peace Corps, plus you have the added benefit of helping out little old me and the assurance that it really will be going directly to a community in need (50% of it won't get lost in logistics of running a big non-profit). So this Christmas show your love to friends, fam, coworkers, strangers, etc. by donating to the Lamap Rural Training Center.

More info on the project

Donate Here!

Meet the students and teachers at the school in this youtube video.

Please try to forward this info to some friends and co-workers. Trust me they won't be annoyed, I know them. They love this sort of thing. Don't make me use scare tactics (If you don't send it to five people right now you will get a paper cut this afternoon, guaranteed;). No but really I need your help to get all these supplies in time fore school next year, so try and pull me some strings gang.

I love you all lots and lots! Have a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Love,

Stephanie

Ok I promise I'll write a proper blog post describing every detail but right now I just arrived in Brisbane and I'm beat so I thought I'd put these videos up. If a picture shows a thousand words then a video must be exponentially better.

Here's the gist: Virginia and I hiked up the volcanic island of Ambrym to visit the twin volcanoes, Benbow and Marum, an 8 hour hike, then we were attacked by tornadoes of poison gas flinging ash around. The guide was walking around with a small child on his shoulders right on the edge of the volcano despite strong winds. We saw lava. It is infinitely more amazing in person than in video I assure you. We camped outside the crater of the volcano. In the morning we walked back to shore and soaked our blistered feet in the hot springs on the beach.

This huge French ship came with a hundred soldiers and apparently they are coming back next year for a whole month next march to do some service projects. Cool.

My little recycling poster boys. We did some fun workshops with these kids on recycling and disposing of rubbish.

Throw your rubbish away in the 'ol' but batteries must be thrown away in a 'cemen ol'

Well actually a year and a month. Which means around this time next year I’ll be getting on a plane back to the states. I can leave as early as October 5th but I think I’ll stay as long as I can without missing Halloween. That is a long ways away still and I need to enjoy the present instead of dwelling on the future (which is surprisingly hard ‘cause, well, if you know me you know how obsessed I am with planning the future).

Speaking of the present, today happened. I was supposed give a talk to a bunch of elementary school kids about the environment but then when I woke up I found out that it’s a public holiday and school was canceled. Constitution Day, like Vanuatu needs another excuse not to go to work. Nobody’s been getting much done here recently because of a couple deaths. When someone in the family dies the entire extended family has to take 10 days off work and stay together with the body (don’t worry they bury the body the first day (It’s hot here, ew)). So there was one death and then when those ten days finally passed and everyone was allowed to go home there were two more. And everyone is extended family so basically the whole town’s been shut down for three weeks. But hey gotta respect the dead.

So when I heard that I had my morning free I decided to go visit my favorite cafe, probably the only café on the island of Malekula. It’s only reliably open like that because it is the front porch of a handicapped man and not quite obese woman. They never leave the house so they are always open. They’re great fun and they have good food and they are also the only place that sells fresh vegetables. Anyway stocked up on the fresh veges, then made some pumpkin bread and some fake Tabasco sauce.

Then my tech savvy friend, who always has technology problems for me to fix and I never know how to fix them but he keeps coming back for more, showed up. Today he brought me a fake iPhone he’d just bought. It’s called ‘Phone’ and on the back it says, “Designed in America by Phone a Assembled in China”. It looked so cool but was totally worthless. He’d never heard of an iPhone before but then I showed him online what a real iPhone is. He got so excited and now he has to have one. I know that is not surprising to most people reading this but I think anyone who’s lived in Vanuatu would be surprised because most Ni-Vans either don’t give a crap about technology or are afraid to try it. I’m always telling people how much easier computers will make their lives but it’s actually a surprisingly hard sell sometimes. They’re like ‘OK so it can type letters? Why would I want to type letters and pay 40 cents to print them when I could just put my pen to the paper here?’ So when this guy is getting really excited about an iPhone I’m like I know I totally want one too! iPhones, building bridges across cultural cleavages. Maybe instead of getting Palestinian kids and Israeli kids to play soccer together they should just get them talking about how badly they want the new iPhone. Tell them if they come up with a way to stop the fighting they’ll all get iPhones. Problem solved (Go American Capitalism!).

Then my friend, feeling grateful to me for enlightening him about iPhones, says he wants to do something for me.

“Stephanie, you used to fight will you fight again when you go back to the US?”

“Yeah I’ve taken like 6 years off from karate but I really do want to get back into it when I go back to the states”

“Yeah when I used to live in the Capital I used to always fight. I used to always drink vodka and fight. One day 28 men chased me down and they kicked my ass from here over to that house over there. Then I got kastom medicine [black magic] put on my bones so that they’re stronger. After that if I punched a man one time he would go down. I got them in my feet too and my elbows. You look at these cuts too. I think only my family knows the secret. It’s the bones of my grandfather [and/or ancestor]. I put his bones in my bones so I have double bones now. They can’t break and they’re really heavy to throw a punch. You could get it done too so when you go back to fight in the US you’ll have double bones too. If you hit someone they’ll go down in one punch”

So now I’m seriously contemplating getting double bones, I mean yeah I want double bones that would be awesome. I just have to find out more about the procedure, like how deep are the cuts and where do the grandfather/ancestor bones come from? I asked him, “well if he’s not my ancestor why is he going to want to help me out? I mean if I’m not from here would it work on me too?” He assures me that it doesn’t matter, that it works the same on everybody. There never seems to be any logic with magic. I guess it doesn’t really matter anyway because I don’t really believe in black magic but man I’d love to try it. And if nothing else it’ll be a story, so I’ll keep y’all updated.

I come from the future. Did you know that? I come from a world of microwave ovens, internet, computers, heart surgery, video games, gang violence, crack hoes, obesity, etc. I know you guys are psyched to have all these new stores with all this imported candy and chips but your children are going to have diabetes and plenty of cavities as a result, and possibly obesity. I know this because I come from the future and these things have already happened in our society. Like they say in that movie ‘The God’s Must Be Crazy’, every time man has come up with ways to make his life easier he has in fact made it more complicated. I look at the lives of man Vanuatu and I think wow you are chilling all the time that must be great. Because if you can, why not? But for us in the future if you led a life like that with papa working part time in the garden, a stay at home mom, and five kids you’d have to be on welfare. But if you own all your own land and grow all your own food then why should you have to work for the anything else? It’s really a Utopian system. If the rest of the world didn’t exist to make you want to buy all it’s cellphones and satellite dishes, you could live like this forever but alas that ship has sail… literally a boat sailed up to your little island 230 years ago and there is nothing you can do about it but prepare for the inevitable. All I’m saying is appreciate what you’ve got, don’t sell your land, get your kids to the highest possible level of education, and enjoy the lack of social pressure to wear clothes without holes in them. Ta! -pis cop blong yu.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned here it’s that development as we see it in the US is not the best fit for all places. I feel bad for Americans and especially American kids that they have to grow up in suburbs with no natural swimming holes and trees full of fresh fruit to climb and pick. These kids here in Vanuatu haven’t been corrupted with high fructose corn syrup. They crave mandarins, mangoes, sweet corn, and fresh lemonade, not bubble gum, Doritos, and soda. I remember in Elementary school it was drilled into us that the US was the best country on earth and that we were so lucky to be here and not starving in Ethiopia (or my parents would have been told starving kids in China and today’s kids probably hear about starving kids in Afghanistan). But not all developing countries are starving. That is a very small percentage or the developing world. And I would argue from what I see here in Vanuatu that the developing countries that still rely on their traditional eating habits are probably eating better than Americans.

When my group of 40 Peace Corps volunteers arrived in Vanuatu last September, everyone one was freaking out because the people didn’t eat enough protein. Influenced by the Adkins craze of the last decade, we were shocked that these people were so uneducated about some crazy American food fad. Many immediately started a campaign to get people to eat more meat. But now looking back I see that the people here actually know more about eating healthy than we Americans do. And it was wrong of us to jump in and expect we know best because we’re more educated. When they eat the island food it’s based on root crops then lot’s of fruits, then vegetables followed by meat. Pretty much fits into the food pyramid. Plus it’s all 100% organic and locally grown. They don’t eat a lot of meat, true but they eat it nearly everyday, and they also eat nuts. Anyhow when I think about the mainstays of my university diet; Chinese takeaway, ramen noodles with frozen veggies, hot dogs, beer, and splenda products, I’m shocked by how bad it was. All of it processed, rarely fresh, organic, or local. The reason I was eating that way was because I had no money and I think that kind of diet is reflective of a lot of lower income Americans. You always think that no matter how bad we are eating in the states, all those millions of people in developing countries are eating much worse. Well think again. As a rule people that are eating as they’ve been eating for thousands of years have a more healthy diet than those that change their eating habits every 10 years due to a new scientific discovery. We haven’t figured it all out yet. When we do maybe we’ll know better than they do but in the mean time maybe we should try to eat more like our ancestors, or more like people in developing countries.

I should note that it’s not all good here. In the last 20 years people have started eating more rice, tinned meat, and over processed Asian imports. Hence the warning in the first paragraph. Island food is pretty healthy but people are moving to a more unhealthy diet because they see store bought food as more prestigious. My neighbor just lost his leg to Diabetes.

Yesterday I had a horrible day everything went wrong and I was so ready to write a big angry long blog rant (know as a grant in internet slang ;)) but I’m glad I didn’t because today I had a good day. Although all the problems from the previous day are still floating there waiting to be confronted again on Monday, at least you don’t have to read my rant. Basically I have two main jobs and one I just added on there cause it’s fun. Of the two main jobs, one is adviser and teacher at a vocational school and the other is adviser for the environment and tourism committee. And then I also do some work with the women’s committee cause I feel like it even though it’s not my job (call it volunteer work). The Environment and tourism committee is doing good work. We’re getting ready for a big art and culture festival in about a month and a half. But on the other hand, ugh headache of the century, the vocational school is in shambles and the whole thing has fallen on my shoulders. As in I’m the only one keeping it afloat. So yesterday was horrible due to various factors surrounding the circumstances of said vocational school disaster. and I nearly cried actually because so many people kept on letting me down over and over again. But then I ran into some friendly faces that cheered me up. Anyway the point of the story is even though yesterday was such a let down, today made up for it cause I had my workshop with the women’s group and they are just really awesome and a good time. We talked about nutrition and food safety and I showed them how to make some English food and some American food and we exchanged recipes. It was really fun and I felt like we accomplished something. I think the nutrition and food safety stuff went over well. We made plans to build some more energy efficient and health friendly stoves and to make hand washing stations outside everyone’s toilets (I showed them how this time and next time we’ll each make one). I think they really like it too. Plus I think our meetings have improved the cohesiveness and morale of the group. I just wonder how I could make that continue after I leave.

The women’s group also helped me build this wood fire stove out of cement. I got the instructions and then we all made it together. It was the first time any of us had worked with cement and it was empowering, surprisingly easy and fun. And now I have a stove which only cost me 13 dollars (had to buy the cement). We mixed the cement in an old canoe and used banana leaves and scrap wood to make the frames for the cement.

and here it is when it's finished. That blue can is where I'm going to put a pipe for the smoke. It's been surprisingly hard to find one though.

In other news I’ve tackled a lot of pests this week. I was trying to fall asleep on a rainy Tuesday night listening to that bastard rat chew through my rat proof box. What’s the point of chasing him away when he’ll just come back after I turn out the lights again. So I try to distract myself with the pitterpatter of rain drops, the squawks of bats, mosquitoes buzzing, the occaisonal naos falling and pigs grunting. When all of a sudden I hear a thud on the bed next to the pillow. I get my flashlight on in time to see something falling through the slats of the bed frame. Looked like an insect, probably a cockroach. Well I’ll get that mofo. He’s no match for my Tiga Roda (that’s Indonesian for cockroach spray, I assume). But the little bugger’s nowhere to be found. So I decide to go back to sleep. When what do I see out of the corner of my eye but a huge frigen centipede fall out from the two bedsheets that try to pass for a wall right at the head of my bed. He fell onto the headboar, centipedes are the Sahara desert scorpions of the pacific islands. They are 4-8 inches long and have big old poisonous pinchers. They’re not poisonous enough to kill a human but they can incapacitate you for a few days and are capable of killing a little puppy dog like my Marie who was dreaming little doggy dreams at the foot of the bed. The best way to kill them is to pour boiling water on them because it kills their eggs too. Anyhow I managed to boil some water, find it, trap it under a big bowl and pour boiling water over it without waking my roommate or my dog. They must have been really tired cause I wan’t quiet. The thing about centipedes is that they say that if you find one it really means you’ve probably got two or more. So I’m lying there in bed waiting for the other proverbial centipede shoe to drop into my bed. Ugh I couldn’t go to sleep for three hours but another one never came.

Then I finally tackled my rat problem the next day. This story is gross but I’m only telling it because I can’t believe that I did this. Stephanie from a year ago I think would have been jumping up and down squealing as I did frequently when encountering rats in the alley behind Otherside. But Stephanie from last Wednesday caught a rat by the tail in a glue trap and then chopped it’s head clean off with one swipe of her machete as he stared frightened with his beady little eyes. No squealing, just cold hearted rat murder. He deserved it though for his constant harassment of my condiments. That rat bastard is guilty of the maliciously manslaughter of my ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise. Not to mention eating through my not-so-rat-proof rat-proof box. The moral of the story is don’t mess with my condiments, man, or you get the machete. Update I caught and disposed of another rat but then I’ve seen two more since. Damn these bastards are invincible. The good side of the pest news is, the bed bugs are finally gone. Also there is a chicken that lays eggs in my kitchen about every other day. Best pest ever! Chickens aren’t pests you say? Well they obviously don’t wake you up everyday at 5am.

So let me tell you about the ship I took to get here cause that was pretty exciting. I decided to go with the AOG youth group cause they had a ship confirmed and it was a good one too, Fresh Cargo. Which isn't very big but is considered very flashy because it has chairs to sit on rather than just sitting on the cargo the ship is carrying. Good thing I went with them because the other group that was supposed to go to the wedding still haven't gotten a ship together.

Our journey went from South Malekula then to North Malekula and then back South to Efate island where the capital city is. I looked on a map to find the name of the body of water we were going to cross to reach Efate island. It's called the Pacific Ocean. Aparrently it is the biggest body of water on earth. So it wasn't exactly a smooth ride or a short one. If they had gone directly south it could have taken as little as 12 hours but no, they had to go all around Malekula first. I was sumoned to the wharf to meet the boat at 8pm on friday night. I boarded the boat at midnight and disembarked in Vila at 11pm the next day. It took 23 hours yikes! The first half was fine because I had my ipod and a million comedy albums I got from Justine that I hadn't heard before. Everyone was looking so miserable and then I was sitting there with my headphones on cracking up. Then the battery on my ipod died. :( and I understood why everyone looked unhappy. They were all throwing up all the time which is hardly noticable if you can't hear it. but yuck ugh that was miserable just listening to people all around me get sick. Cause there's nothing else to look at. You can't read cause everything is moving too much. Once we left Malekula behind there wasn't another island in site until we reached efate. Nothing but blue sea and blue sky. Like a more drab version of an Yves Klein painting. Oh yeah and then one of the engines died. A ship journey is never complete without an engine dying. They managed to fix it and get it running again in about an hour. But we did have to deal with some nasty disel fumes for a while.

The highlight of the trip was either that I didn't at any point feel the need to throw up or catching a flying fish. Well I didn't catch it. The fish did all the work. It just flew at me and then I put in a plastic bag and took it home. It was a beautiful fish, with it's silver scales and translucent wings. But when I got back to the house I was suffering from land sickness, where the ground feels like its moving, for about 2 hours. so I didn't feel like gutting and descaling the thing. I gave it to the dogs instead. That worked out well because they were so grateful they escorted me down to the bus stop after.

It was a very long trip. but I think on the way back we should be going directly to Lamap first so It might take only 13 hours. That would be amazing. I would really appreciate that. So how much does this fabulours experience cost well. I got a special AOG youth discount so it was only $70 dolars round trip rather than $185 which is the cost of the plane. However the plane only takes 70 minutes instead of 35 hours. Bit of a difference. But the plane wasn't an option.Now I'm getting psyched about getting back on that speed demon, Fresh Cargo and heading back on Saturday.

has been great. I just came back from Vila three weeks ago. We had our last two weeks of school before the term break. Well actually that part wasn’t so great. I came back to find that the other teacher has been playing hooky for the last two weeks and the whole community including me and the manager are like wtf man. But the manager doesn’t take any responsibility. He acts like there’s nothing he could have done. But he could have found a substitute teacher duh. While I was in Vila I had a substitute teacher. I told him that and he was like I couldn’t find one. And I was like well why didn’t you do it? And he goes well I didn’t want to. Oh ok great but do you want to deal with people not paying their school fees and not coming to school anymore because of what you did. Anyway we got a new school policy out of it but it’s not going to do much. Nobody pays attention to policies.

On the other hand when I asked what the other teacher was so busy doing that he couldn’t come to school. It turns out he’s doing some contract labor to fix up this house for a new doctor. Our aid post is being upgraded yay! And we’re getting a doctor. I was at a meeting the other day and my friend goes “we’re getting a doctor”

I was like “oh really that’s good”

“Yeah a white man”

“ Oh that’s good (me trying to hide excitement)”

“Yeah a young guy”

“Uh huh (me trying to not show that I’m freaking psyched)”

“Yeah an American”

“WHAT?! You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Yeah I’m kidding”

I don’t know what part he was kidding about though. Cause I asked around and we are supposed to get a doctor. But I don’t have the guts to ask if it’s going to be a young American guy or Frenchman or what? Anyway it could totally change the dynamics of my situation because I could have somebody that speaks English and reads newspapers and has been out of the country/off the island. It’s an exciting prospect but I can’t get my hopes up because it could easily be some old fart from the next island over who’s morbidly obese and doesn’t know how to smile (like our current RN).

I had a pretty good birthday. I got lots of phone credit from my parents so I could call lots of people. I got a chicken from a friend of mine. whom my mom quickly turned into a delicious soup. Yum. I also received a bucket of kava and sort of a kava party at my house. Some peace corps on my island came down to visit they made me a bench and gave me some alcohol that I’ll never get around to drinking. But yeah it was nice to have all the local guys in the neighborhood over for kava and the peace corps peeps all together chilling on our newly made “place belong sit down” behind my house. We made burritos with homemade tortillas. The norm when drinking kava is to get things to go because sometimes kava and food don’t mix. So I was wrapping up all these dudes burritos for them other side style in foil and shiat and I’m thinking man these guys have never seen a burrito in their life. How are they going to eat this? Ten bucks says they thought the tortilla was a plate and didn’t eat it. (You have to remember we don’t have lights at night too)

I can’t wait for the Naos fruit season to be over. There’s a Naos tree over my house and every time they fall out of the tree they smack my roof so hard I think they’re going to come right through. Then they roll down off the roof and land on the ground right next to my bed on the other side of the bamboo screen. Then every night just as I’m going to sleep some big huge pig comes and smack-smack-smacks his way through all the yummy fruit. Ugh chewing with your mouth open is so gross mister pig. I could literally poke my finger through the screen and touch the pig but I’m afraid of what he might do plus that would be gross cause they roll around in their own poor all day. Also baby pigs are the most obnoxious things I’ve ever heard. Imagine one baby crying times 8 or 10 babies and louder. Anyway, pigs, they taste great. Naos, I could do without.

I had an interesting conversation about black magic the other day. It was with Romeric and wan olfala man. Romeric’s like “have you ever seen black magic with your own eyes?”

I was like “no have you?”

“No” he says.

Which is funny enough in itself, because he’s always talking about how people here know how to disappear with a leaf and use it to steal cake as a joke. Anyway olfala man goes “I have. I’ve seen it and I’ve done it.”

“Really like what?”

“Like flying.”

“What! You know how to fly? How?”

(Typical non-direct answer, he starts talking about something different) “You put ashes –this is for getting a girl- ashes from a certain leaf –“

“Yeah and bones from dead bodies or something like that,” Romeric interjects “baby bones are the best. You can do anything if you have a baby bone. You can take a baby bone and go to a locked door and they’ll open it for you.”

“What? Where do you get baby bones?

No answer.

Olfala man continues with his recipe for getting a girl. “This is for a girl that is shy and doesn’t talk to you. It doesn’t work on girls that you joke around with all the time. One time I was saying I didn’t believe in black magic but an old man told me to try this. He took ashes mixed with some other things and rubbed it into my skin until all of it was in my skin and there was none left. Then he did it again and again until it all went into my skin then he wrapped up my hand in a leaf and told me to go see the girl after dark. If you sing out her name the first time her family will sleep, the second time her animals will sleep, the third time she will be thinking of you so much she won’t be able to sleep. And she’ll get up and come to you. So I went to her house that night and I did what the old man said and when I came into the yard all of the animals were asleep. Her dog was sleeping right in front of her door but it couldn’t get up. I knocked on the door once and she sung out my name. She didn’t know I was coming but she sung out my name. I came into the house and all her family was asleep but her. We talked go go and when it was time for me to leave I said goodbye and turned around to leave out the door. The door closes behind me and I hear her father say ‘what are you doing up?’ She says ‘no papa I just came back from the toilet.’ As I was leaving the yard all the dogs got up at once and started barking.

There’s black magic all around here like that mango tree over there between Merivar and Penisies with the taboo leaf on it. If you break a leaf from that tree someone from your family will die quite soon. And when you break the leaf you’ll see it’s not white like usual. The tree has blood, blood comes out if you break the tree.”

So I never found out the story about flying but now I know not to touch the blood mango tree! Good to know.

I had a great fundraiser where I played katikati, which is like a raffle, but it’s high speed and low stakes and it somehow feels more like gambling. I organised it but I didn’t really know what I was doing. The way you play is you’ve got something like a t-shirt and ten people buy tickets and then pick a winner and then you get another prize like a bag of sugar and ten people buy tickets and then you pull the winner. It goes really fast. People get so excited. You should have seen some of the women who were betting on sugar they were so nervous it was making me uncomfortable. But we did get a lot of money. Between selling food, kava, katikati and a DVD show we made $300 which when you think about that relative to people’s salaries/cost of living here it’s more like $3000. That was for the vocational school. Then this Friday we’re having a fundraiser for the environment committee; kava and some new string band video everyone’s freaking out about.

I’m probably going to Vila this weekend. I shouldn’t go back so soon. But I promoted this festival on the wrong date. I asked them a million times if there was anything going on that date that might mess up the festival. I asked them again and again. I asked al different people and they all failed to mention that there is going to be a football tournament that week and that all the young men that should do the custom dance in the festival won’t be able to make it because they’ll be playing football. I was like AHHHG. Then I just found a blurb in the Newspaper about it ugh. It was totally out of my control. But I still feel like and it’s going to look like I messed it up. Anyway I’m going to have to go correct it. So I’ll hop on a ship with either half of my village that is going to a wedding or an AOG youth group this weekend. I wanted to go with the wedding group but they are freaking out because they chartered a boat for the family to get to the wedding and now everybody in the village wants to get on the boat. And then the boat they chartered couldn’t come so another boat is going to come but they don’t know what boat or what size boat or when. So yikes what a headache. I think I’ll just jump on the AOG boat. The boat ride is something like 20 hours. I hope it’s a “big” ship. Though last time I was on a ship it was relatively big but I still launched some projectiles into the sea. I wish I had Dramamine. In any case if this is on the Internet during the month of May, it means I survived the voyage. If not I either didn’t survive or didn’t get on the ship.

My dog has left me because i was not very nice to her this weekend. She kept following me into church and making a big embarrassing scene. So I tied her up but she chewed through the rope and found me and then I had to yell and throw stones to get her to leave (not at her really just sort of in her direction, I would never actually stone a dog). Anyway now there’s no more church and I want my friend back but yeah I guess it doesn’t work that way. I deserve it but I hope she comes back before I go to Vila. I was planing on feeding her lots of meat this week to fatten her up in preparation for my departure. Dogs here just eat scraps from the kitchen, which is what she’ll have when I’m gone. It’s enough to live off of but I want her to be big and strong and healthy and all that. DESOLE MARIE! MI SORI TUMAS! Ki Gio!

My mosquito repellent and parasite cream has run dry, I have a bitch of a kava hang over and the Bishop is here. It’s Easter week and I managed to escape church on Thursday but had to go Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Today, Monday, I was nearly forced to go (in a nice way, as they do here). A friend brought me a new dress to wear to the Bishop’s mass and then came to check if I was ready to go. I had to tell her sorry I’ll be late. Yeah 4 hours late. Oops haha. I’m sorry but I’ve been to three masses this weekend. And I’m not Catholic so I think that’s good enough. Anyway there’s going to be lot’s of traditional dancing and drinking kava with the Bishop tonight and I need to rest up for that. Not to mention all the work I have to get done before I get to Vila this week. Yikes! Time to get back to work. I’m also currently trying to make a baked potato on a gas stove, I don’t think it’s going to work out. It also doesn’t help that it’s not a potato. It’s some relative of a sweet potato, Kumala, the not so sweet potato.

I’m also typing up a letter for the South Malekula Land Committee to take to Court as evidence on a land case and there is some pretty funny misuse of language. “Approximatively” that made me laugh out loud. “Juridical” is actually a real word but I almost corrected it cause I'd never heard it before. And then they are confused about the meaning of condone. “We strongly condone Mr. Martin’s wrong moves and bad attitude.” Well if you condone his behaviour then why are you going to court against him? Other fun unrelated language differences: barrel=paddle “did you bring a barrel for the Canoe?”, sevem=serve/sieve; “They’re sevem kava now” Two very different steps in the Kava process. It’s either time to drink or they haven’t finished making it; sel=coconutshell/shellfish/sale/sell “we’re selem copra.” Could mean they are selling it or taking it out of it’s shell. “Are you going to have a sel?” Could mean a yardsale or a shell of kava.

ok next blog will be my Vila update. I'm staying for two full weeks!

xoxox

Steph

3/20/10

Yeah so I’m being super good and writing three blog posts this week because I just got a new computer cord. My old one broke and then it took 5 weeks for the new one to come. It also didn’t help that the cord had to travel through a big snowstorm in DC and big tropical storm on my end that canceled postal flights and is now terrorizing Australia. So now all the work that needs a computer has piled up and I am procrastinating by blogging.

I just came back from visiting my mama’s house. I went and had dinner there last night. My mama is an amazing cook, relatively speaking to other mamas here. She made this soup the other day that was just like Mrs. Fearnoughs Brunswick Stew, my favorite impossible to find canned soup. I asked her what’s her secret and she said icing sugar. Brillant! Of course, cause its sugar with starch in it. It made it all thick and slightly sweet. Yum.

But the food’s not always amazing. When I went to eat there just now she made laplap flying fox, which is a cassava cake with a huge hairy bat inside and coconut sauce. When they cook the flying fox it’s not skinned or boned and it smells literally like a dead rat. It looks like a rat too, like a huge rat with giant bat wings. It was this foot long piece of laplap too. I was like what’s up with that? So I tried to cut the laplap with my spoon but hit bone immediately. Then I realized it had the entire wing of the bat folded up in it. Yuck. Luckily everyone was watching a movie so they didn’t notice I didn’t touch my bat-wing cake. They were watching this really funnny french movie series from the 60’s. I think it’s a classic. It’s about these 6 gendarme that always get into trouble. Fricken hilarious, even though it’s in French. I also watch a lot of kung fu classics in French. It rarely impedes understanding of the plot.

Today apparently, is Francophone Day. At the primary school they are collecting money for a donation to chile. Which I thought was funny cause maybe they should be donating to Haiti for francophone day. Anyway I really feel for the francophones here. They are kind of at a disadvantage and the disadvantage is growing. Vanuatu was a colony of both the French and the British. So it has Francophone areas and Anglophone areas. Lamap, where I live is Francophone. They have a great school here that goes to tenth grade and will have year eleventh next year. But then all this education goes to waste when the rest of the country speaks English. The language barrier can really set up a wall to development. The official national language is Bislama and the people here are fluent in Bislama but not English. Yet most of the laws, contracts and newspapers are written in English, not Bislama.

Here’s an example, the tourism office just sent me a contract to have my Tourism committee sign in English. I was like no, I’m not having them sign this. Signing contracts without reading them is not a good habit to get people into. I read it and it wasn’t even appropriate for them. For example it said only tour providers could be members of the committee, which the members of the committee are not. So by signing they would be writing themselves out of the committee. Now I know this wasn’t the intention of the Tourism office but the point is that Anglophones don’t have to deal with this that much and the attitude is always ‘oh the francophones will figure it out’. And yeah they get by but they also get screwed over.

Another example: I went to the umbrella agency for all the vocational training schools to try to get some curricula. They showed me all this great material, textbooks, videos, etc. that could be used in our school. But it was in English. I was like yes I can tell this is all great stuff but it’s in English and the guy goes yes but the simplest English. Ok but that’s still English and the teacher and the manager at the school have a 10th grade education in French and most of the students at the school have 6th grade education in French so all of this material is absolutely worthless to us. This is the Organization that looks out for all the vocational school in the country and it doesn’t have anything in French. In Francophone areas only the very highly educated speak English. Those people are quad lingual; French, English, Bislama, and local language. The vocational schools are set up to look out for those that the conventional school system left behind. These students speak the local language, pretty good Bislama, and some French. So how can you expect them to learn English when we’re struggling to teach them in Bislama?

PS no my French isn’t getting any better. Cause I can’t speak French when I’m already trying to translate my thoughts into Bislama all day. It just comes out a jumbled mess. Je tink se emi vrai.)

3/19/10

So I moved to this new house. It’s really nice cause it’s all my own. It’s got a main house which is like 27x12ft which has a dividing wall where I sleep behind. Then it has an unattached kitchen which is like 10x12ft and then it has a room for bathing and a toilet. The bathroom is just a shack with a coral floor that I take bucket showers in. And the toilet is really just a shack with a whole in the ground. When I first moved to the house the men in the neighborhood decided that I should have a toilet seat. I told them I don’t want that because their toilet seats are made out of concrete and they get really gross. With a concrete toilet if some guy comes and pisses all over your seat, which they will, there is no way to clean it. The piss and shit and gross ass-dirty from whoever's ass just stays there in all the little holes in the concrete. Ugh it’s much better to squat over a hole where you don’t have to touch anything. They found this hard to comprehend because the general community consensus is that a concrete toilet seat is a step up from a hole in the ground. It was hard to explain this and I think they thought I was just being overly gracious by telling them I don’t want the toilet. So then one day I come home to find a concrete toilet in my front walkway. I don’t know where it came from, who brought it there, but I know I don’t want it. The custom here is that if someone gives you something you have to take it. It is impolite to turn it down. So really I shouldn’t return the gift. Regifting is a less taboo. So now I have to find someone to give this toilet to. Anyway it’s been about 6 weeks and the toilet is still sitting in front of my house. I’ve gotten kind of used to it now so I keep forgetting to try to find a way to give it away. I wonder if it would be taboo to plant some flowers in it.

One issue with my new house is that it’s not in a family yard, which I really like because it means I have privacy. The only problem is that it is unsafe at night for a woman to sleep in a house by herself. And apparently there are some seedy characters in this village who would take advantage. So I have a mama that stays with me at night, my security guard, Daniella. She lives right across the street. They are not so attached to personal space as we are. In the states when you live in a house there is usually a room in the house that is designated yours where you sleep every night and keep all your stuff. Here they live in the house and it is the family’s house. Every room in the house belongs to the family. Usually there will be a room or space to store all the stuff. Then the family sleeps wherever, sometimes all in one room, or sometimes in separate rooms, sometimes in the living room and sometimes, if it’s really hot, they’ll sleep out on the front lawn. I’ve witnessed my brother change rooms 5 times in the last 5 months. He just moves his bed. Anyways, at first I felt bad about how this mama has to sleep with me instead of sleeping with her family. But then I realized that she actually doesn’t care where she sleeps. She still lives in the house across the street. She just sleeps in my house. Plus her husband’s dead and her kids are grown and now I’m like a new member of her family. She’s really nice too and she makes one of my favorite island dishes all the time simboro, plantain cakes wrapped in island cabbage with coconut sauce.

She’s also helping me learn the local language. Though she does this weird thing that I haven’t heard other people do. Where she uses the word church and school interchangeably. She actually never uses the word church. Its always school. At first I thought she maybe worked at the school cause she was always saying she was going to the school. But then on Sundays she would always says she was going to school but actually she’s going to church. She goes to church all the time, like 3 or 4 times a week. She never goes to school. So should I trust someone with this interesting language twitch to teach me the local language. Yeah sure. Maybe I’ll just ask somebody else what the local word for church is.

3/18

Some thoughts I’ve been having recently:

“sandy soap is really great, it’s all exfoliating” after picking my soap off the sand and coral floor of my shower.

“bat for breakfast and pigs liver for lunch, well at least I’m getting some protein”

“Shit I’m talking to myself in Bislama again ‘oh la la from wanem mi mas tingting long bislama oltaem’” Additionally recently I’ve found myself confusing b’s and p’s like locals do. Especially when teaching class. Like I’ll write pukiping instead of bukiping or pikfala instead of bikfala. People use them interchangeably here so the meaning is the same but still I know bisness, bookkeeping and big all start with b. Even if they don’t I think I should be setting a good example or something. Whatever. It really doesn’t make a difference.

I live in a world where the newspaper still prints Calvinand Hobbes comics, are you jealous?

“I love laplap manioc how would I go about making it if I were in the states” a variation of “how am I going to get kava when I go back to the states”

Yeah so I’ve been at site for 5 months now and a bunch of projects have been set into motion. I teach a computer class and a business class at the vocational school on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Tuesdays we work on building the tourism and environment center and work on various tourism or environment projects with the environment committee. Then on Thursday again we work on more enviro or tourism projects. I also may start working with the women’s group on Thursdays. Fridays more work with the environment committee and drink kava. Saturdays do long over due laundry and clean around the house and chill and read awesome magazines that awesome people have been sending me. Sunday go to church eat really good food all the mama’s make and stock up on produce people give me. Saturday is garden day for everyone. Recently I’ve been working my ass off during the week so I like to chill out on Saturday instead of go to the garden but I’ve been getting tons of random produce given to me when I go visit people on Sundays cause their kitchens are full of fruits and veggies from Saturday. I love it. I never ask for anything. It’s just the local hospitality. Love it. I got three huge avocados, a bunch of bananas, 3 oranges, and three grapefruits on Sunday. Yeas so that should last me the week. Like I said, Love it.

I’m trying to start some projects with the women’s group but for lack of a better term they don’t have any team spirit. They are much more happy talking shit about each other than actually meeting. It’s so self-degrading. I mean gender equality is totally screwed here but when they are asked to make a group to represent women, then they can’t get it together to stand up for themselves at all. Because from what I can tell standing up for your self is not what a proper woman should do according to this society. Plus if any woman tries to be a leader all the other women in the group start talking behind her back but then they won’t stand up and lead either because they know people will talk behind their backs. They are thinking about disbanding. Ugh well I’m not letting that happen. It’s hard though because I don’t have tight relations with all of them because all the women mostly work at their respective houses and most of my work so far has been with the men. I also work with the men and drink with the men and am treated like a man. But I can’t really act like a proper woman or I wouldn’t get any work done. A proper woman would stay at the house and do laundry and cook and stay quite. However that would mean being a terrible Peace Corps Volunteer. Anyhow I am going to organize some tourism projects with them for the tourism season. Maybe they can be motivated by money.

The other committee I’m working with is the Environment and Tourism Committee. They are great. They are really on top of it. I know that when I leave their projects will hold up. Cause the president is really on the ball. Sometimes even more than me. Some projects we are working on are reef preservation, conservation areas, waste management. The conservations areas are rocking, the waste management is well underway. We are getting a reef check certification class taught here soon so that should start that project. Our main work at the moment is spending grant money from GEF on building a sweet envornmental education and tourism information center in the middle of town. Everyone from the committee is psyched about it and they are working their asses off to get it done. Cutting down trees to make timber, doing math(!) to figure out how to use all the grant money. Then for our tourism projects we have a bunch of hiking trails we are working on. Also we are making a big culture and arts festival in July, which I hope will become an annual event. That should definitely boost tourism in the area. Put Lamap on the map so to speak. Cause tourists love this place. We get at least 200 a year because it’s a great harbor for yachties. For a small outer island village that’s impressive. There just aren’t any services for them. There’s nowhere for them to spend their money. Few stores, no touristy activities, no place to buy local crafts, and one bungalow in not the nicest location. So yeah that can be remedied.

The vocational training center is in a much more precarious position. It’s not breaking even. The quality of education is low because there aren’t enough teachers. Students aren’t paying their school fees. It needs a lot of work. But the manager is enthusiastic and so is the one teacher. Problem is the manager doesn’t really have the skills needed to run the place. He has a relatively high level of education compared to the average population. He finished 10th grade and studied mechanical repiars and maintenance at a tech school in the capital for 2 years. That is well educated considering the average education level is 6th grade. However that education doesn’t really prepare him for starting a brand new vocational school. Luckily for him the students in the area don’t have much choice of schools and the parents really can’t tell a good school from a bad school. The parents often have a lower level of education than the youth. Anyhow we’re working on things and I think we will have a new teacher and be ready to apply as an official vocational school that can issue government certificates by the end of the year. Oh think it could happen. Especially now that I have my computer cord!!

ok that's all at the moment. Sort of a long one cause I haven't posted in three months. xoxox

2010

My first two months at site have flown by. We had the malampa province football tournament. That was fun. Those guys were really good players and there is a really steep hill next to the football field that acts like stadium seating. Every day for a week I would go out there and sit on top of the hill watch some football and then go down to where the environment committee was selling kava and help them with their fundraising. There were lots of food stalls and kava stalls. Two of the teams were from the other side of the bay so every morning they had to canoe across the water for an hour and then every night they had to canoe back. No wonder they didn’t win. Kind of an unfair advantage. Actually the home team won which was fun because the whole town came down for the game and then a few days later we had a big celebration. And another dance! I really hope these dance parties never stop.

Work’s going pretty good except I always feel like I am short on resources. Mainly the internet. Living without it is horrible. If I don’t know something I can’t look it up. If it’s really important I’ll call someone in Vila to look it up. But one of my jobs is to help Lamap attract tourists. But how can they ever keep in contact with prospective tourists if nobody here has or knows how to use the internet? Actually there is a Lamap tourism site: malekulahikingtrail.blogspot.com. It was set up and updated by the previous volunteer. So if in the future if there is no volunteer there is no contact with tourists. Not very sustainable. So I get to teach someone in my community how to use the internet and update a blog. I also will be teaching intro to computers at the rural tech school and I hope I can get internet hooked up at the local high school. Then the Internet will no longer be a 5 hour truck ride away. It’s funny how we were never taught in school how to use the Internet. We just learn because we want to download music, play games and talk with our friends. If I could get that kind of interest going here with the high schoolers, then bam, they wouldn’t need me anymore. In no time 14 year old boys would be programming video games into their graphing calculators, girls would be researching their dream colleges, and tourists could chat with the locals. Obviously it won’t happen like that but I am trying my best to show as many people as I can that computers are the best thing that ever happened to the human race. Oh and I’m also trying to help set up a trash disposal program. Until recently all waste in this area was biodegradable. Everything is either eaten by pigs or it’s burnt. But now with plastic bags, used machine parts and batteries, they need to change their disposal system. There is no place for these kind of wastes to go. So people just throw it on the ground. They sort of treat it like they would a banana peel. Except unlike a banana peel it will never go away and will wash into the ocean and kill the coral reef. Or they burn it and then you get these burnt balls of plastic lying around the beach. So the environment committee and I are trying to set up a plastic and battery disposal program. It’s funny because I’ve never cared about environmental issues that much before but this just seems like such an obvious improvement that won’t be too difficult to implement. Big dreams but I’ve got time on my side.

Christmas here was not terribly exciting but it was good. All the family including all the aunts and uncles who live all over came back to Lamap. And they brought all their kids so it was really loud. But they were really fun. We made Christmas decorations. I taught them how to make snowflakes out of paper and tried to explain that if you look really close up at snow it looks like this piece of paper. But I don’t think it translated well. They’ve never seen snow and were very skeptical. I mean it is pretty unbelievable if you’ve never seen it before. On Christmas day I went to church of course, blah. But catholic church is pretty interesting and the acoustics of the church are great which makes the singing very eerie and somehow uplifting. I like listening to all the songs they sing. Then we had a big Christmas dinner with all the family. I made pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie and they were a big hit. Then we drank Kava and watched all the guys get drunk. That was kind of annoying. All the guys were wasted and dancing like crazy which looked really fun. But all the women were sitting in the shadows making fun of all the men, which was also pretty funny. I did manage to get the women to dance a little but I felt it would be too scandalous if I drank. That was probably good plan because some of the guys were acting like drunk heat seeking missiles targeting innocent asses on the dance floor. I got my ass grabbed a few times and eventually I got sick of it and went back into the shadows. The heat seeking missiles still came around but I was standing against a wall. So when finding they could not reach their target they would stagger away. I went home at midnight but I could hear the music blasting until 6 in the morning when they had to turn off the music to start the church service. So they know how to have a good party here just not with two sexes present.

For New Years I decided to go to Santo, the island just north of my island Malekula because I had some work to do for site but mainly because I think new years eve should be spent in a bar preferably not hiding from drunk men’s grabby hands in the shadows. So I came to visit two friends who are teaching at a highschool in Santo close to town. We did a really good job of celebrating New Years with cap guns and blow horns. The next day one of the girls' dad told us “hey you guys missed the fireworks in town.” I was like “oh wow there were fire works?”. And he goes “well you know those things you use for your car in case of emergencies.” I though that was funny. So we missed the flares show but we had a really good time making trouble at a bar close to where the two girls live. It was at a hotel on a island off shore so we had to take a boat there and it wasn’t crowded but the people there were really interesting. Everyone was from a different country and everyone had a crazy story for why they were in Vanuatu. Nobody had a clock so while we were sitting around a campfire at the beach with everybody I noticed my cell phone said 00:02. So our small American envoy decided to just start counting down really loud and shooting off our guns. And then right after we counted down again for good measure. The best part is at the end of the night the hotel gave us a free room. All in all a very memorable New Years.

After we had recovered from New Years we went to the Millennium Caves. Such an amazing place and not touristy at all. There were no other tourists that day and it was a Saturday. Every place in Vanuatu is like that but it’s still such a shock to me every time because I grew up in the land of tourists. We drove there with a few other people from the school and then when the road ended we walked into the bush until we came to a village where we met our guide. He was a really nice quite guy with a big bushy beard. He was going to do the 4 hour hike barefoot (dry leg in bislama) so few of the guys and I got inspired to do the same. I didn’t regret it. Except in the cave when I couldn’t see what I was walking on but I didn’t get any major injuries. Hooray. So without too much delay we set out on our hike. The guide walked pretty fast which certainly a good work out. We hiked for about an hour and a half to get to the caves. At which point he explained that he must paint our faces with mud before we enter the cave to make sure that all the spirits of the cave welcome us, devils don’t make us sick, swallows don’t poo on us, you know the usual cave entering stuff. The cave was huge, about three stories high and it took us a half hour to walk through. It was of course pitch black since it had a stream running through it, making it impossible to see where we were walking with our dinky little torches. If I ever go spelunking again I’ll get a headlamp. Lesson learned. But honestly my favorite part of the hike came after the caves. We continued sometimes walking sometimes swimming down the river through all kinds of great swimming holes and little caves and great jumping spots. Vanuatu is full of these dangerous places to jump of high rocks into semi-deep pools. They are so much fun, but rope swings are better. Millennium Caves didn’t have a rope swing and I will never for give them for that. My favorite thing was to lie on my back and let the current take me. The river was set in a narrow canyon with waterfalls coming down the sides and stalactites/gmites forming and interesting wear that had smoothed out all the layers of rocks on the concave sides. I think actually it used to be a cave too but the ceiling fell through. After swimming for an hour we had to hike back up a waterfall to get back to the village. It looked like steep cement stairs smoothed but the constant light flow of water. But no it was just another unbelievable natural waterfall in Vanuatu. It was really tall and exhausting to climb but it helped to have a constant stream of cold water flowing over my hands and feet. When we got back to the village they had tons of bananas for us to eat. Banana’s are supposed to keep your muscles from getting to sore but yeah that didn’t really work.

Now is my last day in Santo. Just finishing some things on the internet and then back to Lamap until March or April. I’d love to hear from you. I love getting letters it really makes my day/week. I am in constant need of pop culture, music, fashion and news magazines because they don’t have those here. Just a note when sending magazines don’t say on the outside that they are magazines because porn is illegal in Vanuatu so when you tell them you are sending magazines they have to check that they aren’t porn so it slows stuff down. You can always call too. It’s $.81/min on skype and my number is 011-678-561-8096. My address again is:

Stephanie Blaufarb

Peace Corps

Lamap, Malekula

Vanuatu

South Pacific

Happy New Year! Hope all your new years resolutions come true. Mine is to work everyday to become more like a cereal box. I stole that from cassie and greg cause I saw how much it improved their lives in 2009. Merry xmas. I love you and miss you all!

Ahh I’ve fallen behind on my blogging. Happy Thanksgiving! I had a pretty good one compared to my depressingly uneventful Halloween. A bunch of Peace Corps from my island, Malekula and the neighboring island Santo got together to celebrate. We made tons of American food that people’s moms had sent from the states. We had our feast at Dan’s house, which was interesting because Dan lives in the middle of a school closing. Since it’s summer break now all the schools have big school closing parties. Now remember I’m in the middle of nowhere rural Vanuatu so this school closing is the happening thing in town. As Justine pointed out it’s sort of like little house on the prairie with huge rented speakers pointed directly at Dan’s house. Music started around 11am and ricocheted off the walls of Dan’s cinder block house and into our ears blocking out the ability to hold a conversation. Around 3 pm I began to feel a bit insane as I kept having circular thoughts of turning down the music and then realizing I couldn’t and then wanting to turn it down again. By 9 o’clock we gave in and went and danced our hearts out with all the 13 year olds in front of the speakers.

Since then I’ve been two other school closings, a school fundraiser and a wedding. And I danced with all the 13 year olds or all the mama’s every time. All the Mamas like string band music, folky ukulele, guitar songs with big wooden box, a string, and a stick providing the bass. All the 13 year olds prefer hip-hop remixed in with their string band. And there’s war on the dance floor. when string band comes on all the kids slow down their dancing and when hip hop comes on a the mama’s stand there and wait for the next song. I think both types of music are atrocious but I really just want to dance. I kind of prefer dancing with the kids because they are really good dancers and the Sean Kingston lyrics make it a bit less foreign to my ears but I can’t help thinking I should be dancing with the mamas cause they are my age. I feel like I’m supposed to be a role model and people treat me with a lot of respect but I frequently find myself sympathizing with the youngfala over my authority figure allies. When the MC got on the loud speaker and reminded all the girls that they are not to be wearing trousers, all the girls I was dancing with ashamedly covered up their baggy jean shorts with big pieces of fabric that were passed around the crowd by an old man. Another announcement came on that a few young men had snuck some beers in and I couldn’t help thinking they had a great idea and I wish I could be doing that instead. Fricken missionaries ruin everything.

So I’m at my permanent site here in Lamap, Malekula. On my first day my rural training center counterpart, James, took me to harvest the kava of Jack, the previous volunteer who was spending his last week here during my first week. So I went to plant my kava from the stalks of his which will be ready to harvest in about two years when I’ll be heading out. It was actually quite a trek. Lamap is like a big village with about 1000 people living in natangura and bamboo huts all clustered together. But their farm land is a few miles away. It takes about an hour to walk to the farms. An unnecessary two hour commute just seems a bit crazy to me. But the walk was gorgeous. We walked through a coconut plantations with it’s perfect rows of column trunks reaching up to a palm fronds roof top set on top of a ridge overlooking the Port. The greeks couldn’t have planned it better. A coconut Parthenon. The rows of trunks look like they go on forever. And it’s fun to watch the optical illusion of the diagonal rows moving as you walk down the path. The big columns look like they go on forever and men walking about to collect the coconuts look tiny in comparison. The greeks however probably wouldn’t keep their cows in the Parthenon. Keeping one eye on the path to look out for cow pies. Sort of spoils the mood.

I went to a wedding yesterday though they were actually already married in church. In fact they already had three kids. This was just the dowry ceremony. My uncle tried to tell me it’s the traditional way to say thank you to the woman’s family for giving her away. However in bislama the name of the ceremony translates to “buying the woman”. So yea this woman’s price was about $1000, a ginormous pig, a couple hundred pounds of root crops and bananas, 20 mats and a basket of fish. The woman was covered and guarded by her aunts and there was a fence of palm fronds around her house. All of the man’s family came and brought gifts. The brother of the man has to remove the fence and then the woman’s family and then man’s family make speeches and except each others gift. I though it was very interesting that the man and the woman (apart from being covered in brightly colored tapestries, baby powder, leaves and flowers) were not really the center of attention. They were both well into their 20s but their parents did all the talking. After the exchange of gifts the man goes home and waits for the woman to be delivered by her family to his house in parade of singing and flowers. And after, dance backagain!

Happy Halloween! Oh wait nobody is celebrating that here. And I’ve been so busy finishing up training I don’t even have time to organize anything. I might have time to make macaroons though. That’s be nice. They use coconuts for everything here but nobodies thought of macaroons! So this is my last day in Emua, the training village. The huge highlight of the week which blocks out all other memories of the past week is the site announcements. I found out where I’m going to be stationed for the next two years! I’m going to Lamap, Malekula a small town on the South East tip pf the island. It has an airport, a wharf and two stores. Wooh. This is actually a god site from what I understand. I’m actually replacing 2 volunteers. The one who left 6 months ago was working on a marine conservation project and the other who is leaving now was working at an Rural Training Center (RTC). My assignment is to work with the area secretary but my job title is RTC advisor so I think I’ll be pretty busy trying on different hats. But really I’m trying not to set any expectations because it will be undoubtedly different than I could ever imagine. So now we are leaving the training village to head into Vila and buy everything we’ll need for the next 3 months. I should explain that although Lamap has two stores, these stores would not be nearly as equipped as your average American gas station. So if I want anything other than rice and tinned tuna for the next 3 months. I have to buy it in Vila. So it’s gunna be a busy week. Wooh shopping spree! Earlier this week we had a really funny activity. A creeping simulation. Creeping is the culturally appropriate way to ask someone out. Because public displays of affection and public dating are frowned upon, the only option for people who want to date is to go to their lover’s house late at night and ask to come in. So if someone likes you they come to your house at night and persistently ask to come in. So they did a simulation of this at the training village because most women volunteers do have a creeping at least once in their 2 years and they want us to be ready. So basically the trainers got a bunch of young men in the village together and told them to go creep us. It was ridiculous. We didn’t know it was gunna happen and it was late at night and I was actually writing a letter. I wish I’d been asleep but no it was the one night I stayed up. Some guy came to my window and was whispering my name and asking to come in. Creepy for sure. I kept telling him to go away in Bislama and I even started yelling. Then after 10 minutes of this I told him I was just going to go to sleep and I tried to ignore him. But he wouldn’t stop and he started shining his light in the room and reaching in through a hole in the screen. That was all I could take so I went into my parents room. And then they kept calling my cellphone all night. The boys from the village apparently had so much fun with it and I knew it was a simulation but still I was freaked out. Yuck. Last night we had our last Kakae with the host families it was really sweet. All the mamas made food and brought it at 5 pm which in aelan taem is 6ish. The program was supposed to start at 6 is 7ish. Lots of speeches and prayers. There was an opening prayer for the opening prayer, thank you papa god. We all got tons of gifts from our host families. Fist we all got matching aelan dresses. I got two baskets, a mat, a plate, a cup, a necklace, a bracelet, and earrings. It was like xmas! We gave them our presents of a huge sign with the name of their town and all its tourist attractions which was received with what looked like mixed reviews from the crowd. I hope they follow through and put it on the road. After we could no longer hear all the speeches over our stomachs grumbling and he kids playing. Finally we had closing prayer and got to eat the food that had been staring at us frm the table for 3 hours. And dance the night away until it is no longer appropriate to play loud music in Emua which is 10 oclock. I will miss Emua especially my host family because they have been amazingly supportive and understanding. But I seriously can’t wait to get to the next place. A hotel in Vila with my own shower, privacy, etc. Emua is like suburbia for Port Vila. I’m so glad my site is not here because its boring like a suburb and they’re spoiled with humanitarian aid here as compared to some of the outer islands. Plus there is no adventure to be had. Malekula on the other hand will be full of surprises.

Wow lots to report since my last post. It is now the end of the 6th week of training and I'm beginning to show signs of senioritis. It doesn't help that I just got my first real taste of Vanuatu and Peace Corps life with my visit to Justine last week. For 4 weeks we were kept in the small rural village of Emua so I was beginning to feel a little cabin fever. Its crazy to think that in no time I'll have to be spending three to six months at a time in such a very rural setting. Anyhow last Sunday we got to get out of Emua to visit some other volunteers. Getting around Vanuatu is no easy feat let me tell you. There are 83 small islands spread out over a space the size of California and not all of them have airports. Including Maewo the island where Justine lives. Well they have a landing strip but it hasn't been mowed in a while so we flew to Ambae and rode in the back of a pickup to Lolowai house while singing the Indiana Jones theme song and ducking to avoid branches. At Lolowai we took a boat, a very small aluminum boat that had by the will of god washed up on the property of our boat driver. A dinghy if you will that the 8 of us crammed onto to take out on a journey across the Pacific Ocean. Well it was only a two hour boat ride but it scared the bejesus out if me (queue Gilligans Island theme song). The sea was really rough and it was rainy and cloudy so much so that at one point we could see neither Ambae nor Maewo. I remember thinking how crazy it is that our little dinghy is like a little speck in the middle of the Pacific and how screwed we'd be out there without food or water. . . Then the engine died. The boat driver looked a little concerned as the waves pushed our boat around and crashed over us. He picked up the gas tank and shook it as if it were very light and close to empty. Then he worked on getting the engine going again. After a frightening 5 minutes of imagining us all drifting about the ocean for the rest of our short lives, the engine started backup and the driver proceeded to stand up and look 360 degrees around him for a sign of the islands. He asked us if we wanted to go back but since we didn't know which way back was, we went forward in the hopes that an island would reveal itself to us. And after several nerve wracking minutes it did. Phew, I thought, we're halfway there. Luckily life on Maewo isn't nearly as stressful as traveling to there. Maewo is a beautiful island full of waterfalls. There must be a river or creek or spring every half mile coming from the mountain. It's so green. After our harrowing journey across the ocean it was really nice to get all cozy in warm clothes and catch up with Justine. She's doing good by the way. She only has 8 more months here. She's applying to grad school now as we speak here in the same room as me. Then she's off the China for three weeks. I'm so jealous. Anyway Maewo, on the second day we went to Big Water. And it was pretty big alright. It's a huge waterfall that cascades down the hill. It must be 50 meters wide and of course has more opportunities for cliff jumping. I didn't jump this time; I'd had enough after Saama. I thought that after jumping once I wouldn't be as frightened but having that gut wrenching fear fresh in your memory actually makes it harder to jump. So I jumped off he 40 foot cliff at Saama twice and I couldn't bring myself to do it again at Big Water. It was a gorgeous place and I'm glad two in our group were brave enough to leap. The next day I shadowed Justine at the RTC and we ate diner at Sandy's house which was the best aelan kakae I think I’ve had so far. Water taro with aelan cabbage (which is really like spinach) and tons of strong coconut milk. The strong coconut milk is sort of like creamy cheesy sauce. It’s so good but it’s a lot of work to make. We each probly ate 2 coconuts worth and there were 10 plates. So that means mama carried, broke, scratched and milked 20 coconuts. Lots of work but so worth it. Sandy’s family also made hand ground kava. They used a grinding stone and coral to beat it to a pulp. It was much fresher and therefore a bit stronger than the stuff on Efate. Plus at least it wasn’t masticated by young boys like on a lot of islands. The next day we went for a wokabout to visit the dispensary/ healthcenter/ birthing ward. A woman had just had a baby there 10 days before. The poor woman! The baby was too big and she had to be cut to fit him through. And all she had was Tylenol For the pain. Then we went to meet this brave woman and her new baby. She was so sweet and we all stood around cooing at her baby for a while until it was almost awkward heehee. Then we went walking about looking for some swimming holes to bath in. We hiked up the river in our flipflops trying to be careful not to step on all the water taro planted close up to the river. When we found the swim holes we decided to hike up a bit further just to see. As I hiked up I came upon a huge waterfall whose beauty was unreal to me. I was astounded by its beauty, literally breathless. Which was magnified by the fact that I had know clue that I was about to happen upon a magnificent natural feature. None of us had any idea we were about to stumble upon a 100 foot tall 10 foot wide waterfall. I’m beginning to understand why people believe in the magic here. Unexplainable natural forces are everywhere; volcanoes, cyclones, earthquakes, waterfalls, giant caves. It’s out of this world. Oh yes and another magical place on the island that we didn’t actually get to but saw from the boat on our way out was the moon’s cave. It’s called that because the moon was born there before it came out into the sky. Yes the moon is from Vanuatu, don’t laugh. It looks big enough to drive a ship into and it has a round entrance and is the source of a deep fresh water spring so that even though it flows into the ocean you can swim in cold fresh water. Hey so here’s my address if you want to send me treats! For letters send them to: Stephanie BlaufarbPeace Corps Volunteer Lamap Village C/O Lamap Village Post Office South Malekula VanuatuSouth Pacific For packages still send stuff to: Stephanie Blaufarb Peace Corps Volunteer PMB 9097 Port Vila Vanuatu South Pacific

Hey I've been in Vanuatu for one whole month yeah! and things are still good. I get along really well with my host family and I'm finding it hard to believe my host family for my site could be nearly as good. I have a mama, papa, brat, sista and two aunties and lots of cousins. All the cousins are fun. Adorable toddlers with green ooze forever coming out of their noses to fun teenagers who sit and chat and watch me as I bashfully scrub my undies with a board and brush. It's funny people always say the same thing to me while watching me do laundry. "you have washing machine in US?" Which I take to mean I'm not an obvious natural at washing my clothes in a bucket.

Nor am I a natural at hygeine in a bucket which can be seen by the small yet growing infection on my leg. It's cool al the kids are doin it. No but seriously all the kids run around with big infections and scabs on their legs which come from a vaiety of sources, some parasites, coral abrasions, infected cuts, etc. I'm not really a huge fan of bandaids and I didn't really notice the flies too much but now I've learned my lesson; flies + scab=infection. Another girl in our group had to go to the hospital because she had bed bugs and wounds from bites that got infected. Ok enough negativity. I've learned the bandaid lesson now if I could only pass it on to all the kids, along with the wash your hands and blow your nose lessons.

My pandana leaf mat is coming along nicely and with numerous projects I'm finding myself very busy. At first I was worried I would be bored without the internet, work, school, bars, parties but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Rural life is very busy too. We've got a million things to do here and just storying on with the Ni-Vans feels very productive because that's what the Peace Corps wants me to do. It's awesome. Oh yeah I won't get into racial issues yet but I do think it's funny that some of my ni-van friends call me "white man". Hah I'm like first of all I'm a woman. but it's not offensive or anything it's just the way it is. SO back to mats. I learned to dye the leaves so now I can make them in different colors. I was thinking oh these would be great xmas gifts but I don't know what you'd use them for in the states. Here they're very important because people don't sit on chairs they sit on mats. So unless you want to sit in the dirt you have to make a mat. They are also traditionally used as currency. Even today a girl's dowry is paid some in vatu but also in pigs, pigs tusks and mats. I also got to work more on my coconut/bush knife skills ie husking, breaking and scratching out the insides. I'm so impressed with my progress. If only the resulting blisters on my hands would show such pogress in turning into caluses. Anyway time to go to chruch and then jumping off a 40 foot cliff into a coral reef. Hopefully not into the actual reef but the water above it.

I'm pretty happy after week 3. It has been the fastest week so far. We had so many activities the day flies by. Well sometimes. So an average day here has started at 5am. It's crazy I used to go to sleep at 5am. Now I can't help but wake up at 5. Mainly because of the roosters and my 3 year old sista cryin bout everything. She's crazy. she locked me in my room the other day and I had to convince another 2 yeear old to open it for me. She could barely reach the lock hah. So after I get up at 5 I go running. It makes sense here to do as much as possible in the morning cause after 11 you just want to sleep from the heat. Then I eat breakfast with the fam. I eat banana and pb sandwiches for at least one meal a day, two on saturday and sunday. Luckily I really like pb and banana sanwiches. After I go shower which is a loose term I use for pouring water from a drywall bucket on my head with a contianer that used to hold icecream, then off the bislama class. Bislama's ok but the class is boring. It's basically really broken english but I still find it hard to express myself (miwan) to people and comprehend what their saying. I get really distracted in class sometimes because we're sitting on the beach surrounded by coconut trees and all the kids are playing in the water and I want to swim too and I'm watching some men fishin with nets and then I'm like oh right I'm in class this is weird. At noon I go back and my mama's cooked me something nice, usually with rice and spam and potatos and noodles. After I go rest till class starts again in the after noon. At night I spend most of my time hangin with the fam and helping mama cook. Then I storian with my mama and papa a little bit and then go to bed and read. I get a lot of reading done. (send books!) I almost always get to sleep by 9 or 10. I just get so tired plus after the sun goes away and there is no electricity there's not much you can do. I read by kerosene lamp but the lights are dim and the bed is soft so I end up asleep in not time.

The highlights of weeks 2 and 3 start with our hike to the top of the mountain close to our small town of about 300 people, Emua, on North Efate. All the kids from the village showed us the way. They hike barefoot which looks painful on all the lava rock and they are crazy good with their machetes. My 3 year old sista is always running around with one but I don't see any missing fingers. I can't wait to be that good. It's a really important tool here. People carry them around everywhere and use them for everything. You're even allowed to take your bush knife in your carry on on the plane. It took us 2 hours to get to the top and some people from the village were signaling us with mirrors. It was fun. I want to go again before we leave. On the way back down I got practice using my bush knife aka machete and the kids climbed the coconut trees and threw us down some green coconuts. The green ones are the best for drinking. I got to open one with my bush knife.

Another highlight was cooking in a stone oven. I made a quiche for a community lunch using just fire and stones to cook with. First you put some stones down flat, build a fire on top, then throw a bunch more stones on top. After the fire has heated up the stones nice and hot you brush the fire away and burry your pot in the stones using your bamboo tongs. Then cover it all up with lots of banana leaves to keep all the heat in. It works just like an oven. But it's hard to be precise with the temperature and you can't check the progress of the dish very easily without losing some heat. I've got a lot more experimenting to do but I'm excited. I also learned how to make banana pie. Selfraising flour plus egg plus butter, add sliced babana and coconutmillk on top and cook on a fire for 20 minutes. mmm mm.

On fridays we've been having Kava Fraedei. Lovin the kava. Its a nice relaxing way to end the week. Though kava tastes like bitter dirt and it was a little awkward to come home and talk to my mama drunk on kava. haha but she's used to it from her husband. Kava drunk is interesting because you feel social and relaxed but people don't get rowdy. It's not really a party drink. It's also really cheap, only $1 a drink. I usually only drink 1 or 2. So it definitely beats beer. not that I have access to any beer.

Oh and of course a bunch of the girls shaved their heads so I thought what the hell it's hot and it's only getting hotter from nov. until feb. and now I don't have to shampoo and condition in my bucket shower. what will I do with all the extra time? maybe I'll take up shaving my legs haha. Well gotta go I'm gunna learn to weave a mat out of Pandana leaves. Yeah!

P.S. I decided when I go to site I'm getting two hens, a cat and a dog. Hens cause you need protein from eggs, cat to kill the rats and a dog to scare away the creepers. Can't wait! Oct. 30th I find out my permanent site.

Ok so this is not the best time to blog (I'm in the middle of a scavenger hunt) But I wanted to put something down since I won't be aloud on the internet again for two months!

So far:

We arrived on Sunday and were taken to a beautiful resort for the begining of our training. Just the first 5 days. We learned all about malaria diarhea, dengue fever, toxic fish etc. and got two big med kits to help us through any problems. The name of the game apparently is call the PC medical officer and then self medicate. Very handy. I got a bunch of shots today and my anti malaria medicine, sidde effects include crazy dreams, paranoia, and maybe depression. I am alittle scared but since I don't have a history of depression I probably won't have any problems. we'll see. We have training all day but there is still tons of time to go swimming and kayaking. It's seriously the most gorgeous place I've ever been though there is rarely el;ectricity, no internet. but it's ok cause I suppose we are gettin our comforts taken away little by little to make it easier.

Training:

Tomorrow we are going to move in with our host families house for training so we won't be with americans anymore and we will have to talk only bislama. A big step after only one week of language training. But I will definitely learn faster this way.

oops gotta go my computer time is up! final note. I am getting a cell in mid november and I will able to blog again too. till then bye bye bye write me letters

LOVE,

Steph