Vanuatu Nomo

"Only in Vanuatu" is the translation of the title. I found a little time today to write a blog I'd been meaning to write on some strange and funny things that happen here. And seeing as I was already in the blogging mode today earlier I'll a keep on a rollin.
I should probably start with some walkabout stories that I was unable to get out until now as I've been incommunicado for a little while. For those of you that may have forgotten walkabout was our one week site visit we had four weeks ago before swearing in as volunteers, which was yesterday.
So I wrote a little about my walkabout visit but the best stories were not from my visit. Adam, from my group, was sent to West Santo, a trip that involves a 14 hour truck ride to the bush. In fact there was a village in West Santo that a few years ago was first discovered and had not had contact with anyone from the developed world. Adam pretty much lived the life of Mowgli for a few days: spearing eels, sleeping by the river, spearing a bull and carrying it a long way back to the village.
Tim went to South Ambae were he was greeted by the Ni-Van version of rednecks. They were a rough bunch and were convinced that when Tim arrived "South Ambae i kam antop." Which can mean as little as bringing a few solar panels in. He equated his visit to a trip to the real South, but Vanuatu style.
Julie went to Luganville, Vanuatu's second biggest city to work with the provincial government. Her counterpart/boss told her upon her arrival that he did not need her services. Julie then had to describe what she was bringing to the table. Who knew she'd have a job interview for her site visit? Harsh! Things are getting worked out now and it looks like she got the job. Ridiculous...Excuse me! Peace Corps! Volunteer!?
Matt went to South Tanna where he was greeted by a village of very short people and Matt is about 6'4" and built like a lineman. His best explanation for his village was "National Geographic." The women didn't wear shirts, and people get loaded on kava starting at about noon. The man that gave him his custom name while he was out there had lost vision in one of eyes after he tried to shoot a bird out of the air with an arrow and it came down and stabbed him in the eye. Damn! What are the odds of that happening?
Nate who also stayed in Tanna shared some similar bush stories with some additions. He was placed in a satellite village of 10 people where only 3 of them spoke Bislama. You can imagine conversation can run a little thin after a while. They told Nate that they had a plate for him to use and they produced some nasty, dirty plate. They then proceeded to wash the plate which entailed taking a big mouthful of water and hosing it down. O.K., all clean now!
Nate and I found out this week that our sites were actually supposed to be switched (I was supposed to go to Tanna and he Pele) and we both agreed that each project has its big downfalls that don't make us envy one another, him with the isolation factor and me with the rat's nest of a project that I have to untangle. We agreed that at All-Vol next year we'll see who's got it worse. There's plenty of other stories I have failed to write down here but these stuck out as some Vanuatu Nomo type things.
So...onward with Vanuatu and its charm. Two weeks ago in Vila there was a jailbreak where all the cons scaled the 6 foot non-barbed wire fence and proceeded to stone government buildings and property. Six hours later they all returned on their own accord content with their mischievous behavior. Apparently these jail break then afterward returning instances are fairly common. And, I also learned of the good convict chaperoned kava times. I guess some times good convicts accompany bad convicts so they can have kava in town. How this is decided and what warrants good vs. bad, I haven't a clue.
More...I've heard of a volunteer that lives in a site where he must light a fire to signal his boat transport to pick him up across the bay. Once on the island he can be found storying with a chief who has not lost his passion for playing with toy cars! I envisioned the Hanson brothers in "Slaphot" with this one. "They brought their fucking toys...Who are these guys?!"
And now for something completely different...Remember "Reefer Madness?" Of course you do. The prohibition-era scare movie where people smoke pot then go nuts and screw everything in sight. Well although most in America have moved past this, many Ni-Vans tend to think weed makes you crazy. Thank you so much missionaries! The church has got everyone scared as hell of it but there is a large part of the youth (16-25) that poo-poo it and burn down anyway. We were driving into town the other day when we passed an obviously wacked out guy on the side of the road. "Too much marijuana" the bus driver called out. "You think weed does that to you?" I innocently asked. To which one of our Ni-Van trainers explained, "Yes, if you smoke too much weed you go crazy" with every bit of sincerity he had. How about that? Well if a Peace Corps trainer, a well educated man, nonetheless, believes it then it must be true...
Cyclones (or hurricanes as you know it) are interesting topics around here. People don't really evacuate here. Where the hell would you go anyway? I heard one story a few weeks ago about a current volunteer that was riding out one about a year or two ago. Apparently he was huddled next to one of his tin walls in his house until the wind ripped that wall off. A process he repeated for the next two walls until they blew off. I think with one wall to go he decided to cut his losses and make a run for it sporting nothing but his boxers (I guess it hit in the morning?) He was met with his family as he dashed outside and was given a baby to hold as they ran through a coconut plantation mine field (coconuts dropping from wind).
Which brings up another danger in Vanuatu: The Old Coconut to the Dome. Coconut trees are very tall sometimes and coconuts are not light when they fall. In fact there's a story of a volunteer having a coconut fall down and the force of it raked off a good portion of her face. nasty! My host uncle was gathering up vegetables one day in the bush garden when a coconut decided to crack him over the head. I guess he woke up 20 minutes later and went to the hospital for a nice concussion. He's lucky he's not dead or a little slow. So maybe we should be issued coconut helmets when we arrive. We already stick out as white people already. Why not where obnoxiously big and colorful helmets? But seriously, I tend to know when I am or are not under a coconut tree as a result of these stories.
...Ni-Vans love the megaphone for any type of announcement. The guy from our host village that is in charge of the megaphone duties is missing his front teeth. So when announcements are made the sound is so akin to the adults in the "Peanuts" shorts that you tend to think that Charles Shultz had stayed a while in my village.
Well I'm running out of Vanuatu Nomo for now and I'm thirsty. I think its time for a cold Tusker, a shitty beer, but beer indeed. Until next time...

Plenti sam samting

Well its been quite a while since the last blog and there is plenty to talk about. My walkabout went well when I finally got to my site. It took Dominique, my Peace Corps near island neighbor, and me four days of fouled up transportation to get out to our sites. First we were supposed to hitch a ride with the string band. That fell through followed by other frustrating almost-go-out-to-site instances culminating with a four hour wait for a truck that showed up and then the driver decided to not go to the promised location. Island time!
We finally got out there and met up with two current volunteers that gave us the run down on the truly screwed up situation with the Marine Protected Area right now. By the way this was not a shock to us as we were tipped off by a few volunteers a couple of weeks before we departed for our site visit. Where to start... the "praised" volunteer before me was a grant crazy individual who made this big conservation organization with tons of money coming in. Problem: he leaves, one-time grants end. Now what? A downward slope, here is where the current two volunteers and Dom and Seth soon come in to try to right this bohemith of a whale that is leaking blood quite profusely. The organization even has some of the staff being paid off of grants. So much for sustainability. The only income that the community creates to fund the organization (a meager 1/10 input of the current spending)is in jeopardy because the village I'm staying in wants the money. They get it from a sponsor-a-turtle program. Basically, tourists come in, pay a donation to sponsor a sea turtle that they assist in tagging and the MPA gets thrown some pennies.
There's plenty more going wrong over there and it seems that new failures in the system are being discovered on a weekly basis. But, it wouldn't be fun if it wasn't a challenge, right?
There are definitely some positives to the job though. First of all my village location is postcard picture perfect. White sand beach with aqua water, and an awesome reef to snorkel very nearby. We did the snorkel the first day we were out there. It runs between two islands and the tidal action pushes you right along, to the point where at times you feel as if you are flying underwater. Truly remarkable! The front side of the two islands is protected (that's the aqua side) and the back side has 3-5 foot breakers. Rob (one of the current vols) bodyboards out there but only during high tide (shallow reef break).
One day while storying on the beach we saw a dugong about 50 feet offshore, rare even for out here. I went to try to snorkel out to it but it swam away. Apparently you have to swim really damn slow to get up close to them. So not all bad huh?
Last weekend I got the privilege of accompanying a couple of current volunteers to go out to the mysterious island of Mataso. I had to get cleared with the director to go as it was a long boat ride trip and I'm still a trainee. I was able to go along because of my bird-nerdness as there was a bird rookery rumored to be out there with boobies and frigate birds. So at dawn on Saturday we embarked on our adventure and an adventure it was. The morning of, we told some villagers where we were going and got a few weird looks with some suggestion like, "Hey Dummy there's rough sea out there." When we arrived at the wharf we found our monstrous 12 foot aluminum boat packed with a fiery 25 Horsepower engine ready to take our crew of 8 and a good amount of cargo to Mataso.
The start of out trip was a little daunting as a trip across the protected bay (same trip as I go to my future site) that usually takes half an hour took an hour and we had to stop on Dom's future island. Apparently the spark plug was fouled and needed repair. So we waited a half hour and we were back in business. Great, we thought, the trip was already rumored at three hours and we're already behind schedule and you can't really trust Ni-Van time estimation. So we embarked to the sea. The average swells were 9-12 ft which tended to move the boat around quite a bit. Ben had had his head down for the entire trip, tossing some cookies at times. I don't think I've ever verped (vomit burp) so many times in my life but my stomach held strong. When our endless trip was about to end, we were about an hour from Mataso and it was so close, the fun started. We got one swell that was over 15 feet and the island disappeared. We had to steer into it like some "Perfect Storm" action. About 10 minutes later amidst 12 foot swells the spark plug caught on fire and the engine died. Time to fix it! Shit! I told Katie sitting to my right that it might be a good idea to move closer to the center of the boat as we no longer had propulsion or a means to steer. Boats with no engine motion turn sideways in swells which for obvious reasons is no good. We got rocked around quite a bit and in about twenty minutes of semi-chaos we were back on our way putting away towards Mataso.
So we finally arrived on shore 6 hours later for a trip that is about 30 miles as the crow flies. 5 mph just in case you wondering, traveling at "about half the speed of smell" as the comedian Ron White puts it.
Along the way we saw both brown and masked boobies fly overhead for those bird nerds out there that might be curious. The island itself was pretty bush. About 50 people, one village, and a whole lot of sea around it. The reef check we did out there was great but challenging, plenty of tidal action and the reef was about 15 feet below the surface. That meant plenty of diving down as part of the survey is identifying substrate at half meter increments along a 100m transect line. I got to see plenty of really big fish: grouper, trevally, etc. I also had a large octopus that went through the color phases smack dab on my transect line.
After reef check that night it was time to rinse off the salt water. So one of the village guys led me to the pump to get the water from a bucket to bathe with (yeah normal so far). "Wem swim haos?" I asked. "Lo pleis ia" He indicated. I was to bathe on the foundation of a house that was gone now, probably cyclone did it. So there I was butt naked, pouring water over myself in an open area while some guy waited with my towel. That's just how they do it out there. If it wasn't dark out it would have been a show for the whole village as the bathing place was not off the beaten path. We dined on fish and coconut curry and called it a night as we slept on mats in the community hall shelter. later that night we were awoken by some furious rain on the tin above us and some lightning and thunder entertainment.
Although, Mataso was a little different than what I'm used to there were some comforts from home. A kid, probably about 13 yrs old, was named Seth and we, everyone, got a kick out of it. Also on the first day I arrived I looked out and saw a baby no older than one and a half yrs sporting, of all things, a Cubs shirt with the big classic logo. I told her mama the importance of the shirt and when I went to take a picture the baby started bawling. So I've got a picture with a pissed baby in a Cubs shirt. Better get used to it kid, they aint winning it any time soon.
After another Reef Check survey the following morning we set sail for home with our boat. We were unable to go motor to the rookery because we didn't have enough gas for that and the return trip. I did however see some lesser frigate birds from the big island. The rookery, as it turns out, is a vertical boulder that was bombed for target practice in WWII by Americans. It's full of pockets from bombs and that is where the birds nest. In fact there is rumored to be a few active bombs on the island, doubt they'd explode at this point though.

So we depart from the island and head back. Ben and I are a little bummed that we didn’t get to check out the bird rookery but oh well. The swells are smaller this time ~3m. Things are going pretty well. Ben is sick again, bummer deal. About half way back we see a lightning bolt streak through the air horizontally. Pretty awesome but Katie reminded me that we were traveling in an aluminum boat. I couldn't remember the grounding scenario, whether a metal boat can get struck, but I was hoping we were grounded somehow. We were making better time on the return trip so all was on the up and up. We were about a half hour from Dom’s island (which promises a protected bay and a half hour more ride after you reach it) when the engine started to sputter. What now? “Enjin I kaekae tumas benzin” (Literally, “The motor ate to much gas”). So we proceeded to reduce our speed to an idle as we approached the island of Nguna. We were informed that we only had one oar so paddling in could be a problem. We toyed with the idea of putting on our snorkeling fins, holding on to the back of the boat, and kicking in to the island. As we approached the area where 6-7 foot waves were breaking on rock and reef, the engine was really started struggling. Kinda scary and thought about what would happen if we were to run out of gas right then. We were wondering whether it we better to abandon ship or chance the boat getting its ass kicked in the break zone. It was a mixture of laughter and a few concerned looks being exchanged.

As we cleared the break zone and putted towards the beach landing, the gas died, the boat now just about 20m from shore. Luckily we were in calm water now and one Man-Mataso jumped out and pulled us in the rest of the way. At that point two what-ifs came to mind. First, what would have happened if we would have run out a few minutes earlier near the break zone? Next, what would have happened if we had visited the bird rookery? Probably would have run out of gas in the churning sea and drifted far out to sea. What-ifs are fun aren’t they?

So they grabbed what they thought was an adequate amount of gas and we departed for our half-hour trip home through calm water. We figured we might just get back before it gets dark. Well…about half way back guess what? We ran out of gas again. Fuck! No security concern now just a big pain in the ass. So night fell as we were oared in, the two guys in the back trading off who paddled with our oar so that the boat wouldn’t go too much in one direction. When we started getting close to the mainland we saw that it was low tide which meant shallow reef and no more paddling. So for about an hour one guy walked along the reef and pulled the boat in.

We showed up tired but with a good story. One of the funniest things about the trip was that we were there to scout out possible tourism opportunities for the island. A guy that is from there but now stays in Vila wrote a small grant to pay for us to go out there, check the reef health and an Australian volunteer came along to talk about the business side of a possible project. Well, we told them one of the biggest barriers to success would have to be transport. I can't imagine too many tourists wanting to embark on half the craziness of our trip out there.

So that was fun. I'll try to blog again some time around the 4th of July...

By the way there's a great blog with info. on marine tenure and Vanuatu culture that a Jessica, volunteer that was on the Mataso trip, has made at: http://coconutcouple.blogspot.com