Last Blog?

(Pig roasting for my las kakae ceremony)

(Me and Alec with small Noel and Johnny during my las kakae ceremony)

Ok, so I realize it’s been a while since the last time I wrote a blog. I apologize for that, but I have been pretty busy of late with all the ending of service stuff here, and during my free time on the island I was unable to type. My computer’s keyboard bit the dust a couple months ago, a really common ailment in Vanuatu. But, anyway, here I am writing what may be my last blog entry in Vanuatu. As of yesterday, I am officially not a Peace Corps Volunteer anymore. Kinda crazy. I had a good exit interview with our country director and that was it, finis nao (done).
But, to rewind a bit it’s been a great last couple of months for me out here. Time flew by as I slowly wound down my service. In late May, Hannah, my older sister came out to visit, my first and only visitor from the US. She more than made up for the rest of you slouches that didn’t make it. We had a great time just catching up and I was very excited to show her what my life is like out here. I try to do my best to give you guys a window into what life is like here, but you never can really know until you see it. Especially, in a place like Vanuatu where, even after living here for over two years, some things still seem to weird or crazy to be true. Example you ask? Sure, about a week ago a guy in the city of Luganville (Santo Island) was killed by another guy who is a native of Paama Island, but his large extended family (over 60 families) has resided in Luganville for some time. Well, this guy that got killed was axed in the back of the head over some dispute, and his brain popped out the backside. Gruesome, yes, and not the normal way people kill one another. But the strange part of the story is what followed. During the week following the event all of the man-Paama extended family got together in near-riot form and demanded that the three men involved in the homicide be released from the jail.
OK, so this is “only in Vanuatu” part: A few houses were burned down in further events that spurred the intervention of the local Santo chiefs and these chiefs ultimately decided that all of this Paama extended family (all 60 or so of them) have been causing too much trouble in Luganville over the years, and now they need to leave and go back to Paama. They revised the decision to say that only the unemployed members of this family had to now leave. No court decision, just, “You guys are out now.” So maybe this hasn’t set in for you as the reader yet so I’ll try to make an analogy.
So, a large extended family from say rural Kansas moves to Chicago staring in 1990. They set up their roots, babies are born there, and these babies become young men and women that only know the city life. You get the picture. Then, one day a member of this Kansas family kills a man from Chicago as part of a larger tense issue where native Chicagoans and these Kansans have been having some clashes. The mayor of Chicago and the Chicago aldermen (district leaders) then come together and kick out all the Kansans than are currently unemployed. No due process of law. You out!
Well, you may read this and think No fair!, but that is how things work here, and the truth is that the analogy I gave only gets you so far because things are just so different in Vanuatu. Land tenure in Vanuatu is mostly held by the local chiefs of the area in question, and in this case, even though Luganville is a municipality, it is still housed on ground leased from indigenous people from Santo. As such, these chiefs from Santo have the right and the support of the national government to remove these people that they deem to be troublemakers. And, furthermore this decision seems to be almost unanimously agreed upon (based on all the ni-Vanuatu I’ve talked to about this issue, including a guy from Paama). So there you have it, even though I’ve been here for a couple years and learned a lot about Vanuatu culture, I can still be very shocked by events like this. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen in the US or in other words just aren’t part of my culture. I still remember a short talk our former country director told us one time where he more or less outlined the way you view your knowledge of a foreign culture throughout the time you are living in that foreign culture. Basically it’s this: After about a year or so you think you know everything about these people that you have been living with. You know their language, you know how to get around, get things done, etc. Then, somewhere down the road someone from this foreign culture does something that you cannot explain; you have NO idea the basis for their actions. It hits you! You may have learned a lot about this foreign culture that you have been integrating into, but there is SO much you do not know and will never know. Because, quite simply, it’s not your culture. In essence, the longer you stay in a place with a culture foreign to your own, the more you realize how little there is you actually do know.
Now, you may be thinking, Seth, you sound pretty jaded and defeated there. It may seem that way, but I’m feeling pretty good about my last two years of service. Yes, there’s much I do not know about Vanuatu, but I’m fine with that, and I actually enjoy that. You guys probably wouldn’t want to read my blog if I was just going through my life events in the US. I don’t consider myself a boring person, but let’s face it; you guys know American culture. Reading about events happening in the US would be, well it would be… The News, and there are much better and qualified people to distribute that information to you.
I really enjoyed taking pieces of my last two years of life and throwing it out there with things like “A rat ate my brother’s shorts while he was wearing them. Bam! whaddya think of that one?” It’s pretty cool, and I will really miss this place and all the cool stories that surround it.
As you can imagine the last few months have been a pretty reflective time for me. You start to ask yourself: what did I accomplish? What has been great? What has been really bad? Am I glad I did this thing? And, I have to say there have definitely been some rough patches or hard times in my service. Work stuff: meetings and workshops got cancelled all over the place, feelings that the project may be doomed no matter how much effort you put into it, failed projects, impossible to work with colleagues, and so on. Then there is the personal challenges that can drive you almost nuts: loneliness, homesickness, gut parasites, oppressive weather, boredom, etc.
But, all that being said on the negative end, there have been so many great things here. I can very definitely say going into the Peace Corps was worth it and I’m so glad I did it. I was taken in by a family and a village, I learned so much about life in a developing country and I also learned a lot about what it is really important in life. During all of this I got some great experience working in international development and conservation. And, the best part is that I had a good deal of fun in the process.
Speaking of fun I guess I should go back a step and give a quick wrap a good last month or so out at sight seeing as I haven’t done so yet. During June and early July I was able to wrap up my projects pretty well. Regarding the MPA project, I have been slowly handing over things to the MPA staff and committee over my last two years. They are going to have a little rough road ahead without a volunteer, but I sincerely think they know what they need to do and will be able to persevere. I had a really good last meeting and closing ceremony with the MPA committee where I gave a speech about how there now lay a rough road ahead for them, but that I believe they have the skills to get it done. They, the MPA, may still try to get a business volunteer out there in Nguna or Pele to work with local business owners and local tour operators. But, the MPA realizes that such a volunteer would only work with them in small amounts, kind of an as-needed basis. I like the idea as I feel a little support here and there won’t compromise the organization’s road to self-ownership of the project.
Well anyway, I had some really good talks with some of the main guys I worked with over the last two years, including Kalpat, the manager the project. On one of my last days working with the MPA I handed over to Kalpat all the files and materials we had worked on. This moment was the actual “I’m done” time for me as I felt like, “Ok, here’s everything we worked on. The project’s entirely in your guys’ hands now.” It went very smoothly. I feel pretty fortunate to have had that closure on the project as a good amount of volunteers do not get to experience that. Sometimes a lot of things are left hanging due to circumstances outside your control.
The sports project has also been closing up well. There is a lot to be done yet and a good deal that the teachers running the project have to work on, but they’re doing it. Javi and I would like to have a volunteer working with the sports project, but it doesn’t really seem that will happen any time soon. Peace Corps, unfortunately, does not have sports development as one of its bigger objectives at present, and as such won’t place a volunteer solely for that purpose. Though, Jeremiah will still be trying to recruit volunteers to take the project on as a secondary project.
In any case, six youth teams are playing good baseball with kids pitching, batting, and fielding exceptionally. We just had our first baseball playoff that involved six teams, and there is a good deal of interest for the sport coming from both kids playing and adults supporting the game. The kids who are too young to play are itching to start, and now have the advantage of watching their older brothers and sisters play a game that was totally foreign to Vanuatu about two years ago.
Girls are playing along side boys in the first co-ed youth sport in Vanuatu, and these boys are realizing just how good these girls are. In the last tournament one girl from the newly-formed Manua team took the mound and was fooling some members of the 2 year-old Ekipe team with change-ups when she had never been coached on using such a technique. Bottom line: these kids are good and we may see a strong Vanuatu Little League team in the coming decade.
But, even more important than the baseball stuff has been just working with the North Efate teachers on sports development and the organization of sports events. These teachers have come along way and their support both among fellow teachers and parents in the community is growing. There’s still a good deal of kinks in the system, but they are slowly working them out.
So the transition from doing my thing to finishing my service with the MPA and sports project went well. During June and July and while things were coming to a close I also set aside a good deal of time too to just storion and spend some quality time with my village and host family. I ate with a lot of different families in the village, played with the kids, drank kava with the guys, laughed with the mamas, and just tried to take it all in. There were times when it was sad and times when I would just look these people and know that I love them and they really love me.
The last day before I left the village I had my last kakae or leaving ceremony with my village. Before it started I was once again treated to a beautiful South Pacific sunset at the end of a perfect day. The village decorated their meeting hall and roasted a pig for the occasion.
(Me with the chairman of the village, Edward)

(my papa giving me a war spear, oh, and I'm not graying, they hit you with baby powder during any ceremony)
Great farewell speeches were given from people in tears, and I too was pretty choked up and in tears when I gave my address to the village thanking them for the kindness and love they’ve shown me and letting them know how much I love them. It was very sad but such a special time to be with my village before I was out. The ceremony closed and then the fun began. We all, men, women, and children, danced and partied until 2am in one great last hurrah with Piliura village.

(My village dancing at the party)
The greatest part: there were no injuries and no damaged property, both common in ni-Vanuatu parties where alcohol is involved. Good times had by all.
The next morning they saw me off on the boat, and I waived farewell to the best village ever. I looked out through teary eyes at the sandy shore I just left behind and realized this was the end of one of the most exciting times of my life. Many good things lay ahead, but I will never forget my amazing adventure in Vanuatu.
So here I am, one of my last days in Vila, about to venture to the North of Vanuatu for three weeks on a trip that will take me to Ambae, Santo (things have calmed down there), and Maewo. I am no longer a volunteer, just man-America now. No work to think about, just going to see the woman I love and walk around the islands for a bit before I head back home. I’ll see you guys soon…

Sports Workshop

(Workshop participants with their new baseball gear)
I’m just getting back to Pele here after a great workshop that Javi and I put on in North Efate. As I wrote in a blog a few weeks ago, the workshop was a combination of training in Sports, First Aid, and Adolescent Reproductive Health directed at primary and middle school teachers in North Efate. We had been planning this workshop for some time, and just in the last couple months got the funding to do it. It looked as if we were all set to go about a week before the workshop, but then we got sent on somewhat of a roller coaster ride when dealing with the logistics of the workshop.
First, we found out that the budget that had been previously approved by the donor was now going to have to take a significant pay cut. So we tweaked a few things, and hoped a couple other things would line up to make it work. Then the organization that was going to do our First Aid training told us that they could no longer do the training. We found another guy to do it, but he couldn’t officially certify the participants, but could train them. We were all set to go with this option then the original organization called and said they could do it. Javi was set to call the unofficial trainer and tell him we no longer needed him to train when the certifying organization called again and cancelled. After this back and forth fiasco we finally went with the unofficial trainer, Johnson, and were set to go on that.
The workshop was to be held at Onesua College, a boarding high school in North Efate, and this was arranged by one of the higher ups with the Ministry of Education. The Ministry also chipped in for transportation which really helped with the budgeting. In line with the pre-workshop fiasco, we also found out a week before the workshop that the Ministry had a North Efate primary school headmasters’ workshop set at Onesua on the same dates. They double booked and didn’t tell us. Ugh! We were counting on some of these headmasters to come to our workshop too! This was resolved a few days before the workshop, though, when the headmasters’ workshop was cancelled due to a lack of funds from the Ministry.
So with these shaky things somewhat holding I set out for Vila on Thursday, a few days before the workshop, to do last minute stuff with Javi. We had planned to work in the Peace Corps office making phone calls and revising our workshop materials and packets and then printing them off. When we got to the Peace Corps office we found that the computers weren’t working, we had no internet, and the phones were down as they were in the process of moving. We also got the news that Friday was a public holiday and the Peace Corps office would be closed. We had only Thursday and Friday (the only days the Peace Corps office is now open) to get all of this done so it was a little hectic. Somehow we worked it, and were given a stroke of luck in that a few Peace Corps staff had to come in on the Friday holiday to work on some stuff. Friday evening we were just finishing printing the last of the packets as Rodney, a PC staff member, was closing down. Phew! We just made it. I then joined a couple volunteers on our way to a fundraiser my village’s stringband was putting on in a neighborhood nearby. I relaxed, had a couple shells of kava, and did some stringband dancing.
Saturday Javi and I decided to take a break from the craziness and headed out with a bunch of volunteers to an awesome river spot just outside of Vila. It was a welcome relief, and the place was beautiful. There were waterfalls running down into clear pools and caves roofed with stalactites. There was also a rope swing that dumped you out into a pool that made for a lot of fun as well.

(A couple shots of the waterfalls)
(A stereotypical Peace Corps trekking picture. Can you imagine it on a brochure?)
On Sunday we got picked up by the Ministry of Education truck and picked up teachers as we headed up the East side of Efate. Each of the the 16 primary schools (11 Basic Schools: class 1-6, and 5 Center Schools: class 1-8) were to send one male teacher and one female teacher. Most teachers were to arrive today with a few coming early Monday morning.
Once we arrived at Onesua they showed us to the dorms we would be staying at. All Vanuatu schools were on two weeks holiday so they put us up in the girls’ dorms with men and women workshop participants in separate buildings. It kind of felt like a middle school summer camp as we entered our dorms and magazine cut outs from gossip magazines were posted on the walls. This “camp” feeling was only intensified once all of these teachers got together and gossiped into the wee hours of the night. Lights off was at 9:30 but many teachers continued with their pillow talk, much to the annoyance of Javi, who has trouble falling asleep as it is. I was able to sleep easily enough and I had my headphones to ease the process.
Poor Javi was also plagued by another disturbance near his bed. The guy that slept right near his was one of the most flatulent people I’ve ever met. This guy was ripping off farts left and right and loud ones at that. He was also the appointed class clown of the group and had Javi’s and my vote for Dirty Old Man of the Year. The latter award given for his foul mouth and toothy, shady smile as he tried to flirt with the younger women teachers. On one of the nights this guy ripped one off and Javi, fed up, said something like, “Jesus man!” To which the guy pulled him aside and said in a serious tone, “Javi, I know you want baseball development to go ahead in Vanuatu, but if you really want it to take off you’re going to have to deal with my farts.” And followed with the toothy grin. This guy had me laughing my ass off for the whole workshop.
On the first day of the workshop, Monday, we had the remainder of the participants show up with a total of 30 participants in attendance. We were more than happy with this number as we had expected around 20 (people tend to not show up to workshops). The last 4 or so participants were late to show up and they were all from where my site is at, the Nguna and Pele area. Before they arrived, and after the workshop had already started, the ZCA (like a school superintendent) turned to me, knowing I was from there, and asked where my Nguna and Pele guys were at. I told him I didn’t know, and that they had said they were going to go. He grunted and then asked me for their cell phone numbers. I gave the numbers to him, he dialed the Pele Headmaster’s number and said to me as the phone was ringing, “The students are on holiday but this is not a holiday for teachers. This is why I’m here today. I’m seeing who did not come to this. Those that don’t are going to get docked pay.” He then turned his attention to the phone as someone picked up the line, “Hello! Willie…” I gulped. I like these teachers from Nguna and Pele and I probably wouldn’t have given out the numbers if I knew he was calling them to give them a good ass chewing. Willie or Marias as I know him is a good friend of mine in the village too. Yikes! I was redeemed though when the ZCA hung up the phone and said that the truck had just picked them up. I later apologized to Marias for giving out his number and told him I wouldn’t have done it if knew the ZCA’s agenda. Marias laughed and said it didn’t matter. As far as I know nobody got docked pay for not attending, but there was one school, Ekipe, the village where Javi and Krissy were at before moving to Vila, that was surprisingly a no show. We still don’t know why.
Before we started the session on the first day we did an icebreaker activity. These may seem corny to you as readers, but they absolutely love them here in Vanuatu. Javi led them in the pirate ship game where he yelled out one of four activities and people had to hurry to get into a group number (1, 2, 3, or 4 people) that corresponded to the activity and then making the activity. For instance, “mess hall” was where a group of four had to stand shoulder to shoulder in a circle, heads down, and fake chowing on food with both hands. If they failed to get into a group of the size needed and make the activity within a short time they moved to the side to join the others who lost already in a chorus of “Yo ho ho, a pirate’s life for me” with a rum jug swilling arm motion. Lots of fun and good laughs for all.
(Groups of 3 doing the “Land Ho,” two people making the crow’s nest, and one looking out to shore)
(The losers singing “Yo Ho Ho”)
The first session was on adolescent health and Joe, Javi’s Ni-Vanuatu counterpart at the Ministry of Health, facilitated and gave a great presentation touching on key issues adolescent health issues in Vanuatu like teenage pregnancy.
(Here’s Joe giving his presentation to the teachers.)
After lunch Javi and I did our first training on how to teach, coach, and ump baseball. We did a short overview in the classroom and then went out to the field. The teachers picked it up pretty quickly and Javi and I have gotten pretty good at teaching the game over he last two years. We also had the aid of our Bislama baseball rules guide, complete with diagrams and pictures, that we were able to distribute to all the teachers. Once out on the field, we gave some more instruction and started playing a game.
There were some good hits and defensive plays. One young woman slid into home having never seen a baseball game and doing so before we even instructed on it! It was cool to see coaching tips take hold so quickly too. One woman ran up a quick two strike count as she was trying too shyly to place the bat on the ball and missing. I pulled her aside after the 0-2 pitch and basically told her to trust her eye and let her hands do the work. She nodded, and then the next pitch she had a great level swing ripping the ball through the middle on a line drive that got her two bases.
After the game we showered up and had supper. By the way, all the food at the workshop was great and we were in heaven with getting heaping, beef stews and curry chicken plates for lunch and dinner. After dinner we showed a Brewers game, one of few a friend of Javi’s burned to DVD and sent to him. We had pre-screened the games before to find one with good elements of a game, and came up with one where it was suspenseful until the last pitch in the 9th Inning. The teachers had a good time watching it, and one particular teacher was really fired up about North Efate baseball after a day of baseball and watching the DVD. In his eyes, he said, he foresaw North Efate as possibly becoming the baseball hub of Vanuatu.
Apparently, this teacher had previously developed rugby in Ifira, his small island off of South Efate, by explaining to his fellow islanders that they would have a lot better shot being on a future national team for rugby than making the national team for soccer because nobody else played rugby at the time. Soccer is widespread in Vanuatu and the competition to play on the national team is high. Well, sure enough they developed rugby in Ifira, and now that there is a Vanuatu national team, half of them from Ifira.
His pitch to North Efate teachers was that if they do the same thing with baseball in North Efate they too will reign supreme at the national level for possible national adult and little league teams. It was an angle that we hadn’t used before to promote the sport, but Javi and I both really liked it. Basically, if North Efate works hard to develop baseball they will own baseball as badge of pride in Vanuatu. We really hope they take this idea and run with it.
On the second day of the workshop we started the day with another icebreaker, “Two truths and a lie” where each participant writes two factual statements and one false one, and then the others have to try to guess the false one. Some teachers were definitely better at hiding the lie than others. One guy, Simon, started one of his statements, “I was swimming one day and I saw a lion shark…” and was abruptly cut off by the peanut gallery. “Lion shark?!” they cried. “You mean a tiger shark!” And for the rest of the workshop people referred to Simon as Lion Shark. Sorry dude.
For the sessions held before lunch for this day and the next Johnson gave the Fist Aid sessions so Javi and I just relaxed and watched at times. He was kind of a monotone speaker that would have put us to sleep, but many Ni-Vanuatu are able to pull through. How? I do not know. It seemed the teachers got a lot out of it though, and it’s really good have at least a couple teachers at each school trained in First Aid. This is especially good for the all the teachers present who were all also in charge of sports activities at their schools, and with this short training could address some sports injuries quickly. Here’s some shots of the First Aid training:
(Teachers checking their pulses, probably after a long lecture)
(Women practicing the recovery position)
(“Lion Shark” Simon fake yelping in pain as teachers put him in a splint)
(Ailing teachers)
After lunch on the second day we had some more baseball training. This time we started out by teaching some coaching drills like long toss, pop flies, Fungo-ing the ball to the defense, etc. Then we played some more baseball. This time around we had some of the teachers ump which was pretty funny at times. Timothy, a teacher from Emao Island, knew the sport fairly well already so we started with him. I told him how you yell out “Play ball!” before play starts. So we were all set to go and then Timothy pulls his mask down and yells out, “OK, Play boy!” thinking this is what I had told him, and having no knowledge of what Playboy is. Too damn funny.
(Here’s a picture of them playing with Timothy umping. The girl batting here had, on the previous day, ripped a shot to left center, doubled on the play, and then later on another play slid into home.)
Another thing with the umping that had me laughing was when two women were huddled close in a line behind the plate, one umpire and one catcher, and they looked like a two-man bobsled team. They both were afraid of the ball so they ducked when the ball came in, and they both were wearing the same color shirt and same red helmet. It was like they were ducking down as they entered a turn. Here they are:
(Vanautu, we got a bobsled team!)
We closed out the day and then Timothy, the chairman of NEPSSA, the North Efate Primary Schools Sports Association that Javi and I have been working with a good deal, called a meeting for all the teachers present. NEPSSA was started last May and unfortunately, we haven’t had more than six teachers at any one meeting. We decided this was a good opportunity to discuss some issues with the organization, and that it was. Things got heated for a bit as some teachers, whose schools had never attended the meetings, told out their gripes with the organization on things like last year’s tournament prizes and other perceived organization failures. The meeting eventually cooled down and the rabble rousers soon realized that the reason that many of the failures happened was due to a lack of support and involvement from many of the schools, including theirs. Basically, too few individuals have had to carry an organization that depends on input and work from many. It was a great meeting, a turning point for the organization as many schools “woke up,” and we were glad the workshop was able to facilitate the process by bringing all of these sport teachers together to talk about this stuff.
At the end of the meeting the teachers also voted to have another day of baseball training. The original plan for the workshop was to have 2 full sessions of baseball and 1 session of Ultimate Frisbee training. However, after two days teachers decided that they needed another day of baseball as they were still unclear on some stuff. Better to know one sport well that to only half understand two. So on the third day after First Aid was finished we had some more baseball training and games. One of the teachers we had pitching was doing really well. This southpaw even inadvertently threw a couple breaking pitches.
On the morning of the fourth and last day of the workshop we had the last session of adolescent health led by Joe which, once again was really good. They talked about how to introduce topics like sex, STIs, and condom use in schools and in a society where talking about these things can be very taboo.
They also had a section on gender and gender roles which got a fiery debate going, men vs. women, and this was intensified as the activity divided them by sex on opposite sides of the room. They were asked to present what their perceived roles were of their gender and what roles of the opposite gender they could also take on. Joe did a great job facilitating though, and turned some of the heated comments into a constructive discussion on gender. My favorite part of the discussion was when the men and women were countering one another when discussing what gender roles their sex could also take on. One woman would yell out, “I can build houses!” only to have a man on the other side of the room counter, “You think I don’t know how to sew or weave baskets! I can weave baskets!” It was good to at least get some of these things out in the open in a nation where gender roles are very divided, yet are changing quickly as the nation itself is rapidly changing.
After Joe’s session and lunch Javi and I started our last sports session that dealt with sports challenges and opportunities in Vanuatu. We had the teachers outline what the challenges are to sports activities and development as well as what positive things sports (in and of themselves and current sport activity infrastructure) have going for them in Vanuatu. For one of the challenge topic presentations we had a group specifically focus on gender challenges in sport, and got some good discussion rolling with that. For example, one woman sports teacher outlined how even though she is very knowledgeable and interested in sports it can be hard for her to get her male students to respect her.
After the presentations on challenges and opportunities we moved on to talk about positive and negative pressure in sports that comes at children from teachers, parents, and peers. For this section we led a discussion on what these positive and negative pressures were, and then had the teachers act out scenarios involving these issues with short discussions afterwards. In the scenarios there was the overaggressive coach, abusive parents, teachers showing favoritism towards athletes, etc. The discussions and suggested resolutions for these problems were great, and most teachers were able to point to examples in real life where they had seen these things happen.
Throughout the workshop the discussions and interest we saw in the participants was really refreshing after doing so many workshops in villages in and around my site. This is not to say that there haven’t been great discussions and workshops out at site, but rather that these teachers, who are naturally leaders and well educated were able to produce great conversation and ideas on introduced topics. When doing workshops in the village these good ideas come out here and there, but many people are too shy to step out and say them as a few big-headed people in most villages seem to dominate discussion. Also, when good discussion or topics are raised in the village it usually takes some time, patience, and craftiness on the part of the facilitator to get these things to surface. In this sports workshop, we had barely gotten the topic described and you had hands flying all over the place with people eager to give their input. The participants, themselves, are a huge reason why the workshop went so well.
Before we closed the workshop on the last day we were able to pass out all the baseball equipment we had donated to us last year. We had been waiting for this workshop opportunity to give out the equipment so that all the schools knew how to us it first. The Center schools, schools that go up to class 8 (5 of them), were given most of the equipment as the focus group for baseball are kids class 6-8. We also didn’t have enough gloves, catchers gear, and helmets to give to every school and it just worked out that we had enough to outfit the Center schools. The other 11 Basic schools (class 1-6) were each given a couple bats and tennis balls. We really want the Basic schools to teach baseball as well, laying the foundation for class 3-6 students before they go to one of the five Central schools.
Many of the teachers have asked Javi and me to give additional sessions at their schools, and we are going to try our best to fit them in before he is out in June and me in July. Time is against us though, and we’re hoping that in September one of the PC volunteers put in the North Efate area will also be interested in baseball.
Thank you again Hannah and Ruth for all your hard work and all the equipment donors!
After the handing out of equipment we were set to make the official closing of the workshop, but this was kind of a mess. The closing of the workshop was supposed to be done by the ZCA or a member from the Ministry of Education, but neither were present. Also, the host representative, the Headmaster of Onesua, is usually supposed to give a speech but he was in Vila. Finally, the NEPSSA chairman was supposed to give a speech, but he was also not present. But, we did have the deputy Headmaster and the Secretary of NEPSSA present, both of whom really did not want to give the speeches, but did it anyway. So with some deliberation, Javi and I worked with a teacher to make a closing program and then the teacher put the program on the white board.
We were about to start the program then this teacher informed us that he had just accidentally written the program with a permanent marker instead of a white board one. So, with all the teachers waiting impatiently me, Javi, and this teacher set to work for about 15 minutes trying to scrub all the writing off the expensive white board, laughing at the silliness of this whole closing ceremony mess.
We finally gave our speeches for the closing, and the last one was to be made by a leader of the church as is custom in Vanuatu (all things are opened and closed with prayer). So, Paul, a participant at the workshop, recited a verse out of Romans, and then gave a small speech. In this speech he explained, “These two white men sitting before us have come to help us out and share information. And we are lucky that The Light came to us here in Vanuatu (coming of the missionaries) over a hundred years ago. If not, we probably would have eaten these two guys.” To which I turned to Javi and said, “Sorry friend,” and we all had a good laugh over it. The workshop closed and a bunch of us went out for kava to celebrate the end of a good week.
The next evening Javi and I went out for a few beers and pizza with some other volunteers and cheers-ed the completion of a great workshop. There were many times we thought the workshop wasn’t going to happen, but we did it and it went well.

April Blog

(A couple cool April sunsets taken from my island)
Written April 27, 2009
So after the Pentecost trip I kind of dove face first back into work, as there was a lot of it to be done. This, while I caught some mutant form of Dengue fever that has been going around. I guess something like 30 volunteers have caught it in the last 2 months. It pretty much sucks as it saps your energy, you get feverish, and then when it’s done it gives you a full body rash for a couple days. Lot of fun. Looks like I’m almost out of the woods now though, as the rash is clearing up and my energy is coming back.
One of the cool things, work-wise, that just happened was our Village/ Beach/ Sea/ Forest clean-up campaign that we held a couple days ago. It was supposed to be every village (there’s 15 of them) on Nguna and Pele cleaning up their village areas (including surrounding forest and shoreline) on this day. The MPA is providing prizes for any villages that took part, and there are prizes for men and women as well as kids. There were about 5 villages that took part and we’re giving the other 10 a month to get their act together and do a clean up or their prizes will be forfeited to villages that carry out the clean up campaigns.
I was on-hand to watch my village do theirs, and they did a great job. They separated trash, broke down tin (to fit better in their landfill hole), and collected a good amount of trash from a wide area of the village's land. Another high note is that they said that the trash they collected was a lot less than what they collected in a similar campaign a few years ago. They said they may have even expended more effort to capture trash this year too, which is a nice sign in that they are not littering as much.
They divided in teams mostly dominated by women and children to pick up the trash. Some men assisted with the picking-up of trash while many others dug the big landfill hole, compacted trash, and organized things.
In the afternoon I lead some kids in snorkeling in the nearshore reef and grabbing some of the trash there too. Here’s some pictures from the event:
(some kids and mamas setting out to pick up trash)
(Davis grabbing a plastic bottle)
(Maninga tossing some trash and rocking a Bears jersey)
(People dropping off trash at the collection site)
(The reef clean-up kids)
So other stuff going on…
I’m pretty excited that the weather is changing here to my favorite time of year in Vanuatu (May- August) where the rain stops, the humidity drops substantially, the trade winds start blowing again, and the nights are cool. If Vanuatu were like this year round you might have to beg volunteers to leave. As it is I’m glad I get in almost another full cold season before I leave.
It looks like all is go for the sports training workshop next week and I’ll be in Vila in a couple days here polishing off the finishing touches with Javi.
It looks like our Conservation Management Plans that the MPA and I will be doing are shaping up nicely and I’m looking forward to those in mid-May and throughout June.
I’m super stoked that my sister Hannah is coming in less than a month here, and that we’ll be headed to Tanna for a little adventure for a few days.
In some bummer news it looks like I’m going to have to postpone my US road trip I wanted to make as low funds will be prohibiting that one. But not to worry friends and family, I’ll be seeing a lot of you at Todd’s wedding in August, and I’m still thinking of a road trip some time in the future to visit some of the rest of you guys. Looks like I may be spending some time in the East coast for a bit.
Some things are winding down and it’s nice to be spending some quality time with friends and my host family in the village as I know it will be a long while until I see these guys once I’m out of Pele in July. In the end of July I’m still hoping to run the round island relay again, and am gradually getting a team together again. Oh, speaking of sports, the baseball carnival in late March was a huge success. We got a lot of new faces to show up and the games went well. Also the Vila vs. Ekipe showdown reconvened this time with the kids pitching. It was great as some of these kids can really hurl the ball. I was glad that I had a mask on as I was definitely taking some foul balls of the body as umpire. Ekipe ended up winning, but it was a great game. Sorry, no pictures yet as someone was in charge of photography for the day, and we have yet to compile the pictures.
So that’s most of what’s going on. I hope you all have a great Cinco de Mayo celebration out there and be safe. I myself will not be reveling as I’ll be in workshop mode on North Efate (I know boo hoo). But, eat some fish tacos and drink some tasty margaritas for me!!

Pentecost Trip

(Last jumper of nagol or land diving set to go)
(Pentecost Gang from left to right: upper row: Jeremiah, Carol, Laura, Alexia, Arthur, Jack, Liz, Tim. lower row: Lizzie, Bridgett, Chris, Me and Erica’s dog Sniper.)
(Chillin’ on the nagol hill)
Written April 27, 2009
Alright, so it’s taken me a little while to be able to sit down and write this, but I think it’s good to do a blog on the trip to Pentecost a group of of volunteers and I made in the beginning of April. Since I have gotten back from the trip (around mid April) I have been bogged down with work and am just now able to write this.
In the weeks before our trip to Pentecost we, Peace Corps volunteers, had various conferences, pertaining to our work areas, held in Vila we had to attend . I had a close of service conference and another conference about community development strategies where I was a bit bored because if you don’t know them now, after two years, it’s a bit late as we’re going back soon. But, because a lot of volunteers were in town we were able to rally a group of 12 volunteers, including me, to go on our Pentecost trip afterwards.
The Boat Ride:
In order to save money we decided to take a passenger boat, The Fresh Cargo, to the island rather than fly. This boat is supposed to be the new speedy (relatively) way to travel by boat as your other options are to go by cargo ship (not always the most fun from what I’ve heard). So on the evening of the 3rd, after running around and getting supplies for the week, we boarded the 60ft catamaran in Mele Bay, and headed out. But wait, we were to make a stop on the other end of Mele Bay first. We chugged to the other end of the bay for what reason we did not know, but you kind of go with the flow when you’re traveling in Vanuatu. When we got to the other end of the bay night was falling as we saw a small dinghy approaching us. Were we picking up more passengers? As the dinghy got closer we saw that the three men in the boat were not propelling the boat with oars, but with planks of wood. Too funny. And it turns out the dinghy was the dinghy that belonged to the boat, and we were picking it up first. Why it was on the other end of the bay, and why it was not picked up earlier when they were probably fueling up at the nearby fueling port? Well, see that would make too much sense.
Once the dinghy arrived it was hoisted, not by ropes, but by physically lifting atop the second story of the boat. The catamaran’s engine (there are two, but only one was working) fired up and we were ready to go … or not. Now the boat was stuck in the sand as the captain had brought us too far shore to receive the damn dinghy. So what next? call the tugboat? What tugboat? This is Vanuatu. Instead a 20ft fiberglass boat with a small outboard engine was called in for the job. So they threw a line to the small boat, attached it stern to stern and we watched atop the roof deck at the long drawn out process of David trying to pull Goliath off a sandbar. After about 20 minutes the we finally got some purchase off the sand and were on our way. We headed out of Mele Bay after over 3hrs. of fiasco and into the open night sea.
(Me with hands outstretched motioning towards the small boat trying to pull us off the sand and saying, “Only in Vanuatu!” as we all were laughing about the situation)
We, volunteers, assembled on the roof deck, fully prepared with playing cards, dominoes, Scrabble, and of course booze to make the games and conversation more lively. The sea was holding a light chop so we were having a good time for the first couple of hours. Then a squall rolled in and things got a little rough. During a game of dominoes one large swell threw the dominoes all over the place, and one of my dominoes was never to be found again, probably at the bottom of the sea now. The swells got larger and more intense as we were hanging on to ropes and coolers up top as security. Eventually, some of us decided it better to go below to the passenger seats. We assembled in a rag tag fashion trying to find places to sleep where we could. The seats weren’t that comfortable and sleep was a loose term as the swells were really kicking around the boat, and every time you would be about to nod off entirely a crew member would open the engine hatch (to check things) releasing a torrent of engine noise. I’m usually pretty good about not getting sea sick, but the thrashing of the boat was making my stomach cough up the occasional verp (vomit burp for those who are wondering).
I continued on like this for about 8 hours until I was aroused by some commotion behind me. The only other non- Ni-Vanuatu passenger, a French tourist, was asking me and a couple volunteers near me if we know how to deliver a baby. “Nope, no doctors or nurses out of the 12 of us.” A woman heading for Malekula apparently decided it would be a good idea to jump aboard a small boat when she was 9 months pregnant. She was now going into labor, but luckily her water hadn’t broken already. It became clear that the only person on our boat that had ever helped deliver a baby was an older man that had once delivered a baby in a village. I suggested that we see if we’ve got cell phone coverage, and call Brenda, our Peace Corps nurse. Bridgett, one of the PC volunteers, called her and got through. Brenda set us up with a bunch of instructions to make a makeshift delivery area in the galley, and we all set about collecting towels and whatever else was available.
I was cutting up strips of a sweatshirt for something that was needed and damn near lost my lunch when trying to focus on the sweatshirt in a heavily rocking boat. Bridgett and Chris were working with the woman, now surrounded by a tent-like form of clean towels and blankets, to help her out with breathing instructions and also helping her relax. Bridgett and Chris were the two we elected to help the older man with any delivering if necessary, as the galley was pretty small, and more people in the small space would have just confused things. It was a bit tense for a bit as we really were thinking the baby was going to be born on the boat, but eventually the woman’s contractions went down, and the captain agreed to put her at the closest clinic to us at that point, on Ambrym Island.
The woman, at first refused to go as she said told Bridgett and Chris that she trusted them and wanted to have the baby on the boat. To understand the woman’s seemingly crazy opinion on the subject you have to understand a couple things. First of all, people do not like visiting other islands for fear of black magic waged on them from other islanders. When you talk about delivering a baby, with all the possible complications, on a strange island, this black magic fear intensifies quite a bit. Now take Ambrym Island, known as the black magic center and capital of Vanuatu (many believe black magic originated here, and people train in sorcery here), and add that to an already existent fear of black magic and whammo! you’ve got some deep seated fear of delivering a baby there.
OK, now the second reason the woman probably wanted Chris and Bridgett to deliver the baby is that she probably truly did trust them in knowing how to deliver a baby. Even though you may explain that you have no idea of what you are doing, many Ni-Vanuatu will trust that you do just based on the fact that you are white, and have probably received a good education and so on. There is also a lot race inferiority that many Ni-Vanuatu feel and you see it when many talk about it in referring to things in “black man style” vs. “white man style.” Much of this is probably left over from colonial days, and is a very hard concept to refute now matter how much you try, and we try a lot.
So back to the story, Chris and Bridgett convinced the woman finally that the boat was not a safe place to have the baby, and we pulled onto shore in Ambrym just as light was coming into the morning, and a small fiberglass boat met us to take the woman to a local clinic. We later heard that the woman delivered a healthy baby boy in the clinic the next day. Needless to say, we were all glad to hear the news. I think we were also all very relieved that the woman didn’t have to deliver on the boat. Phew!
Pentecost Hooo:
A little later in the morning, now Saturday, we arrived on the shore of Pentecost. The boat couldn’t get too close too shore so we had to lower the dinghy which consisted of two guys throwing the dinghy off the roof and into the water. We all charted a pick-up truck and took a 15 minute ride to our base for the next week in Pangi. This is where we were set to watch the land diving on Monday morning. Once in Pangi, a Erica a PC volunteer’s site (she was to join us later as she was finishing up some stuff in Vila), we met the woman who was going to look after us, Edna. Edna was a very nice lady and very familiar to us as she had spent most of her life in a village on Efate that many of the volunteers there had their training in. We then set up our tent city in their camping area, and had a lazy day of swimming, and hanging out.
Me and the rest of the guys there were allowed to go have a look at the land diving tower they were constructing, now putting the finishing touches on. Women aren’t allowed to see the tower until the day of the ceremony, and they are never allowed to touch the tower. The custom of nagol (pronounced nan-goal, the “nan” like the pronunciation of Indian nan bread) or land diving is only done in southern Pentecost, and is thought to be where people got the idea of bungy jumping. There are only about three villages that do the nagol, and of those three only one still does the diving for custom reasons the other two do it for tourism only. The village where we were going to witness the nagol does it for tourism, but we decided to see it there as it would be a lot cheaper for us to piggy back on a cruise ship day than shell out a big chunk of money for us to see one in the custom village. The basic custom of the nagol (there’s a lot of information besides this) is that the young men jump to ensure a good yam harvest in the coming months.
The tower is built entirely of local materials: local wood for supports, cross beams, and platforms, local rope from vines and tree bark to fasten things, and vines as support lines going off to other nearby tree trunks. There are two types of towers that can be built. The first is a male tower, the kind they built where we saw the nagol. In this tower the tower is built with the tower bowing out from the platforms when you look at it in side profile. Jumpers from a male tower jump from a standing position.
The second type of tower, a female tower (we did not get the chance to see one of these) is built with no bowing out in a side profile and jumpers leave the tower from a squatting position and roll forward.
(picture of tower from front view)
(picture of tower with surrounding area)
(me with the tower to show size and the side profile of the “man” tower. You can see that the tower follows the vertical plane of the tree trunk second from the left of me, and gradually as it comes to the ground bows out more in the direction of the hill slope. You can also see a couple of the support vines well above my head).
After the relaxing day and tower visit we capped off the evening with a few shells of kava.
The next day, Sunday, we did some snorkeling which included trying to locate unsuccessfully, the dugong we saw just off shore. We then decided it would be a good idea to go to church out of respect for the community. We were hoping for a relatively short service but were treated to about three hours of worship. It was a little hard for most of us, and I’m used to the 45 minute speedy service on Pele. After church some of us walked down to the village wharf where they receive cruise boats for land diving. In that area there is a plaque that commemorates Queen Elizabeth’s visit in February of 1974. This visit has a small story associated with it as a young man died during the land diving presentation the village made for the queen. The common belief is that as the queen came at a time outside of land diving or nagol, as its called, season, the vines weren’t strong enough yet, and that’s why the vine snapped and the man died. The typical nagol season is from April until late May or early June.
(Queen Elizabeth’s visit plaque)
We continued walking for a while and Edna, our tour guide for the day took us to a fresh water river spot. The river wasn’t running that full so the best we could do was find a small pool about 4 feet deep to play in. But we had a blast in that small pool! We found vines to swing into the pool, we had water fights, and then Edna showed us some techniques she had picked up from the water music makers of Gaua Island. The woman that do this have traveled internationally to show off their stuff. I’ve seen video of it and it’s very impressive: it’s basically a symphony of water music that the women make entirely with hands and their bodies as they maneuver the water to make various pitches. So we learned a couple ways to make slaps and bass sounds with the water and wore ourselves out with both water slapping and laughter. The sun falling, we left our small river spot with ear to ear grins as if we were magically transformed back to being 8 years old at a fun water hole. What an awesome day that was!
Nagol (Land Diving) Day:
(Liz playing tour guide)
On the day that the nagol was set to go we relaxed about in the early morning and swam, and then readied ourselves for the onslaught of 2000+ tourists coming into the village of Pangi, whose population was around 200 people. Erica, had just gotten back from Vila the day before and she was going to run a booth to sell postcards to tourists as a fundraiser. We watched as the first few groups of tourists came through. The village had their racket down well with groups of children and women singing and dancing in different areas for donations and there were little booths to sell crafts and such. We, volunteers, opted to go to the nagol site so as to get a good sitting place to watch the dives.
We sat up on top of the hill as the villagers said we could, and tried not to grit our teeth too much as we watched some of the actions of a few tourists. There were idiots trying to climb the nagol tower (very taboo), another idiot trying to dance with the custom dancers during the ceremony (also not cool), one woman just started grabbing stacks from a downed shelter without asking, and just a general lack of cultural sensitivity in actions, manner, and dress. Now, I know we, as volunteers, have been here for a while so yes, we know better in some ways, but there are some really innate things we all know about going into another culture foreign from yours and stepping lightly. And it seems that some of these people were just plain brain-dead to this. The problem too, is that it is not really in Ni-Vanuatu culture to speak out directly to people about cultural mishaps they may be making so this stuff just goes on. We, the volunteers, did speak out in a couple instances where it was just ridiculous, but for the most part we tried to ignore a lot of the stuff. It was hard sometimes though.
In some ways it felt like we were at a concert or festival with swarms of people everywhere. Once the nagol started though and we could focus on the diving it was pretty amazing. There were 8 divers in all and each one jumped from a platform of successive height, starting at about 10ft going up to the last jumper at about 40ft. Before each jump and during the custom dancers would chant and dance atop the hill that held the tower.
(Here’s a picture of the custom dancers)
Each jumper has vines affixed to his ankles, and a man, standing lower on the tower, holds the vines in place so that they don’t get tangled before the jump. Before each jump the chanting gets louder and the boy or young man usually goes through a series of meditative and display motions before he jumps. One of the display-type moves involved waving the frayed vines that have been cut off as extra once the vines are secured to the feet, and sometimes a back arch or no hands display on the platform.
(a young man displaying with frayed vine ends held out)
When the boy or young man is set to jump the chanting gets a little louder then quieter when he is right about to jump. The jump is quick. It is more a fall forward than a jump and a well measured vine will make it so the young man grazes his head on the softened dirt below, then snap! the vines break a small piece of wood on the platform, perpendicular to the ropes, and designed to break in order to cushion the jerk a bit. But, the cushion is very little as you can see the whip force the vines put on the body. The person doesn’t bounce back as in bungee jumping, but rather gets jerked back towards the tower by about five feet. Then some other men help the young man to his feet, with a big applause from the crowd. The most impressive jump was the last one as that was the highest jump, and it appeared that the vines were best measured as the young man’s head did graze the ground then his shoulders grazed before he was jerked back to the tower.
(Here’s a picture of the last jumper displaying before he goes)
Injuries, as I found out later over kava, are not uncommon in doing this. Of the five men I was talking to later, four of them said they incurred serious injuries when they were younger. Injuries varied from ruptured spleens to broken backs and other big breaks. Thankfully, there were no injuries the day we watched, but that doesn’t mean they don’t happen. And the village does get a good amount of money from the tourists but I can guarantee you that’s not going to hazard pay for these jumpers.
All in all it was great to see a display of a very cool custom that these people from South Pentecost have probably been doing for at least a couple thousand years. Seeing the dives made me very glad I took part in the trip to go see this. After the dives we ventured down to see some custom dancing that the schoolchildren put on. Liz went and checked out them practicing the day before the cruise boat came and snapped this cool shot of a girl in her coconut husk hat:


(Here’s the kids dancing on the day of the event)
The dance was a lot of foot stamping in lines of children choreographed to move in and out of each other all while a man in custom dress (far right in picture) is keeping time with a wooden tam tam. It was cool to watch, especially when watching the bold colors that the dancers were wearing move in and out of the lines.
By about 1pm all the tourists were now in the water, and the quiet beach we had rested looked a little like Fourth of July in a San Diego beach so most of us found other things to do. Some went to go check out the amazing water taro gardens. Liz, Chris, and I all went down to a point down the way to go snorkel and check out a submerged propeller engine from a WWII fighter plane. It was cool to check out and we also saw the hull of a small ship that had been sunk there about 20 years ago. What really took us for a loop though came when we were walking out to the point and one of the local guys pointed out the inscription that Captain Cook had made in a boulder in the 1700s during his exploratory visits in the South Pacific (sorry no picture, but I’ll try to get the pic from Liz as she took it on her camera). How cool is that?
The following day we all hired a truck to take us to a village that had a large waterfall nearby. So for the better part of the day we hung out in the pools below a 150ft waterfall and jumped off nearby rocks into the pools. (The Waterfall)
In the afternoon we chilled out on a nearby beach, and then headed back to Pangi in the early evening. That night we made some good Indian food from some sauce packets we bought in Vila and later had a camp fire with S'mores and all.
Poinkros Village:
The next day we hired a boat to take us to Poinkros village in the far South of Pentecost. This village is also occupied by a Peace Corps volunteer, Lauren, but she too was still in Vila tying up work stuff. She said we could use her house to crash, and Erica had been there before and knew some of the villagers. There is no truck road to get there, and we heard that traveling along the walking trail is not a good idea with heavy packs. So we set out by sea, and Man! It was rough out there that day. We were just in a little fiberglass boat and there were definitely some white knuckle moments as some of the large swells really rocked the boat. Two hours later we made it to Poinkros in one piece, and greeted the villagers on the beach. We then charged uphill as the entire village is built on steep, rolling hills. This village layout owing to a big tsunami that hit them early in this decade and did a lot of damage to their previous village, centered more on flat land.
(Here’s a picture showing some of the terrain of Poinkros village)
After we got our tents set up in Lauren’s yard and had settled in, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset straight out of Tales from the South Pacific with purples and pinks and oranges mixed in a sky with swaying coconut trees and the rugged Pentecost coastline in the foreground and the profile of Ambrym a ways in the distance.
(The Poinkros sunset)
After taking in the great sunset some of us headed down to the nakamal for some kava. We, who went were treated to a really cool, different kava ceremony where they showed us how they used to use coral stone to grind the kava. Even the new style that they use, ramming the kava in a cylinder, is different than the meat grinders that they use on Efate and Pele so that was exciting to watch and take part in. And the way they served the kava was really cool too, as about 8 men would be working the kava, each on their own small table, and only one man would be the one that would make shells for you during the night. The kava was clean tasting and strong, the nakamal conversation was great, and we all sat back stoned and enjoying our new surrounds.
The following day some of us went down to the playing field to work off the kava from the night before. We borrowed a tennis ball from the school, and I asked a local guy, Moses, Lauren’s host papa, to help me find a good straight stick to use as a bat. We found one easily, tapered it a bit at the end for a handle, and then I taught some of the local guys how to play Over-The-Line, an old San Diego favorite that is like a 3 on 3 way of playing baseball. It wasn’t long before more guys showed up, and we had enough to play reduced squad baseball. They picked up the game quickly and we all had a great time playing ball for a couple hours.
We broke for lunch then set out to a nice river spot that heads out towards the gardens of Poinkros. To get there we took the bush route up and down hills for a while and over some creek crossings
(Here’s Bridgett and Erica (behind) crossing over a creek crossing that was a balance beam constructed by a coconut palm trunk)
After going through some cool garden areas we arrived at our river spot that had plenty of cool places to jump off ledges and into the fresh water pool. One of the local guys showed us how they use places like this to train for the nagol.
(Poinkros man demonstrating the nagol dive form)
After a nice day at the river we followed the river to its nearby mouth, meeting up with some mamas along the way. Moses explained that they had just come from a 3hrs walk in from their gardens and that this is pretty normal. You could see that this was indeed somewhat of a routine by looking at the mamas’ calf muscles. Damn! One of the mamas was straight ripped!
(A picture of the mamas walking over the estuary area where the river meets the sea)
(A picture of the river as seen from the beach)
That evening we had another round of good kava at the nakamal and hung out for a while at Lauren’s place before nodding off. The next morning we said our goodbyes to the great people of Poinkros and departed again by boat, but this time, thankfully, with much calmer seas.
Back in Pangi and the Water Taro Gardens:
When we got back to Pangi there was another cruise boat in for the nagol. I guess they get about 6 per year. We hung around the village, and then hatched the scheme to trade our money to tourists for beer at their tent near the wharf. The tourist boat sold beer and soda but only on the swipey card system for boat patrons. So we, cold beer starved volunteers, traded our vatu for Australian dollars at some of the donation booths and then traded Aus dollars for beer. The plan worked brilliantly and I even had a nice tourist buy me a beer.
Nearby, the string band was getting fired up so we, the volunteers, got our string bang boogey on, and tried to get villagers to dance, but could only get a few in on the action. Then we tried to get the tourists that were waiting in line to get on the ferry boats dancing. We had limited success, but some started dancing, and we were having a good time, and that’s what’s important.
That evening we were going to have a Mexican food night (once again we brought some supplies from Vila), and we made tacos from fresh fish and freshwater prawns caught that day. I was in heaven, and then Liz rolled out a cake she had made for me for my birthday and a bottle of Tequila, Oh My! My birthday was the next day, but we would be on the Fresh Cargo all day so the celebration was set for the night before. And what a great celebration too: good friends, Mexican food, tasty REAL cake, and a bottle of tequila. It was a great cap to an even greater trip.
The next morning Tim and I went to go check out the water gardens before we left. I had heard such adjectives as “majestic” being used by the volunteers who had seen them earlier in the week so I figured I had to fit them in for a peek. We walked for about ten minutes before we reached the gardens and they were truly amazing. The villagers have dammed up and diverted flows so the river flows slowly through the steppe-style, hydroponically grown taro. The steppes and dams are all built of smallish stones and the villagers say they have to reconstruct them after big flows or floods of the river. The benefit though, is no weeding as the water is always running and weeds cannot grow in the slowly moving water. The gardens are really big and the local engineering to make the gardens flow right is damn impressive (no pun intended).
(the river with the water taro steppes on either side)
(one of the dams for the garden)
As we were walking along local guys offered to show us how they harvest the water taro and use the stalk directly as the planting for the next crop.
(here’s the guys a few steppes up from where the shot was taken. It’s hard to see the stone wall steppes through the vegetation of the taro plants)
Going Home and Easter:
The same day that Tim and I checked out the water gardens, the gang that was left (most of us as some had dropped off earlier in the week and Liz was flying back to Ambae) boarded the Fresh Cargo after waiting over 10hrs for the damn thing (We were just about to give up on it when we saw it’s lights coming shore). The seas were even rougher than before and I got a weird fever in the middle of the trip and ended up emptying my lunch into the sea. The good news was I felt great after that. We endured another 13hr trip and made it back to Vila early Easter morning.
While on the boat we made a plan to have an Easter dinner at a PC volunteer, Evan’s house in Vila, and once we got ashore we arranged the particulars and bought the food so we could lounge poolside in the early afternoon at a local resort in order to get our energy back that the boat drained from us. That evening we had a great Easter dinner complete with an Easter egg piñata game at night.
So yeah, that’s about it. I realize that this is a pretty long blog this time but it was a fantastic trip and there was a lot to write about.