So hmm… what’s been going on lately? In the end of July to early August Liz’s mom and dad were visiting Vanuatu so I got a chance to meet her parents and hang out with Liz for a good period of time in and out of Vila, which was very nice. I had a great time hanging out with her parents as well and seeing some things near and in Vila that I hadn’t seen as I always thought of them as tourist things. It’s kind of like living in an area and not doing some of the things available there until someone comes from out of town and visits and then you tell yourself, “Hey, this is actually pretty cool.” We went to the Vanuatu Cultural Center which I hadn’t been too since I first arrived, and enjoyed a richer experience after now knowing Vanuatu culture quite a bit better. We also went to the Cascade Falls which I always thought was a tourist trap, but saw that the fee was well worth it, and the falls were beautiful.
Liz’s parents and she also came out to my island for a few days, and I enjoyed a small vacation on my own island: paddling kayaks around, drinking good wine, snorkeling, hanging out, and climbing the Nguna volcano. I think I put my last hike to the volcano in an older blog, but if I didn’t check out Javi’s blog (link on right side of page). We went to the top from the better trailhead/ village this time, and the view was great. Virginia, Liz’s mom, snapped a great shot of me pointing to Pele from the top (Sorry I only have the photo copy and not the digital one where I could share it here).
(Nice sunset we saw on Pele)
One of the nights I arranged it so we could have a pig roasted for the 4 of us in my village. Liz’s parents were staying in a bungalow about a 15 minute walk away. The pig feast was delicious and fairly cheap for the immense amount of food that came with it. The food that Kalta, the guy who cooks for the bungalow, was very good too as Liz and I sampled a couple things from her parents’ dinner one night. Kalta worked on an oil tanker barge for about twenty years as a cook for the executive crew members, and it shows. He said he even went through the Panama Canal once. I did his food shopping for him in Vila as I was going in anyway to meet up with the gang before they came out to Pele. When I was going through the grocery list with him before I left he started going through condiments, “Mustard, Oil, … Oh, You don’t need to get mayonnaise.” “Why’s that?” I asked. He grinned and said, “I make my own mayonnaise.” Well alright then, I thought, This guy can cook I guess and takes pride in it.
Anyway, I had a really good time hanging with the Millar gang, and am very thankful for all the pampering of wine, food, lodging, and such that Bill and Virginia provided us with. Stuff like that keeps you going sometimes. I also still have a little gin that was leftover that I have been rationing since they left. Its almost gone though.
(Liz's parents enjoying a shell of kava after the sun has set in Pele)
So its officially parents’ season right now in Vanuatu. Every time I came into Vila over the last couple months I saw at least two groups of volunteers’ parents in town. I set up three groups, including Liz’s parents, to go go to the Bungalows on Pele. Matt, from my group, and his mom came out a few days after the Millars left and I joined him and his mom for one of Kalta’s dinners. I’m going to try to get a poster made to put up in the Peace Corps office highlighting Nguna and Pele, their accomadation, activities, rates, and travel logistics. It’s a great place for visitors to come and get the island/village experience and not have to go too far from Vila. Its also what many visitors to the Pacific are looking for: white sand beaches, beautiful reefs, cool island walks/views, etc. I’m also trying to work with a guy, from Pele, who is the Vanuatu Director of Trade (very high title and sway) to coordinate tourism on the two islands and advertise it as well. We were supposed to meet a week ago, but I couldn’t get a hold of him, and now he is in Switzerland for a few months or more. Hopefully, I can find some time to work on the coordination part, and really have it motion once he gets back. He seems very interested in doing something like this, and actually approached me about doing it. We shall see how it pans out.
There is a lot of potential on the two islands. They just need to come together and work together. Otherwise, outside developers will probably have their way as big money tour operators and real estate firms will dangle cash in front of them. These groups do provide jobs and some benefit to the communities, but nothing like what is possible when locals run the show. And, there’s been a couple cases on the two islands of locals running tourist projects well.
On the work front the new approach to the MPA workshops is going well. I’m really glad to actually start this thing as I have been working on it for a while. I was really impressed with how well the last two villages carried out the household surveys looking at resource use and resource priorities in the village. Basically, the new approach uses a village to village format where we are trying as an end result for each village to draft well thought out conservation management plans. The basic format is this: Villages are visited for two days where the first day we carry out assessment activities looking at village conservation history, resource allocation via zoning, and a problem tree exercise taking the biggest conservation problems/ issues, and deriving the root reasons for these problems. The second day we, MPA staff and I, teach a handful of village volunteers how to carry out the resource household surveys, tell them what houses to visit, how to approach them, and then give them a week to carry out the surveys. We, the MPA, then come back soon after the surveys are finished and present the findings of the assessments, survey and exercises, so that the village starts to get a beginning picture of their conservation priorities. From there the village chooses, based on their priorities, a handful of awareness from the 20 or so the MPA has given in the past, and sets a date for the MPA to come back again and give the awareness.
(We spend a lot of time waiting. Here are pics of staff waiting for over an hour will villages are late to arrive. Island time.)
Once the village has done these steps they then set up the date for a management plan workshop. However, the village must show how they are ready to actually move forward with this so that this workshop is not given and then a long period of time passes before starting the writing of the plan is undertaken, and much of the workshop info. Is forgotten. The management plan workshop will mainly deal with showing the village the different tools of management that are possible (i.e. zoning, seasonal closures, size limits, bag limits, fines, etc.) and then showing them what the steps are to set these things in place as well as who must be a part of all of this.
So far, two villages of the 14 who will receive this program have undergone the assessment phase, and we are about to get the results out to these villages. The results of the surveys involve Microsoft Excel program work so I have to work it at this point. Yet, I will be training staff how to use the program and I have tried to make it as simple as possible. We have four staff members and two of them are already capable to carry out the assessment and survey training activities. The hope is that villages will all be at different stages in the game and activities in the scheme will be going on at different times and at the pace that individual villages are ready for.
We’ve got about 10 more of the assessment workshops to do before the end of November and there should be some awareness going on as well in the middle of all that so we should be pretty busy. Mixed in there too are normal MPA work stuff like school environment awareness, MPA meetings, and reef surveys.
The MPA taxi boat income generator is working well too, although the driver had gotten a stern talking to from the MPA Manager based on some of his habits. The MPA is about to send the manager to a week long conference in Fiji dealing with management of an MPA. One of our staff members, Ronneth, is just coming back from a conference in Australia. Also, Kalpat, the manager, will be going to another management conference in Barcelona, Spain in the end of September. He will also be representing the MPA for a contest we won called the Equator Prize. We were nominated by the previous volunteer last year for this with the premise being how your area or organization alleviates poverty through conservation work. Well, we won the first stage becoming a finalist representing Vanuatu as one of the 25 countries chosen from the pool of 300 equatorial countries possible. Each of these areas or organizations representing there country has won $5000 already, and Kalpat will be giving a speech to around 1,000 delegates as part of a judging to see who wins it all and gets an additional $15,000. We, staff, me, MPA board members, old volunteer, are currently working on ideas for the speech. Even if we lose it’s a great opportunity for the MPA and Kalpat.
All of these conferences, accommodation, and travel have been provided by international organizations that work with the MPA.
In other good MPA news the previous volunteer helped us secure funding for a materials grant to get some much-needed equipment for us including: a new laptop for Kalpat, a printer, a digital light projector, snorkeling gear, and wetsuits. I’m especially excited for the new laptop and printer as Kalpat’s current ones are pretty shaky and my laptop is old and the battery no longer works. I’m also pretty jazzed about the projector which will make some of these workshops more effective, easier, and cheaper (saving money on paper and markers). The wetsuits are pretty huge too as you may not think you need them in the South Pacific, but spending three hours in the water for a reef survey can make you pretty chilly.
So that’s what’s going on with the MPA stuff. On to the sports project. Two weeks ago was the official launching of NEPSSA, the North Efate sports org. that Javi and I helped create, and a great three-day tournament that followed. It was the first time in North Efate history where so many primary schools came together for one tournament for multiple sports. Javi and I sat in on meetings for the planning of the thing giving small pieces of advice and helped with logistics such as trying to find sponsors, correspondence, and other random things. We also got them to put a exposition game for each one of the sports we are trying to promote (Ultimate Frisbee, Baseball, and Beach Volleyball),one on every day.
(Parade that led off the NEPSSA launching and games)
The tournament went along pretty smoothly, and it was nice that the NEPSSA teachers and other school teachers ran the show so Javi and I didn’t have to worry about that. There were some things we saw that could have been handled better and hope to give some insight into that during future NEPSSA meetings. The events were athletics (track events, mostly short sprints with about a mile race and a relay), volleyball, soccer, futsal (a soccer game but the field is much smaller, and boardball (this one hard to explain, kinda like basketball but no dribbling and no actual baskets, sort of ridiculous).
(Javi presenting a medal duiring awards ceremony (top) and another pic of award ceremony)
The soccer for the year 5&6 and 7&8 divisions was especially fun to watch as there were some good teams. Soccer, in Vanuatu, as in most countries, is by far the most popular sport, and it is reflected in both the interest shown and skill level of players. The sprint events were pretty cool too as the year 5&6 and 7&8 ran for 80m and 100m respectively.
(Year 7&8 Boys Sprint (top) and 7&8 Girls Sprint (bottom))
There were some pretty fast kids too. My nephew, Davis, won all of his heats and the final race for the year 5&6 gold medal. All Man-Pele were very proud as Pele’s school, Tangovauwia, is substantially smaller than most of the other bigger schools, and pulls talent from a much smaller pool than some of the bigger schools that were raking in the medals for the team sports. I, too, was very proud of him as I’d seen him training not long after I started my training for the relay, and I know that the win meant a lot to him.
During the tournement soccer was just boys and the volleyball just girls. Breaking out of this pattern will very difficult. Although, I have seen some girls soccer games at celebrations before. Unfortunately though, the crowd doesn’t take it too seriously. The best way to get the boys playing volleyball is through beach volleyball, and there are a couple of mens teams in Vanuatu. Both baseball and Ultimate Frisbee are going to be both sexes playing together and that’s what the crowd saw during the exhibitions.
The Ultimate exhibition went really well although I thought the Ekipe team was going to kill the Manua team as they got started with something like a 6-0 lead. The score evened out a little later and Ekipe ended up winning. Javi refed the game and I had Joe the headmaster at Ekipe school do a little commentary on the mic while the game was going so the crowd knew what was going on.
The baseball game was originally supposed to be the rubber match of the Ekipe vs. Vila games but that will be delayed until the 6th of September. Instead two Ekipe teams squared off. There was some talk before the game amongst Ekipe players that this game didn’t mean anything and Javi got wind of it and called the teams together. He explained the importance of this game and how we’re showcasing the sport. His talk was followed by an Ekipe church elder telling them they better shape up and play well.
So before the game I gave an intro. over the mic. to the crowd including some basic rules of baseball and the layout of the field. Javi pitched to both teams for the first few innings and for the fourth and last inning had a couple kids pitch. Jeremiah, our new recruit to the baseball/ sports project umpired the game. He umped for years back in the US and I was glad to just watch the game this time. I was on the mic. throughout the game explaining what was going on and turning their attention to big plays and scores. In the last inning I told the crowd I was going to switch to English and give them a play-by-play. This was really fun and incited some laughter from the crowd when I threw a little color commentary in there as well.
The people I asked said they really enjoyed both new sports and asked more questions about them. Thank you to any possible blog readers like Hannah, Ruth, and others who have been contributing immensely on the home front end of this project. And it is with your help that the tourney crowd got to see baseball with gloves, real balls, and bats. We tried to get them to wear the helmets too, but they were a little too new and foreign for the kids to take them in at this stage.
So coming back a little bit Jeremiah, our new partner on the project, came from the new group that swore in at the end of June. One of the goals of the sports project is to continually find interested volunteers from new groups so that the project will continue well into the future. In fact, Javi and I gave a sports development section to this last group while they were in training to show how you can work with sports development and find interested members to join our project. Hopefully they will slot us in for the next two groups during their training so we can try to get as many people involved as possible before we’re out in May.
Another big boom for the project has been Javi’s recent move to Vila. He and Krissy knew they were going to serve their second year in Vila from the get-go and recently said a sad goodbye to Ekipe Village. Now that Javi is in Vila he has a lot more access to working with government and school sports organizations as well as coordinating international efforts. This has been difficult for us in the past as Javi and I would get into Vila about once every three weeks and almost always with a laundry list of stuff to do for our primary projects and other stuff. Jeremiah’s post is also in Vila which is very helpful for the project and for him and Javi to work together.
But, back to the exhibition stuff. We wrote to the Vanuatu Beach Volleyball Assoc. to ask if they wanted to do an exhibition game or two for the tournament as a “What the hell, let’s ask them even if they probably don’t have time.” thing and they surprised us with agreeing to come out. The original tournament was supposed be held in the village of Paunganisiu where an area of sand for playing ball on was just a few minutes walk from the playing fields. Well, a death happened in the village and Paunganisiu canceled so the tournament was moved to Manua School, about a 15 minute walk down the road. The problem was that Manua school lacked a sandy area so that the volleyball demo was set to be held in Paunganisiu yet. Sigal, the chairman of NEPSSA and main man of the tourney told Javi and me where the spot was and that some guys would help us dig it up soon.
Well…Javi and I soon decided these volunteer digging guys were not going to come as the guys Sigal was thinking of were busy watching sports events, as they should be. We grabbed a couple shovels and headed down the road. We started digging up the hard-pack dirt for the area and had only made progress on a strip of the court when a couple guys from the village helped and offered their services. Even with their help, we only dug up two thirds of the court over a period of a couple of hours. Exhausted and blistered we retired to the village nakamal where Javi and I each bought a round of beers for ourselves and our selfless volunteers. The next morning Jeremiah arrived, and the three of us set out to finish the job as the volleyball guys would be coming soon. We finished digging up the ground and garden raked it to get it level. I think we did a hell of a job. As we were walking down the road to go back to the tourney the volleyball guys showed up with a full bus.
I decided to stay behind and help them set up and I also wanted to watch a little play if I could, and maybe play myself.
As we were setting up the court, the director of their program told me that one of the women that won gold in last month’s Oceania tournament was there and pointed her out. I congratulated her and felt good that they thought enough to send one of their best players to the expo. There were a few guys and few girls including the gold medalist that came and they started warming up playing Three’s and I was hoping they would ask me to join in. After a while one team grabbed another player and then they invited me in. I had a blast playing a few games with the group. I hadn’t played good volleyball in a long time, and it was pretty awesome to get good sets, and be able to go for big blocks. I had a really good stuff on one of the guys in one game. I was also seeing a good level of play complete with good passing, great digs, and some impressive kills here and there. Afterward I thanked them for the good play and set off the tourney to wrangle up some lunch.
The basic schedule of the tourney included breaks in all play so that the expo games could take place. This went great the first two days, and drew a big crowd (at least 600 or so people) to both the baseball and Ultimate expos. However, on the third day they made the decision to keep play rolling while the volleyball expo went ahead due to time constraints. A bad decision, I think, as the court was already at least a 15 minute walk away and many kids that weren’t actually playing in the games were required to cheer for their schools. At least Javi and I got another transport truck full of interested kids and parents to join the one that drove down to the court. I am also thankful that a handful of teachers came as well as they were really our target audience for the expos (more on that later).
The expo went well with both women and men playing a Two’s match. You could see the women’s match had better passing and better fundamentals and some of the women in the crowd were pretty impressed. In fact, a woman from my island is very interested in it now as a result of seeing them play. The men’s game was good too, showing the men and boys there that men too play volleyball in Vanuatu and play hard. I think a couple of the male players liked the Boom! of the game too much though as they hit into the net too much on spikes and jump serves. You gotta get up to hit down!
(Instruction by one of the volleyball guys (top). Women playing (bottom))The director of Vanuatu Beach Volleyball then invited the kids to play in a drill called “King of the Court,” which was a big hit. He then presented NEPSSA with a volleyball net and a bunch of balls. He also said that next year they will invite a couple of North Efate kids to go to a beach volleyball tournament with their organization in New Caledonia. Good stuff!
(William, Volleyball director, posing with the kids, teachers, and players)After the volleyball demo I want back to the tourney to watch a couple really good soccer finals and an impressive volleyball final for the year 7&8 girls. A couple of those girls were really spanking the ball. In the soccer games I saw bicycle kicks, great bending corners, and impressive jukes and ball handling. FIFA has just announced that Vanuatu has won the seat for the Pacific for an extensive national soccer development program that I think is supposed to go on for around twenty years from the time they start. Pretty cool huh? I would love to see a Vanuatu World Cup team in my lifetime.
After the games they started giving out the final medals. A few games were set to go into the next day as it got dark before they could get them in. They decided to give out the medals for the decided events and close the games that night with the few games still set to go the next day. I had to leave after a few medal presentations as the Pele boat carrying those that weren’t staying overnight was leaving for the night, and I had an MPA workshop the next day on Nguna.
One of the big outcomes Javi and I hope come from the tourney is that a bunch of teachers will sign up for our coaching/ first aid workshop either in Oct. or Nov. Yesterday I was working on the Bislama rules for beach volleyball before the flu took a hold of me and shut me down. I already churned out the Bislama baseball rules, but am going to revise it to include some coaching stuff and drills. We’ll make the coaching/ drills as part of the beach volleyball and Ultimate rules as well. If we can get teachers refing and coaching these sports it would mean big things for the project.
One of the things that Javi and I are going to suggest at some of the upcoming NEPSSA meetings is the formation of divisions and sports seasons. The tournament was great, but long and taxing on especially the parents that stayed at the school looking after, and cooking for the kids. We’re thinking of suggesting sports seasons so that kids can concentrate more on some sports during set times of the year like US schools. This would also create smaller tournaments as a result of fewer sports taking place at one time. We think this will be especially needed when year 7&8 teachers introduce the three new sports in the coming year, something NEPSSA has already pledged to do. The divisions too would be nice so that there can be a divisional tournament or playoff before the North Efate playoff. This would decrease the cost of transport quite a bit, and heighten the meaningfulness of the North Efate tourney. We are also hoping that we can work with South Efate’s equivalent of NEPSSA to have a winner’s tournament for all of Efate and possibly a couple North Efate vs. South Efate All-Star matches.
Javi and I both had a laugh a week ago as we agreed that both our secondary projects, the sports thing, is moving a lot faster than our primary projects. It would be great for someone to have this as their primary project in the future, but Peace Corps says there’s no organization able to fund the housing for such a volunteer. I tend to think there’s ways we could work it. We just need to find that way and go for it.
So that’s more or less what’s been going on in the work scene which pretty much is the life scene in Peace Corps as their aren’t real clear cut borders between life and work here.
I’m liking what I see in the Cubs this year as they make the push for the playoffs and beyond. I had to tell my girlfriend the other day that a visit out to her area in mid to late October is something I won’t be able to do because if they do make it I have to be able to come to Vila and watch it. I think I followed up with something like, “I know that sounds horrible but this could be big and the Cubs are more than baseball to me.” She was very understanding, thankfully.
I think instead I’m going to try and visit in early Oct. because there also happens to be a big group getting together on nearby Maewo, deemed Vanuatu’s most beautiful island, complete with awesome waterfalls all over the place. That way I should only miss the division series which I’ve never liked near as much as the league championship series and World Series. Who are my picks? Tampa Bay vs. Chicago, although I would love to see the White Sox take the pennant and have an El series.
I’m also pretty excited about my New Zealand ticket I just bought a few weeks ago as Liz and I are headed to NZ for about three weeks in January. Buying the ticket was good for me as I’m now in you-have-to-save mode for the trip. I’ve been paging through a New Zealand travel book and am thinking I want to spend most of my time on the South island. I called Liz the other day who said she’s been checking out a Lonely Planet guide and said she’s determined to see, “Penguins and wine.” Cool, two things on my list along with glacier, Fiordland, kayak, and albatross. I am pretty excited to get out of Vanuatu for a bit, and especially in a time where it’s hot as hell and there is absolutely nothing going on. January last year was the only time in Vanuatu that I felt I was cracking up and killed a multitude of books in the monotony that was taem blong spel.
I’m finding that I have less and less free time as my service goes along which is good because I’m busy, but it also means I’ve had less time to just sit down like today and write a blog or write a letter. I was in and out of Vila so much in late July/ early Aug. that I’ve been enjoying being back home on Pele. I’m really going to try to limit Vila trips as much as possible in the coming months (with the exception of the Series), mainly to save cash, but also I’m realizing my service is winding down, and flying by.
This week I attacked my garden again that fell victim to a tropical storm, too much sunlight, and neglect last year. The only plants that made were the basil and green peppers. Most got taken out before they started with the storm. I’ve still got plenty of seeds though, and the motivation to get it going again. So now I’m planting before the big storms have a chance, and I built a shelter from leftover food stall wood from the July 30th celebration in order to limit the intense sunlight that the garden gets. I’m also forming a loose garden care partnership with my host family so that when I’m gone doing MPA and sports stuff they’ll help take care of it in return for nursery plantings and vegetables later on. Hope that should combat some of the neglect part.
Well that’s about all for now. Its getting dark and hard to see the keyboard.
1 comment:
Congrations on the award...
I'm glad you're happy with the equipment...we will continue to help friends of ours in Melanesia who are doing a fabulous job at the community level!
Keep up the great work!
Freda
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