Vanuatu Christmas Caroling

Christmas in Vanuatu is pretty different from Christmas back home. No constantly blaring Christmas music, no Christmas trees or lights anywhere to be seen...but one of the few things that looks vaguely familiar is Christmas Caroling. Of course, Vanuatu has it's own twist on that as well. First off, there are none of the traditional American songs. Vanuatu is very religious, and so Christmas is all about Church and Jesus, rather than about presents and Santa, and the songs reflect that.

You'll also see in the videos that the people singing get covered in baby powder as butter and water mixed with flower gets spread on them. As I understand it, it's a way of thanking the people who are singing, but also having a bit of fun with it.

Enjoy a little taste of a Vanuatu Christmas!

PAD Part 46

Avery looking super majestic

The Next Step

I'm staying another year in Vanuatu! For those of you interested in the short version:
I'll be working as a mobile app developer for OGCIO (Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, AKA the office I work for now), and living in the capital, Port Vila.

PAD Part 45

Finally got my ballot in the mail! 2 weeks after the election...I tried! 

Apparently I'm a cat lady now. I'm okay with it though, there are far fewer rats in my house now!

I am a goat, and I'm going to look majestic as I stand on this rock.

Sunset

Kava in Ambanga with Solo, Keith, Thomas, and friends

Vui!

This bruise looks much less impressive in this photo than it does in real life

Nelson likes the truck a lot! Thanks mom!

Rain, rain, rain. I like the pattern of it coming off the roof of my office.

My dad cutting some firewood

Alison's host parents came to my office to Skype with Alison. It was the first time they'd seen each other in 6 months! Lots of smiles all around

Celebrating International Day for People with Disabilities

Thomas' last kakae, with my G27 Ambae crew

My parents wanted to do a last meal with Thomas too!

Trying for Manaro again

Saturday morning I got woken up at 7 by a phone call from Thomas that went something like this:
"Morning! Keith, Solo and I are headed to Ambae; we'll head to Ambanga today and hike Manaro tomorrow! Wanna come?"
(As I look outside at the rain)
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah! It'll be great!"
"Ummm...yeah, sure."

Two hours later, they showed up at my house and we headed North, to the village where the hike starts. Those of you that read my blog regularly might remember my post about hiking the volcano on my Island (if not, you can read it here); let me tell you, this time was much better.
I remember the last trip as being extremely challenging. Whether it was the fact that I've been here for much longer, or that I wasn't carrying a 30lb backpack, or that we didn't add 6 hours to our hike, or that I've lost about 20lbs, I don't know, but while the hike was still a challenge, I feel much more positive about it than I did last time around.

One thing that definitely made it worth the hike this time around was that we were actually able to see the lake when we got to the top. Here's a picture from last year:

And one from this year:

We also managed to go to both lakes this time (even though we had to hike about an hour in the dark and about 13 hours to do so).

Going to Manaro again was one of my goals for before I leave Ambae, because it was pretty disappointing to spend so long hiking and not even see the cone the first time around.

Manaro, specifically lake Vui, the one that has the cone in the middle, holds a very important place in Ambae custom. According to custom, when you die, your soul comes and resides in this lake with the others that have gone before you. Because of this, there are certain rules for visiting. You can't be too loud; ideally you don't even talk. Our guide told us that if you talk too much while near Lake Vui, the man who lives there (sort of a God, sort of a human) will get mad and will cover up the cone. Another story we were told was that if you like something too much at the top (ex a flower or rock), your soul will yearn too much to come back, and you will return to the Lake sooner than you should (AKA you'll die sooner). This is why you're not allowed to take anything from the top of the volcano.

The tattoo I got after my last hike up Manaro is a very old custom here (that has now pretty much turned into a Peace Corps custom, people here don't get the tattoo much anymore) which is supposed to help your soul find its way to the lake when it dies; if you haven't visited the top in your life, you can't get it. Some even say that if you don't have the tattoo and you die, your soul will be thrown into the ocean to spend the rest of its days with the sharks.

I think I'll finish this post off with a few more pictures from the two lakes. Enjoy!

PAD Part 44

The Chamber all set up for the Council Meeting!

Pentecost!

Every morning for the last year and a half, I've woken up, stepped onto my porch and looked out to see Pentecost and Maewo across the narrow stretch of ocean that separates us. When I first got to Ambae, I decided that I had to go visit both of these places before I left. Maewo was easy, mostly because there are lots of other Peace Corps there who can help with places to stay and easy connections in villages. Pentecost, however, proved to be more of a challenge. With no Peace Corps and fewer boats going to and from, I kept waiting and waiting for my chance. Finally, thanks to work on the tourism website for my Province actually going forward, I got my chance!

PAD Part 43

My cousin Dioline likes to steal my camera and takes pictures

Away Week

I thought I scheduled this to post last week, but apparently not. So this week, you get to enjoy two posts!

I'm on Pentecost this week (last week) taking photos for the tourism website for my province, so no long post. Instead, enjoy this video of my brothers and friends dancing on a boat:

PAD Part 42

Small pig chillin' in his cage!

The Boy and The Devil

A few days ago, I asked one of my friends, Timmy, to tell me a custom story. He was worried he wouldn't be able to do it justice, because he had been told the story in local language and wasn't sure he could translate it well. I feel the same way, after translating it from Bislama, but here goes! A kustom story from Ambae, translated twice, and presented for your enjoyment.

PAD Part 41

Just Play, an after school kids soccer program

PAD Part 40

I love this girl. She's got the best smile!

What about that work thing?

**This post has a lot of words and no pictures. For those visually inclined people, check out my new Videos page!**
I've realized recently that as much as I talk about friends, kava, mosquitoes, spitting... that the last time I actually talked about my job, about what I actually do most days, was, well...a long time ago. At the beginning of my service long time ago.
So what have I actually been doing for the past year and a half, you may be wondering! I'll do my best in this post to give you a better idea of my role here in the PENAMA Provincial Office and surrounding government offices.

PAD Part 39

When you run out of fuel but need to tether your boat, just use an oar!

Spitting

***Warning: this post is actually about spitting...just in case you didn't take my title seriously***
Sitting in the kava bar at night with my friends, I look around jealously as they casually relax in their seat while lobbing a wad of spit 2 feet to the coral in the middle of the room. Despite many nights of practice, I have yet to pick up the technique. When I need to spit (as happens often while drinking kava), I must lean forward until my face is over the coral, and let it drop straight down, sometimes missing my mark and hearing the ominous splat of spit hitting cement. While I've gotten better at making my spit drop in a small ball of wetness, rather than a long string that hangs down from my mouth, I have not yet found the proper way to lob it any distance. I haven't yet given up hope, and will continue to practice. Tonight however, is not the night that I will succeed.
I give them the stink eye as I lean back against the bench, and hope that one day I will learn their ways, and I too, will be able to sit and spit.

PAD Part 38

Enjoying some hammock time

A Day at the Beach

About a 5 minute walk from my house, there's this place called the Melanesian Brotherhood, or Tum Sisiro. It's a religious community comprised of about 50 guys, mostly between the ages of 18 and 25, who live together, pray together, and study together. For three years they live and study together at the Brotherhood as Novices, before they are promoted to become full-fledged Brothers.

Every Friday afternoon they play soccer by my house, and a few months ago, I started playing with them. Even though my soccer skills have diminished significantly since I last played in 8th grade, it's fun to run around and be part of a team sport again after so long!

With kava shortages in town the last few weeks, I've also been finding myself more and more at the kava bar that they run, as it's a reliable source of good kava and good conversation. I would now call many of the Novices and Brothers my friends, and they call me a "Sister" of the Brotherhood (a nice little affirmation!) Last weekend, they were celebrating the fact that some of the third year Novices who just returned from a 3-months long practical assignment in a faraway province by heading to the beach, and they invited me along!

I know there are a lot of pictures in this slideshow, but when I was scrolling through them on my computer, I just felt like the sum total of them gave a nice impression of the day, especially when viewed at high speed (like below). Highlights: jumping off or rocks, eating roasted chicken and Napoleonfish, watching boat shenanigans and teaching the guys to play three flies up. Enjoy!

PAD Part 37

The bread cabinet at Lemus (lay-moose), full to bursting

A Good Meeting

Recently, I've been feeling a little lost in my job here. More and more I find myself getting frustratred handling the same issues every day, and the lack of direction is getting harder to be okay with.
What better solution to this problem than a new project!
Months ago, I was approached about helping create a tourism website for PENAMA. I agreed to help, but the project didn't really go anywhere. The content wasn't available, the pictures weren't great, and the motivation didn't seem to be there with my counterparts, so I let the idea go as a "that would've been cool had it happened" kind of thing.
Yesterday, however, I sat down with the Provincial Tourism Officer, the Provincial Planner, and Hollingsworth, a community member who's is interested in tourism. We had a great, 2 hour long meeting, where we talked about expectations, hopes, and realistic approaches to how we can go about working on this project.
We should be meeting again next week, with the next step (hopefully) being a trip around the three islands of PENAMA to the main tourist attractions/bungalows to take photos and gather pertinent information for the site.
After what felt like a couple of months of treading water and not really going anywhere, it's nice to have a new project to sink my teeth into! Here's hoping it works out!

PAD Part 36

I helped run a training for these lovely folks at the Rural Training Center near my town about internet safety

PAD Part 35

Kathleen and her folks! I'm so glad I got the chance to hang out with these wonderful people for a few days.

The Pacific Hope

A couple of weeks ago, I had a very busy, very lovely, very different kind of week. I, along with most of the other volunteers on Ambae, got involved with helping a medical ship, The Pacific Hope, with their outreach in Lolowai (a town about a 30 min walk from mine). I spent the week travelling about 200 miles on a small boat to help them find certain villages, translating for doctors and nurses, swinging on the rope swing off of their ship, meeting lovely people, eating lovely food (it was so good...there was cheese!), feeling disoriented by being in AC on their ship, and making so, so many phone calls.
As those of you who read my blog may have noticed, I shy away from the day-to-day play-by-play (I like how many hyphens I just used), so I hope you enjoy some highlighted moments from the week.
For those that want the more visual version, I'll post here first the video Marine Reach (the organization that runs the boat) made about their week on Ambae.

PAD Part 34

A successful catch!

A New Kind of Normal

AKA things that happen frequently in my life, but people back home would probably think are weird
- Walking up to a group of young men with machetes (or sitting next to someone on a plane who is holding one)
- Going to the beach, picking up a shell, seeing something living inside, and roasting it over a fire to eat it
- “Can you put email on my computer?” means “Hey, my internet’s not working, would you fix it?”
- That shirt you’ve worn so much that it has all kinds of holes in it? Wear it 4 days in a row!

PAD Part 33

Headed back home after seeing my parents off to Vila

A Family Affair

For the past couple of weeks, I had the amazing opportunity to share my life here in Vanuatu with my America family. We managed to keep busy while they were here, and go on many an adventure in their two-ish weeks here.

Welcome to Vanuatu!

PAD Part 32

Look! I’m a captain! I was lucky enough to get a tour of the Pacific Hope, a medical ship that will be coming to Ambae at the end of this month, and of course, had to ham it up in the control room. (I’m sure I’ll write more about the ship, it’s mission, and it’s visit after it passes through)

SMART Sistas (Sistas Mastering Advanced Real Technology) Girls ICT Camp

A long time ago on an island far, far away, a Country Director and a Peace Corps Volunteer came up with an idea: there are so few women in the tech field in so many places...since ICT jobs are still new and the gender divide isn't as pronounced, what if we nip it in the bud here in Vanuatu and start empowering girls now, before there's a huge gender gap?

PAD Part 31

Back to Vila for some trainings, some kava, some sunsets, and waiting for my family!

The Biggest Family Ever

I've wanted to write about the differences between family in the US and family in Vanuatu, but have been having a hard time writing a cohesive piece. I have since given up on that idea, and will just share various anecdotes without trying to connect them. Since I've started and stopped this so many times, this may or may not end up being a series of small mini-blog posts contained within one greater blog post.

PAD Part 30

After work one day, my friend Godfrey called out to me as I walked past his office. "We're going North to a fundraiser, wanna come?" I gladly joined, and after an adventure in which the truck broke down and we rolled backwards down a hill for a bit, we arrived to a beautiful sunset.

Impromptu Trips and Natural Disasters

Before joining Peace Corps, there were a lot of people that asked me if I was worried: worried about political unrest, disease, or sexual assault…but when I was placed in Vanuatu, these were not the major concerns. Vanuatu is consistently ranked as one of the most dangerous countries in the world in terms of natural disasters, and after having had (roughly) 3 cyclones, 1 volcano scare (for us Ambae folks), and 301 earthquakes (some with tsunami warnings, number from here), in just the past year, it’s easy to see why.

PAD Part 29

Sometimes, people burn trash...it smells about as good as it looks

Bonus Post: Photo a Day Year 1 Video

Maewo

PENAMA Province, where I work, is made up of three islands: Pentecost (PEN), Ambae (AM), and Maewo (MA). Every day when I wake up, I'm greeted by a beautiful view of the other two, but as of the beginning of the year, I had spent a grand total of 4 hours on Maewo, and none on Pentecost. To begin the process of rectifying this, Kathleen and I took a weeklong trip to Maewo; to visit the other volunteers, swim in some rivers, and see how life is different on the aelan blo wota (water island).

I'll spare you the daily play-by-play, and just talk about a few of the highlights in this post.

Maewo! Pretty, ain't it?

PAD Part 28

Who wants to play some soccer? All the rain we've been getting has been awesome, but it's also caused the grass on the soccer field to grow like nobody's business.

The Year-In Slump

Warning: this post has a high probability of becoming whiny, but sometimes you just have to write a rant about feelings and post it to your blog.

When I first saw this graph, I thought it was silly. How could they generalize all volunteers experiences into one handy graphic? Everyone's Peace Corps experience is so different and unique!

Now, however, it's been 12-14 months, and the one-year slump, or "mid-service crisis" is very real. Things that illustrate this point in list-form:

- I find myself missing people and places from home a lot more often than before 

- I have this recurring dream where I'm in a grocery store in the US and buying all the food I miss (most recently fruit, and more specifically raspberries and grapes)

-  I'm getting frustrated at my job and unfairly taking it out on the people around me

-  I keep worrying that I'm not doing enough in my job and that my two years here will not have done anything to improve the IT systems at the Provincial Offices. While I'm not expecting a massive overhaul of the entire system, it's disheartening to think I'm spending two years here only to know that when I leave there's a strong chance everything will go back to exactly the way it was before I got here

- My patience with people is much lower than it should be, especially people with computer issues
- I miss playing sports. So much. I miss them so much I've even started running, and I hate running!

I love Peace Corps, I love Vanuatu, and I love Ambae. Even though right now that may not but 100% how I feel, I keep that mantra going in my head to remind myself that this is just a slump. Peace Corps is hard, and that's okay. Next week I head to Vila for MST (Mid-Service Training), and I think this break from the island is exactly what I need to get back on track.

PAD Part 27

Left, the round building, is a nakamal. Right, the yellow building kind of in the background is my house. My friend Kwani often sells kava in this nakamal, and I often drink here. This also means that I'm friends with many of the people that drink here. Since you can see into my kitchen while drinking here, even if I don't feel particularly inclined to drink one night, my friends will often sing out to me to come, or just to say good night.

A visit from the DPT

And BOOM. There came the rain. We were so close. SO CLOSE. But no, now it was time to mentally prepare ourselves for a long, steep, muddy, rainy trek up the hill to Avery's site (a fellow PCV), because there was no way the truck could make it's way up the road now.
10 minutes after the deluge began, the truck dropped us at Amalu, pointed out the right path, and left. Already wet, and laden down with our overnight bags, 6 cans of tuna, and 4 kilos of chicken wings, we began the climb. Alternating between laughing and crying at how steep the hike was, we slowly made our way up the mountain. Finally arriving at Avery's site, we were greeted by a wet and muddy Studly Budly and an equally wet Kathleen (yet another PCV), who'd walked over from her site to see us. The rest of the night was spent with good conversation, good kava, and good food!
Waking up the next morning, it was raining again. Kathleen headed back early to make sure her village was ready for visitors, and we took our time over breakfast (Len, one of my bosses, brought Nutella, and I definitely ate more than my fair share of it!). Eventually, however, it was time to go. We waited for a squall to pass, and headed out again, carefully wading across the swollen creeks. When we got to Weinasasa, we weren't disappointed! They made us a delicious lunch, and that night, had a welcome ceremony for Kelleah and Len. People in Vanuatu are so wonderful and welcoming, I feel lucky to call this place home.
It was definitely a wet adventure this weekend, but I'm glad we got to give Kelleah an interesting picture of life here, and I'll leave this post with this: Kelleah, welcome, and may you have many more slippery adventures over your time here in Vanuatu!

PAD Part 26

Bianca and Rian

Time

I'm sure it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that life here in the South Pacific is a little more relaxed than life in the US. "Black man time" or "island time" is definitely one of the perks, and one of the challenges of working in Vanuatu.
When people show up an hour late to work, then take a two hour lunch break only to duck out an hour early? Eh, sure. Why not? When they go to Port Vila for a week-long holiday that turns into a 3-week trip? Yeah, okay, no big deal. Walk four hours one way to go to the bank? A typical Thursday.
While sometimes it's nice, there are other times the American in me rears it's head, and I start to get a little annoyed. The time I really wanted to get to the Post Office, and my students showed up to class an hour late, making it impossible to do the class justice and make it there before it closed. Or the times I'm waiting to go somewhere, and dutifully show up at the appointed time, only to wait an hour or two before we actually leave. Or being told "i no long wei tumas" only to take on a grueling three hour hike.
Learning to adapt to a different sense of time has definitely brought its frustrations, but it's also helped me learn to be more flexible. I spend the extra two hours waiting for a truck making new friends; I take the afternoon off if I've got friends in town, or I'm just having a hard day; I bring my book to class so when I wait 45 minutes for anyone to show up, I've got something to do; whenever anyone tells me how long it takes to get anywhere, I silently multiply it by two. Adapting to island time has been harder than expected, and I now feel sorry for whoever my next boss is when I keep showing up to meetings no less than 20 minutes late.

PAD Part 25

The entire network for Saratamata was down, so I headed up to Public Works to check out what was up. They were running a training on how to use some new machines to improve the roads, and I definitely almost asked to try driving one.

Ode to Mosquitos

Oh mosquitos, you tiny wretched scourge,
your tinny whining in my ear,

as I lay my head upon my pillow,
and cannot sleep.

Oh mosquitos, your proboscis pricks
my arm as I sit and drink,
a shell of kava,
under the clear, starry sky.

Oh mosquitos, the swelling starts
as my blood reacts to the saliva
that you've injected in my arm
as you drink my blood.

Oh mosquitos, I wish I could ignore
the itching, scratching, anger
that arises within my soul
and on my skin.

Oh mosquitos, *SPLAT*
while that small spurt of blood
means it's too late for me
at least I've saved others
from your blood-sucking bite.

*To my English- and poetry-inclined, I apologize for this atrocity that I'm pretending is an ode. I did some research, and decided that odes, Horatian, Pindaric, or otherwise, were hard and I was lazy.*

PAD Part 24

Bamboo is a pretty common sight here, and is used for everything from preparing food to building materials for houses and benches

One Year In

Warning: This post contains lots of sappiness and self-reflection. If you're not into that kind of stuff, check this out instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dD0xv5NOf4

It's been just over a year since I first arrived in Vanuatu, and with my time here being roughly half over (crazy, right?) it seemed like the right time for a reflection post. This year has been so much more than I could have expected. Incredible, moving, funny, weird, terrible, lonely, overwhelming, comforting...these and so many other words have each had their place in my life. It's been challenging adapting to a new culture, a new way of life, and a new language. But that has also led to some of the coolest experiences: kustom weddings, spear fishing with my brothers, grabbing food for dinner from the garden. Who would have thought it would all seem normal now?
On the one-year anniversary of arriving in country, Kathleen and I were on Maewo, staying in Ngota with our good friends Johanna and Aaron. We stayed up late talking about the last year, the next year, the new group that just arrived...it was a lovely night. We began the conversation by talking about our best/worst/most embarrassing moments so far at site, and I thought I'd share those stories with all of you. (Mostly because I know myself and know that if I don't have some kind of structure this post will very quickly degenerate into a long weird rant)

PAD Part 23

Look at Marge. She's very pregnant. Soon to be some little Marge puppies!

Rats

A while back, I woke up in the middle of the night to the distinct noise of a rat scurrying around my room. Normally when rats wake me up at night (not an altogether unusual occurrence), I thrash around a bit or shine my flashlight at them, and they scurry away, not to be heard from again (until the following night).
This rat, however, was different. After my usual thrashing, I started to drift off back to sleep when...scratch, scratch, scratch. He was back! Dumb rat. We repeated this cycle three or four times, until I finally gave up, put in my headphones, put on This American Life, and fell back asleep. The rat had won this time, but I would have my revenge!
The next day, I went to Le Mus (lay-moose), the store in town to buy a rat trap. There were two choices. One, a metal one that looked like it would cut the rat's head off, the second, a glue trap. Not wanting to deal with decapitated mice in the middle of the night, I bought the glue trap. I wasn't really sure how I'd get rid of the rat once it was stuck in the glue trap, but decided I could figure it out when/if I actually caught one. As in, I'd get my host dad or one of my brothers to deal with it for me.
I put peanut butter in the middle of the tray, and laid it on the floor by my dresser, where I'd seen the rat use my hanging island dresses to scurry up to the roof the night before. I fell asleep with dreams of a quieter night.
One thing I had not anticipated (although I really should have thought this through) was that when the rat got caught in the trap, it would still be alive enough to make some pretty terrible noises while trying to escape. I woke up, and after failing to be able to ignore his distress enough to fall asleep, decided to put him outside. I wasn't sure how effective the glue actually was, so to hedge my bets, put him in my Peace Corps issued bucket. The glue plate fit nicely in the bottom, and with a sigh, I fell back into my bed.
About an hour later, I was awoken by furious squeaking from outside my door. Groggy, and unsure what was going on, I stumbled out of bed and opened the door, surprising two cats in the act of killing the now defenseless rat. They screeched and ran away, although I couldn't help but notice that one of them was running quite awkwardly. Glancing down in the bucket, I realized why. Not only was the rat gone, but so was the glue trap!
The next day, Toffee, my favorite cat, had unsightly dirty, sticky patches covering one side of his body, and the glue trap has yet to reappear.

PAD Part 22

Chickens like to roost in trees, apparently

Brothers and blogs

Meet my brother Jojo. At 16, he’s the oldest of my host siblings. 

I gave him my camera for a bit over a week (it was only supposed to be a couple of days, but hey, island time!) so you all could see Ambae from a different perspective. He ended up taking a lot of photos, and posted here are the highlights.

PAD Part 21

Sandrine and Tari, two kids in town I enjoy quite a lot. I was walking home from work and Sandrine (on the right) came up to me and asked me to take a picture of her, so of course I obliged!