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)

Most embarrassing moment:

As some of you may know, I sleepwalk sometimes. It happens mostly when I almost wake up from dreams, but not quite. This means that while my eyes are seeing the real world, my mind is still in the dream, and the rules of the dream still apply. Since I’m almost awake, this also means that I pretty much always remember having sleepwalked the previous night, for better or worse.

A while back, I woke up (almost woke up…you know what I mean) from a particularly vivid dream in the middle of the night, and knew I had to get out of my house, and knew I had to do so by way of my window. I don’t really remember the context in the dream, just the certainty I felt that I had to do this. I tried to take out some of the slats from my window, and one broke. Using the broken piece, I cut a hole in the mosquito net covering window, and continuing on with the certainty of my dream-like state, pushed the slat out of my second-story bedroom. Upon hearing the subsequent crash of glass, I woke up…for real this time. Seeing the destruction of my window, I swore at myself (a lot), cursed my vivid dreams, and comforted myself back to sleep by telling myself I’d take some of the extra slats from work to fix it and no one would be able to tell what’d happened.

I woke up with a start in the morning to my host mom singing out to me. She asked me what happened to my window, and accepted my explanation of a nightmare. When I left the house to head to work, she pulled me aside and questioned me again, saying that the man that was staying in the guest room nearest my house was worried that someone had tried to break into my house, and that was what had broken my window. Red-faced, I then fully explained what had really happened, to much laughter on her part. She has since retold the story countless times to various friends and family members…thanks mom!

Worst moment:

The hardest day for me was a day when a bunch of things came to a head at once. I was feeling sick; the network at the hospital was down, and I was having a hard time fixing it; the hospital staff was getting frustrated at my inability to fix it; it was uncomfortably hot; since it was near the beginning of my service, I was still feeling very underprepared for my job (although, let's be honest, I still feel that way)...I spent all afternoon there, calling OGCIO (my boss in Vila), rewiring their system, calling OGCIO again, testing the new wiring...I left the hospital that afternoon frustrated, having not been able to fix the network, and feeling like I'd let the staff down. I got to my house, lay down in my bed, and cried. I was so overwhelmed and angry at myself that it was all too much for me.

Best moment:
It's hard to pinpoint one single moment as being "the best moment", so I'll end this post with a few of my favorites.
Occasionally my host family and I all load up in our truck and head to the beach. We bring some chicken, rice, veggies, soccerball, fishing lines...everything needed for a good afternoon. We set up camp, my parents start to cook, and then we just play! We go swimming, play soccer, go fishing (to supplement our lunch, of course), read, or really anything else that strikes our fancy. It's always a really wonderful afternoon spent in each other's company.
I've always been someone who makes friends easily with men, and was worried about that coming to Vanuatu. I lucked out and ended up on Ambae, which is a much more progressive island than many others. I spend most of my time hanging out with men here as well, and while no one really comments on it, for a long time I was not sure if that was because it really was okay, or if it was because they were just being polite. New Years Eve, I was hanging out with some friends under a mango tree, drinking wine, listening to music and chatting, when my friend Jay came up. He sat down, and we started up a conversation. Out of the blue, he turned to me and said, "Y'know, we're all going to remember you as best friend to all the boys. We always really like having you around. Groups will always brag about when you come hang out with them." It's hard sometimes knowing as a volunteer whether we're appreciate, or what we're doing is appropriate, and hearing that affirmation from him made my heart soar a little bit higher.
My uncle Chandy got married early January, and I took a few days off of work to be able to participate in the kastom ceremonies. One of the traditions here is that when you're part of the bride or groom's family's, they "wash" you with various things when you show up. It can really be anything...I saw people getting washed with banana laplap (before it's baked), rum and coke, old kava...The first day I went, people washed me with water, but nothing else. They were having fun running around, throwing food at each other, but when they came around me, were very respectful and polite. I sat down and chatted with them for a long time, and joked about the fact they didn't wash me with anything, in hopes of making people more comfortable. The next day I show up and was immediately covered in a water/flour mix, and almost regretted my jokes from the day before. While the flour/water mixture hardened like glue into my hair and was a pain to get out, it was really nice feeling included, and knowing that people felt comfortable enough around me to include me in the festivities.

I guess that's good enough for now...I think this experience is going to be something I'm going to be coming back to and processing for a long while yet. Here's to the next 14 months!