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.

I know a lot of friends and family of volunteers worry when they hear these kind of statistics, especially when they can't get in touch with their loved one. I'm writing this post to hopefully dissuade some of those fears. I'll hit on two main points today: one, how the Peace Corps office staff responds to these kinds of natural disasters as they occur (or before they do), and two, how resilient and resourceful the people of Vanuatu are.

I have, to date, been evacuated twice, and once been sent to check on a volunteer who the office wasn't able to contact. That's three times that the office had me leave site, either for my safety, or for the safety of other volunteers.

I'm assuming most of you know about Cyclone Pam, and our evacuation to Sydney last year (if you're interested in reading about it, you can check out my blog posts here. I won't expand too much on what I said before, but I will give a brief summary of the timeline.

   - Roughly a week before Pam was scheduled to hit, Peace Corps staff brought all volunteers in to Vila from the outer islands

   - A few days before, we trainees were also brought in. That night, we had a meeting with everyone, and Keith told us that the updated map looked as though the cyclone would bypass us, but we'd all stay in Port Vila (the capital) just in case

   - Wednesday, the tracking map was adjusted, with the cyclone now headed straight for us

   - Thursday, we evacuated to Sydney, where we spent two weeks while Peace Corps staff stayed behind to try and assess whether or not we could return

   - Friday, Cyclone Pam hits Port Vila directly, causing a lot of damage to the capital and the southern islands

   - April 2, we return to Vanuatu, and post scrambles to find new sites for volunteers whose sites are too damaged to return to

The second time we were evacuated (and by we, I mean my fellow Ambae Island volunteers and I) came about because of Manaro, the volcano on our island. On a Saturday night a while back, I was sitting at a nakamal drinking kava and watching the strange amount of heat lightning that kept lighting up the sky, when I got a call from a fellow volunteer. The conversation went something like this:

   "Hey, have you heard from Katie (a volunteer on Maewo, an island close to ours)?"

   "I saw I had a missed call, but couldn't reach her"

   "Well, she says Manaro looks like it's exploding right now"

   "Huh, that's probably not good. Maybe we should call the office?"

   "Yeah, might be a good idea"

After calling the office to let them know, it was time to wait. After a couple more shells of kava, time which I'm sure the office spent making many calls and asking many questions, we got an answer; 

   "Tomorrow morning, we want you all to take a boat to Maewo, just in case"

After hanging up the phone, I headed home to pack a bag, and let my family know what was going on. The next day, I and the other four Ambae volunteers met at my house, then caught a boat and headed out, making sure our families were ready to do the same if there really was an eruption.

We spent two days on Maewo, until we heard confirmation from the office that it was a false alarm. Coming back to Ambae, there were more than a few people that laughed at the scared white people that ran away from a volcano that wasn't even erupting, and we sheepishly joined in. It wasn't until much later, when Katie showed us the pictures she took that night of our island, that we saw why we had been evacuated.

Yeah, I think I would've been worried too

That brings us to this past weekend. There have been a lot of earthquakes recently, with the biggest being a magnitude 7.0 that hit at 6:30 in the morning last Friday. Lying in my bed as the ground shook, I was surprised at how strong it was and how long it lasted. About an hour later, I got a call from staff, who were checking in on volunteers. They told us there was no tsunami warning, and made sure that we were okay, and there wasn't too much damage. I told them I was fine, there was no damage, and was glad to hear there would be no tsunami.

At about noon, I got another call from staff, saying they were unable to reach some of the volunteers on Maewo (cell phone service is pretty unreliable at their sites), and asked if Thomas and I would be able to go check on them. I jumped at the chance to go to Maewo and see Naviso, the one Peace Corps site on the island I haven't seen yet. I threw a change of clothes in a bag, and after some back and forth with the office, we jumped in a boat and were on our way. It was a beautiful day and the water was calm.

Arriving on Maewo, we hopped off the boat and I checked my phone only to see a message from the office: "Hey guys, Chad (the volunteer in question) called the office at 2:59 PM. He saw all the messages on his Sat Phone and so he called. He is okay." Well...we were already on Maewo, so...we called the office and got the okay to stay, and spent a lovely weekend jumping off of waterfalls, hanging out with volunteers, and getting hit with sticks by men covered in leaves.

I write all this in the hopes of reassuring family and friends back home that we've got people looking out for us here. If there's even a small chance that something might happen, they move us to a safe location until they can make sure everything's okay. If something does happen, they call to check in, and if they don't hear from you, they send people to physically go check on you. While sometimes it can be frustrating as a volunteer to be evacuated when there's no need, or to have to check in with the staff whenever anything happens, it's also reassuring knowing that if something big did come to pass, they've got our backs.

I also want to touch briefly on the resiliency of Ni-Vanuatu people. When Cyclone Pam came through, destroying many houses and gardens, the death toll was much lower than anyone expected, with the UN confirming only 24. This was likely due to a few different factors:

   1. Communication - the government sent out text blasts to every phone in the country with updated news as the cyclone intensified, so people had ample time to prepare, and has done so for the other two cyclones that have passed while we were here as well

   2. Local houses are made primarily of bamboo and natangoro, which, while it would certainly hurt if it fell on you, likely wouldn't kill you

   3. People took heed of the warnings and boarded up houses, cut down trees that might fall, and made sure they had food and water ready, and then when the danger had passed, worked hard to rebuild

When the much smaller tropical depression/Cat 1 Cyclone Zena hit Ambae last month, my family's kitchen was pretty thoroughly wrecked, and our yard was covered in branches and trees that had fallen. The night before, in the midst of the storm, I was hiding under the covers in my room, listening to my music loud in an attempt to drown out the wind. Being the stubborn person I am, I refused to leave my house until I saw a light coming towards me; it was my host dad coming to check on me and take me back to my family's house because they were worried about me being by myself and wanted to make sure I was okay. I gratefully jumped out of bed, grabbed a few things, and followed him, ducking under the papaya tree that had fallen and blocked the path to my house, and skirting the wreckage of our kitchen. We spent the next day cleaning and building, and by the end of the day, had a new kitchen and a clean yard, going to show how industrious and ready to work hard people are. "Our kitchen fell down last night" is not followed by grief and shock, but by a shrug, and a time of rebuilding.

Yes, there are a lot of natural disasters here, and potential for a lot more, I find it helps to remember that people have lived here for a long time. They know what to do if a volcano erupts, or a tsunami hits, or a cyclone comes. Between my host family here on Ambae, and my Peace Corps family around the country, it's nice to know we've got people looking out for us.