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.


With my America family coming in next week, I've been thinking a lot about family. (Who'd'a thunk it, right?) I can't wait until my two families get to meet, and finally have a reference point for when I tell them stories about each other. Often while talking to other volunteers, I say things like: my mom was doing such and such, or my dad said something funny the other day...and they ask the clarifying question: "Your America mom?", or "Your here dad?"
Peace Corps sets each volunteer up with a host family in their community, and at least in my case, I was quickly adopted. I call my host dad "dadi", and my host mom "mami"...even with other Peace Corps Volunteers. As sappy as it sounds, I truly feel like I'm part of their family, and not just a white interloper.

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Vanuatu has a population of ~250,000, and sometimes, I honestly feel like everyone is family. When I went to Maewo a few weeks ago, I was chatting with some people in the village of Kaiovo, and we quickly figured out that we were all family!
Whenever I come into Port Vila, the capital, I always end up meeting more and more of my family, and I love it! I really like the fact that there's never a need to stay in a hotel: you can just stay with family. Or when I jump into a bus and find out the driver is one of my good friends' brothers.

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People keep track of everyone in their family. And I mean EVERYONE. I know how I'm related to every other volunteer in my province, and in super convoluted ways. Example: Phil who was a volunteer on Maewo is my mom's sister's husband's sister's kid. And that's one of the simpler ones! One of the things that was really hard to get used to was the fact that everyone is "brother", "dad", "sister", "grandpa", etc. You will hear "aunt" and "uncle" on occasion, but generally, your dad's brothers are also your dad. And your mom's sisters are also your mom. And your cousins are your brothers/sisters. It can get confusing.
This is probably why...

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Kids belong to everybody, and adoption within the family is super common.
My house/family is a good example of this. My little sister Bianca is actually my cousin. She's my dad's brother's daughter, but my mom and dad had three boys and wanted a girl. My dad's brother has a lot of kids, so he just...gave her to us? That's probably not the most kosher way to say it, but it's the most accurate way I could think of. There's not exactly a formal adoption system, and there are often kids living with extended family. I've got a cousin-brother, Mikey, that's been living with us for over a year now, but since he's older he's not officially adopted.
If this past paragraph was confusing, good, because that's how I feel often when trying to make sense of how families work here.

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Generally, there's just a lot of fluidity and acceptance. If you don't have enough money to pay school fees for all of your kids, you give them to someone else in your family, and it's totally normal. If you want them to go to a different island for school or work, it's all good, they're not too far away. It's always weird for me when I leave and it's not a big deal. I'm so used to leaving for school in Minnesota and being sad to not see my family, but glad to see my friends and having it be such a different world. Here, everyone and everything is connected.