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.