Highest Highs

and some lows

I’ve had some low points in the past 20 months; all of them in the first 9 months of service. It has been pretty much all uphill from there. They would include:

1. Feeling out of place in the training village,
2. Getting stared at and pitied in my first 3 months in my community,
3. The time the teachers stopped showing up and the school closed for a term,
4. Getting bed bugs,
5. Being medically evacuated for diphtheria in May 2010.

But let’s not focus on the negative. I think the highs make up for it:

1. Moving to my very own cute as a button little thatch house after living with a host family for 5 months.
2. Getting little baby Marie Antoinette during my first week in my comunity. She was so tiny and fluffy and full of fleas!
3. Organizing 30 self important busy community leaders to build a venue for the tourism events.
4. Organizing 50 self important yachties to attend our tourism events in one of the most remote places on earth.
5. Finally being able to tell a good joke in Bislama and making my friends laugh.
6. Peering over the edge of Marum Volcano with Virginia in Dec 2010. Plus the trip to Australia over Xmas/New Years. All 3 weeks were a high.
7. Nina’s Visit! Land diving wooo!
8. Visiting other volunteers in Vanuatu; Justine on Maewo, Amy on Lamen, Robert, Gaia, and Jason on Pentecost, Hali, Zoe, Laura, and Jake on Tanna, Zoe and Whitney on Santo, all my peeps on Malekula, Ambae, Alisha on Ambrym, Desiree on Nguna and Alexia and Kalli in Vila.
9. Electricity and meat vacations: Meeting up with the other volunteers on my Island, organizing beer pong tournaments, snorkeling, and eating lots of meat; Karen, Sandra, Ricky, Andrew, Marie, Neill, Josh, Sara, Yegor and Jeff
10. Helping out with all the youth leadership camps (called GLOW/BILDs) in Wowo, Lakatoro, Lamap, and Blacksands. Soon to come one last camp in Emua my training village.
11. Having a kava bar named after me. And enjoying a good storian session with my oldfellas over kava.
12. Painting huge world map murals with Neil, and an environment mural with Amy. Soon to come another world map in my community.
13. Hiring Karine to teach at the vocational school. You Yes Karine! She literally saved the school from ruin and took heaviest the burden from my shoulders.
14. Realizing my students have actually mastered the material I’ve taught them.
15. Seeing my projects functioning properly on their own as I finish my time and prepare to leave.