3/20/10
Yeah so I’m being super good and writing three blog posts this week because I just got a new computer cord. My old one broke and then it took 5 weeks for the new one to come. It also didn’t help that the cord had to travel through a big snowstorm in DC and big tropical storm on my end that canceled postal flights and is now terrorizing Australia. So now all the work that needs a computer has piled up and I am procrastinating by blogging.
I just came back from visiting my mama’s house. I went and had dinner there last night. My mama is an amazing cook, relatively speaking to other mamas here. She made this soup the other day that was just like Mrs. Fearnoughs Brunswick Stew, my favorite impossible to find canned soup. I asked her what’s her secret and she said icing sugar. Brillant! Of course, cause its sugar with starch in it. It made it all thick and slightly sweet. Yum.
But the food’s not always amazing. When I went to eat there just now she made laplap flying fox, which is a cassava cake with a huge hairy bat inside and coconut sauce. When they cook the flying fox it’s not skinned or boned and it smells literally like a dead rat. It looks like a rat too, like a huge rat with giant bat wings. It was this foot long piece of laplap too. I was like what’s up with that? So I tried to cut the laplap with my spoon but hit bone immediately. Then I realized it had the entire wing of the bat folded up in it. Yuck. Luckily everyone was watching a movie so they didn’t notice I didn’t touch my bat-wing cake. They were watching this really funnny french movie series from the 60’s. I think it’s a classic. It’s about these 6 gendarme that always get into trouble. Fricken hilarious, even though it’s in French. I also watch a lot of kung fu classics in French. It rarely impedes understanding of the plot.
Today apparently, is Francophone Day. At the primary school they are collecting money for a donation to chile. Which I thought was funny cause maybe they should be donating to Haiti for francophone day. Anyway I really feel for the francophones here. They are kind of at a disadvantage and the disadvantage is growing. Vanuatu was a colony of both the French and the British. So it has Francophone areas and Anglophone areas. Lamap, where I live is Francophone. They have a great school here that goes to tenth grade and will have year eleventh next year. But then all this education goes to waste when the rest of the country speaks English. The language barrier can really set up a wall to development. The official national language is Bislama and the people here are fluent in Bislama but not English. Yet most of the laws, contracts and newspapers are written in English, not Bislama.
Here’s an example, the tourism office just sent me a contract to have my Tourism committee sign in English. I was like no, I’m not having them sign this. Signing contracts without reading them is not a good habit to get people into. I read it and it wasn’t even appropriate for them. For example it said only tour providers could be members of the committee, which the members of the committee are not. So by signing they would be writing themselves out of the committee. Now I know this wasn’t the intention of the Tourism office but the point is that Anglophones don’t have to deal with this that much and the attitude is always ‘oh the francophones will figure it out’. And yeah they get by but they also get screwed over.
Another example: I went to the umbrella agency for all the vocational training schools to try to get some curricula. They showed me all this great material, textbooks, videos, etc. that could be used in our school. But it was in English. I was like yes I can tell this is all great stuff but it’s in English and the guy goes yes but the simplest English. Ok but that’s still English and the teacher and the manager at the school have a 10th grade education in French and most of the students at the school have 6th grade education in French so all of this material is absolutely worthless to us. This is the Organization that looks out for all the vocational school in the country and it doesn’t have anything in French. In Francophone areas only the very highly educated speak English. Those people are quad lingual; French, English, Bislama, and local language. The vocational schools are set up to look out for those that the conventional school system left behind. These students speak the local language, pretty good Bislama, and some French. So how can you expect them to learn English when we’re struggling to teach them in Bislama?
PS no my French isn’t getting any better. Cause I can’t speak French when I’m already trying to translate my thoughts into Bislama all day. It just comes out a jumbled mess. Je tink se emi vrai.)
3/19/10
So I moved to this new house. It’s really nice cause it’s all my own. It’s got a main house which is like 27x12ft which has a dividing wall where I sleep behind. Then it has an unattached kitchen which is like 10x12ft and then it has a room for bathing and a toilet. The bathroom is just a shack with a coral floor that I take bucket showers in. And the toilet is really just a shack with a whole in the ground. When I first moved to the house the men in the neighborhood decided that I should have a toilet seat. I told them I don’t want that because their toilet seats are made out of concrete and they get really gross. With a concrete toilet if some guy comes and pisses all over your seat, which they will, there is no way to clean it. The piss and shit and gross ass-dirty from whoever's ass just stays there in all the little holes in the concrete. Ugh it’s much better to squat over a hole where you don’t have to touch anything. They found this hard to comprehend because the general community consensus is that a concrete toilet seat is a step up from a hole in the ground. It was hard to explain this and I think they thought I was just being overly gracious by telling them I don’t want the toilet. So then one day I come home to find a concrete toilet in my front walkway. I don’t know where it came from, who brought it there, but I know I don’t want it. The custom here is that if someone gives you something you have to take it. It is impolite to turn it down. So really I shouldn’t return the gift. Regifting is a less taboo. So now I have to find someone to give this toilet to. Anyway it’s been about 6 weeks and the toilet is still sitting in front of my house. I’ve gotten kind of used to it now so I keep forgetting to try to find a way to give it away. I wonder if it would be taboo to plant some flowers in it.
One issue with my new house is that it’s not in a family yard, which I really like because it means I have privacy. The only problem is that it is unsafe at night for a woman to sleep in a house by herself. And apparently there are some seedy characters in this village who would take advantage. So I have a mama that stays with me at night, my security guard, Daniella. She lives right across the street. They are not so attached to personal space as we are. In the states when you live in a house there is usually a room in the house that is designated yours where you sleep every night and keep all your stuff. Here they live in the house and it is the family’s house. Every room in the house belongs to the family. Usually there will be a room or space to store all the stuff. Then the family sleeps wherever, sometimes all in one room, or sometimes in separate rooms, sometimes in the living room and sometimes, if it’s really hot, they’ll sleep out on the front lawn. I’ve witnessed my brother change rooms 5 times in the last 5 months. He just moves his bed. Anyways, at first I felt bad about how this mama has to sleep with me instead of sleeping with her family. But then I realized that she actually doesn’t care where she sleeps. She still lives in the house across the street. She just sleeps in my house. Plus her husband’s dead and her kids are grown and now I’m like a new member of her family. She’s really nice too and she makes one of my favorite island dishes all the time simboro, plantain cakes wrapped in island cabbage with coconut sauce.
She’s also helping me learn the local language. Though she does this weird thing that I haven’t heard other people do. Where she uses the word church and school interchangeably. She actually never uses the word church. Its always school. At first I thought she maybe worked at the school cause she was always saying she was going to the school. But then on Sundays she would always says she was going to school but actually she’s going to church. She goes to church all the time, like 3 or 4 times a week. She never goes to school. So should I trust someone with this interesting language twitch to teach me the local language. Yeah sure. Maybe I’ll just ask somebody else what the local word for church is.
3/18
Some thoughts I’ve been having recently:
“sandy soap is really great, it’s all exfoliating” after picking my soap off the sand and coral floor of my shower.
“bat for breakfast and pigs liver for lunch, well at least I’m getting some protein”
“Shit I’m talking to myself in Bislama again ‘oh la la from wanem mi mas tingting long bislama oltaem’” Additionally recently I’ve found myself confusing b’s and p’s like locals do. Especially when teaching class. Like I’ll write pukiping instead of bukiping or pikfala instead of bikfala. People use them interchangeably here so the meaning is the same but still I know bisness, bookkeeping and big all start with b. Even if they don’t I think I should be setting a good example or something. Whatever. It really doesn’t make a difference.
I live in a world where the newspaper still prints Calvinand Hobbes comics, are you jealous?
“I love laplap manioc how would I go about making it if I were in the states” a variation of “how am I going to get kava when I go back to the states”
Yeah so I’ve been at site for 5 months now and a bunch of projects have been set into motion. I teach a computer class and a business class at the vocational school on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Tuesdays we work on building the tourism and environment center and work on various tourism or environment projects with the environment committee. Then on Thursday again we work on more enviro or tourism projects. I also may start working with the women’s group on Thursdays. Fridays more work with the environment committee and drink kava. Saturdays do long over due laundry and clean around the house and chill and read awesome magazines that awesome people have been sending me. Sunday go to church eat really good food all the mama’s make and stock up on produce people give me. Saturday is garden day for everyone. Recently I’ve been working my ass off during the week so I like to chill out on Saturday instead of go to the garden but I’ve been getting tons of random produce given to me when I go visit people on Sundays cause their kitchens are full of fruits and veggies from Saturday. I love it. I never ask for anything. It’s just the local hospitality. Love it. I got three huge avocados, a bunch of bananas, 3 oranges, and three grapefruits on Sunday. Yeas so that should last me the week. Like I said, Love it.
I’m trying to start some projects with the women’s group but for lack of a better term they don’t have any team spirit. They are much more happy talking shit about each other than actually meeting. It’s so self-degrading. I mean gender equality is totally screwed here but when they are asked to make a group to represent women, then they can’t get it together to stand up for themselves at all. Because from what I can tell standing up for your self is not what a proper woman should do according to this society. Plus if any woman tries to be a leader all the other women in the group start talking behind her back but then they won’t stand up and lead either because they know people will talk behind their backs. They are thinking about disbanding. Ugh well I’m not letting that happen. It’s hard though because I don’t have tight relations with all of them because all the women mostly work at their respective houses and most of my work so far has been with the men. I also work with the men and drink with the men and am treated like a man. But I can’t really act like a proper woman or I wouldn’t get any work done. A proper woman would stay at the house and do laundry and cook and stay quite. However that would mean being a terrible Peace Corps Volunteer. Anyhow I am going to organize some tourism projects with them for the tourism season. Maybe they can be motivated by money.
The other committee I’m working with is the Environment and Tourism Committee. They are great. They are really on top of it. I know that when I leave their projects will hold up. Cause the president is really on the ball. Sometimes even more than me. Some projects we are working on are reef preservation, conservation areas, waste management. The conservations areas are rocking, the waste management is well underway. We are getting a reef check certification class taught here soon so that should start that project. Our main work at the moment is spending grant money from GEF on building a sweet envornmental education and tourism information center in the middle of town. Everyone from the committee is psyched about it and they are working their asses off to get it done. Cutting down trees to make timber, doing math(!) to figure out how to use all the grant money. Then for our tourism projects we have a bunch of hiking trails we are working on. Also we are making a big culture and arts festival in July, which I hope will become an annual event. That should definitely boost tourism in the area. Put Lamap on the map so to speak. Cause tourists love this place. We get at least 200 a year because it’s a great harbor for yachties. For a small outer island village that’s impressive. There just aren’t any services for them. There’s nowhere for them to spend their money. Few stores, no touristy activities, no place to buy local crafts, and one bungalow in not the nicest location. So yeah that can be remedied.
The vocational training center is in a much more precarious position. It’s not breaking even. The quality of education is low because there aren’t enough teachers. Students aren’t paying their school fees. It needs a lot of work. But the manager is enthusiastic and so is the one teacher. Problem is the manager doesn’t really have the skills needed to run the place. He has a relatively high level of education compared to the average population. He finished 10th grade and studied mechanical repiars and maintenance at a tech school in the capital for 2 years. That is well educated considering the average education level is 6th grade. However that education doesn’t really prepare him for starting a brand new vocational school. Luckily for him the students in the area don’t have much choice of schools and the parents really can’t tell a good school from a bad school. The parents often have a lower level of education than the youth. Anyhow we’re working on things and I think we will have a new teacher and be ready to apply as an official vocational school that can issue government certificates by the end of the year. Oh think it could happen. Especially now that I have my computer cord!!
ok that's all at the moment. Sort of a long one cause I haven't posted in three months. xoxox
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
2010!
2010
My first two months at site have flown by. We had the malampa province football tournament. That was fun. Those guys were really good players and there is a really steep hill next to the football field that acts like stadium seating. Every day for a week I would go out there and sit on top of the hill watch some football and then go down to where the environment committee was selling kava and help them with their fundraising. There were lots of food stalls and kava stalls. Two of the teams were from the other side of the bay so every morning they had to canoe across the water for an hour and then every night they had to canoe back. No wonder they didn’t win. Kind of an unfair advantage. Actually the home team won which was fun because the whole town came down for the game and then a few days later we had a big celebration. And another dance! I really hope these dance parties never stop.
Work’s going pretty good except I always feel like I am short on resources. Mainly the internet. Living without it is horrible. If I don’t know something I can’t look it up. If it’s really important I’ll call someone in Vila to look it up. But one of my jobs is to help Lamap attract tourists. But how can they ever keep in contact with prospective tourists if nobody here has or knows how to use the internet? Actually there is a Lamap tourism site: malekulahikingtrail.blogspot.com. It was set up and updated by the previous volunteer. So if in the future if there is no volunteer there is no contact with tourists. Not very sustainable. So I get to teach someone in my community how to use the internet and update a blog. I also will be teaching intro to computers at the rural tech school and I hope I can get internet hooked up at the local high school. Then the Internet will no longer be a 5 hour truck ride away. It’s funny how we were never taught in school how to use the Internet. We just learn because we want to download music, play games and talk with our friends. If I could get that kind of interest going here with the high schoolers, then bam, they wouldn’t need me anymore. In no time 14 year old boys would be programming video games into their graphing calculators, girls would be researching their dream colleges, and tourists could chat with the locals. Obviously it won’t happen like that but I am trying my best to show as many people as I can that computers are the best thing that ever happened to the human race. Oh and I’m also trying to help set up a trash disposal program. Until recently all waste in this area was biodegradable. Everything is either eaten by pigs or it’s burnt. But now with plastic bags, used machine parts and batteries, they need to change their disposal system. There is no place for these kind of wastes to go. So people just throw it on the ground. They sort of treat it like they would a banana peel. Except unlike a banana peel it will never go away and will wash into the ocean and kill the coral reef. Or they burn it and then you get these burnt balls of plastic lying around the beach. So the environment committee and I are trying to set up a plastic and battery disposal program. It’s funny because I’ve never cared about environmental issues that much before but this just seems like such an obvious improvement that won’t be too difficult to implement. Big dreams but I’ve got time on my side.
Christmas here was not terribly exciting but it was good. All the family including all the aunts and uncles who live all over came back to Lamap. And they brought all their kids so it was really loud. But they were really fun. We made Christmas decorations. I taught them how to make snowflakes out of paper and tried to explain that if you look really close up at snow it looks like this piece of paper. But I don’t think it translated well. They’ve never seen snow and were very skeptical. I mean it is pretty unbelievable if you’ve never seen it before. On Christmas day I went to church of course, blah. But catholic church is pretty interesting and the acoustics of the church are great which makes the singing very eerie and somehow uplifting. I like listening to all the songs they sing. Then we had a big Christmas dinner with all the family. I made pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie and they were a big hit. Then we drank Kava and watched all the guys get drunk. That was kind of annoying. All the guys were wasted and dancing like crazy which looked really fun. But all the women were sitting in the shadows making fun of all the men, which was also pretty funny. I did manage to get the women to dance a little but I felt it would be too scandalous if I drank. That was probably good plan because some of the guys were acting like drunk heat seeking missiles targeting innocent asses on the dance floor. I got my ass grabbed a few times and eventually I got sick of it and went back into the shadows. The heat seeking missiles still came around but I was standing against a wall. So when finding they could not reach their target they would stagger away. I went home at midnight but I could hear the music blasting until 6 in the morning when they had to turn off the music to start the church service. So they know how to have a good party here just not with two sexes present.
For New Years I decided to go to Santo, the island just north of my island Malekula because I had some work to do for site but mainly because I think new years eve should be spent in a bar preferably not hiding from drunk men’s grabby hands in the shadows. So I came to visit two friends who are teaching at a highschool in Santo close to town. We did a really good job of celebrating New Years with cap guns and blow horns. The next day one of the girls' dad told us “hey you guys missed the fireworks in town.” I was like “oh wow there were fire works?”. And he goes “well you know those things you use for your car in case of emergencies.” I though that was funny. So we missed the flares show but we had a really good time making trouble at a bar close to where the two girls live. It was at a hotel on a island off shore so we had to take a boat there and it wasn’t crowded but the people there were really interesting. Everyone was from a different country and everyone had a crazy story for why they were in Vanuatu. Nobody had a clock so while we were sitting around a campfire at the beach with everybody I noticed my cell phone said 00:02. So our small American envoy decided to just start counting down really loud and shooting off our guns. And then right after we counted down again for good measure. The best part is at the end of the night the hotel gave us a free room. All in all a very memorable New Years.
After we had recovered from New Years we went to the Millennium Caves. Such an amazing place and not touristy at all. There were no other tourists that day and it was a Saturday. Every place in Vanuatu is like that but it’s still such a shock to me every time because I grew up in the land of tourists. We drove there with a few other people from the school and then when the road ended we walked into the bush until we came to a village where we met our guide. He was a really nice quite guy with a big bushy beard. He was going to do the 4 hour hike barefoot (dry leg in bislama) so few of the guys and I got inspired to do the same. I didn’t regret it. Except in the cave when I couldn’t see what I was walking on but I didn’t get any major injuries. Hooray. So without too much delay we set out on our hike. The guide walked pretty fast which certainly a good work out. We hiked for about an hour and a half to get to the caves. At which point he explained that he must paint our faces with mud before we enter the cave to make sure that all the spirits of the cave welcome us, devils don’t make us sick, swallows don’t poo on us, you know the usual cave entering stuff. The cave was huge, about three stories high and it took us a half hour to walk through. It was of course pitch black since it had a stream running through it, making it impossible to see where we were walking with our dinky little torches. If I ever go spelunking again I’ll get a headlamp. Lesson learned. But honestly my favorite part of the hike came after the caves. We continued sometimes walking sometimes swimming down the river through all kinds of great swimming holes and little caves and great jumping spots. Vanuatu is full of these dangerous places to jump of high rocks into semi-deep pools. They are so much fun, but rope swings are better. Millennium Caves didn’t have a rope swing and I will never for give them for that. My favorite thing was to lie on my back and let the current take me. The river was set in a narrow canyon with waterfalls coming down the sides and stalactites/gmites forming and interesting wear that had smoothed out all the layers of rocks on the concave sides. I think actually it used to be a cave too but the ceiling fell through. After swimming for an hour we had to hike back up a waterfall to get back to the village. It looked like steep cement stairs smoothed but the constant light flow of water. But no it was just another unbelievable natural waterfall in Vanuatu. It was really tall and exhausting to climb but it helped to have a constant stream of cold water flowing over my hands and feet. When we got back to the village they had tons of bananas for us to eat. Banana’s are supposed to keep your muscles from getting to sore but yeah that didn’t really work.
Now is my last day in Santo. Just finishing some things on the internet and then back to Lamap until March or April. I’d love to hear from you. I love getting letters it really makes my day/week. I am in constant need of pop culture, music, fashion and news magazines because they don’t have those here. Just a note when sending magazines don’t say on the outside that they are magazines because porn is illegal in Vanuatu so when you tell them you are sending magazines they have to check that they aren’t porn so it slows stuff down. You can always call too. It’s $.81/min on skype and my number is 011-678-561-8096. My address again is:
Stephanie Blaufarb
Peace Corps
Lamap, Malekula
Vanuatu
South Pacific
Happy New Year! Hope all your new years resolutions come true. Mine is to work everyday to become more like a cereal box. I stole that from cassie and greg cause I saw how much it improved their lives in 2009. Merry xmas. I love you and miss you all!
My first two months at site have flown by. We had the malampa province football tournament. That was fun. Those guys were really good players and there is a really steep hill next to the football field that acts like stadium seating. Every day for a week I would go out there and sit on top of the hill watch some football and then go down to where the environment committee was selling kava and help them with their fundraising. There were lots of food stalls and kava stalls. Two of the teams were from the other side of the bay so every morning they had to canoe across the water for an hour and then every night they had to canoe back. No wonder they didn’t win. Kind of an unfair advantage. Actually the home team won which was fun because the whole town came down for the game and then a few days later we had a big celebration. And another dance! I really hope these dance parties never stop.
Work’s going pretty good except I always feel like I am short on resources. Mainly the internet. Living without it is horrible. If I don’t know something I can’t look it up. If it’s really important I’ll call someone in Vila to look it up. But one of my jobs is to help Lamap attract tourists. But how can they ever keep in contact with prospective tourists if nobody here has or knows how to use the internet? Actually there is a Lamap tourism site: malekulahikingtrail.blogspot.com. It was set up and updated by the previous volunteer. So if in the future if there is no volunteer there is no contact with tourists. Not very sustainable. So I get to teach someone in my community how to use the internet and update a blog. I also will be teaching intro to computers at the rural tech school and I hope I can get internet hooked up at the local high school. Then the Internet will no longer be a 5 hour truck ride away. It’s funny how we were never taught in school how to use the Internet. We just learn because we want to download music, play games and talk with our friends. If I could get that kind of interest going here with the high schoolers, then bam, they wouldn’t need me anymore. In no time 14 year old boys would be programming video games into their graphing calculators, girls would be researching their dream colleges, and tourists could chat with the locals. Obviously it won’t happen like that but I am trying my best to show as many people as I can that computers are the best thing that ever happened to the human race. Oh and I’m also trying to help set up a trash disposal program. Until recently all waste in this area was biodegradable. Everything is either eaten by pigs or it’s burnt. But now with plastic bags, used machine parts and batteries, they need to change their disposal system. There is no place for these kind of wastes to go. So people just throw it on the ground. They sort of treat it like they would a banana peel. Except unlike a banana peel it will never go away and will wash into the ocean and kill the coral reef. Or they burn it and then you get these burnt balls of plastic lying around the beach. So the environment committee and I are trying to set up a plastic and battery disposal program. It’s funny because I’ve never cared about environmental issues that much before but this just seems like such an obvious improvement that won’t be too difficult to implement. Big dreams but I’ve got time on my side.
Christmas here was not terribly exciting but it was good. All the family including all the aunts and uncles who live all over came back to Lamap. And they brought all their kids so it was really loud. But they were really fun. We made Christmas decorations. I taught them how to make snowflakes out of paper and tried to explain that if you look really close up at snow it looks like this piece of paper. But I don’t think it translated well. They’ve never seen snow and were very skeptical. I mean it is pretty unbelievable if you’ve never seen it before. On Christmas day I went to church of course, blah. But catholic church is pretty interesting and the acoustics of the church are great which makes the singing very eerie and somehow uplifting. I like listening to all the songs they sing. Then we had a big Christmas dinner with all the family. I made pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie and they were a big hit. Then we drank Kava and watched all the guys get drunk. That was kind of annoying. All the guys were wasted and dancing like crazy which looked really fun. But all the women were sitting in the shadows making fun of all the men, which was also pretty funny. I did manage to get the women to dance a little but I felt it would be too scandalous if I drank. That was probably good plan because some of the guys were acting like drunk heat seeking missiles targeting innocent asses on the dance floor. I got my ass grabbed a few times and eventually I got sick of it and went back into the shadows. The heat seeking missiles still came around but I was standing against a wall. So when finding they could not reach their target they would stagger away. I went home at midnight but I could hear the music blasting until 6 in the morning when they had to turn off the music to start the church service. So they know how to have a good party here just not with two sexes present.
For New Years I decided to go to Santo, the island just north of my island Malekula because I had some work to do for site but mainly because I think new years eve should be spent in a bar preferably not hiding from drunk men’s grabby hands in the shadows. So I came to visit two friends who are teaching at a highschool in Santo close to town. We did a really good job of celebrating New Years with cap guns and blow horns. The next day one of the girls' dad told us “hey you guys missed the fireworks in town.” I was like “oh wow there were fire works?”. And he goes “well you know those things you use for your car in case of emergencies.” I though that was funny. So we missed the flares show but we had a really good time making trouble at a bar close to where the two girls live. It was at a hotel on a island off shore so we had to take a boat there and it wasn’t crowded but the people there were really interesting. Everyone was from a different country and everyone had a crazy story for why they were in Vanuatu. Nobody had a clock so while we were sitting around a campfire at the beach with everybody I noticed my cell phone said 00:02. So our small American envoy decided to just start counting down really loud and shooting off our guns. And then right after we counted down again for good measure. The best part is at the end of the night the hotel gave us a free room. All in all a very memorable New Years.
After we had recovered from New Years we went to the Millennium Caves. Such an amazing place and not touristy at all. There were no other tourists that day and it was a Saturday. Every place in Vanuatu is like that but it’s still such a shock to me every time because I grew up in the land of tourists. We drove there with a few other people from the school and then when the road ended we walked into the bush until we came to a village where we met our guide. He was a really nice quite guy with a big bushy beard. He was going to do the 4 hour hike barefoot (dry leg in bislama) so few of the guys and I got inspired to do the same. I didn’t regret it. Except in the cave when I couldn’t see what I was walking on but I didn’t get any major injuries. Hooray. So without too much delay we set out on our hike. The guide walked pretty fast which certainly a good work out. We hiked for about an hour and a half to get to the caves. At which point he explained that he must paint our faces with mud before we enter the cave to make sure that all the spirits of the cave welcome us, devils don’t make us sick, swallows don’t poo on us, you know the usual cave entering stuff. The cave was huge, about three stories high and it took us a half hour to walk through. It was of course pitch black since it had a stream running through it, making it impossible to see where we were walking with our dinky little torches. If I ever go spelunking again I’ll get a headlamp. Lesson learned. But honestly my favorite part of the hike came after the caves. We continued sometimes walking sometimes swimming down the river through all kinds of great swimming holes and little caves and great jumping spots. Vanuatu is full of these dangerous places to jump of high rocks into semi-deep pools. They are so much fun, but rope swings are better. Millennium Caves didn’t have a rope swing and I will never for give them for that. My favorite thing was to lie on my back and let the current take me. The river was set in a narrow canyon with waterfalls coming down the sides and stalactites/gmites forming and interesting wear that had smoothed out all the layers of rocks on the concave sides. I think actually it used to be a cave too but the ceiling fell through. After swimming for an hour we had to hike back up a waterfall to get back to the village. It looked like steep cement stairs smoothed but the constant light flow of water. But no it was just another unbelievable natural waterfall in Vanuatu. It was really tall and exhausting to climb but it helped to have a constant stream of cold water flowing over my hands and feet. When we got back to the village they had tons of bananas for us to eat. Banana’s are supposed to keep your muscles from getting to sore but yeah that didn’t really work.
Now is my last day in Santo. Just finishing some things on the internet and then back to Lamap until March or April. I’d love to hear from you. I love getting letters it really makes my day/week. I am in constant need of pop culture, music, fashion and news magazines because they don’t have those here. Just a note when sending magazines don’t say on the outside that they are magazines because porn is illegal in Vanuatu so when you tell them you are sending magazines they have to check that they aren’t porn so it slows stuff down. You can always call too. It’s $.81/min on skype and my number is 011-678-561-8096. My address again is:
Stephanie Blaufarb
Peace Corps
Lamap, Malekula
Vanuatu
South Pacific
Happy New Year! Hope all your new years resolutions come true. Mine is to work everyday to become more like a cereal box. I stole that from cassie and greg cause I saw how much it improved their lives in 2009. Merry xmas. I love you and miss you all!
Friday, November 27, 2009
Ahh I’ve fallen behind on my blogging. Happy Thanksgiving! I had a pretty good one compared to my depressingly uneventful Halloween. A bunch of Peace Corps from my island, Malekula and the neighboring island Santo got together to celebrate. We made tons of American food that people’s moms had sent from the states. We had our feast at Dan’s house, which was interesting because Dan lives in the middle of a school closing. Since it’s summer break now all the schools have big school closing parties. Now remember I’m in the middle of nowhere rural Vanuatu so this school closing is the happening thing in town. As Justine pointed out it’s sort of like little house on the prairie with huge rented speakers pointed directly at Dan’s house. Music started around 11am and ricocheted off the walls of Dan’s cinder block house and into our ears blocking out the ability to hold a conversation. Around 3 pm I began to feel a bit insane as I kept having circular thoughts of turning down the music and then realizing I couldn’t and then wanting to turn it down again. By 9 o’clock we gave in and went and danced our hearts out with all the 13 year olds in front of the speakers.
Since then I’ve been two other school closings, a school fundraiser and a wedding. And I danced with all the 13 year olds or all the mama’s every time. All the Mamas like string band music, folky ukulele, guitar songs with big wooden box, a string, and a stick providing the bass. All the 13 year olds prefer hip-hop remixed in with their string band. And there’s war on the dance floor. when string band comes on all the kids slow down their dancing and when hip hop comes on a the mama’s stand there and wait for the next song. I think both types of music are atrocious but I really just want to dance. I kind of prefer dancing with the kids because they are really good dancers and the Sean Kingston lyrics make it a bit less foreign to my ears but I can’t help thinking I should be dancing with the mamas cause they are my age. I feel like I’m supposed to be a role model and people treat me with a lot of respect but I frequently find myself sympathizing with the youngfala over my authority figure allies. When the MC got on the loud speaker and reminded all the girls that they are not to be wearing trousers, all the girls I was dancing with ashamedly covered up their baggy jean shorts with big pieces of fabric that were passed around the crowd by an old man. Another announcement came on that a few young men had snuck some beers in and I couldn’t help thinking they had a great idea and I wish I could be doing that instead. Fricken missionaries ruin everything.
So I’m at my permanent site here in Lamap, Malekula. On my first day my rural training center counterpart, James, took me to harvest the kava of Jack, the previous volunteer who was spending his last week here during my first week. So I went to plant my kava from the stalks of his which will be ready to harvest in about two years when I’ll be heading out. It was actually quite a trek. Lamap is like a big village with about 1000 people living in natangura and bamboo huts all clustered together. But their farm land is a few miles away. It takes about an hour to walk to the farms. An unnecessary two hour commute just seems a bit crazy to me. But the walk was gorgeous. We walked through a coconut plantations with it’s perfect rows of column trunks reaching up to a palm fronds roof top set on top of a ridge overlooking the Port. The greeks couldn’t have planned it better. A coconut Parthenon. The rows of trunks look like they go on forever. And it’s fun to watch the optical illusion of the diagonal rows moving as you walk down the path. The big columns look like they go on forever and men walking about to collect the coconuts look tiny in comparison. The greeks however probably wouldn’t keep their cows in the Parthenon. Keeping one eye on the path to look out for cow pies. Sort of spoils the mood.
I went to a wedding yesterday though they were actually already married in church. In fact they already had three kids. This was just the dowry ceremony. My uncle tried to tell me it’s the traditional way to say thank you to the woman’s family for giving her away. However in bislama the name of the ceremony translates to “buying the woman”. So yea this woman’s price was about $1000, a ginormous pig, a couple hundred pounds of root crops and bananas, 20 mats and a basket of fish. The woman was covered and guarded by her aunts and there was a fence of palm fronds around her house. All of the man’s family came and brought gifts. The brother of the man has to remove the fence and then the woman’s family and then man’s family make speeches and except each others gift. I though it was very interesting that the man and the woman (apart from being covered in brightly colored tapestries, baby powder, leaves and flowers) were not really the center of attention. They were both well into their 20s but their parents did all the talking. After the exchange of gifts the man goes home and waits for the woman to be delivered by her family to his house in parade of singing and flowers. And after, dance backagain!
Since then I’ve been two other school closings, a school fundraiser and a wedding. And I danced with all the 13 year olds or all the mama’s every time. All the Mamas like string band music, folky ukulele, guitar songs with big wooden box, a string, and a stick providing the bass. All the 13 year olds prefer hip-hop remixed in with their string band. And there’s war on the dance floor. when string band comes on all the kids slow down their dancing and when hip hop comes on a the mama’s stand there and wait for the next song. I think both types of music are atrocious but I really just want to dance. I kind of prefer dancing with the kids because they are really good dancers and the Sean Kingston lyrics make it a bit less foreign to my ears but I can’t help thinking I should be dancing with the mamas cause they are my age. I feel like I’m supposed to be a role model and people treat me with a lot of respect but I frequently find myself sympathizing with the youngfala over my authority figure allies. When the MC got on the loud speaker and reminded all the girls that they are not to be wearing trousers, all the girls I was dancing with ashamedly covered up their baggy jean shorts with big pieces of fabric that were passed around the crowd by an old man. Another announcement came on that a few young men had snuck some beers in and I couldn’t help thinking they had a great idea and I wish I could be doing that instead. Fricken missionaries ruin everything.
So I’m at my permanent site here in Lamap, Malekula. On my first day my rural training center counterpart, James, took me to harvest the kava of Jack, the previous volunteer who was spending his last week here during my first week. So I went to plant my kava from the stalks of his which will be ready to harvest in about two years when I’ll be heading out. It was actually quite a trek. Lamap is like a big village with about 1000 people living in natangura and bamboo huts all clustered together. But their farm land is a few miles away. It takes about an hour to walk to the farms. An unnecessary two hour commute just seems a bit crazy to me. But the walk was gorgeous. We walked through a coconut plantations with it’s perfect rows of column trunks reaching up to a palm fronds roof top set on top of a ridge overlooking the Port. The greeks couldn’t have planned it better. A coconut Parthenon. The rows of trunks look like they go on forever. And it’s fun to watch the optical illusion of the diagonal rows moving as you walk down the path. The big columns look like they go on forever and men walking about to collect the coconuts look tiny in comparison. The greeks however probably wouldn’t keep their cows in the Parthenon. Keeping one eye on the path to look out for cow pies. Sort of spoils the mood.
I went to a wedding yesterday though they were actually already married in church. In fact they already had three kids. This was just the dowry ceremony. My uncle tried to tell me it’s the traditional way to say thank you to the woman’s family for giving her away. However in bislama the name of the ceremony translates to “buying the woman”. So yea this woman’s price was about $1000, a ginormous pig, a couple hundred pounds of root crops and bananas, 20 mats and a basket of fish. The woman was covered and guarded by her aunts and there was a fence of palm fronds around her house. All of the man’s family came and brought gifts. The brother of the man has to remove the fence and then the woman’s family and then man’s family make speeches and except each others gift. I though it was very interesting that the man and the woman (apart from being covered in brightly colored tapestries, baby powder, leaves and flowers) were not really the center of attention. They were both well into their 20s but their parents did all the talking. After the exchange of gifts the man goes home and waits for the woman to be delivered by her family to his house in parade of singing and flowers. And after, dance backagain!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
10/31/09
Happy Halloween! Oh wait nobody is celebrating that here. And I’ve been so busy finishing up training I don’t even have time to organize anything. I might have time to make macaroons though. That’s be nice. They use coconuts for everything here but nobodies thought of macaroons!
So this is my last day in Emua, the training village. The huge highlight of the week which blocks out all other memories of the past week is the site announcements. I found out where I’m going to be stationed for the next two years! I’m going to Lamap, Malekula a small town on the South East tip pf the island. It has an airport, a wharf and two stores. Wooh. This is actually a god site from what I understand. I’m actually replacing 2 volunteers. The one who left 6 months ago was working on a marine conservation project and the other who is leaving now was working at an Rural Training Center (RTC). My assignment is to work with the area secretary but my job title is RTC advisor so I think I’ll be pretty busy trying on different hats. But really I’m trying not to set any expectations because it will be undoubtedly different than I could ever imagine.
So now we are leaving the training village to head into Vila and buy everything we’ll need for the next 3 months. I should explain that although Lamap has two stores, these stores would not be nearly as equipped as your average American gas station. So if I want anything other than rice and tinned tuna for the next 3 months. I have to buy it in Vila. So it’s gunna be a busy week. Wooh shopping spree!
Earlier this week we had a really funny activity. A creeping simulation. Creeping is the culturally appropriate way to ask someone out. Because public displays of affection and public dating are frowned upon, the only option for people who want to date is to go to their lover’s house late at night and ask to come in. So if someone likes you they come to your house at night and persistently ask to come in. So they did a simulation of this at the training village because most women volunteers do have a creeping at least once in their 2 years and they want us to be ready. So basically the trainers got a bunch of young men in the village together and told them to go creep us. It was ridiculous. We didn’t know it was gunna happen and it was late at night and I was actually writing a letter. I wish I’d been asleep but no it was the one night I stayed up. Some guy came to my window and was whispering my name and asking to come in. Creepy for sure. I kept telling him to go away in Bislama and I even started yelling. Then after 10 minutes of this I told him I was just going to go to sleep and I tried to ignore him. But he wouldn’t stop and he started shining his light in the room and reaching in through a hole in the screen. That was all I could take so I went into my parents room. And then they kept calling my cellphone all night. The boys from the village apparently had so much fun with it and I knew it was a simulation but still I was freaked out. Yuck.
Last night we had our last Kakae with the host families it was really sweet. All the mamas made food and brought it at 5 pm which in aelan taem is 6ish. The program was supposed to start at 6 is 7ish. Lots of speeches and prayers. There was an opening prayer for the opening prayer, thank you papa god. We all got tons of gifts from our host families. Fist we all got matching aelan dresses. I got two baskets, a mat, a plate, a cup, a necklace, a bracelet, and earrings. It was like xmas! We gave them our presents of a huge sign with the name of their town and all its tourist attractions which was received with what looked like mixed reviews from the crowd. I hope they follow through and put it on the road.
After we could no longer hear all the speeches over our stomachs grumbling and he kids playing. Finally we had closing prayer and got to eat the food that had been staring at us frm the table for 3 hours. And dance the night away until it is no longer appropriate to play loud music in Emua which is 10 oclock.
I will miss Emua especially my host family because they have been amazingly supportive and understanding. But I seriously can’t wait to get to the next place. A hotel in Vila with my own shower, privacy, etc. Emua is like suburbia for Port Vila. I’m so glad my site is not here because its boring like a suburb and they’re spoiled with humanitarian aid here as compared to some of the outer islands. Plus there is no adventure to be had. Malekula on the other hand will be full of surprises.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
10/24/09
Wow lots to report since my last post. It is now the end of the 6th week of training and I'm beginning to show signs of senioritis. It doesn't help that I just got my first real taste of Vanuatu and Peace Corps life with my visit to Justine last week. For 4 weeks we were kept in the small rural village of Emua so I was beginning to feel a little cabin fever. Its crazy to think that in no time I'll have to be spending three to six months at a time in such a very rural setting. Anyhow last Sunday we got to get out of Emua to visit some other volunteers. Getting around Vanuatu is no easy feat let me tell you. There are 83 small islands spread out over a space the size of California and not all of them have airports. Including Maewo the island where Justine lives. Well they have a landing strip but it hasn't been mowed in a while so we flew to Ambae and rode in the back of a pickup to Lolowai house while singing the Indiana Jones theme song and ducking to avoid branches. At Lolowai we took a boat, a very small aluminum boat that had by the will of god washed up on the property of our boat driver. A dinghy if you will that the 8 of us crammed onto to take out on a journey across the Pacific Ocean. Well it was only a two hour boat ride but it scared the bejesus out if me (queue Gilligans Island theme song). The sea was really rough and it was rainy and cloudy so much so that at one point we could see neither Ambae nor Maewo. I remember thinking how crazy it is that our little dinghy is like a little speck in the middle of the Pacific and how screwed we'd be out there without food or water. . . Then the engine died. The boat driver looked a little concerned as the waves pushed our boat around and crashed over us. He picked up the gas tank and shook it as if it were very light and close to empty. Then he worked on getting the engine going again. After a frightening 5 minutes of imagining us all drifting about the ocean for the rest of our short lives, the engine started backup and the driver proceeded to stand up and look 360 degrees around him for a sign of the islands. He asked us if we wanted to go back but since we didn't know which way back was, we went forward in the hopes that an island would reveal itself to us. And after several nerve wracking minutes it did. Phew, I thought, we're halfway there.
Luckily life on Maewo isn't nearly as stressful as traveling to there. Maewo is a beautiful island full of waterfalls. There must be a river or creek or spring every half mile coming from the mountain. It's so green. After our harrowing journey across the ocean it was really nice to get all cozy in warm clothes and catch up with Justine. She's doing good by the way. She only has 8 more months here. She's applying to grad school now as we speak here in the same room as me. Then she's off the China for three weeks. I'm so jealous.
Anyway Maewo, on the second day we went to Big Water. And it was pretty big alright. It's a huge waterfall that cascades down the hill. It must be 50 meters wide and of course has more opportunities for cliff jumping. I didn't jump this time; I'd had enough after Saama. I thought that after jumping once I wouldn't be as frightened but having that gut wrenching fear fresh in your memory actually makes it harder to jump. So I jumped off he 40 foot cliff at Saama twice and I couldn't bring myself to do it again at Big Water. It was a gorgeous place and I'm glad two in our group were brave enough to leap.
The next day I shadowed Justine at the RTC and we ate diner at Sandy's house which was the best aelan kakae I think I’ve had so far. Water taro with aelan cabbage (which is really like spinach) and tons of strong coconut milk. The strong coconut milk is sort of like creamy cheesy sauce. It’s so good but it’s a lot of work to make. We each probly ate 2 coconuts worth and there were 10 plates. So that means mama carried, broke, scratched and milked 20 coconuts. Lots of work but so worth it. Sandy’s family also made hand ground kava. They used a grinding stone and coral to beat it to a pulp. It was much fresher and therefore a bit stronger than the stuff on Efate. Plus at least it wasn’t masticated by young boys like on a lot of islands.
The next day we went for a wokabout to visit the dispensary/ healthcenter/ birthing ward. A woman had just had a baby there 10 days before. The poor woman! The baby was too big and she had to be cut to fit him through. And all she had was Tylenol For the pain. Then we went to meet this brave woman and her new baby. She was so sweet and we all stood around cooing at her baby for a while until it was almost awkward heehee. Then we went walking about looking for some swimming holes to bath in. We hiked up the river in our flipflops trying to be careful not to step on all the water taro planted close up to the river. When we found the swim holes we decided to hike up a bit further just to see. As I hiked up I came upon a huge waterfall whose beauty was unreal to me. I was astounded by its beauty, literally breathless. Which was magnified by the fact that I had know clue that I was about to happen upon a magnificent natural feature. None of us had any idea we were about to stumble upon a 100 foot tall 10 foot wide waterfall. I’m beginning to understand why people believe in the magic here. Unexplainable natural forces are everywhere; volcanoes, cyclones, earthquakes, waterfalls, giant caves. It’s out of this world.
Oh yes and another magical place on the island that we didn’t actually get to but saw from the boat on our way out was the moon’s cave. It’s called that because the moon was born there before it came out into the sky. Yes the moon is from Vanuatu, don’t laugh. It looks big enough to drive a ship into and it has a round entrance and is the source of a deep fresh water spring so that even though it flows into the ocean you can swim in cold fresh water.
Hey so here’s my address if you want to send me treats!
For letters send them to:
Stephanie Blaufarb
Peace Corps Volunteer
Lamap Village
C/O Lamap Village Post Office
South Malekula
Vanuatu
South Pacific
For packages still send stuff to:
Stephanie Blaufarb
Peace Corps Volunteer
PMB 9097
Port Vila
Vanuatu
South Pacific
Saturday, October 17, 2009
10/11/09
Hey I've been in Vanuatu for one whole month yeah! and things are still good. I get along really well with my host family and I'm finding it hard to believe my host family for my site could be nearly as good. I have a mama, papa, brat, sista and two aunties and lots of cousins. All the cousins are fun. Adorable toddlers with green ooze forever coming out of their noses to fun teenagers who sit and chat and watch me as I bashfully scrub my undies with a board and brush. It's funny people always say the same thing to me while watching me do laundry. "you have washing machine in US?" Which I take to mean I'm not an obvious natural at washing my clothes in a bucket.
Nor am I a natural at hygeine in a bucket which can be seen by the small yet growing infection on my leg. It's cool al the kids are doin it. No but seriously all the kids run around with big infections and scabs on their legs which come from a vaiety of sources, some parasites, coral abrasions, infected cuts, etc. I'm not really a huge fan of bandaids and I didn't really notice the flies too much but now I've learned my lesson; flies + scab=infection. Another girl in our group had to go to the hospital because she had bed bugs and wounds from bites that got infected. Ok enough negativity. I've learned the bandaid lesson now if I could only pass it on to all the kids, along with the wash your hands and blow your nose lessons.
My pandana leaf mat is coming along nicely and with numerous projects I'm finding myself very busy. At first I was worried I would be bored without the internet, work, school, bars, parties but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Rural life is very busy too. We've got a million things to do here and just storying on with the Ni-Vans feels very productive because that's what the Peace Corps wants me to do. It's awesome. Oh yeah I won't get into racial issues yet but I do think it's funny that some of my ni-van friends call me "white man". Hah I'm like first of all I'm a woman. but it's not offensive or anything it's just the way it is. SO back to mats. I learned to dye the leaves so now I can make them in different colors. I was thinking oh these would be great xmas gifts but I don't know what you'd use them for in the states. Here they're very important because people don't sit on chairs they sit on mats. So unless you want to sit in the dirt you have to make a mat. They are also traditionally used as currency. Even today a girl's dowry is paid some in vatu but also in pigs, pigs tusks and mats. I also got to work more on my coconut/bush knife skills ie husking, breaking and scratching out the insides. I'm so impressed with my progress. If only the resulting blisters on my hands would show such pogress in turning into caluses. Anyway time to go to chruch and then jumping off a 40 foot cliff into a coral reef. Hopefully not into the actual reef but the water above it.
Nor am I a natural at hygeine in a bucket which can be seen by the small yet growing infection on my leg. It's cool al the kids are doin it. No but seriously all the kids run around with big infections and scabs on their legs which come from a vaiety of sources, some parasites, coral abrasions, infected cuts, etc. I'm not really a huge fan of bandaids and I didn't really notice the flies too much but now I've learned my lesson; flies + scab=infection. Another girl in our group had to go to the hospital because she had bed bugs and wounds from bites that got infected. Ok enough negativity. I've learned the bandaid lesson now if I could only pass it on to all the kids, along with the wash your hands and blow your nose lessons.
My pandana leaf mat is coming along nicely and with numerous projects I'm finding myself very busy. At first I was worried I would be bored without the internet, work, school, bars, parties but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Rural life is very busy too. We've got a million things to do here and just storying on with the Ni-Vans feels very productive because that's what the Peace Corps wants me to do. It's awesome. Oh yeah I won't get into racial issues yet but I do think it's funny that some of my ni-van friends call me "white man". Hah I'm like first of all I'm a woman. but it's not offensive or anything it's just the way it is. SO back to mats. I learned to dye the leaves so now I can make them in different colors. I was thinking oh these would be great xmas gifts but I don't know what you'd use them for in the states. Here they're very important because people don't sit on chairs they sit on mats. So unless you want to sit in the dirt you have to make a mat. They are also traditionally used as currency. Even today a girl's dowry is paid some in vatu but also in pigs, pigs tusks and mats. I also got to work more on my coconut/bush knife skills ie husking, breaking and scratching out the insides. I'm so impressed with my progress. If only the resulting blisters on my hands would show such pogress in turning into caluses. Anyway time to go to chruch and then jumping off a 40 foot cliff into a coral reef. Hopefully not into the actual reef but the water above it.
10/3/09
I'm pretty happy after week 3. It has been the fastest week so far. We had so many activities the day flies by. Well sometimes. So an average day here has started at 5am. It's crazy I used to go to sleep at 5am. Now I can't help but wake up at 5. Mainly because of the roosters and my 3 year old sista cryin bout everything. She's crazy. she locked me in my room the other day and I had to convince another 2 yeear old to open it for me. She could barely reach the lock hah. So after I get up at 5 I go running. It makes sense here to do as much as possible in the morning cause after 11 you just want to sleep from the heat. Then I eat breakfast with the fam. I eat banana and pb sandwiches for at least one meal a day, two on saturday and sunday. Luckily I really like pb and banana sanwiches. After I go shower which is a loose term I use for pouring water from a drywall bucket on my head with a contianer that used to hold icecream, then off the bislama class. Bislama's ok but the class is boring. It's basically really broken english but I still find it hard to express myself (miwan) to people and comprehend what their saying. I get really distracted in class sometimes because we're sitting on the beach surrounded by coconut trees and all the kids are playing in the water and I want to swim too and I'm watching some men fishin with nets and then I'm like oh right I'm in class this is weird. At noon I go back and my mama's cooked me something nice, usually with rice and spam and potatos and noodles. After I go rest till class starts again in the after noon. At night I spend most of my time hangin with the fam and helping mama cook. Then I storian with my mama and papa a little bit and then go to bed and read. I get a lot of reading done. (send books!) I almost always get to sleep by 9 or 10. I just get so tired plus after the sun goes away and there is no electricity there's not much you can do. I read by kerosene lamp but the lights are dim and the bed is soft so I end up asleep in not time.
The highlights of weeks 2 and 3 start with our hike to the top of the mountain close to our small town of about 300 people, Emua, on North Efate. All the kids from the village showed us the way. They hike barefoot which looks painful on all the lava rock and they are crazy good with their machetes. My 3 year old sista is always running around with one but I don't see any missing fingers. I can't wait to be that good. It's a really important tool here. People carry them around everywhere and use them for everything. You're even allowed to take your bush knife in your carry on on the plane. It took us 2 hours to get to the top and some people from the village were signaling us with mirrors. It was fun. I want to go again before we leave. On the way back down I got practice using my bush knife aka machete and the kids climbed the coconut trees and threw us down some green coconuts. The green ones are the best for drinking. I got to open one with my bush knife.
Another highlight was cooking in a stone oven. I made a quiche for a community lunch using just fire and stones to cook with. First you put some stones down flat, build a fire on top, then throw a bunch more stones on top. After the fire has heated up the stones nice and hot you brush the fire away and burry your pot in the stones using your bamboo tongs. Then cover it all up with lots of banana leaves to keep all the heat in. It works just like an oven. But it's hard to be precise with the temperature and you can't check the progress of the dish very easily without losing some heat. I've got a lot more experimenting to do but I'm excited. I also learned how to make banana pie. Selfraising flour plus egg plus butter, add sliced babana and coconutmillk on top and cook on a fire for 20 minutes. mmm mm.
On fridays we've been having Kava Fraedei. Lovin the kava. Its a nice relaxing way to end the week. Though kava tastes like bitter dirt and it was a little awkward to come home and talk to my mama drunk on kava. haha but she's used to it from her husband. Kava drunk is interesting because you feel social and relaxed but people don't get rowdy. It's not really a party drink. It's also really cheap, only $1 a drink. I usually only drink 1 or 2. So it definitely beats beer. not that I have access to any beer.
Oh and of course a bunch of the girls shaved their heads so I thought what the hell it's hot and it's only getting hotter from nov. until feb. and now I don't have to shampoo and condition in my bucket shower. what will I do with all the extra time? maybe I'll take up shaving my legs haha. Well gotta go I'm gunna learn to weave a mat out of Pandana leaves. Yeah!
P.S. I decided when I go to site I'm getting two hens, a cat and a dog. Hens cause you need protein from eggs, cat to kill the rats and a dog to scare away the creepers. Can't wait! Oct. 30th I find out my permanent site.
The highlights of weeks 2 and 3 start with our hike to the top of the mountain close to our small town of about 300 people, Emua, on North Efate. All the kids from the village showed us the way. They hike barefoot which looks painful on all the lava rock and they are crazy good with their machetes. My 3 year old sista is always running around with one but I don't see any missing fingers. I can't wait to be that good. It's a really important tool here. People carry them around everywhere and use them for everything. You're even allowed to take your bush knife in your carry on on the plane. It took us 2 hours to get to the top and some people from the village were signaling us with mirrors. It was fun. I want to go again before we leave. On the way back down I got practice using my bush knife aka machete and the kids climbed the coconut trees and threw us down some green coconuts. The green ones are the best for drinking. I got to open one with my bush knife.
Another highlight was cooking in a stone oven. I made a quiche for a community lunch using just fire and stones to cook with. First you put some stones down flat, build a fire on top, then throw a bunch more stones on top. After the fire has heated up the stones nice and hot you brush the fire away and burry your pot in the stones using your bamboo tongs. Then cover it all up with lots of banana leaves to keep all the heat in. It works just like an oven. But it's hard to be precise with the temperature and you can't check the progress of the dish very easily without losing some heat. I've got a lot more experimenting to do but I'm excited. I also learned how to make banana pie. Selfraising flour plus egg plus butter, add sliced babana and coconutmillk on top and cook on a fire for 20 minutes. mmm mm.
On fridays we've been having Kava Fraedei. Lovin the kava. Its a nice relaxing way to end the week. Though kava tastes like bitter dirt and it was a little awkward to come home and talk to my mama drunk on kava. haha but she's used to it from her husband. Kava drunk is interesting because you feel social and relaxed but people don't get rowdy. It's not really a party drink. It's also really cheap, only $1 a drink. I usually only drink 1 or 2. So it definitely beats beer. not that I have access to any beer.
Oh and of course a bunch of the girls shaved their heads so I thought what the hell it's hot and it's only getting hotter from nov. until feb. and now I don't have to shampoo and condition in my bucket shower. what will I do with all the extra time? maybe I'll take up shaving my legs haha. Well gotta go I'm gunna learn to weave a mat out of Pandana leaves. Yeah!
P.S. I decided when I go to site I'm getting two hens, a cat and a dog. Hens cause you need protein from eggs, cat to kill the rats and a dog to scare away the creepers. Can't wait! Oct. 30th I find out my permanent site.
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