Project Update:
Here are some updates on the projects we have been working
on since moving to Ebenezer in September. Since we came with only a few months
left in the school year, we have not been doing any teaching. We will be get
back to teaching at the start of next year!
Bottle Bricks- We
started this bottle brick project when we moved to Ebenezer in September after
being inspired by fellow volunteer, Alison Levin. Here is how the project went
down…
We started by going to each class
and giving a talk in order to introduce the project and explain its importance.
First we talked about what we, here in Vanuatu, do with rubbish, or trash,
(burn it, bury it, throw it on the road or into the water) Then we talked about
the different kinds of rubbish and why burning some kinds and burying some
kinds of rubbish is not good for the environment. We also talked about why it
is not good to litter any kind of rubbish. We talked a bit about sustainability
and how one part of sustainability is recycling and reusing (we also explained
what recycling and reusing mean as they are very new concepts in this country. Then, we introduced the bottle brick by
showing the students a completed brick and telling them that it was made with recycled
materials and that if we make enough of them we can use them to build something
new at our school. Last, we showed them
how to make it. We explained that we do not need to put paper, cardboard or
food into the bottle because those things are okay to burn. We then explained
that we want to fill the bottle with plastic, styrofoam and batteries because
those are things that are made from chemicals and when we burn them those
chemicals go into the air that we breathe. We also talked about tin and how we
cannot cut the tin into small pieces in order to put into the bottles, but that
it is still not good to burn tin. We are still working on ideas for what to do
with our used tin, if you have any please send them our way. When our rubbish
talk was complete and everyone knew what bottle bricks are, why they are great
and how to make them, we got to the fun part…the competition! …
Each class would act as a team and
each team would try to collect the most points. The team with the most points
at the end of the competition (this first competition lasted 2 months) would
win a party…with CAKE! They were sold!
Here is how we did the points:
One big bottle: 20 points
One small bottle: 5 points
Batteries: 1 bonus point each
Clean bottle: 1 bonus point
The kids brought us their bottles
in the mornings before school and in the afternoons after school and we tallied
the points after each bottle. We allowed them to put their own batteries inside
and went with the honor system when they told us how many were inside (the
batteries had to be wrapped in plastic before being put into the bottle and
therefore cannot be seen).
We decided to end the competition on
November 1st because that gave us about a month to build something
with the bottles before the end of the school year. After 2 months we have collected
about 1, 200 bottles and about 5, 000 batteries. We have been working on
building a bench with the bottles.
This being the first time we have
done this, we had no clue what we were doing and will be doing lots of things
differently when we have another bottle brick competition next school year.
Here are some of the changes we will be making…
·
We will have one bottle bringing day/time
instead of accepting bottles everyday twice a day. It got to be a lot!
·
We will
not be allowing the kids to put their own batteries inside their bottles. Some
kids were telling us that other kids were lying about the amount of batteries
in the bottles. Also, some kids were cutting big holes in their bottles in
order to fit big batteries inside. We have had to spend some time taping
bottles back together. We will still be accepting batteries for bonus points on
our bottle brick bringing day.
·
We will be using a stick to check every bottle
before accepting it in order to make sure the bottles are actually full. Once
the competition was over and all the bottles were organized by size and kind,
we started to check to make sure each one was good and strong and full. We
discovered that was not the case. Many of the bottles looked full when given to
us, but once we pushed the rubbish down with a stick we discovered some were
not even half full. As a result we have had to spend a lot of extra time
checking each bottle and filling the ones that were not all the way full. At
first we did our best to just collect more rubbish to fill them up, but we
could not find enough so now we have had not cut into some of the bottles, take
the rubbish out of them and put it into other bottles. It has been quite a
process.
·
We will be HIGHLY encouraging only 1.5 liter
bottles. You would not believe the different sizes, shapes and kinds of bottles
we got! It turns out it is much easy to build something we all of your bottles
are the same size. So, we will insread be encouraging smaller bottles to be cut
up and put into the 1.5 liter bottles.
This has been a fun and exciting project that the kids,
teachers, parents, and the two of us have been really into. Our school is so
much cleaner and so are all of the surrounding villages! We have built one
awesome bench and can’t wait to collect more bottles and build more things next
year! We will definitely be doing the bottle brick project again here at
Ebenezer throughout next school year and also hope to get a grant funded in
order to travel around Santo and share the project with other schools. Rubbish
is such a big problem here in Vanautu and bottle bricks are a fun way to do
something about it!
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| Cole explaining bottle bricks to class 1-4 kids! |
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| laying cement! |
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| the first bottle! |
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| The first layer of the bench is finished! |
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| 3 layers after day 1 of work! |
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| Restuffing bottles that weren't full enough |
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| the almost finished bench! |
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| adding decorations to the top |
Library- When we came to
Ebenezer one of the first things we started to work on was the library. The
library building is a nice big space that is relatively new. It had lots of
books in it but they were all over the place and it was very messy and
disorganized. We knew from our work in the library in Narango that Ebenezer had
16 boxes of books that a previous volunteer, Dane, had gotten donated from the
World Bank Book Project. So, we started by going to the wharf and picking up
those 16 boxes. We brought them back here and proceeded to unload and organize
them. We did the same with about 4 additional boxes of donated books that were
already here. After unpacking and organizing all of the donated books, we got
to work on the books that were already on the shelves. As I said, they were not
very organized so we emptied every shelf and organized those books too. Since
we needed to make room for all of the newly donated books, we donated a lot of
the older books that were already here to some of the bush schools in our area
that did not have any books at all. While the shelves were without books we
cleaned and painted them and raised them in order to keep critters from living
underneath them. Once all of the books were organized into their designated categories
and all of the shelves were clean and dry we worked on putting all the books in
their new homes on the fresh and clean shelves. In addition to all of the
wonderful new books, the students and teachers are also excited about the new
computer for the library which the school purchased with grant money and the
solar digital library from the workshop Cole and I attended in September. Cole
recently led a workshop for the teachers on how to use the computer and the solar
digital library. Some of the teachers have been taking their classes to the
library already and I have used it for a phonics and a guided reading workshop
that I led for the teachers in October. At the end of this school year, and
then again at the beginning of next year, we will be taking each class in the
library in order to teach them what is there, how it is organized and how to
use it. I will be working with the teachers next year to get each class into
the library for at least 30 minutes once a week. We will also be working on a
sustainable book check out system. The library is finished and beautiful and
full of amazing resources, now we just have to get the students and teachers in
there taking advantage of it!
Here is how we organized the books:
We separated all of the fiction books into Easy, Medium and
Hard categories.
We separated the nonfiction books into the following
categories: history, people, places, animals, sports, music, poetry, fairy
tales, Disney, plants, science, arts, food, holidays, and other.
We have a large section of young adult books that is full of
chapter books
We have a small adult fiction section full of more advanced
chapter books
And lastly, we have a shelf full of encyclopedias and other
teacher resources
World Map- So,
yea, we are basically world map pros now J
Our lovely friends, Kate, Bryan, Hannah and Jeffrey came to stay with us one
weekend in October and help us with our Ebenezer world map! While they were
here we finished painting the world and also managed to make a trip to the
beach, walk the 2 hours to the sink hole near our old village in Narango, eat
lunch with our family in Narango, and have a great meal with our family here at
Ebenezer! After they left Cole and I spent the next two weeks labeling all of
the countries in the world, adding the Peace Corps symbol, and a compass,
painting a map of Vanuatu and labeling it, and painting a map of Santo and
labeling it. Kate, Bryan, and Alison came to visit again and helped us finish
the border and the final details and now we have completed our second world map
in Vanuatu! It looks awesome and the kids seem to love it! Hopefully the teachers
will use it as the great resource that it has potential to be.
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| On the beach near our site! |
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| inside the cave at the sink hole |
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| sink hole crew |
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| heading back to ebenezer from narango..stopped to take a pic with the view! |
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| beach day! |
Life Update:
And here are some of the things we’ve been up to in our down
time!
A visit to the East: One
weekend in October Cole, Kate, Bryan and I decided to go visit Jeffery at his
site in east Santo. While we were there Kate and I led a workshop for the
teachers at his school on phonics and guided reading, we did some work in his
library, we had a delicious meal with his host family, and we spent a gorgeous
day on the beach at Port Olry. It was a wonderful visit!
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| Our very much alive riding buddy on the truck ride home from east santo! I was terrified! |
Halloween: The week
leading up to Halloween I spent at site without Cole because he was at a
Project Design Management Workshop in Vila. I thought I would hate it and be
scared and lonely the whole time, but it actually wasn’t too bad! Everyone
knows that Cole cooks and I don’t so I had plates of food brought to me each
day, I watched the entire first season of Nashville and I did a lot of work in
the library. On the morning of Halloween I took a truck into town and spent the
day running errands and using the internet before going to pick Cole up from
the airport. We headed back to Bryan and Kate’s where we dressed up in our
costumes, ate an amazing taco meal, and watched Hocus Pocus. It was a
spooktacular day!
Lunch with Ambassador North: Our
country director, Keith, wrote all of the Santo volunteers an email saying that
the US Ambassador of Papau New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, Ambassador
North, would be in town the following week and that he wanted to have lunch
with the Peace Corps volunteers in the area. So, on Tuesday November 3rd
Cole and I took a truck into town and met up with the Ambassador, two men that
were with him (one who worked for the embassy as well and one who was a navy
officer), and all 8 Santo volunteers to eat lunch at Beach Front Resort. We had
pizza, French fries, chessecake and champagne over our 4 hour long lunch! We
found out that they were there because a US Naval ship, The Lewis and Clark had
traveled from CHARLESTON SOUTH CAROLINA all the way to Vanuatu and they were
doing some training with the police and military in Vanuatu and were also
looking out for any boats who were illegally fishing in the pacific. They
invited us to come to the opening of the USA and Vanuatu training the next
morning and then take a tour of the ship! We gladly accecpted both invitations!
The opening ceremony included a custom dance, the raising of the Vanuatu and American
flags, and a couple of speeches. After the ceremony we took a bus with some of
the navy, marine, and coast guard men and women from the ship, the ambassador
and the two men with him to the wharf. There we all hopped on a boat that took
us about a 10 minute ride to the ship. There the captain was waiting for us. We
ate cheeseburgers and fries with amazing American condiments, apples and
cookies and then the captain took us on a grand tour of the HUGE Lewis and
Clark. It was really neat! It was also nice to be surrounding by a bunch of
fellow Americans for the day (and 2 lucky Ni Van men from Vila who were going
out with the ship a few days to patrol the waters!)
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| After lunch at Beach Front Resort |
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| Opening ceremony |
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| Lewis and Clark |
Mared and Bride Price in Narango:
On Friday October 3rd, we walked the hour and a half to Narango
to attend a Mared (our third since we have been in country) AND a bride price
(our first since being in country). We left Ebenezer around 8:00 and walked to
our families house where we speled (rested) and storied (talked) for a few
before heading to the wedding. It was supposed to start at 9:30 but ended up
starting around 10:15. After the ceremony we hung out for a bit and each ate
about 5 pieces of cake (don’t judge us, we don’t get treats like cake very
often!). Then we headed back to our families house to wait for the bride price
to start. Normally a mared lasts all day with the ceremony in the morning, a
feast, kava, etc. but this one seemed to end after the ceremony and cake due to
the bride price happening in the same village on the same day. Okay, so you’re probably
asking, “what in the world is a bride price?” well, I’ll tell you the best I
can…
You see, here in Vanuatu it goes sorta like this: you hang
out with a girlf or a while, you can call this dating or courting or whatever.
Basically nothing is official yet. But most of the time when you announce publically
that you are dating someone it is expected that the two of you will eventually get
married. Okay so, then you “block” her which is kind of like an engagement. It
basically means that she cannot date anyone else, and neither can you, I guess.
Then you have a bride price ceremony. This is where the family of the groom
travels to the village of the family of the bride and pays for her. Sometimes,
if the villages are close by this happens the day before the wedding. In this
case, the family of the groom is from another island, Efate, and had to travel
by ship to get to Santo so the bride price ceremony was happening on this day,
October 3rd, and the mared was on October 30th in Vila.
The bride price happens at the women’s village and the mared at the man’s. The
two families start out at different houses in the village. First, the family of the groom brings some
food to the family of the bride at her house. Then, the family of the bride takes
food to the family of the groom wherever they are in the village. The food is
usually lap lap prepared however it is traditionally prepared on the
bride/grooms island. After the exchange of lap lap, the family of the groom
walks him to the house of the bride. Then the chiefs from each village speak,
lots of gifts are exchanged (mats, food, etc,), if there are children they are
paid for by the groom (2, 000 vatu- about 20 dollars) for each child, the bride
is paid for (80, 000 vatu- or 800 dollars. Family and friends always help pay
for the groom’s bride), then a pig is killed by the groom and then everyone
eats and drinks kava together. I’ve left out some small details, but this is
basically they way it went as we saw it. It is a very interesting cultural
experience and although I do not necessarily agree with the bride being bought
and therefore owned by the groom, I do respect the custom and I am glad I was
able to be a part of it.
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| Exchanging of gifts at the Bride Price |
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| Pig Killing :( |
Earthquake: In October we experienced either a 7.1, 7.3, or 7.5
magnitude earthquake. It was about 9 or 9:30 am and we were standing outside in
front of our world map getting paint ready for our days painting. All of the
sudden the earth started to shake, a lot. We have had a few other earthquakes
here that have been really small and only lasted a few seconds. So, for the
first several seconds we just froze where we were standing and waited. Then, it
didn’t stop after the normally 10 seconds or so and I screamed “we have to do
something!” and we moved ourselves away from the building. About the same time
all of the students came stampeding out of the classrooms. I would say it
lasted for about a minute or two and was pretty freaking scary! Afterwards we
walked over to our house to check out the damage. Thankfully it was very
minimal. Several things had fallen off the shelves, a bench was turned over and
water that water that was in a bin from the mornings dishes had sloshed out
everywhere! There were no deaths from this earthquake and there was no major
damage anywhere. I’ve never felt anything like that before though, so it was
pretty intense and scary!
Pus cats: One of our cats,
Black Tiger, is currently pregnant with our other cat, Pepper’s, kittens. Black
Tiger is a total fatty and has just been laying around the house for the last
several days. We are expecting smol pus cats any day now. More cat updates to
come…
Over the next few weeks we will be finishing up our bottle
brick project and putting some finishing touches on the library! Our school is
having an end of the year party on Thursday November 26th
(THANKSGIVING DAY!) where we are having a feast, showing a slide show and a
movie, and doing a gift exchange with all of the teachers! Should be lots of
fun! Since the school year is almost over things are realllllllyyyyy starting
to slow down around here, so we are going to have plenty of down time from now
until the start of December. The teachers are starting to leave to head to
their home villages for the holidays and so are a lot of people from the
community. I see a lot of walks to the sand beach (25 minutes) and binge
watching shows on the computer!!!!!
Cole is heading to Vila on November 30th for a
Disaster Risk Reduction Workshop and I am heading in on December 2nd
for a Volunteer Advisory Committee meeting which Cole and I are both part of.
We will be in Vila until December 11th, then we head to Fiji with
some of our PC pals until December 15th, AND THEN we head to the USA
through January 9th!!!!! Lots of fun stuff coming up! J Gonna update one more
time with a Peace Corps Cribs Ebenezer video/comparison of our sites at Narango
and Ebenezer (mostly for you G28 volunteers that may be reading!!) before we
head home for the holidays!
As always, thank you for reading and keeping up with us! We
hope to see lots of you while we are home! AND, if you are a in G28 and in the South Carolina or North Carolina
area and would like to meet up while we are home, please contact us! We would
love to meet you!
