Life in Vanuatu!

Hey Everyone!
First of all, THANK YOU to everyone who has emailed us, posted on the blog (which im sorry is so difficult), posted on facebook or even just thought of us! I LOVE reading all of the emails and posts when we get a chance to (which has been twice since we've been here!). I'm sorry about not responding to each of you individually, but we only have a limited amount of internet time and I figure a lengthy blog post is the best way to get respond to everyone! I am also going to TRY to post an album on FB with more pics than I will put on here!

So...here goes!!...
For a little over two weeks we have been on Lelepa Island (which is where survivor was filmed!!!). It is small and beautiful and the people are all so wonderful and nice! You can only get there by boat, so there are no cars on the island. We have been staying with an amazing host family, who now consider us a part of their family. The are about our age (a little younger) and have a two year old son. Host mom, Tommy, works at a resort in Port Vila, so she has to travel first by boat and then by bus to get to work each day. Host dad, Rex, is the nurse on the island (an RN) so we live at the dispensary and he works from there or rides his bike to give people medicine, injections, etc, when someone walks to our house to tell him someone is sick. Brother, Talviroa (Talvi for short), is really independent, super cute, very energetic and very sweet. He has no toys and plays in trees, with coconuts, with other children, with knifes (yes, I said that he plays with knifes. terrifying and totally normal), etc. We also have two dogs, Flash and Limbo. Most dogs on the island, and in Vanuatu in general, are not treated well at all, but our family treats our dogs pretty well. They feed them and dont throw stones at them. Our house is one of the nicest on the island because we live at the dispensary. We have our own little room separate from their house, which is not what most people have. Most other volunteers are staying in the house with their family. We share a swim house (where we take our bucket bath) and smol house (where you use the bathroom) with our family. The smol house and swim house are made of tin and wood and are each about 5ft by 5ft. There is a wood ledge in each where we put toilet paper (in the smol house) and shampoo, soap, etc (in the swim house). When we use the bathroom, we fill a bucket with water and pour it down to make whatever is in the toilet go down. When we take a swim (a shower) we fill a bucket with water, have a small container in the bucket, take the bucket in the swim house (along with our towel and clothes), and dump the water on us using the container. It is actually pretty easy, we have gotten used to it and it feels quite nice since it is about one million degrees here with 100% humidity! We fill up our water bottle from a water tank that is a short walk from our house. We use our water bottle to brush our teeth. We cant drink the water that we use to swim unless we boil it.
To wash clothes, we fill two buckets or container with water, put soap in one, lay a board across the container and put the clothes across the board to scrub them, rinse the clothes in the other container, ring them out and hang them to dry.
Washing dishes is done about the same way...2 buckets, one for washing and one for rinsing, and set them out to dry.
I have been learning to cook some of the island food and have been helping Tommy cook. We eat as a family each morning and night, either on a mat on the floor in their house or at a table on the porch. We eat on the mat inside if the mosquitoes are too bad.
During the week we go to the nakamal (which is a building in the center of the island where people meet) for language lessons, cultural sessions, safety and security sessions, educations sessions, etc. The mamas each bring a dish to the nakamal at 12 and we all eat lunch together from 12-1. Its really great! The food is good and we are definitely getting spoiled by the mamas! Learning the language is going pretty well. We can both communicate to an extent in Bislama at this point.
Next week we go to our site and, from what we understand, will be speaking a lot more in Bislama. Our host family now speaks to us in English and in Bislama.
We have been able to swim in the ocean a lot which has been great! We walked to a HUGE cave one afternoon with our family which was cool! Last Saturday our host family took us and one of the other couples in our group, Sean and Lyndsey, on a boat tour of Lelepa Island, which was really fun! We went to the beach where they filmed survivor, went to a cave and went to an AWESOME snorkeling spot. We had some bread with us and when we got in the water with the bread in our hands, HUNDREDS of fish swarmed us and ate the bread from our hands! We sat on a beautiful beach and had a snack after snorkeling and then headed back home. It was a great day. I even got to wear my one piece suit because we were only with our family. So, I worked on my mad tan lines! Someone asked is tourist wear bikinis, and yes they do. But we want to integrate as much as we can into the culture here so we do not. Unless we are only with our family and no one else is around or we are at a resort.
We have gone to church both Sundays that we have been on Lelepa. We wear island dresses and island shirts. It is really really hot and the kids run up and down the concrete isle and in and out of the church constantly! The women sit on one side of the church and the men on the other.
On Wednesday the community had a farewell dinner for us because one of the guys in our group was leaving for his site on Thursday. It was so nice! All of our families gave us island dress and island shirts (we had been wearing borrowed ones for church) and there was a ton of food. The chief made a speech, our mama made a speech on behalf of all the other mamas, one other mama gave a speech, and yours truly gave a speech on behalf of all the volunteers! I gave it half in English and Bislama! Our group also prepared a little song/skit that we performed as a thank you for everything they have done for us in the last two weeks!
We have both gotten a sunburn, Cole got a weird rash, which the docs think was from the anti maleria meds he was on. They switched him to a different medicine and the rash is gone now. Cole also got a little foot injury, which is now also gone. He was very very sick with a stomach bug yesterday but is feeling much better today. Good news since it is Valentines and we are in Port Vila to celebrate!
We have not gotten too home sick yet. I cried some when Charlie was born (WHICH IS SO EXCITING AND I LOVE HER SO MUCH AND WAS SO HAPPY TO SEE HER ON FACETIME TODAY) because I really wanted to be home for that. And I got really sad one night we we were laying in our bed, nice and sweaty under our mosquito net, and I was really missing Murray and wishing he was there. We do miss everyone a lot, but we are doing well on the homesickness so far.. It has only been 3 weeks though so that could change!
So, that is a quick overview of whats happened over the last few weeks...

What's next....
So tomorrow, Sunday the 15th for us, we head to Santo with the 3 other vols who will be on Santo with us. We will be about an hour or less from the other vols. We will be there through Sunday the 22nd. We will get to see our houses (We have two), meet our host families (we have two), see our schools (we are in separate schools), and meet the people in our communties (we have two which are a 15-20 min walk from each other). So basically they have prepared for two single volunteers instead of a married couple so we get two of everything. We will choose which house to live in most of the time. We are so excited to finally see where we will be living for the majority of our two years here!
After the week at our site, we head to another training village, Nguna, for 3 weeks. We will stay with a host family there too. We found out yesterday that their names are Luna and Christina and they have a great house and RUNNING WATER AND A FLUSH TOILET! We are pumped!
We probably will not have any access to internet over the next 4 weeks.


We were sorry to hear about Burley Lyons and about Dr. Spears from Columbia College -- Thank you to those who have updated us on those things.
PLEASE keep the emails coming! We really really do love them.
Pictures arent loading for some reason. Im gonna post this and then try to make another post of just pics. If that doesnt work I will try to post on facebook...

Also, we do have cell phones from about 2001. You can text us or skype us if you want...
Coles number is 6785421666 and mine is 6785421687