Our adventure continues….
Sam’s final kava
Like I said in my previous blog, Sam has been a PC volunteer
in Vanuatu for 4 years and has now gone back to the USA. She has been living
and working in Santo for the last two years, so before she left Santo she had a
final kava. A final kava is a get together with your friends and/or family for
one (or two or three or four) last shells before you leave. It’s a Vanuatu
style going away party. She had a section of a kava bar all to herself where they set up a little tent for her with a
table for food and chairs and benches. Some mamas made lots of delicious food
(including bat, which they call flying fox. Cole tried it, I didn’t. He said it
was okay.). She had a bucket full of kava, which is kind of like a punch bowl,
but out of a big white bucket instead of a fancy bowl. She also had cake! All
of the PC volunteers who are in Santo came and another volunteer, who came here
with the Sam group as Sam, flew in from Malekula. Some of the New Zealand volunteers
were there, and also several of her Ni Van friends/family and people she works
with. After all the kava was finished, we headed back to Brian and Kate’s where
Jeffrey, Cole and I stayed the night.
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| Bucket of Kava |
Site + Centipede
So we got back to site on Saturday after waiting a record 2
hours and 45 minutes for a truck! It rained all day Sunday so church was
cancelled and we had a very very lazy day. Monday-Wednesday were much like our
previous weeks at site in terms of teachers and kids not coming to school and
us doing lots of reading and hanging out. We did make a Peace Corps cribs video
of our house and my school on Wednesday before leaving on Thursday morning to
head to Vila (I am going to post it on youtube tomorrow when we are at the PC office with better internet!). We also had a terrifying little poisonous centipede experience on Tuesday
night after eating dinner with our host family. After dinner we walked the 10
minutes or so across the village in the pouring rain back to our house. When we
got there we were wet and muddy so we spent a few minutes cleaning up and getting
ready for bed and then I went outside to use our toilet before bed. I was using
the bathroom when I looked up and saw a foot long, black and red, 100 legged, poisonous,
creepy, giant centipede crawling on the door. I immediately started to scream and
cry and yell Cole’s name. He came running out in the rain to see what was
wrong. I was crying and yelling for him not to open the door because I didn’t
want the centipede to sting him and it was crawling on the door. So I just backed
into the corner of the bathroom and continued my hysterics until it crawled
through the crack in the door so that it was now on the outside of the door
where Cole could see it and I couldn’t. Once he saw it he realized it was too
big to kill with a rock or his shoe, so he ran to get his bush knife. After a
few minutes he convinced my hysterically dramatic crying mess of a self to run
out of the bathroom and into house and then he chopped it into 4 pieces. When
you chop them in half they don’t die, they just become two long, black and red,
100 legged, poisonous, creepy, giant centipedes! I then proceeded to hyperventilate
for a few minutes, calmed down, went to bed, and had nightmares about those
awful creatures all night!! Here is a picture of what one looks like...
Rex and Tommy’s mared
We were not supposed to come into Vila for our reconnect
training with all of the G27 PCV’s until Sunday, but our host family in Lelepa
got married on Friday so we came in on Thursday so that we could go to it. We
stayed with our friend Lucas at his site, which is close to Vila, on Thursday
night and then went to the mared on Friday. The wedding was scheduled to start
at 9:30 a.m. and Rex had set up a bus to come and pick us up from a “bus stop”
at one of the grocery stores in Vila. The mared was in Tommy’s village, Malafau,
which is about a 30 minute bus ride from Vila. Turns out the bus didn’t get
there to pick us up until around 9:15 and we had to stop at Lelepa landing to
drop of some food that was going to Lelepa for the handing over of the bride to
the groom’s family, which would be happening that afternoon. We ended up
getting to the village a little before 10:00, but not worry… due to Island time
we hadn’t missed a thing and actually hung around and storied (chatted) with
the guests for a while before walking to the church for the ceremony! Tommy’s
father passed away last year so her dad’s good friend from New Zealand walked
her down the aisle. Rex had one groomsman and Tommy had one bridesmaid and
there were several little girls all dressed in the same dress that I would
maybe call flower girls. The little girls sat in the first couple of rows and
Rex and Tommy sat off to the side at first with their groomsman and bridesmaid
on either side of them. There were two preachers. One gave a sermon and then
the other performed the ceremony. After the sermon, when the second preacher
called Rex and Tommy to come and stand up about half of the congregation got up
with their cameras and went up to the front and surrounded the bride and groom
taking pictures of them! It was crazy!!! They all stayed at the front, paparazzi
style, with Rex and Tommy until the end of the ceremony! It was a lot like an American
wedding ceremony with the exception of that and a few other small things. After
the ceremony they stood at the door of the church and everyone shook their
hands and gave them hugs and told them congratulations. Then we all walked to a
building close to the church where they cut their cake, Rex’s dad made a little
speech, Rex made a little speech and then we had a big kakae (feast!). After
the kakae Cole and me, Rex and Tommy, their son Talvi, and a few others went to
a resort close by to take pictures of them! Then Rex’s family went to Lelepa (a
bus and a boat ride away) and Tommy’s family stayed in her village for a bit
longer while she changed and everyone storied. I went with Tommy and Cole went
with Rex. When Tommy’s family got to Lelepa we went to her “host family’s”
house there. She, Rex and Talvi live together in Lelepa and have for a while,
but the custom is for her to be walked to the groom’s house and given away to
the groom. So, we went to this house first where a string band played and then
the family made a speech and were given a mat, the chiefs of Lelepa and Malafau
made speeches and were given mats, and then everyone carried all their presents
and walked with Tommy to put her at Rex’s parent’s house where everyone in his
family and in Lelepa were waiting. The string band walked with us and played
the whole way. People sang and danced for a bit, more speeches were made and
then Tommy gave mats to everyone in Rex’s family. Rex’s family had given mats
to her family the night before. At that point it was getting dark and Cole and
I were staying in Vila that night and still had to take the boat back to the
landing and take a bus back to Vila, so we said our goodbyes. We know that
after we left they had kava and another kakae. Tommy looked beautiful, Rex
looked handsome, Tavli was precious, they were so happy, and we are so happy
for them!
**Mats are hand woven and are a traditional gift here in
Vanuatu. We were given one by our host family in Nguna at our swearing in
ceremony. The giving and receiving of mats at a mared is a big part of their custom
here in Vanuatu**
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| Saying their vows...with the paparazzi in the background |
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| Taking Tommy to put her at Rex's family's house! So many people! |
Scuba
On Saturday morning Cole and I and our two friends Grace and
Avery headed to Big Blue to begin our scuba certification. We were given all of
our gear and taken to a resort where we would do our confined water dive in the
pool there. They explained all the gear to us and then we all got into the
pool. It felt so weird breathing with the regulator, but things were going
okay. Grace and Avery were with one instructor and Cole and I and one other guy
were with the other instructor. We went through a few things and everything was
going fine, then they asked us to do this thing with the goggles and I couldn’t
do it. I tried 3 times and still couldn’t get it. I knew I was holding the rest
of the group up, I got frustrated and I was freezing cold and shaking. I started
to panic and not be able to do the breathing right and I kept having to come
back up to the surface. I started to tear up and the instructor said that maybe
I should get out of pool and take a break and warm up. The rest of the group
finished the confined dive and then we spent the afternoon doing the book work.
I was up a lot that night partially because of a bad stomach ache and partially
because I was stressing big time about the scuba. I wasn’t feeling unsure about
whether or not it was something that I really wanted to do. On Sunday we were
scheduled to go out for our first open water dive in the ocean. I stayed at the
hotel in bed almost all day because my stomach was killing me, which I was kind
of glad about because it meant I got out of going to do the dive. I took that
as a sign and realized that my fear and anxiety about the scuba outweighed my
desire to do it so I decided not to go ahead with it. Cole, Avery and Grace
have kept going with it and have their last dive today! The awesome people at
Big Blue dive shop told me that anytime I want to try again I can come do the
confined dive in the pool again at no charge, so maybe I’ll try again someday.
I’m very proud of scuba Cole though, and in the future I can’t wait to see all
the awesome underwater pictures he takes while I am snorkeling at the surface and
basking in the sun!
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| Scuba Cole and friends |
Shannon and Colton’s birthday
Shannon’s birthday was Tuesday June 16th and
Colton’s was June 17th, SO we basically just had a totally epic
night on Tuesday. The dance clubs here are not open on the weekdays, but we
went and asked them to open for us for the night and they gladly agreed and
opened their doors at 9:00 p.m. We started the night at the hotel where we ate
dinner, danced, played card games, sang to Shannon, drank too much, and very
likely disturbed several of the other guests here at Pacific Paradise. We
headed to Electorock at 9 where the dancing and good times continued until the
wee hours of the night (actually only until about 12:30 because we had started
the party a bit too early and could only make it until then!) At midnight
Colton was carried from the balcony of the club to the dance floor where we
sang him a very off tune and slurred version of Happy Birthday and then headed
back to the hotel! It was such a great night!
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| Birthday friends! |
Training
We are here in Vila for what is called “reconnect” which
just means more training sessions that we didn’t get to, or weren’t relevant
yet, at our pre service training. We have had training sessions on things like how
to raise funds for projects, writing grants, dealing with stress, etc. with
just the volunteers on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Our counterparts got here
on Wednesday and we had training with them on Thursday and Friday on things like
the roles of the volunteer and the roles of the counterpart, working well
together, how to start and successfully carry out sustainable projects, erc. We
will have training with them again on Monday and Tuesday. Shannon and I led a
training session on Tuesday for the education volunteers and their counterparts
on teaching letter sounds that went really well! We talked to our country
director about possibly going to volunteer’s sites to do more trainings for
them and the teachers at their school, and also training the volunteers that
will be coming in in January. We are very excited about it! The G26 volunteers
have been trickling in this week and will all be here by Monday. They have their
mid service training this coming week. Usually our training and theirs would
not overlap, but on Monday the director of Peace Corps is coming to Vanuatu,
which is a big deal because a PC director has never come to Vanuatu before, and
our country director wanted all of the volunteers to be here for it. There will
be a luncheon with her, the PC staff, all of the volunteers and all of our
counterparts on Tuesday, and then she is going to stay on Nguna Island (which
was one of our training villages) on Tuesday night. She and our counterparts
leave on Wednesday, we have a few more training sessions that day, a free day
on Thursday and one last session on Friday before heading back to our sites on
Saturday. Friday is an optional session and some people are leaving before or
after Saturday depending on whether or not they want to go to it and when
flights and boats go to and from their islands. Flights go to and from Santo
every day and we do want to go to the Friday session, so we will be heading
back on Saturday. It is going to be really sad leaving each other this time
because it is going to be a very long time before we are all together again. But
for now we are just going to continue to take advantage of this time together
and of our nice hot showers!
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| Velivo, my counterpart, and me at a training session! |
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