PC Cribs: Narango and Ebenezer

So, we have been in Vanuatu almost a year now and have lived at two different sites. I posted a Peace Corps Cribs video of our first site several months ago and have been asked several times since moving to our new site (almost exclusively by my mom!!) to post a video of it. I thought that since we have a big group of awesome new volunteers coming here in January I would post both videos with a little description/comparison of each. Before we came to Vanuatu I tried to find every video, picture, and piece of information I could that would give me a small glimpse of what my new life might be like. So, friends and fam... I hope you enjoy this look into our lives here and future Vanuatu PCV's... I hope this helps you in some way!  

First a little background info: Before we came to Vanuatu we were asked to choose a desired site category (1-4). This was a very tough decision both because we had never seen Vanuatu and had no idea what to expect from any of the categories and because this was the next two years of our lives that we were making a decision about.  The new G28 volunteers who will be arriving in January have recently been asked to make the same choice. I have tried my best to understand the category system and, I think, what it comes down to is that if you are close to a town then you are a category 1 and the farther away you get the higher your category is. So, those very remote sites that you have to get to by airplane, then truck, the boat, then a 5 hour walk are cat 4. Before coming  to Vanuatu I was under the impression that your category also has to do with amenities such as running water, access to electricity of some sort, etc., however, I have found that is not the case. As I said above, since coming to Vanuatu Cole and I have lived and worked in two sites, both category 1 and both very different. So, G28, I just want you to see from the explanation of our sites below that all sites are going to be very unique and different no matter what their category is. Some cat. 1 and cat 4 sites may be more similar to one another than a cat. 1 site is to another cat. 1 site in every aspect expect proximity to a town.

Cole and I started our PC service in a village in Santo called Narango. We spent about 5 months there before being moved to another school about a 10 or 15 minute drive (1.5 hour walk) away called Ebenezer. Both sites are about an hour drive from the town of Luganville, Santo which is the second biggest town in Vanuatu next to Port Vila. So, due to the close proximity and easy access to town, both sites are considered category one. In order to get to either site you simply go and wait outside a store called Valient which is across from the mamas market in town. Each time a truck pulls up you ask them if they are going south, how far south they are going and if they can take you to your village. When one says yes you hop in the back and you’re on your way. Depending on the day you could wait as little as 5 minutes for a truck, or as long as 2 hours or more. Also depending on the day you may be in the back of the truck with as many as 20 additional people, some chickens, food going to market, a cow, bags of kava, or all of the above. The truck ride to Narango costs 400 vatu (around 4 dollars) and the truck ride to Ebenezer costs 500 vatu (around 5 dollars). Although both sites are category 1, they have several differences which you can see in the descriptions below...

Site 2 Ebenezer: 

Ebenezer is not a village, but a school right off of the dirt road. Kids from about 4 or 5 nearby villages walk to school here each day. The closest village that kids walk from is about a 15 minute walk away and the farthest is about an hour walk away. The school has around 250 students and 11 teachers. There are about 9 houses on the school grounds which the teachers live in, four of which are permanent houses. It does not have a bush feel at all and it is about a 20 minute walk from the closest beach. We have solar electricity all day every day and generator electricity that is turned on from about 5:30-8:30 almost every night. The house has a living area, two bedrooms, an indoor toilet and swim house and an indoor kitchen. We also have running water inside the house. See video and pictures below for more details!

Click this link to see the video: Ebenezer PC Cribs Video

The House!

Toilet and Swim House 

Toilet Inside 

Swim House Inside 

Kitchen/Living room 

Kitchen Inside 

Our Bedroom 

Guest Bedroom 

School Grounds 

Site 1 Narango:  

Narango is a village of about 400 people located on top of a steep hill with a beautiful view. Almost all of the houses are made of custom material with only about two cement, or permanent, houses in the entire village. It has a very bush feel to it and during the rainy season is referred to as “ples blo sop mud” (place of soft mud) because it gets so, so very muddy. It is about an hour and a half walk to the closet beach. The school has about 125 students enrolled and 4 teachers. Our house there was nearly all custom, except for the cement floor and cement block wall that went about up to your waist. The other half of the wall was thatch and the ceiling was made of thatch and bamboo. There was not solar power when we got there, but we did buy a small solar set up that gave us light at night and allowed us to charge our phones, my camera, and our head lamps. We did not have running water in our house in Narango. The house had two rooms: one living area where we had a couple of tables and our hammocks and one bedroom where we had our bed, a small guest bed and a table. We had a bush kitchen, a bush toilet, and a bush swim house. See video and pictures below for more details!

Click this link to see the video: Narango PC Cribs Video 

The House!

Bush Toilet 

Bush Toilet Inside 

Swim House 

Swim House Inside 

Bush Kitchen and Dish Washing Station 

Bush Kitchen Inside 

"Living Room"

Bedroom 

School Grounds 

G28, don’t stress! No matter where you are or what your house and site are like, you are going to be great! We all can’t wait to meet you! Hope this helped a little :)