We've had an exciting few months filled with some in country travel, a visit from family back home, some cat drama, Vanuatu celebrations and the ups and downs of everyday life at site. We're in Port Vila this week for a Volunteer Advisory Committee meeting, so we'll be spending the week running errands around town, attending meetings, taking long hot showers, using internet and eating pizza and cheeseburgers! We are both well. We still have days where we are happy and content and days where we are super homesick and contemplate getting on the next plane. We are still trying to get everything we can out of this adventure and we still remain incredibly grateful for it. Here are a few videos followed by what we've been up to in more detail...
Pentecost
At the end of June Cole and I and 4 of our PC friends went
to the island of Pentecost for a long weekend. Every year in April, May and
June on Pentecost a traditional custom called landdiving, or Nagol, takes
place. They perform this custom during April, May and June because that is the
time of year when the liana vines they use for jumping are strong. The ritual
celebrates the yam harvest and also has a cutom story behind it. The story says
that a man and a women were having an argument and she ran away from him and
hid in a tall tree. The husband, Tamale, found her and begged her to come down.
When she refused to come down he climbed the tree after her and when he reached
the top she jumped. He jumped after her only to realize that she had tied the liana vines around her ankles. She survived and he died from the jump. The people in the village where we stayed in Pentecost told us that after that women in her village heard of her story and began to do the same jump in her honor. But after a while the men took the custom over and saying that it was too dangerous and that the women were no longer allowed to jump, or even touch the vines used for jumping. Today, up to 10 boys and men jump every Saturday. If a boy wants to jump for the first time, he goes and asks his family if he can and if they say yes, he jumps. When we went there was a 4-year-old boy jumping for the first time. If a man who is jumping on Saturday is married, his wife is not allowed to speak to him, touch him or sleep with him the day before. If she does, it is said that he will die doing the jump. After your first jump you are given a piece of the vine that you jumped with and there is a kakae in your honor. The piece of vine is placed underneath the lap lap that is eaten at your kakae. Another version of the story says that after the first woman jumped the men began to jump from a tower as a show of strength to the women in the village and as a statement that they cannot be tricked again. Today, the tower that the boys and men jump from is made of local materials, is 20-30 meters high and takes local about 5 weeks to build.
We arrived in Pentecost on Saturday morning in time for the Landdiving. Afterwards the locals prepared lunch for us and then we went and hung around the bungalow where we were staying before we went to bathe in the river. On Sunday we went to a waterfall that was about a 30 minutes drive away and then stopped at a custom mared (wedding) on the way home. That afternoon there was another custom ceremony going on in honor of 18 children who were baptized that morning. There was lots of custom dancing and lots of food. We drank kava with our new Pentecost family both nights and introduced them to tequila, which they LOVED! We headed home on Monday after a lovely weekend full of amazing custom experiences that we will never forget.
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| Truck ride from the airport to the land diving site |
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| Harrison, age 4, about to jump for the first time |
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| Custom Dancers at the land diving ceremony |
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| Cole climbed to the top of the tower...I couldn't because I am a women and therefore am not allowed to touch the tower. Lame. |
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| Waterfall, Pentecost |
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| Custom Dance, Pentecost |
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| Custom Dance, Pentecost |
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| Custom Dance, Pentecost |
Jen and Bob
On July 2nd Cole and I left site early in the
morning and went into town. We stopped on the way to pick up two salu salu’s
(compare to a Hawaiiare lei) that one of the teachers at our school had made
for Cole’s mom (Jen) and stepdad (Bob). We hung out around town until around 5
when we headed to the airport to pick them up! They arrived and we started our
2 week long adventure! We had the best time with them and are so glad that they
came to visit. It was really amazing for us to share this experience with
family from home and to see Vanuatu through someone else’s eyes. While they
were here we visited 5 islands around Vanuatu (including Tanna where we saw the
extremely accessible and extremely active Yasur volcano which was the experience
of a lifetime), they met all of our Vanuatu family, they saw our house and
school and met our friends and teachers here, they made and ate laplap, they
drank kava, they rode in the back of trucks, everyone got sick, we went to one
of the most beautiful beaches in the world and to a blue hole, they got
showered with local gifts from our friends and family here, they showered our
friends and family with gifts, they met a lot of our Peace Corps friends and
they got to see how we live and what we’ve been up to for the past 18 months!
We packed in as much as humanly possible during those two weeks and kept them
moving the whole time! They were total troopers and we had an amazing time! I
think they really enjoyed the trip but were ready to get home and find some
ice, some cheese and some air condition!
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| Day 1! Headed to Aore Island |
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| Champagne Beach |
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| First shell of kava in Vanuatu |
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| making lap lap with our family in Narango |
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| Yasur Volcano |
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| Yasur Volcano |
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| Blurry Yasur selfie |
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| Kayak selfie |
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| Riri Blue Hole |
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| Family in Ebenezer |
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| With our host mom in Narango |
At site
Things at our site are still going well. We still don’t have
water and that still really sucks, but other than that we are good! The water
did start running last week on Thursday and ran for 4 glorious days. It is
currently off again. Fortunately the kids have something called “Working
Parties” every Thursday afternoon where all of the students are assigned tasks
around the school, like pulling weeds, picking up trash, gathering fire wood
and as of late collecting water for the teachers! So, every Thursday some of
the older students come and collect all of our water storage containers and
fill them up at the river for us! This water usually last for a few days and we
get a break from having to walk to the river, which is lovely!
During the months of June and July we worked on a new
project that we call a “Sound Wall”. Many of the students here have trouble
with letter sounds so we decided to paint each letter of the alphabet on one of
our big outside walls and have the students and teachers draw a picture to go
along with each letter. Two of our friends came to help us paint the letters on
the wall. Once that was finished we were ready to start the picture drawing
process. We were supposed to start on a Friday, but we had to go into town
unexpectedly and I was very upset that we were going to have to put it off
until Monday. The teachers and our host dad, who is also our school’s zone curriculum advisor, knew that I was
upset and took action while I was gone for the day! When I got home I was busy
doing a little work around the house when one of the teachers told me to come
over to the wall. They had spent the day drawing a picture for every letter of
the alphabet! Some of the students drew pictures, a few of the teachers drew
pictures and our host dad drew pictures. I was so surprised and so happy! I
thought they needed me around to get this complete and it turns out they didn’t
need me at all, which is amazing because one of our main goals as PC volunteers
is sustainability and this showed me that even when I’m gone the people at my
school are going to be able to continue doing really awesome things! I tried to
get them to help with painting the fabulous pictures that they drew, but they
weren’t having it. Painting is new to them and they were a bit scared to do it.
So, we recruited two more of our PC friends and with their help we painted each
picture and then I wrote the word for each picture underneath in English and
then in Bislama. One of the teachers at our school, who is also our friend and
neighbor, decided after watching us paint almost all of the pictures to give it
a try, so he painted the Manioc for Mm. He did a great job! Once all of the
pictures were painted and the words were written, everyone who helped with the
wall put their handprint on it and then Cole added a color wheel because
everyone was so interested in how to mix colors to make new colors. It is a
project that many people helped with and that I am very proud of! AND I hope
that it will serve as a good teaching tool for many years to come!
I’ve still been working with small groups and in the library
each day. Cole is still working with classes 7 and 8 and trying to get the
community center construction underway. He was awarded a grant, the school and
community have worked hard to fundraise, the materials have been purchased and
now we are just waiting for the construction to start! Hopefully that will
happen in August!
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| Strong boys bringing us water on working party day |
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| Class 7 and 8 students tracing sound wall letters |
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| Me, Shannon and Gabby after painting the letters |
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| Emory painting Mm for Manioc |
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| Qq for queen artist Lenox |
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| Pp for pig artist Amos |
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| Handprints for helping! |
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| The finished wall |
CAT UPDATE
As most of you know we started our time here in
Vanuatu with one small kitten called Pepper. Pepper took care of our rat
problem in Narango and I fell in love with him almost immediately. We brought
him with us when we moved to Ebenezer last September. There was already a cat
living here that belonged to a former PC volunteer. Her name is Black Tiger…the
cat, not the former PC vol. In November Black Tiger had 3 kittens that we named
Cam Newton, Ron Rivera and Sir Purr. Sadly, Sir Purr was killed by a dog (RIP
Sir Purr) and we were left with just Cam and Ron, who are still kickin. We got
home from the USA in January and discovered that Pepper was gone. He stayed on
holiday until around March and then came home. A few months after his return
Black Tiger had 3 more kittens that we named Douglas, Nelson and Schmiegal…and
we officially had a problem. For those of you who have lost track, as of mid
June we had 7 cats (Pepper, Black Tiger, Cam, Ron, Douglas, Nelson and
Schmiegal). The house started to smell, Cole started to threaten either divorce
or cat drownings and I knew that something had to be done. So, we gave Cam to
our friend Hannah, we told our neighbors that Pepper was officially their cat
now (he had started to hang out at their house more and more anyway), we waited
until they were just old enough and gave all three kittens to teacher’s kids
and we are left with just Ron and Black Tiger. Pepper still comes around our
house to torment BT and Ron(da) (we’ve discovered she’s a lady cat) and to beg
for food or take a snooze, but he mostly chills at Emory and Mourine’s (our
neighbors) now. So, in cat update conclusion, I am currently a crazy cat lady
of two…that is until Pepper strikes again and BT or Ron(da) have more
kittens…Look for another Crazy Cat Lady update in a few months.
Children’s Day and Independence Day
In Vanuatu there is a holiday called Children’s Day on July
24th. They say that there is a Mother’s Day, A Father’s Day and a
Grandparent’s Day, so why not have a Children’s Day?! I couldn’t agree more!
Vanuatu’s Independence Day is on June 30th. So, every year a week
long celebration starts on June 24th and goes until June 30th. On each island there are celebrations in many
different villages and there are two big celebrations in Port Vila and in
Luganville. Most celebrations consist of food stalls, kava stalls, speeches and
some sort of entertainment (like string band music, bamboo bands, skits,
boxing, sports, etc). In Luganville the celebrations kick off with a rodeo. We
went to it last year and had a great time, so we decided to go again this year…and
again, had a great time! When we got back to our site we had a Children’s Day
feast at our neighbors house with some of the kids from our school community.
Our neighbors have a 3 month old so she was celebrating her first Children’s
Day! On Independence Day we went back to Luganville with some of our family. We
watched speeches, had lunch, watched a canoe race, ate cake, watched
boxing and ate more cake! There were probably about 6, 000 people there, which
is a HUGE crowd and at least double the amount of people that were there last
year! It was really fun hanging out with our family for the day and watching
all of the celebrations with them. They left for a while in the afternoon to go
and pick up one of our host brothers from New Zealand who has been doing
seasonal work there for the past 7 months. We hung out with some PC friends
while they were gone and then met back up with them and were happy to see Mala
after so long! We got a truck home with the fam at around 9:30 and went straight to bed! It was a long, hot, fun filled day celebrating the independence of our tiny little island home!
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| Baby Andorine celebrating her first children's day! |
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| Canoe race on Independence Day |
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| Host brother's Benonie and Rex (rocking his McConkey's hat!) with Rex's son Ralph |
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| 36th Independence Celebration 2016 Theme: Look out good for Luganville and make it nice! |
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| Me, host mom and host bro celebrating Independence |
Malo
In Vanuatu there are 6 provinces. Each province is named
after the big islands that are a part of that province. We live in Sanma
province which is made up of Santo (where we live), Malo and several other
small islands. Our host mom is from Malo and on the Sunday we went to visit the island for the first time. While our host brother, Mala, was in New Zealand our host
mom’s dad (we call him our booboo) passed away. Mala was going to Malo to visit
his grave and so we went along. We went to the village where our mom is from,
Avunatari. We met a bunch of extended family, swam in the ocean and got taken
on a tour around the village. Our friend, Jeff, came along. We only stayed
one night and didn’t get to see much of the island so we are going back with
our family in mid August for the 100 day Kakae of our booboo (It is custom
to have a kakae, which is like a feast, 5 days after the death of someone, 10
days after and 100 days after. The custom is a bit different from village to
village and island to island, so sometimes there are 30 day kakaes or 50 days
kakaes, etc. In some places there are other customs surrounding a death, such
as family members not shaving or bathing until the 30 day kaka) When we go for
the 100 day kakae we will stay for a long weekend and have a chance to hang out
with extended family a bit more and explore the island!
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| The tide was low so we had to walk out to the boat |
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| Cool bros on the boat ride over to Malo |
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| Happy Malo Pig |
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| This pig was bigger and had scary tusks and I was a tinsy bit terrified |
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| BABIES! |
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| Benonie stopping to smell the roses |
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| Benonie doing a little snorkeling |
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| Malo selfie |
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| Simeon and Charles splashing us |
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| Ralph is # 1 |
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| Jeff and Cole eating coconuts |
For the next few months...
As I said above we will be heading to Malo for a long weekend when we get back from Vila. Shortly after that term 2 at school ends and we have a 2 week holiday before the final term of the year begins. We are hoping that during the two week holiday the community center construction will begin! We are also hoping to go and visit some of our PC friends on Malekula! There is a ferry that goes from Santo to Malekula each week, so we would love to hop on it at some point over two weeks and spend some time there with our friends who are serving on the island.
Once term 3 starts Cole, if all goes as planned (fingers and toes tightly crossed!), will be busy with the community center construction and I will continue my day to day literacy and library work. Currently I serve as the school librarian and take classes to the library each day. In term 3 I will be training the teachers on the book check out system and what I do during library time. My goal is to have them begin taking their own class to the library so that when I leave library time will continue. I have looked into the school getting a librarian, but no one from the community is showing interest so I am going to train each teacher to be their own librarian instead! We also plan to spend a lot of time with our family and with our school community because before we know it we will be heading home and missing them very much!
That's all for now! Thanks for reading! :)
