A decaying rat, our first visitor, a giant hole, a couple of namesakes, and MORE

We meet the Director of PC, Carrie Hessler-Radelet

A PC director has never come to Vanuatu before, so her arrival and stay here was a big to do! She was only here for two nights, one of which she stayed in Port Vila and one she stayed on Nguna Island, which was one of our training villages. While she was here she came and spoke to us PC volunteers, then there was a big ceremony where she presented the Women of Courage Award to the award winner in Vanuatu. The US Ambassador to Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands was also here for the ceremony. There was a custom dance, several speeches, a display of the work some of the current volunteers are doing here in Vanuatu, and lots of pictures taken with Carrie! She is very kind, super approachable, and it was really awesome to get to meet her. She served in the South Pacific 30 years ago with her husband, so she was also very relatable. She and the Ambassador also agreed to participate in the Shutup and Dance video Jen was making, which I thought was pretty great of them! If you haven’t seen that video yet you can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94eptJzlFdI&feature=share&app=desktop

A decaying rat welcomes us home

The morning that we were leaving to head to Vila our cat, Pepper, brought a dead rat into our hut (she loves to bring her meals inside to enjoy them. It’s just lovely). Cole put him, with the rat in his mouth, outside. He came back in and Cole put him outside again. We knew that our neighbor was going to be taking Pepper to our host family’s house, where he would be staying while we were away, in the next few minutes so we just thought he wouldn’t have time to come back in again after we left (he can come in and out at his leisure because of the gap between our walls and ceiling. He just scales the wall and jumps right in). We thought wrong. The day we got back to site, 17 days after we left, Cole went in first to survey the critter damage and was welcomed by a terrible smell. He started to look for the cause of the stench and found Pepper’s half eaten breakfast decaying under our bed. It had been there so long that it was stuck to the floor and he had to pry it up with a stick. He then swept it, along with all the maggots that were inside of it, into a dustpan and threw it into the woods. Then, bless his heart, he had to sweep up all of its fur and then pour bleach on the cement floor and scrub it with a rag. We still get whiffs of it sometimes when we are laying in our bed…a gentle reminder of our warm welcome home. Cole is such a saint. I would be seriously lost without him!

Some projects we are working on

Many people often ask us what we are doing here in Vanuatu. The truth is, we have no idea. BUT, here are some of the things we are trying our best to work on while we are here!

Caroline:

• Depending on the day, I work with either class 1 or class 2/3 (combined class due to a lack of teachers) in the mornings from 9:00-10:00 on a literacy/phonics lesson. Then I work with a small group from either class 1, 2, or 3, again depending on the day, on things that they are struggling with (mainly letter names, sounds and site words). In the afternoon I take one class each day into the library. As I may have said before, the volunteer who was here before me, Jessica, made an amazing library that is unfortunately not being used at all. One of my main goals is to get the kids in there and to get someone from the village trained in taking the kids to the library each afternoon, so that it can continue once we are gone.
• I am also working on starting a Mama’s English Class in our village. Dawna, a Group 26 volunteer, started a Mama’s English Class in her village and it was wildly successful! She has created an amazing resource book for future classes to use and has inspired me to start a class here in Narango. I plan to start in September! This is a class where 7-10 mamas will come to learn English, and then have the skills to help their children with English. The mamas from Dawna’s group came and helped with a workshop that Dawna put on about the group. They spoke during the workshop about the impact the class has had on them and on their children. It brought me to tears and I can’t wait to get it started here!
• When Jessica was here she started a group called “Gel Paoa”, which means Girl Power, with class 4, 5 and 6 girls. When I got here the girls started asking me almost immediately if and when I would be starting Gel Paoa again. I started it up again on Tuesday June 30^th. I had 29 girls interested in joining the group so I decided to split it into two different 7 week groups. For the first 6 weeks we will meet every Tuesday to talk about issues like self-confidence, bullying, positive relationships, education/jobs, etc. On the 7^th week we will take a trip into town (which we will start fundraising for around week 4) and the girls will meet some successful women in Luganville (and we will also get ice cream which will be a major treat since there is not electricity, no refrigeration and no ice cream in our village!). I am working with the first 14 girls now and will start with the second group of 15 girls in September.
• Lastly, another volunteer, Shannon, and I are working on putting together some workshops on how to teach literacy for volunteers and the teachers at their sites. We are writing a grant right now in order to secure funding to travel to other islands and put on these workshops. We are doing this as a result of many of the other volunteers, who have little or no teaching experience, expressing stress and concern about being able to meet the expectations of their villages or communities. We did a small workshop at our last training in Vila for the volunteers and their counterparts, and got great feedback from it! And they want more! So, hopefully we will get the funding and it will all work out!

Cole:

• Cole walks to his village most weekdays and teaches phonics lessons at his school. His schedule is not quite as set as mine because of his commute, but he usually goes there 4 days a week and works with classes 1-6 on the same kinds of things that I work on here in Narango (letters, sounds, site words). He was really nervous at first about teaching since he hasn’t ever taught before, but he has great ideas and does a really good job!
• Cole has also successfully gotten a water system, called Life Straw, to his site! It is a water filtration system that will allow the people in his village to have clean drinking water. He got it to the village a few weeks ago and they worked on setting it up this week! Here is a link if you would like to learn more about Life Straw and a picture of Cole and some members from his community setting it up! http://www.buylifestraw.com/en/
  
• He is also working to put together a clothing drive (which some of you may have received e-mails about and others may have seen on facebook) here in Narango. Many of the kids and adults here have very little decent clothing and shoes. He would like to get the clothes donated from friends and family back home and shipped to Vanuatu. Once they are here we will sell them to people in our village (at VERY low cost) and then give the vatu we make to the school. If you would like to help with this project you can email him at smithnb21@gmail.com. We will be looking for clothing of all sizes and for shoes (flip flops or crocs).
• Lastly, Cole is working with another PC volunteer from our group, Cade, to start a Disaster Management Committee and go to villages to discuss disaster management and preparation committee. This is a very important topic here in Vanuatu, especially in the wake of Cyclone Pam. He and Cade are also working on a grant in order to secure funding and get the committee started!

Cole, Caroline, and Friends:

• World Map! We are working right now to try to get paint and paintbrushes to paint a world map and a map of Vanuatu at my school. We will be painting both maps on the walls on the outside of one of the school buildings. Many of the students have no idea where their country is, where other countries are, or where Vanuatu is in relation to other countries. Jessica put a laminated world map in the library, and the kids love to look at it when they come in there with me on their library day. But, they only come into the library once per week and so they do not get to look at and study the map often. We hope that some other PC volunteers in Santo will come to Narango and help us with our world map and our map of Vanuatu! World maps are something that many Peace Corps volunteers make in their villages, and we hope to jump on that band wagon soon!  

A mared in our village

On Friday, July 3^rd there was a mared in our village. The custom here in Vanuatu, as I discussed briefly when I wrote about the marriage of our host parents in Lelepa, Rex and Tommy, goes something like this…On Thursday night there is a kakae (feast) at the house of the man blo mared (groom) and a kakae at the house of the women blo mared (bride). At the groom’s house family and friends come and give the groom money to help him pay the 80,000 vatu ($800) bride price. People come, give money, eat, story, drink kava, hang out, listen to music, etc. At the bride’s house family and friends go and take gifts for the couple (bins for washing clothes and dishes, mats, plates, things like that). They also eat, story, drink kava, listen to music, etc. On Friday morning the groom goes to the bride’s home and pays the bride price. Then there is a wedding ceremony at the church. After the ceremony the bride goes to her home and the groom to his. At each home there is more eating and what not. Then, that afternoon the family of the bride walks her and all the gifts she has received to the groom’s house and puts her there. And, as you can probably guess, more eating, kava, music, etc. So, on Thursday night, July 2^nd, we headed to the groom’s house first as he lives closer to us. We ate rice and fresh meat from a cow that was killed that day for the occasion. We storied with the people there for a bit and then we headed to the house of the bride where we ate and storied more. While we were eating at the bride’s home some men were setting up a sheet and a laptop with a projector to watch what we thought would be a movie. The kids all sat on mats in front of the sheet waiting patiently. After about an hour they finally got it working. First they showed a music video of a local Christian band called Scripture Vibrations, then when that stopped working they showed a video from a festival in Vila about 10 years ago.

On Friday we missed the bride price and the ceremony because we were at school. That afternoon, we stopped by the groom’s house briefly where a man tried to give Cole a giant handful of raw meat out of a bowl on the ground. Cole kindly refused saying that he would just enjoy the meat with everyone as a group instead of taking it in his bare hand back to our hut. After that we went to the bride’s house where Cole drank kava and we sat around and storied, waiting for the time when we would walk the bride and all of her new possessions to her new husband’s house. We hung out for a long time, me talking to our mama and some of the other mamas and Cole hanging out with the men drinking kava and butchering the cow, not knowing what the holdup was. Then, our mama told us that the groom had decided he was thirsty and had gotten someone to take him the hour and a half into town to get wine. This meant that taking the bride to his house would not be happening for several more hours. We hung out for a little longer, were given a pile of a rice wrapped in a giant leaf, and headed back to the hut. On our walk back to the hut a smol pikinini came running over to me, latched onto my leg, took her lollipop out of her mouth and handed it to me. I said to her “no, no, hemi lolli blo yu” which means no, no it’s your lollipop. She was persistent and insisted that I take her half eaten lolli. I eventually took it and then said a quick prayer that she wouldn’t stick around long enough to make sure I put it in my mouth. She didn’t, and we continued our trek through the mud back to our hut where I disposed of the lolli, we ate our rice out of the giant leaf, and we went to sleep! We were woken up around 1 am to screaming and partying at the groom’s house which, like I said, is close to our house. Guess he got back from his wine adventure and the bride made it to her new home!

Pikinini watching Scripture Vibrations 

Our host dad and brother helping butcher the cow 

4^th of July in Vanuatu

A Peace Corps committee called GAD (gender and development) was having a week long workshop in Santo the week before the 4^th of July. This meant that there were lots of PC vols here is Santo that do not live here (mostly from g26, the group before us). Their workshop was right next to Champagne Beach. The workshop ended on the 3^rd, but several of the PC vols decided to extend their stay and celebrate the 4^th there. We decided to go and join them. So, on Saturday the 4^th we left our village and went into town (Luganville). We stayed in town using the internet until around 2:00 when we went with Brian, Kate and Hannah to catch a bus and go the 45 minutes to the Towac Bungalows, which is where everyone was staying and is about a five minute walk to Champagne Beach. There were 21 of us squeezed into the bus we got in. When we got there we reserved our tents for the night and then walked to Champagne Beach and hung out there for an hour or two. Then we spent the evening drinking wine and eating burgers, sausage dogs, fries and some lap lap that the mamas there made for us. We decided at some point during the night to walk back to Champagne beach and go skinny dipping, which I had never done before! Sorry moms, dads, and granparents who are reading! There were about 10 or 12 of us that went, but I won’t mention names! Shortly after our little skinny dipping adventure we retired to our tent by the beach for the night. Sunday morning we got a ride in the back of a truck back to town where we used the internet again and then Lucas, Cole and I headed to the spot where we wait for a truck back to our village. Lucas was coming to our site to visit for a few days! 2 and a half hours later, we finally got a truck and were on our way back to Narango after a fun 4^th of July!

Lucas comes to visit

On Sunday afternoon when we arrived in Narango it was raining and very muddy. Cole and Lucas worked on making some dinner while I straightened up the hut. We ate and hung out and then went to bed early after a long previous night! Lucas was coming to visit us because we are awesome and he loves us so much, but also because he wanted to watch me teach and get some ideas. No such luck on Monday because at 9:00 a.m. there was a grand total of ZERO out of the 5 teachers at my school here. Some kids came and I told them to go home and try to come back tomorrow when maybe a few of the teachers would be here. At around 9:30 the headmistress/class one teacher showed up and a few kids went and hung out in her classroom for the day. Cole had walked to his site so Lucas and I just hung out at the hut. It was pouring rain so there wasn’t much to do besides sit around and talk. Lucas played on his computer a little, I painted my nails, and we drank coffee. When Cole came home we had lunch and then more just hanging around. Cole wasn’t in the best of moods because on his walk that morning one of his chaco flip flops got stuck in the mud and broke. He has to walk the 45 minutes home through the mud with only one shoe. That night we walked to a kava bar where Cole and Lucas each had a shell of kava. Then we walked to our host family’s house and had dinner there with our mami and our brother, Junior. Dinner was good and we had fun with Lucas and our fam! On Tuesday a few teachers ended up showing up to school, so Lucas came and watched me teach a lesson to class one and then hung around for a few minutes of a small group with class one. He then decided to take some of the left over paint from when Jessica painted the library to our house and start painting a tree on one of our hut walls. After my small group with class one he insisted on me helping him, which I did while Cole made lunch. After lunch I took class 2/3 to the library and then Lucas and I took a spel (a rest) for a while before continuing our tree painting. I was skeptical of this tree painting at first, but I have to say I ended up having fun painting it with Lucas and it turned out pretty good! In the afternoon it FINALLY stopped raining so Lucas convinced us to venture out into the mud and walk about an hour to the river. We swam and hung out at the river for an hour or two and then walked back. For some of the way a bunch of pikinini who were walking home from school joined us. Lucas and Cole went for kava when we got home and then Lucas made dinner. He left on Wednesday morning. We wish the weather would have been better and more teachers and kids would have been at school, BUT we loved having our first visitor, had lots of fun and can’t wait for more visitors to come!

Pikinini Prayer Warriors

Our mama and some other mamas in Narango have started a pikinini prayer warriors group where kids come to the church at night and sing and pray. At first they were doing this every night of the week, but after a few weeks they decided that was too much for the kids and are now doing it about 3 times per week. The bell rings any time between 5 and 6 or 6:30. When the bell rings people start to head to the church  and continue to join in for the next hour or so. We decided to go and check it all out one Wednesday night. We went about 30 minutes after the bell rang, as we have learned our lesson about going right when the bell rings and being the only mopes in there for the next 30 minutes at least. The kids spent about an hour singing songs, then one of the mamas who leads the group made a sermon for about 30 minutes, and then we all got up, stood in a circle and held hands. For the next hour or so we stood in that circle holding hands and the mamas would name a topic, like “mamas and daddies” or “pikinini” or “people who don’t have food”, and then they would all scream the same prayer in unison. We didn’t know the prayer they were saying so we just stood and listened. A few times during this circle scream praying some of the kids would leave the circle and go whisper something in one of the mama’s ears, then we would all have to stop and pray away the demons that the kids said they just saw. We would have to point to the doors and then everyone would scream something else in unison so that the demons, who the mamas said some of the kids who have a special gift can see, would go away. Also, a few times we would stop after a pikinini went and whispered in the ear of a mama because he or she needed to be prayed for. Some of the group would put their hands on the child and then they would all scream the same prayer again, and then everyone would rejoin the circle and we would continue. After about an hour of this we sat back down, sang a few closing songs, a mama said a closing prayer and we all shook hands and hugged. Cole and I headed home, but when we left several people had gone back inside the church to keep praying for kids who needed it, either because they had seen the demons or for other reasons. It was a very interesting experience.

Sink Hole

There is a village close to Narango, about a 25 or 30 minute walk, called fonovos (sp). Several kids from there walk to school in Narango because there is no school there. When we got here many people told us about a big hole in the earth near this village. We had also seen some pictures of a time when Jessica went there and we had heard about it from an Australian volunteer named Sky. We have been wanting to go for a long time, but weather or other things have kept us from being able to. This past Monday it had not rained in a few days and we had nothing going on in the afternoon so a man who lives close to us, named Toa, said that he would take us there. So, we walked the 30 minutes or so until we were almost to fonovos and then turned off the road and into the bush. We walked along a makeshift path for a bit and then came to a point where we started to go down. For the next 45 minutes or an hour we continued to descend down a rocky, slippery, steep, intense, muddy “path”. I nearly fell about 25 times and Toa had to help me a lot. I’m not gonna lie, it was a tiny bit terrifying. BUT, when we got to the bottom we were greeted by a cave like area with rocky rapids and small waterfalls. When you looked up you could see that you were at the bottom of a giant crater like hole in the earth. It was beautiful and cool and like nothing I have ever seen before. It’s hard to describe and pictures don’t do it justice, so come and visit and we will take you there! We trekked from one side to the other, I took a little dip in the water, and then we walked back up the hole (thinking the whole time that we couldn’t believe we had made it down that steep, slippery path without busting our buts!). We we got back to the road we decided to walk to fonovos because Cole and I had not been there yet. When we got there we chatted with the chief of the hole for a bit, saw a chicken that some kids had painted, checked out the awesome view, and then headed home and slept really well that night!

Smol Cole and Smol Caroline

This past week some of the mamas had a fundraiser in order to raise money to send a few of the mamas to a church conference in Vila. We are always down for supporting our village in any way so, after we walked to a kava bar and Cole had a shell of kava, we headed to the nakamal for the fundraiser. It was a “Tea Night” fundraiser so you payed to come in and then you got local bread made by the mamas and tea (coffee). It was 50 vatu for kids (50 cents), 100 vatu for adults (1 dollar), and 300 vatu for mamas (3 dollars). When we got there several mamas called us over and very excitedly told us that a smol boy had been born that day, July 13^th 2015, and that his parents had named him COLE! Two days later on Thursday July 15^th 2015, Cole was making dinner and I had just gotten off the phone with our friend Shannon when our neighbor, Catherine, who was standing at her house with another mama called me over. There is a transport driver named Cliff in our village who has taken us to and from town many times. He lives very close to us and is a super nice guy. The other women standing with Catherine turned out to be his mom who had come by to tell us that Cliff’s wife had given birth to a smol girl that day (or maybe the night before, we aren’t certain) and that they had named her Caroline! So, now both Cole and I have smil pikininis in our village named after us, born just a few days apart! Maybe they will grow up and get married! We are going to go and meet smol Cole and smol Caroline next week and I will be sure to take and post lots of pics!

Fiji and AMERICA

As some of you may know, Cole and I are coming home for Christmas! We will be in Vila for a few days at the beginning of December (I have a meeting for the committee that I am a part of and we need to fill out some papers for our trip), then we are heading to Fiji from December 11^th – December 15^th with some PC friends, and then we fly from Fiji to the good ole USA on December 15^th. We will be home until January 9^th. We can’t wait! We are going to cuddle Murray A LOT, eat A LOT of chick fil a, Jungle Shack, Seacow, Oysters, and Christmas dinner, hang out with our families and friends, I am going to get a mani/pedi and a haircut, Cole is probably going to have a few delicious brews, we are going to get to meet sweet baby Charlie Bean and who knows what else! We are so excited!

As always, thanks for taking the time to follow our adventures and read my super long posts! Cole has started a blog, too. You can check it out here: http://chronicallyuncomfortable.blogspot.com/

Ale, Ta.

Okay, Bye.  

  

Peace Corps Cribs-- a video of the place we call home in Vanuatu

Cole and Caro's PC Cribs video

Thanks for watching :)

Our adventure continues....

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.

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**

Saying their vows...with the paparazzi in the background 

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!

Scuba Cole and friends

Shannon and Colton’s birthday

Shannon’s birthday was Tuesday June 16^th and Colton’s was June 17^th, 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!

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!

Velivo, my counterpart, and me at a training session! 

I'll be putting many many more pictures on Facebook so check those out if the few on here did not satisfy your viewing pleasure! As always, thanks for reading :)

Life at site and stuff

A few happenings and pictures from the last 3 weeks or so at site…I'll post more pics on facebook in a few weeks when we are in Vila :) 

We arrived back in Narango from our long weekend in town on Tuesday May 19^th. We were going to head back on Monday but decided to stay another night after hearing from our host family that they were all going to a mared (wedding) on another island and would be gone the rest of the week. With them being away and school being on break, we didn’t have much to head back to, so we stayed that extra night and ate cheeseburgers and watched a movie! (St.Vincent, which I recommend!). Once back at site, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were pretty uneventful. The teachers at my school were in their home villages for the break, lots of people were at the mared in Malekula, school was on break and not much was going on. We did a lot of reading and watched a lot of House of Cards! We did attempt to give Cole a haircut on Friday. It did not go quite as planned. I was trying to use his clippers, which I haven't ever used before (I actually haven't ever given a haircut before so this probably wasn't the best idea to begin with!) and he took them from me at one point in an attempt to show me how to use them properly. He ran them through a portion of his hair and they sure did work for him! So, he ended up having a very short strip of hair that he had buzzed much shorter than he planned. I tried to make the rest of the hair match as much as I could with the clippers and scissors, but I wasn't entirely successful. It is growing back it very nicely though and made for a good laugh! I think in the future he will either grow it out or go to a professional. 

That Saturday May 23^rd, Sky, an Australian volunteer who has spent a lot of time in Narango and is working on a project there, and his girlfriend, Georgia, were in town. They came to our hut on Saturday morning to introduce themselves and tell us about the project that they are working on, a community/disability center. We were laying in our hammocks reading when we heard noises outside and were very surprised to see two white faces walking towards our hut!! After chatting for a bit they invited us to go to a waterfall with them for the rest of the afternoon. Having spent the last several days in our hut not doing much, we gladly accepted and were walking to the waterfall within 20 minutes! We walked along the road for a while and then turned off the road and walked through the bush the rest of the way. The walk took about an hour. We were with Sky, Georgia, a few guys from our village and lots of pikinini from our village. The waterfall was beautiful and lots of fun! We spent a few hours there climbing and swimming and playing and then ate some sugarcane and fruit and then headed back!

We went to church that Sunday for the 2^nd time in our village. Each Sunday before church there are 3 bells that ring, the first bell means that it is time to get ready for church, the second means that it is time to walk to church and the third means that church is about to begin. We always follow the rules and head to church on the second bell and we are always the first ones there because everyone else in the village operates on island time! After a little while people start to arrive, all barefoot and all sporting their island gear (us included) and take their seats on the wooden benches. When it starts to fill up a man always grabs a guitar and everyone starts to sing. This always lasts for about 20 or 30 minutes while more people continue to arrive and is always my favorite part of church. Everyone knows the words to every song and they all sing loudly and enthusiastically. Sometimes clapping is also involved. This time always reminds me of my dad and makes me miss him. I think he would love listening to the singing.

On Monday, MAY 25!!!, Cole woke up a little bit before me and set out a plate full of pop tarts (that we had been hoarding for quite some time as they are major treat), a delicious cup of hot cocoa (that Amanda sent in a package several months ago and that we had also been hoarding as it is also a major treat and a nice change from our usual instant coffee), and a really sweet handmade birthday card. After breakfast he headed off on his 45 minute walk to school and I started to get ready because school was supposed to start back after the two week holiday. There are 5 teachers at my school and 3 of them, including the headmistress, live on school grounds like Cole and I. We had expected them to all come back on Sunday evening, but as of Monday morning only 1 of them had returned. After getting ready, sweeping the hut and washing our breakfast dishes, I checked my phone and had a message from Cole saying that all the children in the village that he has passed so far on his walk told him that there was no school because there were no teachers. I went next door to Mrs. Catherine’s house, the only teacher there so far, to ask her whether or not we were in fact having school or if the children in the village were correct. She didn’t seem to know where any of the other teachers were, when they were coming back or when school was starting again. We stood there and talked for a bit, 4 students showed up as we were talking and she sent them home and told them to come back tomorrow. So, I spent the day reading Harry Potter until Cole came home and we chatted about his day (his school started, but only about half the kids came and the headmaster was not there) and then we both spent the rest of the day talking and reading. Not the most exciting birthday I’ve ever had, but maybe that means my year will be super exciting!!!!

Birthday poptarts, cocoa and homemade card!

Tuesday 3/5 teachers had come back and less than half of the kids came. So, I like to say we had “sorta school”. I did laundry.

Wednesday and Thursday were better, with all the teachers having come back and about half of the kids coming at my school. ¾ of the teachers at Cole’s school had been coming each day, but his headmaster had only shown up on Thursday. We played Frisbee with then kids at my school on Wednesday afternoon, which is always sports day. Thursdays are always “working” day where the kids stay afterschool and clean up the school and then they have devotion. After devotion the headmistress told class one, two and three not to come to school on Friday because the teachers were going to town. So, last week my school was in session about 2.5 out of 5 days, and Cole’s was in session each day but without a headmaster/class one teacher 4 out of 5 days. This has proved to be frustrating and disheartening and we are struggling a bit with what we are going to be able to do here because of the lack of emphasis and value on education both by teachers and students. But, we are just going to continue to take it one day at a time!

When we arrived in town last Friday we ate a delicious breakfast and then went to run some errands, one of them being the post office. I cannot say enough times how much we appreciate the packages and letters that we continue to receive. When we left the post office we brought our packages back to Kate and Brian’s where we excitedly opened each one and ooohhhhed and ahhhhhhed at their amazing contents! We then headed to Beach Front Resort where we had lunch and used the internet. We had tacos for dinner at Kate and Brian’s for dinner. On Saturday we used the internet again, had lunch and then Hannah came over to Kate and Brian’s for dinner and movies.

On Sunday we headed back to site relaxed, rejuvenated, armed with lots of new goodies, and thankful for Brian and Kate who always let us crash with them and drink their delicious coffee, and smoothies and eat their homemade meals!

On Monday, June 1^st while we were eating our breakfast our headmistress came over to tell us that she and the class four teacher, her cousin, would not be at school that day because they were going to walk to their village because someone had died. The class 2/3 teacher also had not showed up back at his house yet, so we could only assume that he too would not be at school. We were unsure at that point about the class 5 teacher, who walks to our school each day from his village. So, that left me and Mrs. Catherine, the class 6 teacher. We had devotion (where the kids stand in line by class and sing songs and then Mrs. Catherine prays and talks about a passage from the bible and then makes any announcements. During this devotion she talked to them about how God says that they must always obey, and that if that do they will live long lives but if they don’t they will die young) at around 8:30, it is supposed to start at 7:45 I think. After that she asked me to supervise class 1, 2, 3 and 4 in one classroom while she taught class 5 and 6 in another. She said that she would come and give them an assignment in a few minutes. After 20 minutes, I decided to just start teaching them myself. I taught them about vowel sounds in English and then read them two books. The class 5 teacher came, but only for about 30 minutes and then he left again and said that he would not be there tomorrow either because he had to go into town. After their 10-10:30 break, I supervised them again while they did some math problems that Mrs. Catherine had written on the board, and then again in the afternoon after lunch while they drew pictures of food until school was over. I am not technically supposed to be supervising 4 classes in one room, but what are you gonna do? After school they were told to pick up leaves around the school before going home. One boy hit a girl in the stomach, so he got hit on the bottom with a big piece of wood by the teacher. Cole had come back around lunch time from his site. All 4 of his teachers were at school that day and he spent time assessing class two and then talked to the headmaster for a while.

On Tuesday 3 out of the 5 teachers at my school were present, which is not great but better than Monday! The headmistress took class 1, 2 and 3 in her room (She normally only teachers class 1), the class 4 teacher was back and with her class, and Mrs. Catherine took class 5 and 6. That afternoon a man came from another island close to Santo to teach the kids how to play cricket. Next week some kids from my school will be chosen to play in an upcoming cricket tournament. It was pretty fun to watch. Cole did not go to his site on Tuesday because he was going to go to another school about an hour and a half walk away to have them fill out some forms so that they can get a PC volunteer when the next group comes. He was just going to copy the information from the forms onto paper and have them fill them out that was because we don’t have a way to print them. But then he talked to our PC boss who told him to print the forms in town this weekend and just go to Tata school next week after they are printed. So, he just hung out at the hut.

Wednesday there was no school because the teachers had an awareness meeting about teaching licenses in another village. Since Cole and I do not and will not have a teaching license in Vanuatu we stayed back and did laundry, cleaned out and filled all of our drinking water bottles, cleaned out our dish washing bins, cleaned out and filled our buckets for swimming, sweep the hut really well and then read our books for the rest of the afternoon.

On Thursday 4/5 teachers were at my school and 4/4 were at Cole’s. Not too shabby! The one teacher that was not at my school has not been there all week and no one can get in touch with him. The other teachers are saying that he has not come back because the village is supposed to finish building his bush kitchen for him and it isn’t finished yet and he is upset about that. Great reason not to show up for your job! Thursday afternoon the kids spent some time practicing cricket. Cole joined them and I sat with some class 2 girls under the mango tree and watched. After that the kids had devotion and then the headmistress told class 1, 2, and 3 not to come to school on Friday because their teachers would not be there. She told class 4, 5, and 6 to come even though the class 6 teacher won’t be there either. So, Friday will be a 2/5 day. Not a great way to close the week. Maybe next week will be better. We are still only having half or less than half of the kids show up to school each day. We think it is because they get word that their teacher isn’t there so they just don’t come. Understandable. Cole passes them in the village on the way to his site just sitting at their house. As I said earlier, it is very frustrating and discouraging when the teachers and the kids do not come to school. Again, maybe next week will be better! Also, I finished the Harry Potter series today! I started reading it about 6 weeks ago when we first got to site and I highly recommend it to any PCV that hasn’t read it yet, as it is a great time taker upper!

Cole playing Cricket with the pikinini 

Thursday night we went and ate dinner with our host family. Our little brother is a total ham and made us laugh the whole time! Our host mom asked me if I am pregnant because she says that my cheeks have gotten bigger…low blow, mami! Guess I need to take it easy on the laplap.

Today, Friday June 5^th, we came into town to go to Sam’s final kava tonight. She has been a volunteer in Vanuatu for 4 years and is going back to the USA in a few weeks to start grad school. GOOD LUCK with everything, Sam! Bae mitufala misem yu!

We are heading back to site tomorrow, Saturday, and then will be coming back into town on Thursday to fly to Vila. We aren’t supposed to be heading in until Sunday, but our host parents in Lelepa are getting married on Friday and we are going to their wedding! We will be in Vila for about two weeks for some additional training. We can’t wait for the wedding and to see all of our fellow PCV’s! Lot’s to look forward to in the next few weeks!

Some updates from my previous post:

Turns out the men fighting with sticks when we were coming into town about 3 weeks ago were fighting over a chicken.

Our friend, Gabriela, who we took to the hospital on Thursday, May 14^th experienced some of the same pains once back at site so they flew her to Port Vila to have an ultrasound and found that she needs to have her gall bladder removed. She left to go back to the USA last Friday to have the surgery, recover and hopefully get back here! We miss you, Gabriela and can’t wait for you to get back!

Congratulations to Jackson and Kelly Hatch on the birth of their precious baby boy, Oliver!

Don't know if I'm supposed to say this, but I'm going to anyway because I am safely across the world...Congratulations to Brittany Hatch and Katherine Hackett on your little baby bumps!

Also, Congratulations to Lisa and Emaleigh on your new JOBS! I love ya’ll! Alyson, you are amazing for what you are doing in Haiti and I'm really proud of you! 

Dont worry about it Pepper...I'm not trying to read my magazine or anything! 

She likes to sleep on our mosquito net...it's cute except for when we are trying to sleep and she wakes us up by jumping on it!

Lots of little helpers with my bucket full of water for my bath!