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! 

#newlife

So we have been official PC volunteers for about a month now. We have spent some time in our village and some time in Luganville town. It is fall here now and our village is on top of a high hill so the mornings and nights have actually been pretty chilly! We even sleep with a blanket and I sometimes wear leggings or a light sweater! Some nights Cole makes a fire and boils water for me so that I can add it to my bucket bath water to make it a bit warmer. He’s the best! We have had some good days at site and some really hard days. We have a WONDERFUL host family here, most of the people in the village are kind and welcoming, we have a great view and there is plenty of work to be done! All great things! However, there are definitely challenges, like…no running water and electricity, lots and lots of mud, bugs and other critters, island time, island organization or lack thereof, lots of downtown with not a lot to do, no set schedule yet, and of course missing our family and friends and Murr. We expect many of these things to get better with time, we expect a lot of ups and downs and we expect a lot of time needed to get used to village life! Here are some happenings, observations, feelings, and information…It’s a lot since I haven’t posted anything in a while!!

·         We were supposed to be taking a ship from Vila to Santo on Tuesday April 21^st that was scheduled to leave Vila at 6:00 pm and arrive in Santo at 8:00 pm on Wednesday April 22nd. It was decided, however, on Tuesday morning that the ship would no longer be going to Malekula and Santo as planned, but would be going to Tanna instead to deliver relief supplies there. So, plan B. PC books us flights instead for the following day. We were taking the ship so that all of our heaps of stuff could travel with us as it is WAY cheaper to carry things on a ship than a plane. Due to the price we still needed to ship most of our things and would not be able to take them with us on the flight. So, we decided what was important to us and what we wanted to have with us for the first week at site because there was no telling at that point when a ship would be arriving with our things. A little annoying, but whatevs! This gave us one more night in Vila, which gave me the opportunity to get my nose re-pierced AND gave us two nights in Luganville after a hard first 5 days at site to retrieve our belongings from the ship once it came!

·         My village, Narango, where we live and spend most of our time, consists of between 400 and 500 people. Their local language is called Farsaf (sp) but most people speak Bislama. They tell us all the time that we should learn Farsaf and that Jessica, the volunteer before me, could speak it. We have learned some basic words and I guess will learn more as time goes on. We keep telling them that we want to get really really good at Bislama first and then we will start working on local language! We get stared at A LOT and we are pretty sure we get talked about in Farsaf A LOT. We think people are glad we are here, they are interested in us and they ask us a lot of questions about America. We have had the same conversation about 145 times now I would guess, but at least it’s good Bislama practice! We get asked about where we live, if we know Jessica, if we were at the place where 9-11 happened, how many people live in the US, what the military is like, how far it is from Vanuatu and if we have the same food as they do, and other questions like that. The pikinini (kids) call out to us all the time when we are walking through our village or to Cole’s village or around the island to different places. They just yell and say the same thing over and over no matter how many times we respond! Some of them run over to us and touch us or follow us for a while. In our village they mostly call out our names over and over again, they call me Karolean. When we are walking around other places they call out either “WHITE MAN, WHITE MAN” or “PIS KOP, PIS KOP” (Peace Corps in Bislama). It’s always like a little adventure when we leave our hut and go anywhere!

·         Cole’s village is about the same size. We haven’t spent too much time there yet. Cole has walked there 4 or 5 times and I have gone with him a few of those times. He has gone to his school and we have eaten with our host family there. He will start going there more regularly once school starts back, and I will go there with him once a week. They seem glad to have us, but a little less prepared for us as they have never had a Peace Corps volunteer.

·         One Saturday morning we worked on a water project with our brother Junior, our mama and some other people from our village. We had heard a lot about this, but still really had no idea what was going on. Understanding Bislama is still a bit difficult at times. All we knew was that a water pipe was being brought into the village from a water source a ways away and we were going to help get it there. We walked with Junior and some other Ni Vans down the road in the village for a little bit and then took a sudden turn into the thick bush. With no path at all, we walked through the bush for about 5 minutes before running into a large group of people who were already there working. I was almost immediately handed a large bush knife by some of the ladies in the village and told to come and help them clear a path with said bush knife. I told them that I had never used a bush knife before, so they taught me how and I helped them clear a path through the bush. They was a small boy, about 4 years old, who was the son of one of the women I was working with. His name is Jimson and he too had a bush knife and was helping. Embarrassingly enough, he was WAY better at using it than me. Cole was working behind me helping with burying the pipe in the ground after a hole was dug along the path we had cleared with our bush knives. It was hot and sweaty and we got very dirty, but it felt good to be helping. We worked for a few hours and then took about a two hour lunch break where we sat in the bush and Cole and I ate something out of a Tupperware that our host mom handed us. Neither of us were sure what it was, but we ate it all the same. After our very long lunch break, we worked for another hour or so before stopping in the middle of the bush. We were told that another group of people from our village would pick up where we left off on Monday. The pipe needed to be buried in the bush so that it won’t get destroyed. When the pipe project is finished it will be great because right now we use water in rain tanks, which are thankfully full at the moment, but may not be forever because the dry season is coming. The water pipe will bring water to a spigot that will come from a natural water source.

·         That same Saturday afternoon our host family came over to our house to help us build a stand for our solar panel, a shelf in our swim house, a bamboo fence around our little garden, and a little hut for washing dishes in. It was a very productive day.

·         One Sunday we had walked together to Cole’s village (about 45 min) where we talked with several people there and ate lunch. They were having lunch all together in a building next to the church that day in honor of a baby who was born the Tuesday before. The lunch was okay but the juice they gave us to go with the lunch was not. It was served to us out of large buckets and looked and tasted a bit like urine. We decided it may in fact have been urine. We’ll never know for sure. After that lunch we went to our host family’s house and had another smaller lunch with another round of disgusting juice, but this time it was green so thankfully it could not have been urine, right?

·         We headed into town after 5 nights at site, because we got word that the ship would be coming in with our stuff. Gabriela had arranged for a truck to pick her up first in her village (about an hour and 25 min walk from us) and then pick us up on the road on the way into town. We were supposed to be ready and waiting at the road between 6:30 and 7:00. We walked down the steeeeeep hill from our village to the road leading to town and got to the spot where we were to be picked up at a little before 7:00. The mosquitos were TERRIBLE and, of course, we had forgotten bug spray. We had to pace around to keep the mosquitos from eating us alive. We waited and paced and waited and paced for about 45 minutes, until we couldn’t take it any longer and just started to walk. We figured they wouldn’t be as bad if we were walking and the truck could just pick us up wherever we were. We walked for a little over an hour before the transport finally picked us up! We ended up spending two nights in town instead of one because the ship was supposed to come at 1:00 on Wednesday but did not arrive until 4:00 which was too late to take a transport to Gabriela’s site and then to ours before dark. We spent both nights at Kate and Brian’s house, saw all of the Santo volunteers, ate plenty of American food and used plenty of internet!

·         Friday, May 1st was not a good day. It was Labor Day here in Vanuatu so there was no school. We got up and I decided it would be a good day for washing clothes. I was outside putting powder soap and water in a bin with our clothes so that they could soak for a bit before we scrubbed, rinsed and hung them to dry. I came back in and Cole was sitting at our little table holding my phone and I could tell immediately that something was wrong. I asked what it was and he said “why don’t you come and sit down and have some coffee”. I didn’t. I asked again what was wrong and he told me that I had a message from our country director, Keith, to call my grandfather. I knew immediately. I called Poppy and he told me that Annma had died in his arms that morning at 11:00 am. After talking to Poppy, I talked to my parents and Amanda and Jen. I cried a lot and wished so very badly that I was in the US. I called Keith and asked if Cole and I could go into town on Monday and stay for a few days so that I could talk to my family using the internet when they were all together for the services. He approved two nights in town at a hotel with per diem for both Cole and myself. Peace Corps did not have to do that for us and I will always always be so thankful and appreciative for it. The two nights we spent it town were really great. We stayed at a hotel with a fan and internet, I got to talk to my family several times and we got to talk to Cole’s family and several friends. I appreciate so much all of the messages from friends (PC and back home) and family during that time. It was hard being so far away and those messages really did help. Thank you.

·         One Sunday we were supposed to go to church with our family but it was cancelled because there was a ded in our village (a ded is what they call it when someone passes away). She was a women with 6 kids, the youngest in class 2. Our brother Junior came over that morning to tell us not to go to church and to go to their house instead. We thought first that the funeral would be that afternoon but later found out that it would be the next day because people were walking to our village from other villages and would not make it there by that afternoon. So, school was cancelled for Monday so that everyone in the village could go to the funeral. It is custom here for the body of the ded to go into the house for a day and for friends and family to come and visit the body in the house and offer condolences. The women had died at the hospital in Luganville (we still aren’t sure from what. We have heard diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma) and her body had just arrived via truck when we were walking back to our house from our family’s. We could hear people screaming and crying long before we could see them. We walked up to the house to offer our condolences since we would be in town the next day and would miss the funeral. We did not go inside to see the body. We stayed for about 15 minutes, standing awkwardly in the rain watching people scream and cry. It was very sad. Once we got back to our hut we could still hear them through the afternoon and night. Some of the family had brought a cow that they had killed and others would be killing a pig for the friends and family to share and eat over the coming days. The family will not go to the garden to work and will not bathe or shave for 10 days. They will eat together, spel (rest and stay at home) and then have a big kakae (feast) on the 10^th day after her death.

·         Once in the back of a truck on our way back to site from town after Annma’s passing, we were asked by one of the 13 people back there with us if we had ever eaten snake. Cole told him no but that we had eaten frog before. An older man with very hairy ears and very few teeth was intrigued and asked us if we had tin frog in the US because he wanted to try it. We told them that no, we sadly do not have tin frog in the US. They eat a lot of tin fish here. We try to stay away, as it is quite disgusting.

·         We had a chicken in our bush kitchen for a while. She had laid 7 eggs and spent a lot of time laying on them in there. I was terrified every time I was in there that she was about to pounce on me. She was there when we went into town to get our bags off the ship, but was gone once we got back two days later. We haven’t seen her or the chicks. There are LOTS of other chickens and roosters that hang around our house all the time. The roosters start to crow around 5 am. It’s a real treat. They do eat the poisonous milpods though, so I’m cool with them hanging around.

·         Our cat, Pepper, is both amazing and terrible. She is kind of cute, she’s sweet and she keeps the rats away. BUT, she also constantly brings live lizards into the house and tortures them until they are dead and then eats them and the crushing bones of a lizard is not exactly a pleasant sound. She has brought in a dead rat once that Cole swept into our dustpan and deposited outside in the bush. And she has also decided that she likes to poop on our concrete floor under our spare bed in a corner. I assure you it is not easy or fun to clean cat poop off of a concrete floor! She likes to climb on the bamboo that is our ceiling and loves to jump in and out of the house through the opening between our walls and our roof at all hours of the night. Cole isn’t a huge fan, but he tolerates her and I even catch him snuggling her or letting her sleep in his lap from time to time.

·         One afternoon we decided to walk to the closest beach to us and see what it was like. The walk takes 1 hour 20 minutes. Clouds started to move in about half way through the walk, but we continued onward anyway. We finally got there and laid out my lava lava to sit on and shared a delicious pack of cookies that we had been saving. Then, about 5 minutes in to our little beach adventure the sky opened and it started to torrential down pour. We moved under a tree first but we were still getting soaked so we ran to seek shelter at the school you have to walk through to get to the beach. We stayed under the shelter for about 10 minutes until we realized the rain wasn’t going anywhere and walked back in it. Nice little Saturday.

·         On Mother’s Day we went to church with our family. Before church started a women came around with flowers and baby powder and was putting flowers in all the mama’s hair and baby powder on either side of their chin, as it is custom here to put baby powder on someone when they are being celebrated. She came and put a flower in my hair and baby powder on me, too. I thought this was odd since and I am not a mother, but I just smiled and went with it. After church we went to our family’s house to have a Mother’s Day lunch with them. When we got there our brothers and dad stood up and made a little speech and asked our mama and myself to stand up. They gave us both a salu salu (a Hawaiian lei) and they gave me a used white towel as a Mother’s Day gift. They were so sweet and so excited about it. I thanked them a lot but told them that I am not a mother and do not have any pikinini yet. They told me that it doesn’t matter and that I am a mama because I am married. So, I accepted my old towel and my salu salu gratefully and enjoyed my first Mother’s Day lunch with our family! I also insisted on Cole being super sweet to be for the rest of the day, as it was my first Mother’s Day ;)

·         The Monday after our beach adventure and my first Mother’s Day we decided to venture out again and walk to Gabriela’s site to visit her. That walk is only a little longer and wasn’t bad at all. No rain or clouds! We had a nice visit with Gabriela. She made me delicious non instant coffee from her fancy coffee maker, Cole made spaghetti and we watched Horrible Bosses 2. It was a good day. Also, a truck picked us up on our walk back before we had to climb our last hill which made it an even better day!

·         One afternoon, after a walk to Cole’s village we were back in Narango and had decided to go to the 10 day kakae (big feast 10 days after someone passes away) that was going on because of the women in our village that had died the week before. We were sitting and chatting with some men and, sadly, had to burst their bubble big time and tell them that Rambow is not a real person and is, in fact, an actor in a movie and that the US military is not made up of thousands of Ranbow’s. They were all very disappointed.  

h    The other day we were laying in our hammocks reading when we heard something outside. We live on school  grounds so it is not unusual for people to come by now and then or walk though the school to get to their garden. This particular man had a bush knife in one hand and a large stick in the other. Cole went and greeted him and asked him what he was doing and he told us he was looking for a chicken to kill for dinner that night. There was nothing to do but say, "ohhh ok" and then watch as he chased his dinner. Normal little afternoon. 

           We decided to come into town for a long weekend this weekend, as our schools are on break and all of the teachers at both of our schools have gone back to their villages for the break and are not around. We came in on Thursday and will go back on Monday. School will start the following Monday, May 25^th (A GREAT DAY IN MY OPINIONJ).

·         We got into the truck to bring us to town at around 7:15 am on Thursday after taking Pepper to our host families to spend the weekend and waiting for about 45 minutes (it was scheduled to leave at 6:30). We were driving through our village when we noticed several people crowed around to the left of the road. At first we just started to wave and a few people waved back and smiled. Then we realized that everyone was looking at one thing at that several of the mamas and children were crying or screaming. As the truck inched further up the road we realized that two men with their shirts off and giant sticks in their hands were having a little Thursday morning brawl. The truck stopped so we could watch the action. Several other men were pulled the two shirtless stick holding men off of each other while they all yelled at each other. Once the men were pulled away, our truck pulled away too and we wet on about our day. We will try to find out when we get back what the brawl was all about.

·         Tuesday was our friend Brian’s birthday and Thursday was Gabriela’s so we decided to cook dinner at Brian and Kate’s house on Thursday night to celebrate. Cole made a delicious meal and Hannah and Sam both came over. Gabriela hadn’t been feeling that great since lunch time and had been complaining about her back and stomach hurting. About an hour after dinner she started to throw up and proceeded to throw up about 15 to 20 times. The PC doctor that we were in touch with suggested we take her to the hospital. So, Kate, Hannah and I rode with her in a cab and Cole and Brian rode their bikes and met us there. The nurse man that was there was wearing board short and flip flop and was clearly unsure about what to do a lot of the time and was asking us for our opinions or approval on what to do or what he decided he was going to do. He gave her a shot that was supposed to stop her from throwing up. She threw up about 5 more times, he gave her some ibuprofen and a shot of an antibiotic and put her on an IV for a bit. About 2 hours later Gabriela said she was feeling better so he took the IV out, she threw up once more and we went home. Thankfully, she is feeling much better today. We think it may have been food poisoning, but who knows. Quite a little adventure!

     On Saturday we went to Million Dollar Point, which is a place where a bunch of WWII stuff was dumped by Americans after the war and has been there ever since. Some of it is washed up on the beach and some of it you have to snorkel to see. The visibility wasn’t great that day and it was really windy, but we did see some cool stuff and we collected some neat old pieces of Cocoa Cola bottles, sea glass and other little trinkets.

     On Friday night Cole went out for kava with some of the other Santo volunteers (I stayed in and read Harry Potter and watched Friends J) and they met some European guys who were sailing around the world and were here in Vanuatu for a little while. They asked if we wanted to go sailing with them on Sunday and we all gladly accepted their invitation. We met them at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday and left around 9:30 after the sail boat captain took us out to the sailboat two at a time on his dingy. We sailed around the island of Aora all day and got back around 4:30. It was really fun except for the 20 minutes or so where it was a bit rough and I thought for sure the boat was going to flip over any second! For lunch we had some pasta that the captain whipped up on board, some fish Sam’s boyfriend Batu caught, some boiled corn and some other snacks that people brought along. Most of us had never been sailing and these guys really seemed to know what they were doing it was awesome of them to take us out for the day for free! Good day!

·         We were very sad to be missing Crawford and Mcrea’s wedding this weekend and wished that we could have been there! We thought of you guys all weekend and love you both very much! BEST WISHES! We can’t wait to hear all about it and see pictures!!!!

·         There has not been much to do yet in terms of our “jobs” because when we got here there were only a few weeks left before the end of the first term and a two week Holiday. We have been observing in classrooms some, meeting people in the community and getting settled in. After the two week break we plan to assess all of the children at both Cole’s and my schools and then we will work with small groups based on the results of those assessments. I will also be taking classes into the library that was built at my school by the previous volunteer. It is a great library and is sadly not being used at all. We hope to help build a library at Cole’s school and we will also be co-teaching some. It will be so nice to have a schedule and regular things to do. Right now we do a lot of reading, watching movies on the laptop which we charge using our solar panel, napping, I write in my journal, Cole cooks in our bush kitchen, we play cards, and we go to our host families house for dinner every couple of days. We have a lot of down time and it can get very boring at times. BUT, we are taking it one day at a time and doing what we can to stay busy, be happy and eventually be helpful! Thanks for reading and keeping up with us! Also, as always, THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH for the letters, cards and packages. As I have said before, they are an amazing treat and we appreciate them so so so much! 

      Here are a few photos of Pepper, the view from our "backyard", million dollar point and two from our sailing adventure! I have a lot more that I would love to share, but these 5 took over an hour to upload and my patience is now shot! I'll try to post more on facebook!