Growing up in Vanuatu

There's nothing like leaving home, traveling half way around the world, shouldering some responsibility, declaring your independence, and taking your life's direction in your own hands to really make you feel like a child. Anita, a local four year old loves to ask me questions. After hearing that I'm twenty seven years old, she promptly and seriously asked “where are your children?” Not “do you have kids?” or “why don't you?”, but just “where are they?” Surely, a twenty seven year old must be hiding them somewhere and Anita wanted to play with them. My host papa explained once that because of my advanced age, it was assumed that I must be married and have kids. Since I don't, I don't get the designation “papa”. Instead I hear people refer to me as a “boy”.

It doesn't help that I have a hundred mamas. The local assumption seems to be that sure, this lanky young man has come from far away, seems to be educated, and has left his own family far behind, but those are precisely the reasons why he needs looking after. So, when I approach a bouquet of women in island dresses, I inevitably hear a chorus of “you sit-daon,” “you kakai,” “you spel.” It's not that I'm just a boy. I seem to be a barely capable toddler.

It's taken a year to move up the ranks. I've assured my sixth and seventh grade host sisters that I am as strong as them and I can carry my own water from the well thank you very much. Mama has seen me trudge up and down the hills behind her, hauling a spade to help her plant taro. Papa knows that I can hold my own in a conversation with visiting men around supper time and I can even tell a joke or two. Apu has even seen me cook. By now, I might be an adolescent.

Peace Corps told us a lot about “integration” when we first arrived. It's a vague word denoting acceptance on two sides; you accepting the local culture and perhaps more importantly, the local culture accepting you. It might also mean finding your place. I could tell I wasn't “integrated” at first because I was treated as someone special. When people weren't worried that I would crumble to dust walking up and down hills in the sun, they were worried that their special guest would be forced to eat with his hands so a cry would go out, “the white man needs a fork!”

I don't claim to be fully integrated, whatever that means. I've found my boundaries. Perhaps, though, after months of accepting what's going on around me to the point where I can take morning bucket baths and be thinking about something else the entire time, I've begun to be accepted as well. For me, it happened last week. I followed the host family to the Speech Day ceremonies at the end of the school term. I knew most of the parents there and many of the teachers. So, no one singled me out in a speech. No one hung a salu-salu around my neck. I wasn't special. Instead I was just Melonie and Josephine's older brother. Of course I should be there. When Josephine got first place in mathematics, the praise went to her and rightly so. Sure, I'd helped her with her studies, but that's what a brother is supposed to do. Then it hit. Mama was busy setting up mats, the aunts were corralling the kids, and the sisters were preparing the plates we'd brought. Mama looked over at me and told (not asked) me to go run after Uncle and help carry the big pan of soup. It seems that I'm now at least a teenager.

-- Daniel --