Pictures from Epi

After a return from one of my trips to another village, I found my host family diligently cleaning our area by the ocean. Vanuatu seems to constantly going through both Spring and Autumn at the same time and leaves are always falling. Still, when you visit the villages you won't see much debris about. That little house is a shed my host papa built to hold bags of dried copra until the copra ship comes. The family and any visitors will sometimes gather down here on hot afternoons, especially on Saturdays after church, to enjoy the breeze coming off the ocean.

My host sister Malonie is busy working.

Meanwhile, a fisherman is cameoing by. There is a taboo on the reef in the bay by my village so fishermen have to paddle to the ocean outside of the reef to catch fish. I've heard that the ban may be lifted soon so we can fish the reef again. "Blocking" a reef or an area for conservation purposes or for some other reason is common.

This is the road just North of my village. Notice the giant banyan/nambanga tree on the right. The road is pretty good during the dry season and my island even has a few trucks.

Visitors to Epi can stay at the Paradise Bangalow (sic) in Laman Bay, one of the bigger businesses on the island.

Laman Bay has a long stretch of black sand beach. People from Laman Island come over almost every day on boats like this one to tend to gardens on the "mainland". A few still make the journey by canoe.

I think that's Ambrym on the left and Lopevi on the right as seen from Nikaura village in North Epi. Ambrym is the much bigger of the two islands, but is further away. At night if the Ambrym volcano is active you can see a red glare above the island.

Pandanus trees provide the long, strong leaves used to weave mats and baskets. The leaves are cut off from the tree and dried in the sun before they are rolled, trimmed, sometimes dyed, and then woven.

This is the Rovo Bay market house. Market day is every other Friday and is one of the bigger events on the island. Trucks come and go with produce as well as sellers and buyers. I hang out for most of the day and people know they can find me there to ask questions or talk about projects.

This is Papa Daniel coming back from the garden with a watermelon and a pineapple. Not to brag, but you just haven't had a pineapple until you've had a Papa Daniel pineapple.

Papa Daniel here is my host Papa on Epi. He's also my friend and a very good man. He and Mama Susan are wonderful people and I'm grateful I get to spend two years with them.

-- Daniel --

Preparing Epi Kava

This is how we make kava on Epi. Different islands have different styles, but this one is ours.

First, clean and cut up you kava root. You need to be diligent about scraping all of the dirt off and then rinsing the roots a few times. As in most things, a bushknife is your best friend.

All around Epi you will find these home made kava rammers called ton-tons. It's a short length of PVC pipe, usually left over from some sanitation project, attached to a wooden base. After putting the diced kava root into the ton-ton, Simon is pouding the kava root with a metal pipe and mashing it.

After ramming the kava, the mash is poured into a bowl. You'll have to tap the ton-ton to make it all come out. A lot of villagers seem to have the big round bowls you see here. When old floating buoys come to shore, the villagers collect them and saw them in half.

The mashed root is still dry...

...so a few shells of water are added.

Just like coconut shavings, you need to work the kava a bit with the water and squeeze it a lot. Eventually, squeeze all of the juice and water out of the kava root into the bowl and set the root aside. This might happen a few times to get it the right consistency and strength.

The kava is then strained. I've seen a lot of people use a black women's skirt like this one. After the kava is strained, the skirt will be rinsed out and the kava may be strained a second or even third time. Unfortunately, there will still be a little grit in the stuff when it's served, but no one drinks kava for the flavor or the texture anyway.

Here we are sifting kava again.

Simon is squeezing out the last of the kava from the skirt sifter. He's gone through a lot of work just to make the stuff less disgusting.

Drink that stuff in a hurry, because it's nasty. Kava drinking doesn't have much ceremony on Vanuatu, unlike Fiji and a few other places. The shelter we were under was short so I'm sitting, but it's common for people to drink while standing after having walked a few paces away into the shadows and to drink their kava very quickly in private. After a few minutes of spitting, grunting, and maybe some swishing of water, they'll return, give back the shell and sit down.

My friends here, however, were eager to demonstrate every step of the process for the folks back in America so they asked me to come take a shot of them drinking a shell.

So, come to Epi, drink, storion, kakai, and be welcome.

-- Daniel --

Pictures from Epi

Good Afternoon,

I've returned from my Christmas trip to Tanna and after fighting with my dying computer and the local internet speeds, I should finally be able to share some photos.

This is a view of Laman Bay in Northwestern Epi as seen from a hill between Laman Bay and the village of Wenia. Laman Bay is the biggest village on the island and is where the Epi High School is located. You can see our landing strip in the photo, but the school, houses, and market are blocked by trees. Trust me, there's a village in there.

This is the island of Lopevi as seen from the Northern part of Epi. I have been traveling to some of the Northern villages to meet with water committees and to help with some ongoing water supply projects. Lopevi is a large volcano that seems inactive now, but has erupted within the lifetimes of people on Epi. There is a village in Northeastern Epi called Ngala where the people of Lopevi settled a few generations ago when the volcano was getting bad. I've heard a local story that there is still one old man living on the island who didn't want to leave. Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to go and check for myself as people rarely go over there now. Also, I've been told that if people who are not part of the community that still retains customary ownership over the island travel over there, the volcano will erupt. Apparently, women traveling above the treeline will also cause the volcano to anger even if they are part of the Lopevi/Ngala community.

Moriu is a village in Northern Epi right along the coast. Over the years the villagers have piled up black stones to make a small sea wall. The island's road runs between the wall and the short, stone beach. The building pictured is the village nakamal, where I've met with committees and given brief talks to villagers.

This is the inside of the Moriu nakamal. Like most nakamals on Epi, Moriu's is made out of locally harvested timbers and covered in natangura leaf thatching just like my house. The stumps that make up the lower walls are black palm. Nakamals on Epi are community meeting halls and can be used for marriage celebrations, fundraisers, village court, council meetings, and the occasional Peace Corps class or training. People usually sit on the benches running along the edge, but may put down a mat on the coral as the man in the photo is doing.

My trips to Northern Epi have taken me to Lokpui village which is built on top of a cliff that goes down to the saltwater.

The boy is scratching out a coconut using a special stool with a metal grater on the end. I've scratched many a coconut into a bowl to make the shavings we mix with water and squeeze to make coconut milk for cooking. This boy, though, is just making sure the chickens are fed.

These trumpet flowers seem to grow all over the island. Supposedly, they are poisonous.

Like almost all Epi villages, Lokopui is built along the coast with an abrupt jungle starting just behind the village. These houses are much like those in my village and are made of local timber, woven bamboo walls and natangura thatching. The big brown coconut fronds hanging on the roofs are left over from the hurricane season. When coconut leaves are still green, they are very heavy and when tied together and draped over a house they can keep the roof from blowing away during a cyclone.

Here is another village nakamal or maybe a community kitchen. It's one of the smaller one's I've seen.

Walking east of Lokopui, I ran into this little guy. He seemed friendly enough and didn't seem to care that I was inches from the watering hole he found in the road after the big rain.

In fact, if you want that pig, I found out later that you can have him for a good price.

Continuing East of Lokopui, I climbed up these steps cut into the cliff to a little station on top. This is the kind of road you might have to follow on Epi when the truck road ends. These roads always seem safe when going up, but less so when going down.

Here is the view of the appropriately named Big Bay as seen at the top of that carved stair case. You can follow the black sand beach below all the back to Lokopui and a few other villages.

My Mom in America read my previous entry about local toys and felt compelled to send us a box of play things. Here are Kelvin and 16 month old Maralyn playing with a barrel of monkeys. Maralyn would later be covered in clinging plastic monkeys which has developed into a common game we play called "put the monkeys on whatever baby is at hand".

Just arrived in Port Vila

I'm passing through Port Vila on my way to Tanna for Christmas. I arrived last night on one the transport ships, the Big Sista, and I'll be in town until Wednesday. The staff at the Peace Corps office will be keeping me busy with dental and medical checkups and reports and I'll be using the time in the capital to run some errands for the projects I am working with on Epi. Over the next couple days I will try to upload some pictures and maybe a few stories. If you have any requests, please ask.

On Wednesday, I'll be flying to Tanna along with Kathy, another volunteer from Epi. We will be visiting Eamaio, a village on the far side of Tanna, away from the air strip, Tanna's town, and the tourists. It will probably be much like my village on Epi, but I've been told they have a big celebration for Christmas. My village didn't do much of anything last year so I've decided to go somewhere else for the holiday. It will mostly be a vacation, but Jake, the volunteer we will be visiting, has some work for us as well.

I will try to post some photos over the next few days and then a few from Tanna before disappearing again.

-- Daniel --