Leaving Epi

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Good Afternoon,

Yesterday, at noon, I left Epi.

Epi island had been my home for two years. The people there had been my friends, my community, and my family. As hard as it was to adapt and change when I first arrived, it may have been harder to leave. During my last days on the island, I shook many hands, there were farewell feasts, presents exchanged, promises given, and tears shed. Perhaps I’ll tell some of you about that, but not right now and not here.

I am in Port Vila and will be leaving the country next Sunday, November 4. During these eight days in the capital, there is work to take care of at the Peace Corps office as well as details to attend to before leaving the country. Some of my fellow volunteers are here, but many are from the new group and I don’t know them as well and their perspective is, of course, different. Four of us are leaving this week. The rest of my own group have either left already or will be staying for another year. So, there will be much to do and more goodbyes, but I suspect leaving Port Vila won’t be the same as leaving my little village.

Over the next few days, I plan to put a few more stories here and let you know about what I will be doing after Peace Corps. If you have any questions you’ve wanted to ask or something you’d like to know more about, please put that in the comments section. For now, know that I’m well, if a bit drained, and I’ll be coming back to America soon enough. I hope to see you there.


-- Daniel --

Trip to Santo

Good Morning,

After Ambae, Andrew and I went to Santo to spend a week with the local volunteers there and to celebrate Kathy's birthday. Andrew is a fellow business volunteer stationed on Malekula. Kathy is a teacher stationed on Epi

Santo, like Efate, Epi, and other big islands, has a few small islands nearby. A group of us took a day trip to nearby Aori island. Pictured above from left to right are Kathy (Epi), Andrew (Malekula), Gene (Santo), and Michael (Santo).


Before we could leave, though, the boat driver had to wake up. Here he is taking a mid-day nap.

This is Luganville as seen from the water. Luganville is Vanuatu's second biggest town. There is a paved main road running from the airport, past a copra mill, and along the coast right through town. Luganville seemed to be about a kilometer or two long and two or three blocks wide and had the feel of a small midwestern town where nearby farmers come to resupply and socialize.

Aori island on the other hand has a small tourist area and not much else.

As you get off the boat to Aori, you will pass this tiny turtle tank made of concrete and shells. That little guy must get tired going around in circles all day.

This is a tam-tam, a traditional drum and statue that some villages in Vanuatu use to call meetings. They are now also used as decorative items. Tam-tams seem to usually have enlarged faces though they don't look very human. Some even have extra eyes and noses. This one looks rather stereotypical. Notice the necklace with two curved pig tusks around the neck. The pig tusk is a traditional as well as national symbol here. A man wearing two curved tusks like this would probably be a chief of some sort.

Some villages on Epi have tam-tams while others use a bubu shell, or conk shell, for calling meetings. My village just uses a big, loud metal gas can that you can bang with a hammer.

My idea of a vacation has changed over the past year and I'm satisfied with a well made cup of coffee at a cafe with a few friends. Being one of Vanuatu's urban centers, Luganville offers rare delicacies like hamburgers, cold beer, cake, and well made cappuccinos. That's Andrew, Kathy, and Michael above.

Did you notice the protective umbrella above our heads and the white notice on the tree in the back?

This is a real hazard.

This a painted tam-tam on the streets of Luganville. He stands just outside the town liquor store so I half expected him to be a typical cigar store Indian.

On my last night in Santo, I had an obligatory last shell of kava with Gene. Gene is a teacher at the local high school and was a terrific host, showing us around Santo and even letting me sleep at his house for two nights. Being a fully integrated local now, Gene brings his own cleaned out coconut shell to the kava bar.

I left Santo for Efate via the Santo International Airport. As I boarded the plane I noticed a yellow fire engine that looks suspiciously North Dakotan. Any ideas as to how that got here?

Back in Port Vila, I passed by the mama's market. Here are the flowers for sale right next to the sidewalk.

And here is another view of the market. Women from several islands will set up shop here for days at a time and some are regular representatives of their villages or areas. There is even a table that continuously sells roasted Epi peanuts.

In the photo above, you'll see lots of green bananas, brown coconuts, and since they're in season, yellow and green grapefruits.

Also chickens, 1000 Vatu (about $10) a piece.

So, my first day back in Port Vila ended with another beautiful sunset. After one week in Ambae, one week in Santo, and a few days in Port Vila, I'm ready to go back to Epi. I've been delayed the past few days because of a passing storm that prevented ships from leaving, but I'm told that today is the big day. At four o'clock I'll board the Big Sista (pictured yesterday) and leave for my own island. This recent trip to the capitol was unexpected, but pleasant. Until next time, farewell and may your travels be just as memorable and colorful as lovely Vanuatu.

-- Daniel --

Trip to Ifira Island

Good Afternoon,

When I arrived in Port Vila last Friday afternoon, one of the first things I did was take a quick trip over to Ifira island. Ifira is one of a few small islands off the coast of Efate and some volunteers refer to it as Port Vila's suburb. It certainly had a quiet, suburban, even wealthy feel to it. Kids and teachers commute over to Ifira five days a week for school. In fact, Peace Corps volunteer Jane is one of only a handful of teachers at the Ifira primary school that actually lives on the island.

To get off the "mainland" and over to Ifira, I had to jump in a water taxi that looked just like the bottom yellow boat pictured above. Transport to the island costs 100 vatu (about 1 US Dollar) and a boat or two run back and forth for much of the day.

I was curious about the smaller yellow boat pictured above. I'd seen it several months before as a raffle prize at Au Bon Marche, the major grocery store in Port Vila. I guess somebody finally won themselves a Sun Rice sponsored speed boat and has since pressed it into service.

All Aboard! I'm sitting in the back of a different yellow boat and we are taking on more passengers near the Port Vila mama's market. That's the Big Sista in the background, a larger island hopping passenger vessel that will take me back to Epi tomorrow. The Big Sista is how I got from Epi to Efate last December on the first leg of my Christmas trip to Tanna.

Port Vila harbor has several yachts stationed in it on any given day. Some just pass through while others, like this one, seem to linger for months. The owner seems to be cleaning the boat or doing maintenance.

That's Iririki island in the background, a resort just off the coast of Port Vila. I have no idea how much those seaside bungalows cost per night, but it's probably more than I can afford. We had to pass Iririki to get to Ifira.

We are about half way to Ifira island. I guess when this is your daily commute, you pass the time by reading the paper, sending text messages, or covering your head and napping. While I was snapping photos and grinning at my adventurous self, these folks were probably just thinking about getting home and making supper like I would on a subway train. Yep, just another beautiful post-card view on the way home. How dull

In the distance you can see Star Wharf, possibly the main conduit for outside trade in Vanuatu. Yet, look how small it is. Also, if you look over the sea wall at Port Vila and into the bay of the busiest port in the country, you will see straight to the bottom through clean water with live coral and fish in it.

One of the kids was so bored by his fifteen minute boat ride to yet another tropical island that he just fell asleep. I was looking at orange colored clown fish in the water below, but I guess once you've seen one beautifully fragile clown fish from a small boat in the South Pacific, you've seen them all so why not nap a little.

There's Ifira. There seemed to be a higher level of development or more wealth on the island. Notice the concrete houses and the large church with iron roofing.

This is Jane in her house at the school on Ifira island. She came to Vanuatu at the same time I did and works mainly in the school library. Despite being in Vanuatu for a year and a half and despite how easy it was to get to Ifira, this was the first time I'd visited Jane.

Since so many people ask about volunteer accommodations, let me point out that Jane's house seems typical for our teachers. It's mostly concrete with an iron roof rather than bamboo or timber walls and a thatched leaf natangura roof like some of us have. She's even got electricity and a small refrigerator.

Jane works at the nearby school five days a week and although she has had some issues with the institution, she has said some wonderful things about the kids she gets to work with.

Speaking of kids, I was sitting around with two of the teachers after school had finished and some of the boys started a mini-football game nearby. Eventually, many if not most of the students would go back to Efate where they live, but they seemed to trickle out slowly and some lingered to play.

That's a mango tree in the foreground so of course I asked about it. I was assured that during mango season, the ground is simply yellow all around and the teachers make the kids rake up rotting mangoes so the place doesn't stink.

Unfortunately, I was too slow to get a good photo of Jane hurling stones to run off some big marauding pigs that had wandered onto the school grounds. The teachers told me pig-stoning had become one of Jane's adopted duties.

The teachers and I were sitting with out backs to Jane's library watching the football when to my left, two small children came outside to see who the visitor was. I noticed in my brief time on Ifira that the school children were a lot more talkative with their teachers and even to me, the strange white guy. Compare this to Epi were even students who know me are too shy to talk to me much when I pass through the high school grounds at Laman Bay. A few Ifira students took the chance to practice their English on me.

Inside the library, there is a big world map on one wall. This is a common project for Peace Corps volunteers around the world. Students enjoy making the map with the volunteer and for some, it is the first time they've seen one. I now from sharing my big, laminated, store bought map in the village that many people have no idea what the rest of the world looks like or where Vanuatu fits in.

Walking around Ifira a bit with Jane, I saw lots of maintained paths like this. The island has no trucks or truck roads. It may seem silly, but when I walk through a new village I always take note of the paths and hedges and make a snap judgement of how old and how organized the village is. This one looks old, but moderately organized on the Daniel Community Path Judgement Scale.

Here's a typical house on Ifira. Notice the concrete, the iron siding and the store bought wooden sheeting. They even have a white plastic rain tank and metal rain spouts.

Che Guvera seems to show up all over Vanuatu, just like Bob Marley. I have no idea why. His likeness is on trucks, buses, shirts, and now houses. Yet, I've never heard anyone say his name and I know lots of people don't know about Cuba. No one has yet muttered anything about a Marxist rebellion either.

What a view. This is the Ifira church with Port Vila in the background. I think the church is Presbyterian.

These school girls have boarded the boat and headed back home to Efate for the evening. They are sitting on the boat's roof even though the boat is mostly empty, but that's not uncommon.

And then, back to Port Vila.

That concludes our boat adventure to Ifira island. We hope you had a pleasant ride and will avail yourselves of our offerings in the gift shop.

-- Daniel --

The Boys Who Would Stop the Rain

Should you ever find yourself on “the island of lost people”, don’t leave your shoes outside at night. If you ever come to the place called “wild banana island”, be careful you don’t run into the Devil. When visiting the island sometimes called “Urah”, look out no one spikes your kava. And, if you happen to be on this island that most of us just call “Epi”, whatever you do, stay far away from the poison ducks.

Any would-be visitor to my lovely island, Epi, should be ready for a somewhat jarring encounter with the local beliefs. Expect to be told that your foot sores are the result of a malevolent magic man coming in the night to poison one of your sandals. Visitors are welcome to take in the beautiful beaches and swim in Epi’s turquoise bays and don’t need to worry about traveling out of bounds as the kids will look out for you. There is a clump of large stones amidst a copse of mango trees at the end of the beach near my village. When I was wandering too close at sundown, some friendly children came storming in to take me back. Turns out the Devil himself lives amongst those trees. It’s not uncommon for him to take the form of a dog and attack people at night. The water is safe, though. Our local magic shark hasn’t been seen in a while. We never did find out who threw the leaf in the water that summoned it in the first place. It was probably the same couple who threw leaves inside of coconut shells into the water last hurricane season to make the water rough for a week.

When something happens, there’s usually a man to blame. When a knife goes missing from the kitchen, it was stolen. No matter how many times the kids come back with it later after cutting up navel nuts, the next time it’s gone, you can be sure stealaman was around.

Got the flu? You didn’t go to the neighboring village and drink their kava did you? The people in the next village are notorious poisoners. Better steer clear of strangers offering food and drink too. As someone who has traveled around the island, however, I should clarify that the poison man is always in the next village, never this one.

A few vatu missing from your pocket? It’s time someone told you about a different kind of stealaman. Sometimes a man goes to a store with a high value bill. After making his purchases, getting his change, and leaving, he pats his pocket. The bill he gave to the store keeper is now magically in his pocket again and he still has his purchases and change. This can happen to you too if you’re not careful. Mr. Stealaman can just sit down next to you and your basket. After a short conversation and a quick pat on his pocket, your money will have left your pack and is now his.

Don’t think this kind of thing is tolerated passively though. The would be Peace Corps volunteer on Epi can expect to contend with one more delay in addition to the usual weddings, funerals, and holidays. My water committee meeting in North Epi was postponed for a day so that everyone could attend a witch trial. Some of the stores and a few individuals in the area found they were missing some money and two men seemed to be building their new block houses suspiciously fast (months instead of years) so they were suspected of doing the pocket trick. The men had also been accused of traveling about the island suspiciously fast, having been seen in Rovo Bay and Lokopui on the very same day. Instantaneous transport being another sign of dark powers, the men were brought before the village court. No solid evidence was presented, however, and after being made to swear on a bible in church that they don’t do magic, the men were released. The case remains unresolved.

My own village was largely empty one day for another witch trial. Papa Mawa had been very sick a month prior and now it was time to find out who was to blame. After half a day of meeting and discussion, there were still no leads and no suspects so the matter was dropped. That particular hearing took place in nearby Malvasi where this kind of thing seems to be a growing concern.

A Malvasi church elder died this year. The doctor says it was because after getting sick, the man refused food and water for three days and by the time he was taken to the hospital it was too late. A vocal contingent doesn’t believe the doctor and keeps alive the notion that the church elder was poisoned. Someone must have gone into the bush and done something with some leaf and maybe sang something. No one knows who, what, or where.

Another man died just weeks later. Suspicion is rampant. A mama reported a certain bird sang out at night which means someone else will die soon. The poison threat level has been raised and the warnings against taking food or kava in Malvasi and elsewhere have gotten more shrill. To top it off, during the crying ceremony for the recently deceased, a duck flew into the village and landed on the temporary shelter right above the body. Some men started throwing stones at the poison duck, but accidentally hit some of the crying women which caused a brief row.

Outside of the Malvasi threat zone, you have to worry about men in the bushes posing as dogs beckoning you to follow. If you do, they’ll kill you, of course, so stay to the road. It’s reported that long ago one of the transforming dog-men convinced a Christian missionary to go into the bush and killed him. With his dying breath, the missionary looked skyward and asked God to curse the killer. To this day it is said that the descendents of this man in North Epi are afflicted with eyes that are always looking up. I’ve been invited to go see them.

At night, you should probably just stay off the roads all together. More direct “poison” can be inflicted at night by people in the bush who see you passing by and then make a custom sing-sing. But, if you must walk about at night, at least don’t carry a banana in your pocket. The dead and buried love bananas and night time travelers carrying bananas or even banana lap-lap may be attacked by the risen dead. Yams, taro, manioc, and kumala are fine. Epi zombies just like bananas.

Business owners have their own set of worries to contend with. To start with, when discussing a new business venture or a village project with a small group, a spy may come to listen and discuss. The spy may later do something to make everyone else in the group forget the whole thing. If you do manage to get your store, kava bar, or market house off the ground, there’s still the chance that someone will spit kava in the general direction of your building while stating a curse like “may that business be covered in grass”. Expect your business to be covered by the encroaching bush shortly after.

There are a few defenses available. Some say a ring of salt water around your building will protect it. Don’t go overboard with the salt, though, as it can block the good magic as well as the bad. There is a local leaf that I’ve seen rubbed on babies with sore bellies and farmers with sore shoulders. The patient must abstain from salt for at least the next day or it will counteract the medicine. The same goes for a concoction made from the fruit of the “Noni” or “Stinkfruit” tree. A terrible smelling tea made from the small white fruits can apparently cure almost anything. Stay away from the salt though.

The boys who would stop the rain must have forgotten this. For us on Epi/Urah/Banana Island, the rainy season began with a dramatic opening ceremony on a Tuesday evening. Weeks of moderate temperatures, sun, and light showers, suddenly gave way to daily downpours and a blanket of humidity that enveloped you in sweat before breakfast. This was inconvenient. There was to be a lafete on Thursday and some men took it upon themselves to push back the onset of the rainy season for just a few more days.

Now, attempts to control the weather are common on Epi and unlike a lot of the suspected negative magical activity mentioned above, I’m confident that people actually perform the ceremonies for weather magic. To start with, last hurricane season I would invariably be asked for the name of the approaching hurricane at the first sign of a big storm. We have a few men reputedly with the power to block and divert hurricanes, but the song they sing must include the name of the hurricane. I’d like apologize to the people of Tanna who got hurt last February. The eye of that hurricane was supposed to pass right over Epi, but the path change a few days before reaching us. Locals credit our weathermen.

The Tuesday of the big rain was the start of a three day struggle for meteorological dominance. It was reported that two different groups were simultaneously going through the procedures for blocking the rain. The teams had left their villages, gone to the bush, and were chewing and spitting leaves while making their sing-sing. The rain continued. Locals credit the influence of another, unnamed, group of malevolent people who must have wanted to spoil the lafete and so conducted their own clandestine ritual somewhere. Thus began a three day contest between man blong sun and the unseen man blong rain.

On day two, Wednesday, the rain continued. This time it was suggested that the rain blockers must have eaten salt which would necessarily block their powers.

By day three, I hadn’t much faith in man blong sun. For one thing, they were all so young. Having heard about men turning into dogs, poison sharks, and magic leaves for so long, I started asking questions and it was surprisingly easy to arrange a meeting with our local weathermen. As I walked along the road with my apu-woman toward the village of the lafete, there they were, a small group just up the hill, hanging out. I was invited to join them and there, sitting on a hastily made bamboo bench were three very young men watching a young papa tend to a fire in a small stone grotto. Hanging above the smoky fire was a bundle of leaves, drying. A separate fire was heating rice and chopped kava root was scattered in between.

They readily explained that the leaves were being dried over a fire made from a special wood. The cooking fire was made from a different kind of wood and the two should not be mixed. All day, the boys and their teacher were to abstain from water, drinking only green coconut water, and were certainly not allowed to ingest salt. And there they sat, hour after hour, chatting and watching the smoke dry the leaves. We had been fortunate in that there had been little rain on the actual day of the lafete. When the rain came back, it was these men’s job to chew and spit the leaves at the rain. They also had a separate kava root chewing, spitting, and singing job to perform.

They explained that they were actually a different group from those that had failed over the past two days. The problem had been that the others had conducted their ceremony inside the village and two many pregnant women had walked by. Being just up the hill from the road, they would be free of these women’s magic blocking potential and would still be able to chat with passersby on their way to the event.

So, the lafete continued with only the smallest of showers. Villagers were grateful that finally someone could properly manage the weather and kept the boys fed. And they did try. They were up there most of the day, but just as the village mamas started opening up the lap-lap pits, the weathermen came down and swam in the saltwater. We got very wet on the way home.

-- Daniel --

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 --

Trip to Quatangwele village, Ambae

Good Afternoon,

My small and soon to be extinct group of business volunteers recently took a trip to Ambae and spent a few days and nights in Quatangwele village. Here we are!

Mac, the woman in the middle wearing blue, lives in the village and has been helping the locals with business classes and planning some bridge projects.

Now, Quatangwele is way on the Northern end of Ambae and even the locals consider it to be removed and remote. Our gaggle landed at the Ambae airstrip and were the day's entertainment for the few other people around. After a nice night in some bungalows, all ten of us and our luggage piled into a truck and headed out on a dusty and progressively more dangerous road to North Ambae. The photos below don't do justice to the fact that we were all clingling for life. I sat on a wheel well in the truck bed and clutched a bracket on the side of the truck while others were seated on the truck bed's rim. One of us had to sit on top of the truck cab and those in the back looking forward would periodically warn him of low hanging branches.


After an hour or so in the truck, we reached the end of the road and climbed up a steep hill for another hour on foot to reach the village. Exhausted and bewildered, we still managed enough energy to partake in the village's welcoming ceremonies. We were taken across a dry creek bed just outside of the village near some banyan trees while the villagers prepared. As we began to cross the creek bed into the village, several of the young men came at us, wearing charcoal face paint, green leaves, and traditional woven clothes. They yelled in their local language and made a big show of threatening us and trying to drive us away with sticks and spears. Then, one of them calmed the others saying the equivalent of "it's okay, they bear good news" and our would be attackers became our escort into the village.

We did a simple local dance once in the village proper and went through an opening ceremony where were all given a salu-salu (floral necklace / lay) and welcomed officially. Each of us was given an opened green coconut kissed by the eldest chief. By drinking this, we would be protected from poison and sickness for the duration of our stay.

The people of Quatangwele had also prepared a kava ceremony for us in which we were all lined up, sitting on our haunches, and facing the ocean. we intoned the local word for kava, "malo", as a sort of "cheers" and drank out of matching bright plastic tea cups. One of the chiefs and a few of us volunteers also took the opportunity to spit kava into the night and shout in order to drive off any malign spirits that might ruin the week's program.


There were two parts to our stay in Quatangwele. We spent half of each day attending to our internal business group stuff: sharing success stories, taking care of administrative details, and talking about what we are going to do with the rest of our time at our respective sites. The other half of each day was spent helping the village with an ongoing project of theirs. The people of Quatangwele have been building a new church using concrete, local timbers, and iron roofing. Some of us hauled cement up that damn hill while some collected sand and small stones from the nearby creek bed. We also did a lot of digging and leveling and prepared a section of the church floor. Brian, pictured in a red shirt, has some building experience, or at least more than the rest of us, and with his help we demonstrated the right way to layer stones for the floor, mix the concrete to avoid later problems, and finished a small area of the floor. We didn't have time to finish the the entire church, of course, or even the entire floor, but we were able to share some lessons and work with the villagers so that they will be able to avoid some building problems common in Vanuatu.

There were other things we did with the village that I don't have pictures of. Carla and I taught some people how to make a few new dishes with locally grown ingredients. I introduced green thai curry, which is particularly tasty in Vanuatu because you can pick cilantro and basil just before you need them and the coconut milk is also as fresh as you can get.

The biggest benefit may have been in just chatting with people. We were told several times how the village doesn't receive many visitors and had never had nearly this many Americans or white people all at once. For five days we were peppered with questions about where we were from, what America is like, and even what life is like on the islands we each came from. I'm begining to suspect that the main benefits from my own service on Epi will be stuff like this that is hard to photograph.

So, here we are on our last evening in Quangwele in front of their unfinished church house. The village is spread out among the hills and some of the 80 or so residents weren't here for the photo, but at least you can see the bearded chief on the right who kissed our protective green coconuts, the young chief in the middle just in front of me who acted as our guide for the week, and all the little kids that followed us around all week, who are inexplicably making what look like gang signs in this photo.


-- Daniel --

Stories To Come

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Good morning,

We are finishing our twentieth month in Vanuatu with about seven more to go. It was time for my business group's second round of mid-service “training”. Last August, we gathered in Port Vila for a few days, went through our successes out at our respective sites and took care of administrative stuff. It seemed that the biggest benefit to our training was just hearing what other volunteers were up to, sharing tips, and talking. Since we can do that anywhere and we are supposed to be helping people, we decided that our March 2012 training should be in a rural village. We would still be able to see each other and share, but we might be able to help someone else while we're at it. I am now on my way back to Epi from Quatangwele village in a removed and remote part of Northern Ambae.

Quatangwele (quah-tahng-way-lay) is one of those villages that even people from the island of Ambae consider to be remote. We only spent five days there, but I feel it was one of the highlights of my two year service. I'll be sharing stories about Ambae later.

After Ambae, I flew to Santo island for a one week vacation. Yes, Peace Corps gives us vacation days just like at any other job. We also receive a modest living allowance deposited into our Bank of Vanuatu savings accounts every month. Since I don't spend much of that money on Epi, I was able to travel around Santo a bit, get some good meals, and relax. It may seem odd to take a vacation from one undeveloped tropical island to visit another, slightly more developed tropical island, but I wanted to get away for a little bit more than anything.

So, it's been two weeks since I've last been on Epi. I'm now working my way back and have booked passage on a ship leaving on Monday, but there are predictions of a major storm coming through this weekend and I may be stuck. At least I'll have time to share stories. What would you like to here?

-- Daniel --

Dear Rajko

Dear Rajko,

Greetings from Vanuatu. Your post card is in the mail

-- Daniel --

Dear Michael - Books I've Read

Dear Michael,

Yes, there certainly has been time for reading. I read more when it rains, when I'm sick, or when I want to check out for a little while. Peace Corps-Vanuatu has been like traveling through a “Choose Your Own Adventure” novel in some ways. Unlike other jobs I've held, I rarely feel that I'm ever not on-call. So, I could read a lot more, but then I feel like I'm missing out on something or that there is something useful I could be doing.

With that said, I do read a lot, just not as much as I could. My Dad in America got me a subscription to The Economist which is printed in Singapore and arrives a few weeks to a month late. It's been fun to share the magazine with my host family and a few other regulars. Many of the adults learned enough English in primary school to at least ask questions about the headlines. Mostly, they just look at the pictures and we talk about them. About once a month, I bring out my big laminated Pacific centered world map and point to the places on the map where the people in the pictures are from. We've managed to have a few good discussions about where Islam started and spread and who is Osama bin Laden. Where is South Sudan? Where is the famine in Africa and why is it happening? And is it true that Brazil is not part of the United States? We've even discussed the Arab Spring and the rise and fall of the British Empire. I'm continually surprised by the questions that people have been wondering about for years and never had a chance to ask.

I've also raided the collection of books donated by Peace Corps volunteers in Port Vila a few times and I've found a few good things to read at the Epi High School Library. Here are the highlights:

• Moby Dick: This was my second read through and it's just as good as it was years ago. The first few chapters where the friendly American Ishmael gets to know the Melanesian Queequeg are a lot funnier now. Host mama Susan saw the cover, a picture of men in a boat hurling a spear at the eye of the big white whale. She seemed rather concerned that those men were “spoiling” the poor whale-fish.

• Persian Fire describes the lead up to the Greco-Persian wars, but describes the very real events in a more accessible, almost novel like fashion. I recommend it. The author also wrote a book about Rome called Rubicon that I plan to read when I'm back in America.

• Pride of Carthage is a fully novelized rendition of the rise of Hannibal Barca and his brothers and the fighting of the Punic Wars. Unlike Persian Fire, this one just attempts to tell a story without being constrained by things like historically researched “facts”.

• In keeping with the theme of big men with swords, I'll be taking Empire of Silver back to Epi. It's the fourth in a series of books I read in America about the Mongol Empire.

• Anna Karenina is almost done. I've been reading it off and on for months and may finish it someday soon. Kathy has a copy of War and Peace that I might have to tackle next.

• Blink by Malcom Gladwell was good and has led to some good discussions with the other volunteers.

• The Holy Bible: I live and work in a very Christian society where people know their text. It had been a few years since I last read this so I did it again.

• Various business and economics books have sneaked in too and there have been several stupid novels that one can finish in a few days.

• The next big reads will be some books sent by Ashley Westby and some from my parents. I've also picked up Leaves of Grass, The Wind up Bird Chronicles, and some more economics junk to keep me going.

I hope they still have libraries in America. More importantly, I look forward to having people around that I can really discuss all of these books with.

Oh, and Michael, did I ever have a Dune strategy? I recall just issuing empty threats and following a line of chaos that seemed more like some kind of anti-strategy.

How was New Orleans? When discussing local naikamas (black magic) on Epi, I mentioned that there is a city in the South of the US where tourists take voodoo tours and there is a story of a zombie werealligator. It took a lot of talking afterwards to convince the group that Rougarou isn't real.

-- Daniel --