Hey Guys
Back in Vila for a week to take a break. I figured my lows are just as interesting to talk about as my highs so I'll include a (brief) summary of what's going on these days...
Things could be going better, but I'm trying to keep an optimistic outlook. Some of you already know about the problems I'm facing at site. They basically all revolve around the fact that my community has some socio-political issues such as land disputes and jealousy along with the fact that I'm a woman. My host mama and counterpart, Doris, is very controlling and tells me that certain people won't work with me in the village if I associate with other people. I was actually taken to the garden a couple times, but it was by a family with a questionable reputation. The way I see it, I'm an agricultural volunteer. Their village disputes have nothing to do with me. I'm an equal opportunity garden-goer haha. But I got into a lot of "trouble" with my host family for hanging out with that family. They chastized me for not telling them where I had gone even though I never tell them where I'm going if I ever go somewhere. They falsely claimed that they went to my house to see if I wanted to go to the garden with them (yea right!) and I wasn't there and they were so worried about me! Please. If I hadn't gone off with that one family, which they knew I had done all along, I would not have received a lecture about telling them where I was going. Several key community members have long since stopped coming to village meetings, market nights, and church due to land disputes and other petty disagreements. As a result, the cultural center committee has stopped functioning, cancelling an arts festival that I had promoted shamelessly in the province, in turn making me look like a complete idiot. The women's group has seen fewer and fewer participants. Last time we got together to work on the chicken coop we built two women showed up and one of them was Doris. She's the chairman of the women's group. I can't help but feel that she looks at me as her volunteer and that she's using me to alienate other women who don't like her so that she alone will benefit from the restaurant that we eventually will build with money we raise from the fowl project. In one sense, if she's the only one motivated enough to come and work then I don't mind that she's the only one to reap the benefits. But I can't help but feel that it's her actions and not others' lack of interest that is isolating my women's group. Every month we have a cooking group. At the first meeting about 30 women showed up. At the second, more like 10. A sign-up sheet has been up at the meeting house for two weeks now and nobody has signed their names to it. Not even Doris. So I told them all we'd wait to do another one until next year, as things "shut down" during the holiday season, as if things could actually move at a slower pace! So I'm just really bored and unhappy. I feel like my village doesn't like me or care about me. I feel ignored and tolerated.
I brought all of this up to Peace Corps and they sent my boss out to visit. He's notoriously absent-minded and careless. Sure enough, I feel completely unsatisfied by his visit. I practically had to chase him down in the provincial capital to discuss the site visit with him. I wanted him to understand my concerns before we went up there. He was so lax about finding a truck to take us up there that we didn't get there until 3 pm, at which point my village (understandably) got tired of waiting and most of them left. We got there and the village was practically deserted. They banged the tamtam to get people to come back but very few did. Luckily my host parents came back. I wasn't supposed to be there for the meeting so I sat in my house. Occasionally I'd look out at the meeting house and see a very informal affair going on. Fine. Ni-Vans are informal. The meeting ended and my boss went and drank kava with my host papa. Guess who wasn't invited. I felt like he had some alliance with my village that he valued more than his responsibility to me as a volunteer. We finally went back to the provincial capital. Once again I had to hunt Mark down at a nakamal to talk to me. He basically told me, between getting up repeatedly and playing with his cell phone, that he asked them about the community disputes and that they said there weren't really any. He told them they should work with me. They claimed that they're afraid to work with me because I'm never there. Unless they want me to stay in my house all day every day and never go anywhere that statement is ridiculous. That made me feel very discouraged. That was it. He told me to give it a few more months because now everything would revolve around Christmas.
So I came to Vila to use the phone, internet, and eat comfort foods. It was worth the expensive plane ticket to get my head straight. I'm still on the fence about what I want to do. I'm considering every option between just trying to get through the rest of my service, quitting Peace Corps but staying in Vanuatu as a volunteer with another organization, or going to New Zealand for a while to work. We'll see. This is definitely the toughest decision I've ever had to make. If you guys have any thoughts let me know.
Sorry for the buzz kill!
♥ Justine
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