So I'm in the capital for the day. Our trainers are giving us some time to buy presents that we'll give to our families when we swear in. I wish that the village wasn't making such a big deal about exchanging materialistic possessions as it goes against their own kastom economy, but I guess it'll be nice to offer some token of appreciation.
The weather here today is great...like I said we're in the cooler season. Today's probably around 80 degrees, sunny. It rained just as I went inside to eat lunch (a bacon cheeseburger and fries, yum!) and finished as we came outside. I usually eat at this place called Jill's American Cafe. Jill is great and has a good relationship with the PC volunteers. No discounts though, hehe. I've just been walking around, shopping, trying not to break my ankle in potholes. I bought a couple of long skirts. The ones I brought from home are nice, but hard to work in the garden with. I forgot that everything kindof shuts down here after noon on Saturdays until Monday mornings, so I won't get to buy some of the things I wanted to, but they can wait. I'm looking for a cheap guitar mostly. I hate shopping as it is and the crowds here on the weekends don't help that much. Plus every store around here is a "Chinese shop" which basically sell the same things. Luckily the grocery stores have a lot inside them and they're open late. Heidi, you'd really get a kick out of them :)
I'm going to post (hopefully) most, if not all of my pictures today on facebook. So once again, bug Ben to send them to you. Sorry I can't forward them here, but internet time is few and far between and I'd hate to upload them twice.
So much has happened in the last few months it's hard for me to pick just one or two things to describe. I'll just describe my day yesterday:
I wake up everyday around 3 am when the rooster decides to start screaming outside my window. His scream usually incorporates itself into my dreams for a bit before I wake up and realize that it's not someone yelling. I curse the rooster and try to go back to sleep before he crows again. Around 6 I wake up to the sounds of my little brothers and sisters playing in the yard and/or my papa playing the guitar and singing songs of "devotion." They're all very religious here. I try not to make a noise as I do yoga--if they hear me moving around they immediately demand that I eat breakfast, or, as they say here, "drink tea." Yoga is great, and almost a necessity, after sleeping on a 1-inch pad that's been thrown over some wooden slats, hehe. My back always feels completely better after some yoga. Around 6:30 I finish and wrap a sarong, known as a lava lava here, around my waist. Even around the house it's preferred that you wear a skirt or dress. But the way I see it, not to sound too cynical, my little brother and sister walk around in their undies. If the mamas are going to treat us like children (actually called pickaneenees here), which they do, then I feel like we can wear long shorts every once in a while and no one says anything about it. Anyway, I walk to the toilet, which is only about 10 meters from our house. I hover over a toilet (sans seat) and go about my business. There is toilet paper and I'm told I'm fortunate to have a tiled floor. My house is definitely nicer than everyone else's. When I finish, I fill up a bucket with hose water and dump it into the toilet. There are several kinds of toilets in Vanuatu. This one is a water seal, which is basically a long drop toilet with water. There is a huge hole underneath where it all goes. Bush toilets are just holes in the ground. I will have a long drop at my site, which is basically a bush toilet with a wooden bench built over it for me to sit on. I WILL be purchasing a toilet seat, hehe. At least then I can bleach the thing.
Anyway, enough about toilets. I go eat breakfast and tok tok smol wetem famli blong mi (talk a little with my family). I change my clothes. Usually I put on an island dress. If I'm going to be washing clothes around here with a brush and soap, I'd like to be getting the island dresses, and not my own clothes, dirty. Washing is rough on fabrics here. Then I'll straighten up my room. There are these little worms that come into the house at night. They like to crawl up my walls and fall down with a loud smacking noise when they hit the floor. They usually die and curl up into these spiral shapes, which I sweep daily out of my room with coconut fronds. I've stopped making my bed because pulling my mosquito net up and over the bed is annoying work. I wait for my closest volunteer neighbor to arrive at my house and then we set out for the mile walk to school and gossip about the weird things our family does and/or how we made fools of ourselves trying to cook lap lap.
When we get to school I usually brush my teeth. Drinking water is scarce at my house because we don't have a water catchment. My family drinks the river water, which is probably okay, but I still don't do it. We get there early, so I pull out a book or Newsweek or write a letter. School starts and I just try to be patient through what seem like endless pointless boring sessions. The trainers mean well, but I think it's hard for them to find constructive activities for us to do day in and day out. I get through the boring days by making instant coffee or going to the ocean after lunch for a bit.
School usually ends around 4:30. To get home before dark I have to leave by 5:00, so I just kindof hang out for a little while. Volleyball is huge here, thank God. We have a lot of fun volleying it back and forth. We have a lot of soccer fans here too, so we just stand in a circle and some of us bump the ball around while others head butt it, kick it, knee it, or whatever. Our ball went flat the other day so it's kindof sad to watch us desperately try to make it work, haha. I think we're gonna try to find another one today. We all get pretty excited to play sports around here. School is a lot of sitting around and watching the nice weather outside. The Ni-Vans don't exactly know the rules though, and oftentimes there will be wayyy too many ppl on the field or court to have a decent volleyball or soccer game. Oh well, it's fun anyway.
I love my walks home, especially if I'm alone.
The sunsets are amazing and the whole world turns pink for about five minutes around 5:10 pm. I'm the only soul on the road except for a few cows here and there that blink at me. I put one side of my earphones on (in case a truck comes) and listen to my ipod. I get a lot of thinking done in those 20 minutes.When I get home my little brother, Anjem, usually runs towards me shouting my name...Leitonga!!! That's always a nice feeling. In a country where physical touch is so taboo, it's nice when children sit on your lap or hug you from time to time. My mama usually says "Ah, yu kam bak lo skul naoia," which means, "you've come back from school now." At first I didn't know how to take these statements of the obvious. At first I just smiled and nodded, thankful that I could even understand what she and others were saying to me. Once my Bislama got better I began to see if I could joke around with them and say something like, "no, I'm still at school." Sarcasm is completely lost in translation here. The man I'm replacing, Josh, told me a funny story about how he invented his own alter-ego by the name of "Captain Obvious." Whenever he converses with someone here, he invokes Captain Obvious. I started doing it the other day and it works like a charm. When I walk down the road and see a woman with a ton of yams on top of her head I say "Oh, you're coming back from the garden now." They're always so happy and nod their heads. I then say, "I'm going home now, good night!" and they say "good night" back. It's great. That's a whole conversation here. That's all they want...Just to know what you're doing and where you came from. They're very nosy here. It's quite common to ask people if they're married, how old they are, etc. So I just tell her about my day and ask her if she needs help with anything.
We "story on" for a while and eat dinner around 6 pm. Afterwards we story on some more and I go to my room around 7 or 8. I usually read or do homework or watch a movie on my ipod. I love technology. I've been eating my vitamin c chewables as candy, is that bad? Haha. It's a nice life, I have to admit.
So I swear in on the 26th. The president of Vanuatu is coming, which sounds like a big deal but he's kindof just a figurehead around here. The guy with the real power is the prime minister. Yes, they have both a president and a prime minister. Anyway we'll show a slideshow of pictures of us and our families, which I know the families will absolutely love. We're going to perform a song in Bislama and exchange gifts. Then we'll, of course, drink kava. I miss out on a lot of kava drinking because I live so far away, but I see that as a good thing because I feel like I'm closer with my family than the others are with theirs. My mama and I get along really well.
The next day we're all moving back to Vila. Me and a few other volunteers will run around like crazy for two days buying stuff and making arrangements because they're gonna fly us northern volunteers out on Sunday morning to go to Santo, the largest island in Vanuatu, where we'll be expected to stay for a couple of days and finish shopping. When I get to my actual site we'll have that 4th of July party and then I'll follow Josh for a few days to get his take on the village and what not. Then I'll be on my own and I'll have to learn the dynamic of yet another village and learn yet another language. It'll be like coming to Vanuatu all over again. At least I'll have plenty to write home about.
As for packages, I will be able to receive packages and mail on Ambae. My new address will be:
Justine Beaulieu
Peace Corps Volunteer
P.O. Box 33
Lolowai, Ambae
Vanuatu
No computers or internet, sorry, but I will give my cell # out when I get one. I don't get service, but if you leave me a message and tell me when to call you back (at least a day in advance) I can walk to the top of a hill and call. There is also a landline that works maybe four months out of the year, hehe. They may also give me a satellite phone, which I could use to text you guys anytime and vice versa. Those almost always get service too, but calling is expensive.
Sorry plane tickets and sending packages are so expensive...They really do mean the world to me, even if it's just a pack of jerky, hehe. I would love to see any of your smiling faces out here too, but life is rough here and it is expensive. You would be treated like family and royalty and would have a great time though!!!
Love you guys!
Justine
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