It's been a little over a month since I got here and I have sooo much to tell you! We've been stuck in Epau for almost a month now. No computers and no televisions! At least not in my neck of the woods. I live about a 20 minute walk away from the Peace Corps office where we have school learning the language and culture M-F. Saturdays we all hang out mostly and Sundays we have church.
My host family is great. My papa is about 29 years old and my mama is about 26. My little brother and sister, Dorah and Anjem, are very cute.
Nobody here knows exactly when they were born, hence the approximate ages. It's very different, hehe. It's felt a little like prison here to be honest. Every day I go to school and it's very boring. My Bislama is coming along okay, but the teaching sessions are redundant and often pointless. I try to exercise the patience that we'll need for the next two years. It's gotten to some ppl though. Tensions are a little high, but we're all helping each other cope and get through it. This trip to the capital was a life-saver, hehe. Anyway basically I go to school, then come home and help my mom with chores and "story on" with my family. I take a bucket shower with ice cold river water, which actually feels really good. We eat dinner and story on some more, then we go to bed. Women aren't allowed to wear trousers, so most of my days are spent in the island dresses, aka mumus. They're pretty funny. 
Breakfast consists of either crackers with peanut butter or bread with peanut butter. The bread here is the most delicious I've ever tasted and I don't think I could ever tire of peanut butter. Lately they've been giving me fried bananas, which is tasty. Instant coffee with evaporated milk is served with every meal. At lunchtime the mamas bring food to the PC office for us. It's usually rice, manioc, taro, yam, grapefruit, tinned meat, or noodles. Not bad. Dinner is about the same. Although last night my mama made tuna with green onions, lime juice, coconut milk, and rice. It was amazing! So all of you who said that I'd lose a lot of weight, think again, hehe...I'm eating wayyy more carbs than I know what to do with :) Of course the boys are all getting thinner...what the hell?!
On a side note, my mama is pregnant. She'll have the baby in September. She told me that if it's a girl, she'll name her Justine. If it's a boy she'll name him Benjamin...how cool is that Benny Boy??? You might have a little Ni-Vanuatu boy running around here with your name! I've shown them pictures of my friends and family so they all know what you look like hehe.
Out of the 21 volunteers who originally came to Vanuatu, only 17 now remain. One broke her foot in six places falling down the stairs. Her recovery time was too long so they sent her back to the states. She might be coming back next year. Three have opted to go home for various reasons. The remainder of us are going strong though. We've all gotten our sites assigned to us and today we went to the All-Volunteer Conference, which is why I'm in the capital right now. The conference is on this island called Iririki. It's a resort that costs roughly $9000/night for a suite, which holds about 7 ppl. As the Ni-Van say, it's "flas tumas" or very expensive. But it's soooo nice, I couldn't believe it. Because we're only trainees we were only allowed to go there for a few hours, but we can go back next year and stay. DC is actually trying to cut All-Vol from the budget, but we all think it's pretty necessary seeing as how it's the only time all of the volunteers can fly in from the other islands to see each other. Really no other PC country has so many islands.
Anyway I got to talk to the guy I'm replacing, Josh. He's a pretty cool guy and he showed me some pics of his village. I'm going to a village called Lolovoli on Ambae. It's a small island north of Efate.
It's cool because women are valued more there and actually have some status. They actually are the ones to kill pigs during the marriage ceremonies. Sweeeeet. Ambae has a volcano with two lakes on its top-the highest lakes in the South Pacific. 
They're slightly acidic, so you can go swimming in them for a little bit and make your skin super soft, hehe. Everybody says my site is the nicest on the island-right out of a National Geographic magazine.I'll be going for training about slope stability on Nguna, another small island this weekend. Then it's Emau, another island, for agriculture training. I'll meet my new Ambae host papa and talk more with Josh. Next Saturday is "Walkabout week" where I'll go to my site for one week and scope it out. Josh is leaving me his house for the week and I'll be on my own! It'll be a great time to find out what I need and meet the nearby families. He has a bunch of stuff that I'm going to buy from him so I don't have to worry about shopping or shipping. After that I'll come back to Epau for another month or so of training. That will be the hardest part...continuing training after I've already tasted what the rest of my two years will be like.
My internet time is running out so I gotta go but I'll be back in the capital in a couple weeks and I'll write again... Miss you guys!
Love, Justine
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