Family Changes

Let's back up a little. I started to write a closing post to my Peace Corps experience and before long, realized that (because I hadn't written in so long) I was going into tangents within tangents within tangents. So I'm going to create a few separate posts to keep things simple.

The subject of my first post will be Susian's pregnancy. I won't go into all of the details, but suffice it to say that she told me that she was pregnant shortly after our trip to Naviso. My host parents weren't exactly jumping for joy, especially when Susian's baby's daddy disappeared, but they eventually got over it. They began to view it as happy news, even more so when they learned that my brother Hensley, who lives in Vila, was going to be a father soon. Suddenly my family dynamic changed. With school back in session and Susian taking it easier, my family began to struggle. Food around the house was more scarce, in direct contrast with the dirty clothes and rubbish, which were piling up. Also, Susian could mo longer spend nights at my house.

So I slept alone at nights. Worthless Stuey was out chasing females. I was so frightened at night that I couldn't fall asleep until I heard the roosters start to crow around 3 am. Some nights, I pulled my mattress out into the sitting room just because it made me feel safer. Two weeks hadn't passed before I asked my cousin, Shelda, to be my new roomie. (Shelda on the left, Susian on the right.) She moved in and what a difference! First of all, she decorated her room with pretty fabrics and mats, which Susian never did. She swept floors, washed dishes, and brought me food! I love Susian, but living with Shelda was awesome. Because Shelda was trying so hard, I found myself trying harder as well. I would walk her back to her house almost every day and hang out for a while.

And thus it started. I would go to my family's house for dinner, only to find that there was barely enough food for them. I felt guilty asking for a helping, even when I contributed. So I started going to Shelda's house for dinner. They had been bringing me plates of food anyway, and their food was soooo good. I still tried to hang out with my family, but my mama was always going to the garden and Susian was usually resting.

My family became the subject of gossip within the village. People were already talking about Susian's pregnancy, but pregnancy out of wedlock wasn't anything new. However, Susian's morning sickness was particularly bad and she could stomach only a limited range of food. She lost a noticeable amount of weight and people began to question how well our family was taking care of her. Once they saw that I was no longer eating with them, people really started to talk. Fact of the matter was that my papa spends his days hungover from kava, then nights drinking the stuff, so my mama was bearing most of the work every day. I felt guilty that my spending so much time at my auntie's was hurting my family's reputation, but I didn't know what else to do. I was so much happier there. My auntie and uncle were better educated. They had more daughters so their place was cleaner and there was more food and people to talk with.

So the last few months of my service went like that. The larger Susian got, the less we'd have to talk about. She began to hang out more with the mamas, while I spent more time with the girls who had yet to marry. Sortof an abrupt ending to this post, but it has to do with later events so stay tuned...

Home Stretch

Sitting here at the hotel feeling really strange. Tomorrow I go back to my island for the last time. This trip to town has been a lot of fun and very busy. Sandy and I are putting on a Kamp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) and a Kamp BILD (Boys In Leadership Development) when I go back to the island and I've been running around town buying things for them. For three days we will host 40 young men and women from the main villages of Central Maewo, giving sessions on things like Goal-setting, Decision-Making, Adult Reproductive Health, Leadership, etc. We have to figure out a lot of logistics like where everyone will sleep, shower, what they'll eat, who's going to cook, lalalalaaa. Luckily there are about eight other volunteers coming to help us. The workshop participants are really excited to meet volunteers from other islands. It should be fun.

I bought all of my plane tickets home yesterday. I was really surprised at how emotional that was for me. I've been looking forward to seeing my friends and family for so long that the repercussions of leaving didn't really hit me until I clicked that "confirm" button to buy the ticket out of here. I'm going to miss this place a lot. Things here are so much slower. Less stress, worry. More forgiveness and love. That sounded really hippyish, but it's so true. Okay, gonna sign off now, maybe I'll get on and write a bit more soon. Otherwise, I'll write a little something next month when I come back into town.

Walk to Naviso

I am not an experienced hiker. In fact, I believe I’ve done more hiking in my service here in Vanuatu than I ever did back in the U.S. I’m not necessarily a city girl, but I come from a suburb just outside of D.C. and my circle of friends was made up of photographers, singers, musicians, and actors. I always liked to be outside, and I enjoyed playing sports, but hiking was always something that seemed a bit weird to me. Okay, so you buy all this fancy gear to go walk for miles and miles? Hmmmm. I saw the outdoor appeal, but just never got around to actually doing it. That’s not to say that the D.C. area doesn’t have nice places to go hiking. To name a few places, there’s Rock Creek Park, which is very beautiful and not challenging. Sugarloaf Mountain is up in Dickerson, MD. My dad and step-mom used to take my brother and I up there. There’s Cunningham Falls in Catoctin Park
and my personal favorite is Great Falls,
which separates Maryland from Virginia and can be viewed from both sides in a national park with nice trails and views of the C&O Canal. It is with the experience of day trips to such places that I immigrated to Vanuatu, completely confident that I would be up for the bush walks and whatever else. Over the last two years I have done quite a few hikes. All of them have been challenging and all have made me realize how inexperienced I really am. I laugh to think about the hikes I did in Maryland as I look down at my mud-covered, flip flop adorned feet. One of the more recent hikes I have done was a trip from my village, Narovorovo, on the Western coast of Maewo, to Naviso, which is on the Eastern coast and a little north. Ever since I arrived on Maewo, I have heard many stories about East Maewo’s lone village. White sand beaches, lobster, coconut crab, naora, fish, clear cold swimming pools, etc. I felt like it was a must-see before my service was up. But it’s always been near impossible for me to gauge the difficulty of proposed hikes based on what Man Vanuatu tells me, and I think it’s because they have no idea what I am or am not capable of. Some of the really fit Ni-Vans will tell me that it’s really close, no problem whatsoever. Some of the mamas will say, “wokabaot slo slo…” Some of the older or more overweight Ni-Vans will shake their heads, but then say, “be, yu wan yangfala so maybe bae hemi olraet.” I’ve learned that it’s best to just prepare for the worst and do the walk. The following is a tale of an experience when I didn’t prepare myself quite so well, and what ensued as a result.

Since coming back to Maewo from my trip to China, I felt restless. I had been in the village for two weeks, one week of which was spent in bed with a bad cold. I wanted to go to the garden, walk up to see Justin and Sheridan, just do something. One evening, sitting outside of my family’s kitchen with my sister, Suzy, she told me that her and my brother and cousin would be walking across the island to Naviso the next day. “Bae yu kam wetem mifala?” Looking back, I don’t think she really believed I’d agree, which explains the surprise on her face when I immediately said yes. How bad could it really be? I had practically walked across Tanna, so long skinny Maewo wouldn’t be a problem. It’s rumored in the village that Gwen, the volunteer I replaced, had walked to Naviso and then some in just one day. This wouldn’t be so bad. I packed a bag for two nights, filled my water bottle and camel pack, prepared a first aid kit, and set out.

The purpose of our trip was interesting. People on Maewo believe strongly in kastom magic and medicine. Jealousy inspires the poisoning of dozens of people on a monthly basis, who in turn have to be cured by a kastom doctor. Soon after learning that he had passed Year 8, my brother Larry dislocated his shoulder. Apparently a stingray had come and slapped Larry’s shoulder with his wing. According to my mama, the stingray had been sent by someone who was jealous of my brother’s success. I’m not sure if Gabriel, the kastom doctor in Naviso, is Maewo’s only kastom doctor, but he seems to be the most popular anyway.

We waited until about 10 am to leave so we could get to the other side before high tide. Once you reach the east coast there’s still about a two hour walk along the coast to get to the lone village. The walk was easy, mostly just going through level gardens, crossing creeks here and there. It was all very beautiful, but very hot. After about 90 minutes, I had to rest. I sat down and immediately vomited. My heart was racing and I was shaking. I knew it would be foolish to try to keep going, but I knew I couldn’t turn back either. Instead, I told my sister I would sleep right there for a little while. I realized that I ran the risk of multiple cheekings after the walk due to the fact that I had to spell, maybe even have that be the story they tell about me to future volunteers. But there was nothing I could do. About an hour later I sat up, ate some baked taro, and felt good enough to keep going. We walked through the muddy bush for another hour or so before we came to the summit and could see East Maewo. All we had to do was climb down and walk along the beach, but we had to hurry to make it before high tide. But the climb down was long and steep, leading me to announce several times that I would sleep on the hill. Even Stuey had to be urged down the slope and slept in the grass whenever we rested. He even vomited. That made me feel better actually.

We reached the bottom of the hill but were still racing the clock. Where was the white sand beach? All I could see were the black stone beaches that we have on West Maewo. My sister explained that the stones were a recent development; that the ocean had washed the stones onto the shore. I was skeptical, but was ready to believe anything at that point. So I picked my way carefully along the stones, observing the underground springs that bubbled up on the beach and the small waterfalls that we encountered. We admired all of the random objects that had washed up on the shore from who knows where. Actually, most things that had labels on them were from Fiji, but one did say “propiedad de tarantia” on it. There were paintbrushes, markers, sandals, etc. In people’s houses you can find larger items such as barrels, Styrofoam boxes, and old fishing nets used as hammocks. But the most popular items people like to collect along the beach are plastic bottles. About halfway to Naviso we realized that we would never make it before the tide came in. We came upon a bush kitchen
and settled in to sleep. Jarina went to gather bananas while Suzy made a fire and I went to swim in the river. Refreshed, I came back and went through my photos of China with the others before we had our dinner of boiled bananas. We storied some more then laid down. I didn’t sleep much that night, as I was constantly pulling off various insects and snails off my body, but I was glad to be awake for the sunrise, which was probably the most beautiful I had ever seen.

We set out early and continued on the black stone path. The merciless sun felt hotter on the east coast of the island. Luckily the path cut away from the coast and into the bush, where we found some relief from the heat. The first thing I noticed in Naviso was a clear blue ice cold swimming hole. Children jumped off of tree branches into the pool as men swam all around. I wanted nothing more than to throw my bag down and jump in, clothes and all. Unfortunately that pool was only for men, and the women’s pool was a little farther along the way. We eventually came to a large half permanent house. We went inside and relaxed for a bit before they brought us something to eat…more bananas. After scarfing those down, we walked a little ways to the pool where we could swim. It was crowded with mamas doing their wash and pikanini swimming. The screaming and crying began as soon as I entered the clearing where the pool was located. Now, it’s been a while since I have been the cause of such angst and terror, so it took me a while to realize that I was the cause of the disturbance. Unlike the large deep pool I observed the men swimming in, this pool was nothing more than a large puddle. But it was cold, which is all that really mattered. People stared as I splashed around and then sat along the edge of the pool. They spoke language, asking my sister questions about me while I hoped my smiles and nods were appropriately timed. After a little while, a rather large woman with a friendly face waddled up to the pool. She rendered herself topless and splashed down into the pool with the grace and fervor of a hippopotamus. I’m not trying to be mean; she purposefully threw herself into the pool in that silly way as to entertain me. Apparently she couldn’t speak Bislama so our communication and resulting friendship revolved around body language and goofy physical humor. When Suzy asked me in Language if I was hungry and I replied in the affirmative, this woman, Lusian, ran away with more speed than I could have thought possible, and had a leaf full of simboro manioc in my hands before I could say…hippopotamus. Oh. My. God. My family being flas as it is, we rarely eat laplap of any kind. In fact, at the time I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten simboro, let alone simboro manioc, obviously the best kind of simboro. And this lady had milked it and put salt on it too! I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Suzy looked at the three large pieces in front of me and told Lucian that I usually could only eat one or two pieces of simboro, tops, and was surprised when, just a few minutes later, the leaf was empty. I think it was that that sealed my friendship with Lucian. On the days that followed, Lucian would come visit me and bring simboro manioc, an arrangement that I couldn’t find fault with.

The food in general was delicious. I couldn’t figure out why the food in Naviso would taste so much better than food in my own village. Maybe it was more coconut milk? Salt? It wasn’t until the third day that I noticed the small gold tin of monosodium glutamate in the corner of the kitchen.

Eventually we walked back to the house and hung out. We roasted breadfruit, rassed banana and fried it, and storied. Talk about a vacation. My hostesses were extremely accommodating and wouldn’t allow me to lift a finger. I refused to let them talk me out of doing the dishes and rassing the bananas, but as my sore quadriceps healed from the walk to the village, I accepted that I wasn’t allowed to go to their gardens with them. Larry had an appointment with the kastom doctor the next morning and we were to leave for home the next day. Plenty of time for my legs to get better.

The next day, Larry couldn’t find the kastom doctor until late in the day. He gave Larry a leaf to eat and told him to wait four days to see if it would work. In the meantime, I was whiling away the days with no idea as to when I’d be going back to my village. My 25th birthday was fast approaching and I wanted to be in a place with mobile reception so I could talk to my family and friends. When the kastom doctor told Larry that he’d need to give him a second leaf because the first hadn’t worked, I knew I would have to spend my birthday in Naviso. I was pretty disappointed, but knew that it would be a very memorable birthday.

While my hosts were away at the garden, I didn’t have much to do but read. Luckily I had brought Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut with me. I read it twice. One day Jarina took me for a walk throughout Naviso, which is actually comprised of four villages, only one of which is actually known as Naviso. It was a nice easy walk, but very hot. The village was beautiful, and the school was a sight to see, as it had a vast waterfall looming up behind it on the right. The houses were all kastom, built of bamboo and natangura. The grass was trim and green and clotheslines traversed the yards. The villages were connected by narrow paths through the bush. All in all, it was a beautiful place.

On my birthday, Jarina and her family killed two chickens and prepared laplap taro for me. It was a delicious meal and afterwards we went for a swim in the pool. By that time it was dark outside and the stars were bright. Swimming in this pool is how the women bathe. So I was only mildly surprised when the others started to take off their clothes and dive into the pool. They all urged me to do the same and I obliged, softly saying, “be…skin blong mi i waet lelebet…” making me way more visible than my counterparts. No matter. I swam in the ice cold water with the others under the stars. It was such a free feeling and I really enjoyed myself.

My remaining days in Naviso were pretty uneventful. Not only did my stay coincide with
the school vacation, but also Jarina’s parents were in Santo. It was kindof like going to stay with a bunch of teenagers. Instead of eating baked laplap we would eat the rassed banana and fry it. Kindof like the difference between Mom’s macaroni and cheese and Easy Mac. When the kastom doctor decided to try a third leaf on my brother, Suzy decided to walk me back to our village the next day.

The morning we left, my leg muscles were almost 100% better. We had been in Naviso for almost a whole week. We set out around 7 am. We made it down the black stone beach in 90 minutes and up the hill from hell in about the same amount of time. Much to my surprise, the whole walk took only five hours. As we started nearing my village, we encountered friends in their gardens, all of whom exclaimed that we had just walked back from Naviso. I couldn’t believe how far away some of them were from the village itself.

Several weeks after my trip, I look back on my walk to Naviso and am glad that I finally did it, but I don’t think I’d ever do it again. Villagers no longer talk to me about how great Naviso is, and I no longer feel something nagging me to go and see it. After that walk, I feel that much more confident in my abilities as a hiker. Maybe I’ll turn over a new leaf when I get back to the States and show my artsy friends what a real hike is all about

Trip to China

So China blocks blogspot. So all of my travel updates have been via email. I'll do a recap for whoever hasn't been in the loop...

Seeing as how I had already experienced Christmas in a Ni-Vanuatu village, I decided to try something new for Christmas 2009. I ended up going on a month tour of China via Sydney with Dan. Other than Vanuatu, I hadn't seen any other country besides the U.S. and I had been in Vanuatu for 20 months. I was very excited to begin our trip.

We spent two nights in Sydney, eating Western food, drinking delicious beer, and seeing the sights. I loved Sydney. It's a gorgeous city (if not pricey) and there's water everywhere. The weather was pleasant as well. The opera house was a bit disappointing, but I had a lot of fun just people watching. It was strange wearing a dress that went up to the mid thigh region, hehe. I had some difficulty not staring at people, but I don't get to see a lot of white people other than the other volunteers now and again, and Australian fashion is so different. Also, Dan was nice enough to see the second Twilight installment, New Moon, at the movie theater. If I wasn't such a fan, I'd say the movie was a bit dull, but I just love all that tension between Jacob and Edward haha...

We spent five nights in Hong Kong. As our journey went on, our enthusiasm and energy for cramming in as many sight-seeing activities in a day waned a bit, but the cold we both caught might have had something to do with that as well. We hit HK hard. We mostly just walked ALLLL over the place. I discovered that's what I like to do the most when sight-seeing. Other than those featuring natural history, I find most museums to be a bit boring. In China the museums featured all of the same things: jade, ceramics, bronze, calligraphy, watercolors, etc. Not to say that it wasn't impressive, it just got a bit repetetive after a while. There was a really neat museum featuring the tomb of an emperor from around 1000 B.C. (don't quote me on the exact date, but it was B.C.)His body was wrapped in small jade pieces and red silk ribbons. He was buried with live human sacrifices, animals, ceramics, and more. Anyway, HK was cool because it had helpful tourist signs everywhere and we were able to walk around without having to look at a map too much. We stumbled upon a lot of cool market streets with exotic foods and trinkets. We even went to an amusement park and rode a rollercoaster. There was a dolphin show and I cried I was so happy, haha. We saw parks, gardens, etc.

We found it a bit difficult walking around the city. Pedestrian signals at crosswalks were hard to find and the cars moved quickly. Maybe it was just a lack of practice, but I was terrified. On our way back, we discovered that the city has an extensive pedestrian overpass system that connects the larger buildings. No crossing roads and worrying about speeding cars. I was impressed. Too bad we didn't discover that the first time around. HK also had a nice metro system. The double decker buses were cool too, except for the time we got locked inside of one, hehe.

Next was Guangzhou. Just a short train ride from HK. We had a bit of trouble finding the hostel, but the three nights we stayed there were nice. One of the highlights from Guangzhou was this dim sum place we went to. It was something like 5 stories, each story packed with hungry patrons and delicious food. A good portion of the ground level was an aquarium of fish and such ready for the eating. Amongst several delectable items, I ate frog for the first time. Tastes like chicken, of course. Another day we got ourselves pretty lost wandering through a meandering market, probably the biggest and most exotic market we saw in China. There were fuzzy chickens, for crying out loud.
And these weren't chicks. Guangzhou also had a really good metro system, but two separate train stations with similar names. I think one was Guangzhou Railway Station (East) and the other was the East Guangzhou Railway Station.

Next up was Shanghai. The train ride was about 16 hours and it was very crowded. There were three seating selections in the train: chairs, hard sleepers (which is what we had, basically just two sets of three bunked beds in each compartment), and soft sleepers, which were considerably nicer and had access to a dining car. For that particular journey we had the middle bunks, which had little head room, you couldn't even sit up.

We took a bus from the train station to our hostel. As the bus had an electronic sign and voice to announce every stop we found ours relatively easily. We learned quickly that the bus drivers there are completely insane and that the bicyclists and mo-ped drivers are pretty ruthless as well. We got a lot of good road-crossing practice in Shanghai. There was loads of construction going on too, which made walking around even more difficult. Luckily, there was Yamazaki...everywhere. Yamazaki is a cafeteria style bakery chain that sells some of the most creative and delicious pastries ever. I've never been a big fan of pastries, but soon we were frequenting these establishments at least once a day. It was hard to resist at $1 a pop.

On a side note...many nights were concluded with an episode or three of Arrested Development. If you haven't seen this show, and you have any sense of humor, you MUST watch it. It's only three seasons and it's one of the funniest shows I've ever seen. Please, I beg you...watch it.

One day, on the way to seeing the Bund (a road in Shanghai known for its rich history and interesting architecture) we ran into a group of two Chinese tourists and their guide who wanted to practice their English with us. They were a quirky group and asked us to go see a tea ceremony with them. The guide spoke almost no English while the two women spoke pretty well.
The tea ceremony was wonderful, if not a bit expensive. At one point it occurred to me that they might just be ringers for the tea ceremony, but they were so fun and accommodating I didn't care. At one point the guide was trying to explain a Chinese proverb about love through his cell phone's translator. When he showed it to us it said something to the effect of lobster bits on top of garlic green beans.

After Shanghai we took a short train ride to a city called Hangzhou, supposedly one of the prettiest cities in China. I agree. Although there was no metro system, the buses seemed in order and there was a huge lake in the middle of everything. Gorgeous.
It was a pity it was so cold, because there were lots of boats willing to take us out on the water. I get my fill of boats in Vanuatu anyway I guess. We basically just did a lot of walking around. Towards the end of our stay there I came down with a cold so we took it a bit easy. We had to take a train back to Shanghai to catch a different train to Xi'an, the last city in our tour of China.

The ride to Xi'an was equally crowded and about 18 hours, but we had the bottom bunks, which made all the difference. Xi'an was China's capital back in the day and is at the beginning of the Silk Road. It was an extremely important city, hence the walls. The walls that exist today were built in the late 1300s and don't surround nearly as much of the city as the original walls did. The city is also surrounded by a moat. Very cool. In fact, Xi'an was freezing. There were even traces of snow here and there. The hostel was really cool. We went on a tour of the Terracotta soldiers, which was awesome.
I didn't realize that it was going to be an excavation, I thought there would just be lots of clay soldiers all around. We also wanted to see the Emperor's tomb, but we couldn't find enough people to do a tour. There was another emperor's tomb that we could've gone to, but people aren't actually allowed inside as it's said to be too dangerous. It's rumored that there are rivers of mercury underground with the body. We walked around the walls surrounding Xi'an, which I'm told put European castle walls to shame. It looked as though you could put four lanes of traffic on top of each wall, for their width.

We wandered around for a few hours before we found the Muslim Quarter. It wasn't as spectacular as all the other tourists made it seem, but maybe that's because we had already been touring through China for a couple of weeks already. There were a lot of interesting sights and smells, that's for sure.

The ride back to Guangzhou took about 27 hours. In fear of boredom, I bought a cheap gaming console called an "Ear" which really is a p.o.s. but I can play Mario World and PacMan on it so I'm happy :) Fortunately the train was almost empty and we had the entire compartment to ourselves. When we got to Guangzhou we had to take the metro to a different station to take another train into HK. During our last couple of days, we gorged ourselves on Indian and Mexican food, so much so that neither of us could drink the champagne that we had bought to bring in the new year. Very disappointing, but I had no regrets, hehe. We saw the Sherlock Holmes movie along with Avatar. Loved Avatar, Sherlock was pretty good too.

I parted ways with Dan in HK. It was very intimidating traveling internationally by myself, but I made it. I leave tomorrow for Vanuatu and hopefully I can get back to Maewo before too long. I have lots of errands to run, but very little money so I gotta get back to the island where (almost) everything is free! It was a great trip, I'm so glad I did it. Hope everybody had a merry christmas and happy new year.