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How to even begin? We’ve been in country for less than two weeks and I’ve already surpassed my mind-being-blown limit. You should see my journal right now trying to write this rough draft for the computer- I’m quickly realizing how difficult it will be to articulate what’s happening here and how much I’m learning. Every encounter and activity is loaded with stories so attempting to put this whole thing into words will be a challenge. I’m sure I’ll get better with time, but here goes nothin!
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We got to Sunai village around 4:30 on Wednesday. Sunai is on Moso, a small island off of the main island Efate. Moso has two villages, Sunai and Taseriki, and the education volunteers are split between them. The community health trainees are in Epau on Efate – we’ll switch locations with them in a month. Sunai is the smallest of the three with about 80 people and three main interconnecting families. When I say interconnecting, I mean everyone is related in various ways… Multiple times! Still the happiest (and yes, normal) bunch of folks I’ve ever lived with!
We had a ceremony with the village and met our host families. We got our kastom (custom, village) names, so I’ve answered to Leiwia (lay-wee-uh) since I’ve arrived in Sunai! Everybody knows everybody so while I walk through village to class, I hear “Malbongwia Leiwia! Olsem Wanem?” or “Good morning Leiwia! How are you?” on repeat. I can’t complain! I love every interaction I have. The people here truly couldn’t be any kinder. They are genuinely rooting for each other’s happiness- good people to have on your team! Especially if your team is all related
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The days have been full with Bislama lessons and cultural sessions. We are all catching on pretty quickly to the language and I feel like I can hang on to most conversations pretty well at this point, but plenty to improve on at the same time. It doesn’t help that our families are mixing their village langwij and Bislama (I’m calling it bislangwij) so it’s all a mess!
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As for cultural sessions, I’ve learned how to weave mats out of coconut leaves, build an earth oven, wash my clothes (and I thought I already had a lot of holes in my clothes!) sing kastom songs, shuck clams, and make many island foods. My favorite food here is coconut for it’s many purposes – coconut milk, oil, green coconut juice, mats and baskets, kava shells, the list goes on! At the same time the endless fruit trees are amazing. You can grab a snack off any tree at any time. Avocados, mangos, nuts- I’m looking at you!
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Today was a big day because it’s marked as the day we learned how to catch, kill, and dress a chicken. All of the steps brought different challenges, but I’m happy to have experienced them! I mean, I have seen many a chicken and eaten plenty more, but I’ve never watched the in-between. It’s helped me respect the process and has made me more aware of what I’m eating. Thank you, Vanuatu!
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We’re allowed to have kava on the weekends, so Friday night and Saturday night were kava evenings. My Papa drinks it every night, as do most men in Sunai. On Friday I drank with my Papa Ahty, Unkel Siki, and Unkel Ramon. The family watched an old bootleg movie with foreign subtitles called The Punisher. My house has a generator we run for a few hours each night, so gathering around the tv for movie time has become common. I’ve had the pleasure of watching Predators and a film about mutated ants on an airplane. Ants on a Plane? I’m
not sure, it was in French.
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This post is already so long and I’m feeling like I’m leaving out so many important parts of my life here! This past week on Sunai has felt like 10 years with everything that’s going on.
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Life here is simple and beautiful. The people are extremely resourceful with what comes from the land and their joy has really rubbed off on me since arriving. Aelen Taem (island time) is a real thing… so are bucket baths, stone toilets, rooster alarm clocks, and night time critters in your room. Thank you, world, for mosquito nets! It’s like being in the best cage ever. My own personal force field to keep out rats and other late night wanderers! And bucket baths have been refreshing every morning while I look out into the Pacific Ocean, my front yard. Life is truly magical.
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One final cool story from the week before I cut myself off – After class and on the weekends we’ve been swimming and snorkeling. The waters full of huge coral and beautiful sealife, but one unique thing about Sunai is that they grow giant clams. Yep, you read right! For hobby, the people of Sunai have a huge giant clam farm! I didn’t believe it until I saw it (I actually thought everyone was talking about one giant clam because there’s no plural nouns in Bislama) but holy cow! There are about 40 huge clams just sitting and growing in the solwata or ocean. Sizes range from half a meter to 1 meter. It’s nuts. They’re about 8 years old, so I can’t wait to come back near the end of service and see how big they’ve gotten! People and their hobbies.
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Final fun fact: the sound “uh uh” or no actually means “uh huh” or yes here. So you begin to second guess everything you do because people are saying “uh uh, uh uh” to you, cheering you on!
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3 pictures from my village… more in a few months!
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