epau part one

Laura introduced me to this nifty little app for my iPhone-turned-camera/mp3 player that let’s you write up a post and then send it when you have wifi in the future so I’m gonna try it out!

I’ve been in Epau for a little over a week now. It’s a great place! It’s on Efate, which is where the capital Port Vila is. Even though Sunai was on Moso, an island right off Efate, the two villages share the same local language (along with many other villages in the area, but each area had some variation) Efate has a paved road around its rim called ring road. Epau sits on ring road, 60 km from Vila going one way and 80 km the other. It’s a bigger village and has been home to many years of peace corps trainings. This is proven by the amount of pikininis (kids) named after past vols!

After an exciting truck ride from Vila (which included a gas station stop and the eating of a delicious magnum ice cream bar… If you haven’t tried the gold/honeycomb flavor, you should! This was followed by a never ending bumpy road, almost forcing the ice cream up and out. I think this is the longest parenthesis I’ve ever created) we arrived to Epau. The first thing you see is the beautiful chief’s nakamal. A nakamal is a gathering place for the community. There are usually several in a village and some are just for meetings while others are kava nakamals/bars where you gather around, drink a few shells, and storian.

the nakamal

      

The chief’s nakamal is where we’d be having class and eating lunch. We had a small ceremony and met our host families. I found out I’d be living in Nangus (nahn-goos), a small subvillage or station. Kelsey and Jen would be with me in suburbia – a thirty minute walk to “town.” We were all really excited! We had heard good things about Nangus, which is basically home to one set of grandparents (Jen’s parents) and all their offsprings’ families. Nangus is kinfolk. Everybody is family and they do many life activities together, so it’s fun. We got to our homes and set up our beds and nets and started getting to know our family.

the walk from nangus to epau… not too shabby!

My papa is Kalfau (cal fow) and my mama is Leitau (lay tow, like towel without the el) and they’ve got three pikininis: Meli, Stewart, and Benson. Far too quickly my papa admitted to me that they had really hoped for a boy volunteer. I told them that my name is aliSon, so they may have not gotten a boy, but they got a son! For the record (what record?) my mama and papa here are so kind and the fact that I’m not a male isn’t important anymore because they like me. My papa even told me that he told his friends – I’m just like having a boy because I’ll go to the garden with him and drink kava. Just trying to make you proud, Papa!

My family has 7 or 8 dogs who serve as security guards. They don’t have names or meat on their bones. There’s one exception and that’s Sniper! Naturally, Sniper has one eye because my papa was shooting his gun and accidentally shot Sniper from behind and knocked out an eye! I like one-eyed Sniper because he’s the only dog who isn’t afraid of a human reaching out her hand to pet him- even if it’s because he can’t see me from one side. It’s pretty sad when you know they’re so scared because the only hand to touch them is to hit. Oh well, maybe they’ll warm up to me soon!

sniper

two unnamed pups

One kastom in Vanuatu is kriping, or creeping. Yes, you did read that correctly – creeping! When a man finds a woman he wants to pursue, he comes to her house in the middle of the night and sings out to her. Traditionally, women say “yu go lus,” or get lost, if they’re not interested. If they are interested, they’ll go outside or invite the kripa inside. This has been kastom for a long time and has only recently changed due to texting and a shift towards virtual communication for courting. Pretty nuts! Most marriages here began with kriping – both sets of my parents and almost all mamas I’ve talked with have said the same thing! We’ve been given training on how to handle this (along with a portable alarm) and because I’ll be living on school grounds, I shouldn’t be having any problems. But! At the beginning of training we were told we’d have a krip simulation.

I’ve been expecting the kiaman krip (fake creeping) since week 2 of Sunai! There have been several nights where I’m certain it’ll happen and I’ve sung out once before, too! Only to find out it was just a rat scratching on the tin siding. My Sunai family made sure to egg me on about having a rat kripa for my whole stay!

It’s a weird thing knowing that kriping is kastom, but also knowing you’re American and a little different – and not knowing what that implies. Luckily I’m surrounded by family at my place on Ambae and on the school grounds where trespassing is tabu. Anyways, night two of Epau, the krip came! At half past 12 I heard some knocking on my window (which is a hinged piece of tin) and I screamed out, at a volume I did not know existed inside me, “go away!!” He went away immediately and that was that! I looked at my little Nokia and had a text from two friends saying/asking if it was the kiaman krip, so that was comforting. My mama came to my room and chatted with me, telling me it was the test. She had been on the porch stoning the dogs so they wouldn’t bark at the kripa. It’s an odd little world I currently live in! I was wide awake for an hour or so and then fell fast asleep. On the walk to school the next day, the whole village asked how we slept. The Ni-Vanuatu (how you would say Vanuatu-ians) aren’t too good at being sly, so we told them we slept just fine and acted as if we didn’t know why they asked. And this caused us all to have a good laugh, over and over again, all day.

friends being friends

as if Mother Nature hadn’t treated me with enough birthday gifts already – this beautiful home of mine for the next two years being up there at the top of the list – it seems she had one more in store. A week into being 23, my belated birthday gift arrived…

Giardia!

I’ve been really lucky in Vanuatu as far as having a strong stomach goes. Most of the other trainees had been dealing with sit sit wota (literally “shit shit water”) but I’d been one of the few with no problems other than malaria medicine nausea. Until Epau! I spent a few days feeling extra sick and was hoping it was just from me switching around my malaria meds. Some others were feeling sick and I was afraid it had something to do with the food or water here. After several days of my body expressing to me just how much it hated everything I was doing, the pcmo (peace corps medical officer) told me that Epau has had problems in the past with contaminated water tanks. Right on! We figured out that I contracted Giardia, probably from one of the community tanks. I got a round of applause from the other trainees, as I was the first in our group to enter the wild territory of Giardia! Silver lining?

Maybe Giardia is shitty as it is. But really, you take some medication and you’re on the road to regularity. However, in Vanuatu, there are a few variables that make Giardia a grander adventure: a stone throne water seal toilet, no electricity/air conditioning/fan/running water, no easy way to explain why you can’t eat or sit still, every village member either asking you what’s wrong or already knowing from coconut wireless, a culture with no concept of personal space, other diseases floating around via snotty kids and dirty hands, not knowing what water to drink, 8-5 training classes in serious heat… Let’s just say I’ll never forget my first time! The best things I had were a sense of humor, good company and green coconut water. And I’m grateful for that prescription of course! Dane was next to get it and the strain he contracted was resistant to the meds, so he had to double his dosage just to walk himself to the toilet. On top of that, his host family house is covered in mold and he’s allergic. Yeesh! I came out lucky.



Jen, one of my good friends who lives in Nangus with Kelsey and me, has happily given me permission to share her sit sit wota story! Kelsey, Jen, and I were on a morning run (walk/jog combo.. mostly walking) and Jen announced that she needed to take a quick detour because her insides were sending her a message that needed a reply immediately. Luckily I brought some TP (because you really never know during these vulnerable Epau days) and she was able to take care of business. We laughed it off, called it “Runs on the Run” and kept going. Life is strange here, but somehow it works! Talking about bodily functions is the norm in the peace corps community, so that makes irregular ones easier to deal with. I’m thrilled to say that Runs on the Run was a one time occurrence, probably mainly because we don’t take morning runs anymore. Jen isn’t feeling much better and we’re pretty sure (positive) she’s got Giardia too, but she’s already on meds and doesn’t want to pile more on. If you’d like to read her explicitly detailed take on her stomach problems, check out here: http://www.skythatwelookupon.blogspot.com/2014/03/everybody-poops-most-disgusting-post-i.html

I’ve got a new favorite fruit called a kustard apple/krest apple/can’t understand what people are saying. It comes in green and purple and when it’s ripe the outside feels like the bottom of a dog paw – so weird, but so true! It’s delicious creamy ish inside. Maybe we have it in the us and I’m just missing it in the produce section, but I’ve never seen or tasted it before and now I’m it’s #1 fan! Kustard/krest apples for all!

One night we had a homework session with all the Nangus pikininis and it was terrifying. The education system here isn’t the best and the students are learning things in class that they can’t come close to comprehending at their ability levels. It was a nice taste of what’s ahead. After four hours of factoring numbers, translating word problems into understandable English, and attempting to explain how one meter is the same as 100 centimeters, Jen and I called it quits for the night. It was challenging and discouraging, but still a great lesson in patience.

bring in the dancing lobsters!

Nathan was so nice to let us Nangus geese borrow his laptop to watch some movies! Mine and Kelsey’s are in deep storage and Jen’s has been sitting in customs for 6 weeks, so this was a nice treat! One night we watched Heavyweights because J & K had never seen it (I think I’ve seen it 93,714 times at least. And loved it every time) Both Jen and Kelsey dozed off during the movie while I enjoyed it solo! It was just as good the 93,715th time, too.

While Kelsey, Jen, and I were chatting one night, we made the weird realization that even though so much has already happened… we’re not even volunteers yet. Whatttt! There was definitely a collective sigh/cringe at that point.

And training continues on