adventures in vanuatu: mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam..

be it ever so humble, there's no place like home!

One of my favorite parts about my Peace Corps service is the opportunity to really indulge in reading. Man! I could read all day and all night. And there have been many times when that was the case.

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”

― George R.R. Martin

This couldn't be more true. When I'm in my hammock, I've traveled to the jungles of the Amazon to Bombay, India and a dozen places in between. The Peace Corps resource room has a ridiculous amount of books to take to site and the ebook volunteer trading realm is pretty endless. I have a page on this journal that lists the books I’ve gone through. I haven’t come across a bad one yet! However some of my very favorites include Shantaram, American Pastoral, and Cutting for Stone. Pick them up if you get a chance!

puskat nap

I've always loved reading and I've been sharing this love with the kids at my school. I've been appointed (aka no one else wanted the gig) as the librarian and am working on projects for the library and reading corners in the classrooms. When I get back from training, we're starting DEAR (drop everything and read) which was one of my favorite classroom past times as a little kid. Laura has been doing book challenges with her kids, so I want to start that up, too. My school is very lucky to have a solid library filled by the Rotary, it just needs humans to make it complete. The push for human library interaction begins now. Here we go again, say-do gap. Ha!

I’ve been having a great time working on house projects! The school has spare lumber lying around and I’m allowed to trial and error with it. The John Tari store in Lolowai also has wood for pretty cheap, so I supplement the scraps with soft wood every time I go in for pay day. My books needed a home, so a book shelf it is. I’m lucky because my house has built-in shelves everywhere, so building a book shelf wasn’t too difficult. After a couple of hours, it was complete and full of books, art supplies, and cards from friends at home. Bookshelf #2 coming to Qwatuneala soon! And screened doors… sunshine welcome, mosquitoes not so much!

hooked on the book

my swim house! bucket baths 4 life

Here are some pictures of my dishwashing and handwashing stations. The tippy tap hasn’t been properly set up, but it does the trick. Planning on building more to update the school’s handwashing station, too!

My bigfala project is my vegetable and herb garden. Very humble beginnings, but it’s quickly growing! I’ve got peppers, chilies, Chinese cabbage, tomatoes, oregano, and basil growing now. I’ve already started eating the bok choy and the tomatoes have begun blooming, too. Can’t wait to continue expanding! Everyone in Vanuatu (this isn’t a dramatic exaggeration, just true) has a garden.

Their gardens are deeper in the bush and are full of primarily root crops. I’ve hiked the 1-3 hours to my parent’s various gardens and have helped clear, sow, weed, and pick kumala, taro, kava, corn – the list goes on. Everything grows here! That’s one of the best parts of life here, there’s no lack and scramble for food. One day we hiked up to my family’s village and weeded out the kava garden. Kava grows for over 3 years before it’s ready to pick, clean, ground, and drink. Smart investments.