pissa games

The week before August school break marked the 20th anniversary of the PISSA games! PISSA stands for Penama Inter-secondary School Athletics and is basically the most anticipated event of the year, minus Independence and Easter. Penama is the province that Ambae sits in with Pentecost and Maewo. Vanuatu has 6 provinces with names created by combining the names of the bigger islands in each region. From south to north -

Tafea: Tanna, Fatuna, Erramongo, and Aneityum

Shefa: Shephard Islands and Efate

Malampa: Malekula, Ambrym, and Paama

Sanma: Santo and Malo

Penama: Pentecost, Ambae, and Maewo

Torba: Torres Islands and Banks Islands

This year the PISSA games took place in Lolopweipwei (north Ambae) or about an hour walk from my house. Students from Maewo, Pentecost, and West Ambae filled up the ships and floated over to Lolopweipwei, a catholic community where the secondary school Tagaga (which means spider in local language.. odd choice) would be hosting the events. Elise, a volunteer on Pentecost, followed her community school to the games. She said the ship was packed out with 300+ students and they had to take shifts standing, sitting, and sleeping during the 10 hour float over. Yikes!

Ten secondary schools were set to compete in football, footsal, volleyball, and track & field. Nathan's school Ambaebulu was in the lineup, as was Tim's school St. Patricks. This is the last chance for many of the senior students to engage in organized sports before returning to the villages, training centers, or going on to university. A farewell to childhood in a way - one last shabang! 

Sunday was opening day, so we made the trek over to the school in the afternoon to catch the show. All of the makeshift sports fields and courts were being prepared and the food stalls lining the paths had smoke trails coming from the bush kitchens behind them. All of the visiting students would be sleeping on campus, so dozens of temporary shelters were being set up. My whole family was plopped down in a nice shaded area on a cement block that we claimed as our spot for the week. My aunts and uncles and cousins and bumbus were all there eating mandarins and getting excited for the games. My cousins from West came over to compete in the races and my brother O'Brien was set to play volleyball. 

The opening parade was extravagant! This country loves parades and I support their devotion to this pastaem. The VMF or Vanuatu Mobile Force (or the  military-clad marching band) performed and led the 10 schools holding banners around the soccer field for a good 15 minutes. Yes, my concept of parades has changed, but they are entertaining in their absurdity! My brother kept hiding his face because I'd sing out his name every time they passed. I never had a little brother to embarrass, so I'm getting it out now!

Once this settled down, the ceremony began. The community represtantive rambled on for a bit, promising all of the participants some good ol Ambae hospitality for the week. Each school was given a big laplap and cake and headmasters were salusalu'd (placing a lei of frangipani around someone's neck and a kaliko over their shoulders as a welcome or thank you)

Once this was over, the lines at the food stalls began to grow and the kava stands started opening up. My mama's sister Mami Corina had a kava stand she was running while my uncle was grinding some more down. She let me lend her a hand and we sold kava for a few hours! Kava preparation is hard, tedious work, but selling it is fun! We had a good time and raised them a lot of vatu in the mean time. Opening day ended with fireworks. Although the fireworks weren't the big spectacle that we're spoiled with at home, it was amazing. This is because I got to watch floods of people see fireworks for the first time. Watching their eyes light up in awe was one of the coolest things I've seen! And that's not just the kava buzz talking..

We went back to the games on Monday and Tuesday. It was fun seeing all of the people from different islands gathering together in the name of high school sports. One of my favorite parts of the games was the announcements. Whoever was controlling the microphone was cracking me up. He kept stressing and over stressing that this was the 20th year, but then sometimes he'd say "it's been 20 years or so" in funny forced English, not understanding the "or so" part. He'd also relay messages from the kava stalls. "Kava Stall #9 says that they just made a new batch and this time it's stronger" or "Stall #3 wants you to know that they got more shells to drink out of." 

On Tuesday I met Jessie Rae, Emily, and Elise up there. Sydney and Ken (vols from the earlier group, G25) came, too. Everyone was filtering onto Ambae for our hike on Thursday. Honestly, it's always a little weird when there are too many Americans/white people clustered together. The announcer gave us a shoutout and thanked us for coming. Very silly! 

That night Sydney and I walked back to my site and she spent the night. Her village is farther East and no trucks were going that way, so it worked out great. We woke up early and walked to Lolowai to try and catch friends coming in from Santo on the Brisk! The Brisk is the sister ship to Tina 1, the fabulous cruise liner I rode into Santo. 

After an hour of hiking, a truck scooped us up and we pulled into the harbor just as the ship was rounding the reef in the bay! Kate, Bryan, Jen, Kelsey, and Kelsey's visiting boyfriend Bilal hopped off the ship and the next set of adventures began!