adventures in vanuatu: school daze

One project I’m working on with the classes is eco-bricks. We’ve got a lot of litter around here and it’s mainly due to “white man kakae” or non-island food. Someone opens up a packet of noodles or crackers and either throws the wrapper in the ples blo dirty (trash pit) or burns it – both options aren’t helping keep this beautiful place as it is. The worst part is the batteries littering the ground. The first day class 6 went collecting, they all came back with full bottles. Unfortunately, this speaks as much to their interest and productivity as it does to the trash surrounding the school. I learned about bottle bricks when I lived at Place, a co-op in Oakland, the summer before Peace Corps. I recently found some great manuals made by a group who led projects in the Philippines and since introducing it to the teachers and students, it’s been a hit! It forces everyone to see trash in a new light and it’s giving us an opportunity to transform trash into treasure. We’re in the middle of a school wide competition between classrooms this term (I’m treating the winners to popcorn and a movie) and next term, the building begins! We’ve got plans to build benches around some big trees on campus and make an outdoor classroom seating area. I can’t wait to see what’s next with this one!

The big project happening at school right now is the kindy playground. The ministry of education is really pushing for effective kindies as a foundation for education. Play to learn! So the country’s kindy program has been revamped with structured curriculum, classroom layout guides, and requirements for an outdoor learning center. In reality, this whole country is an outdoor learning center, but I think they’re picturing something a little more consolidated. So a crew of papas got to work and a few weeks later, we’ve got ourselves a badass kindy playground. Yeah, I’ll say it. It’s the coolest one I’ve seen yet! Monkey bars, sand pit, swings, all the good stuff. But the best part is that it’s covered with a nice, shady natangura roof. Many families here struggle to pay school fees, so the thatched roof (540 panels of it, natangura leaves woven together by expert hands) served as barter for 15 or so families’ outstanding fees. Every term the school office is filled with woven mats and chickens in exchange for school fees. I really like this system, especially when I get to buy a foul for a couple bucks and make fresh chicken fajitas for dinner!

On Kindy Day, June 12, we had a big opening for the playground. This day was gonna be a long one because the SCA (School Community Association) meeting was planned for the afternoon. So much run around isn’t the norm, but my headmaster forgot that the June 12 is always day blo kindy, so cramming it all in would have to happen. I woke up early to a rainy day, but luckily that stopped around 7:30. The kindy celebration was supposed to start at 7:30, but this wouldn’t be Vanuatu if not for a delay! Island time comes with plenty of perks, but I knew that this time it was just going to make our double header even longer. Oh well, laef i olsem! I helped decorate the kindy playground, but I’m not embarrassed to say that my contributions were the weakest of all the decorations. I have clear handwriting, so my best offering was writing Happy Kindy Day in the sand. These ladies know how to flasem gud (decorate, make flashy) just about anything!

We ended up settled in the dining hall around 10 and got started soon after. All of the guests and the one tuturani (me) were given salusalus (leis) and went to our designated seats on the stage. No opening ceremony is complete without a plethora of speeches. A pastor started us off with a ridiculously long sermon that wrapped around so many tangents, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one lost in there. He covered everything from how a ripe papaya holds the seeds for a whole plantation, exclaiming that little class 1 “Lawence the nation” could lead us all if we believed in him, he explained that we are all like the Virgin Mary (and someone named Elizabeth? I clearly never attended Catholic school) and went as far as saying that we are all virgins, a somewhat confusing topic for the mixed crowd. He analyzed the school motto “Vano Dadari” which means “to go beyond” and he finished up his lengthy, thunderous monologue (the whole hour was in screams and shouts, fire and brimstone style) with how papas are not the heads of the household, but the foundation. Some of these topics would have been engaging on their own, but this was an example of one of those times when the sum falls short of each part’s value. It was amusing nonetheless. My papa and the headmaster gave their toktoks and I excused myself from the last ones to join my mama who was listening from my front porch.

Once part one was complete, we all moseyed over to the playground and witnessed the ribbon cutting and the cake cutting, both incredibly important when making things official in Vanuatu. By this time it was past lunchtime and the women got to work serving the food. A full blown mama machine, I tell you! I helped with the cake, aka the best job, because it entails sneaking bites. We ate while the kindy kids sang songs for us.

The afternoon was a long SCA meeting with plenty of discussion and argument and back and forth. This all happens in local language, so I usually read my book or drift off into day dream. I stuck around because the women’s council had a few announcements about the past fundraiser and our future plans. After expenses, we ended up raising around $300 at the June 3 fundraiser! I’ll be out of town for the next work party on June 24 when the men will cut the trees and level out the land and I’ll sadly miss the next fundraiser on July 3. In the meantime, mamas will be preparing the natangura panels for the roofing. Our goal is to have the market house up and running by end of August and I think it may just happen!

The closing prayer finally happened around 6:30 and my papa went out and brought some kava for the fam to enjoy after a long day. My day had two highlights: the delicious 400 slices of cake I ate and the bizarre insult I was given. 10 points for a creative insult, especially when said in complete oblivion that it would be offensive in the first place. It’s not every day someone tells you that your cheeks are swollen like a lamb’s!