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!

cake time

tasi

fancy fancy!

aunt yvonne preparing the scissors for the ribbon cutting

ms gwinet and shamila

salu salu line

stage view

all hands on deck for cake cutting

mama and me

shelda with her masterpiece

yum

lawence trying out the swings!

pretty kindy gals

monkey bar mania

new kids on the block

Last year when I got to my site for the first time, I was lucky to have Michelle and Sydney, two older Ambae volunteers, with me to help ease the transition. Even though bush life during training helped prepare me for the daily occurrences on an outer island, this new place was about to be my home, community, family, everything for the next two years, which nothing can quite prepare you for. At the time I was grateful (still am of course) for their tips, their grasp on Bislama and local kastom, and I admired the easy pattern they fell into when storying with people – things you learn after some time out here. Anyways, I knew at that point that when the new volunteers eventually (how time passes) come after me, I’d pay it forward and give them a hand. 

The new volunteers’ site placements were not excluded from the things Cyclone Pam jumbled up in Vanuatu. Many of their sites were in the Shepherds, on Tanna, and on the outer islands surrounding Efate. So by the time the trainees became volunteers mid-April, plenty of them had new sites to look forward to. Ambae would be receiving her fair share of new kids on the block: Grace would be living in Saratamata and working for the provincial government doing IT work, Avery heading to Vuimberugu to work at the aid post, Kathleen to Wainasasa to teach primary school, and Thomas replacing Jessie Rae and Nathan at Ambaebulu as a teacher. Peace Corps asked me to accompany Kathleen to her site while Michelle (who used to be at Kathleen’s site) would be taking up Avery to get him settled. 

Before the sites were confirmed, Peace Corps requires visible confirmation on elements such as locks on the house, screen windows, a toilet, and bathhouse. The office asked me to make these checks for the two North Ambae sites a few weeks before their arrival. My papa and I set off early in the morning and made our way up to Wainasasa. My parents were teachers (my papa the headmaster) at Simon School in Wainasasa for eight years when my siblings were little. They loved it there and (no surprise) the village loved my parent’s warmhearted, easy going natures. Everyone time I visit Wainasasa, many people tell me how they love being around my parents and I let them know I couldn’t agree more. We checked out Michelle’s old house, soon to be Kathleen’s new house, and hiked over to Vuimberugu. I had been to Wainasasa several times, but this was my first time at Avery’s future site. It is so peaceful in the bush and I fell in love with the hike to Vuimberugu, ups and downs and bridge crossings and overwhelming views of the ocean. We got to his house and met his family. His papa is the bigfala chief, who I call Dadi Paulwin, and he and his wife were so kind. Avery is a tall man and his little house would be a funny fit. Dadi Chief showed us his tilapia ponds which were close to harvesting and my papa and I got excited with the prospects of our own tilapia pond plans. We followed a different trail back down and leisurely wound up on the main road and eventually home. Hiking with my papa is always a treat because he, like most man-Vanuatu, is so in tune with nature. Walking these paths is as natural as breathing for him and he’s always generous with insight and outlook. It ended up being a really nice day and I was looking forward to returning to North Ambae sooner than later with its new residents.

The full 7 days before they arrived, the weather on Ambae was absurd. Minus a few short spells, it didn’t stop raining for the whole week! On one of these days, my mama, papa, and I decided to embrace the pouring rain and walk to town. It’s a good thing Vanuatu’s money is now plastic because nothing was dry about this journey. Right after the first big hill on our wokabaot home, my flip flops broke and I finished the 10 mile round trip barefoot. Minus the rocky patches, the dirt road (turned mud pit) felt great! We grabbed some bush cabbage along the road and took turns throwing coconut shells at a mandarin tree that bloomed early. When we got home, my papa shot a small pig and we roasted it with the cabbage for a delicious dinner. 

It seemed as though the wet-ther wasn’t planning on easing up for the new pis kops’ arrival. It was a cloudy, gloomy, muddy mess and would make it pretty impossible for a truck to get us to the northern road village Vuivetu before the hike up to their homes. But! Lo and behold! Ambae must have read something somewhere about the importance of first impressions and the day they arrived the sun decided to show up and it was a gloriously cloudless blue sky kinda Wednesday. They hopped off the plane with grins on their faces (I remember these feelings vividly... so this little building is our airport? And did we just fly over an incredible reef and a coconut plantation before landing at it? Is this home now?) Everyone was here now, plus the folks heading to Maewo, Johanna, Aaron, and Leah who have to take a 1 ½ hour boat ride over from Ambae. As we waited for all of the bags to be flung off the plane, they looked around nervously, not seeing their stuff. True to nature, nothing happens smoothly in this country. I have come to learn that plan A is just for kicks and plan B, C, D, and so on usually unfold in their own roundabout ways. If Peace Corps has taught me anything, it would be the importance of flexibility. Life is much more enjoyable if you go along for the ride instead of always trying to direct the course. In my little home, I have a picture of my friend Shea and I at AfrikaBurn (Hey Shea!) and we’re holding a sign we found that says “Relax, nothing is under control.” Amen!

Anyways, Air Vanuatu said the bags would be on the afternoon flight, so we decided to postpone our trip up North until the next day so Avery and Kathleen could have their luggage (and mattresses, mosquito nets, medicine, everything) with them at site. The Maewo folks had it a little more difficult – with a boat to catch before afternoon set in, they took mental inventory of what was in their carry-ons and decided to head to their island. They were already aware that this is all a part of the adventure! 

We dropped off Thomas at his site (Jessie and Nathan’s old place where I spent many a slumber party sharing jugs of cheap red wine and storying until late in the night) and we all dropped our stuff off at Grace’s new place. Her situation is a bit different because she’s working at the provincial office and lives in town. Her place is a little two room (but two-story) building inside a guesthouse with an amazing porch upstairs that catches the ocean breeze. I wouldn’t trade my little world for her flush toilet, icebox, and running water, but that doesn’t mean I won’t cherish it every time I come in for pay day! We went down to the saltwater and swam for a bit, relishing in the incredible view of mountainous, waterfall-filled Maewo just across the way while savoring our own slice of paradise. Turns out that afternoon when we went back to get the bags from the airport, they hadn’t arrived and were promised to be on the next morning’s flight. Okay, okay, sure! That night we made burgers and got to know each other (as someone pointed out, our newly assigned friends!) and the next morning we headed to the airport for their things. Surprise! No gat. Nothing i kam, no wan samtin!  They were a bit bummed, but life travels on, so we hopped in the truck and headed North. Once we arrived at Vuiveto, Kathleen and I split from Michelle and Avery and started the half hour hike up to her site. When we finally reached the clearing, we heard shouts of “Michelle, Michelle!” from all the little kids, really disappointing them when they realized we weren’t their favorite tuturani (language for white man) ever. This, along with our sweat-soaked, huffing puffing selves, made for an awkward first few moments at Kathleen’s new home for 2 years.  Michelle is basically a North Ambae superstar and Wainasasa’s pride and joy. They knew she was visiting, but Michelle wasn’t going to spoil Kathleen’s welcome with her reunion and planned on stopping by on Saturday. I’m pretty convinced that sooner than later Kathleen will join Michelle in superstar status, just gotta be patient. We met her host parents and discovered that I singaot Auntie to Kathleen. Everyone’s family in this neck of the woods!

That night the school hosted a welcome kakae where the headmaster, Kathleen, and I gave speeches. They nervously asked Kathleen if she liked drinking kava and when she Kool-Aid man answered “Oh yeahhh” they were all thrilled. We drank our shells, ate some food, and went back to Kathleen’s and split the bottle of wine I brought for first night celebrations. The next couple of days were filled with an ample amount of handshakes (what’s new? I taught Kathleen a helpful hint in the land of not enough spoons to go around: shake with your right, eat with your left) and plenty of mandarins. We explored the creek and got her bush kitchen equipped with firewood and dry coconut leaves. 

On Saturday I left her with her own headspace and visited Avery’s site, a 30 minute hike away. We checked out his aid post and caught some great views of the ocean. On Sunday we went to morning service in the little Wainasasa church house and by the time it was over, Grace, Lin, and Thomas had carried up all of Avery and Kathleen’s shit! If hiking it with a small backpack leaves me out of breath, you can imagine 3 people hauling up loads of stuff in the morning heat. Awe le le! After lunch we walked back down, leaving Avery and Kathleen in their new solitary yet noisy, busy lives. The truck dropped me off at Lotahimwamwavi and everyone decided to check out my site. We went down to the water and ended up spending the next couple of hours jumping off a cliff and swimming around. A lovely afternoon (and last few days) spent with newly assigned friends!

snack break

wainasasa bridge! michelle's project last year

 

vuimberugu

avery's home

tilapia party 

good, the road works!

manaro camping trip

The new Ambae vols were eager to get up to Mt. Manaro and I was excited to go back. Manaro is the island’s volcano— its cone sits in the middle of a toxic lake on top of Ambae. We decided it would be a much more enjoyable hike spread out over two days (last year we hiked it in one and it was hellish) and everyone was down for a mid-May camping trip in the bush. 

On Friday we met in Saratamata for payday ritual: a tub of half-melted ice cream, a cold beer, and grace’s porch. We got supplies, hopped the truck, and headed North. At Vuiveto, Avery and Thomas continued on to Avery’s site and the 3 gals rested before the hike up. At the bottom of the hill is a kava bar, so we indulged in a few shells with Kathleen’s counterpart and some other women. It’s hard to leave any gathering without a fruit or two in your hand, and this time was no different—each of us had a pamplemus and a few green coconuts to carry with us up to Wainasasa from our generous kava drinking friends.

We reached the top after a rainy, dark, and wobbly hike and met the boys at Kathleen’s house. We cooked up some burgers and fell asleep early, ready for the trip. We woke up and enjoyed a slow morning preparing the hobos filled with potatoes, beans, onions, and capsicums. Around 10, the boys showed up with a change of plans (which is more common that not changing plans here) and let us know that the trail we were planning on taking was going to be impossible because of the rains. Not a problem! Avery’s papa offered to hike with us, which made us very lucky to be heading to the top of the mountain with a bigfala chief who knows the land better than most could imagine. A youngfala David and two girls joined us, as well. We packed up the gear and started the preliminary hike to Ambanga, the highest village on Ambae, before following Ambanga’s trail to Manaro. This is the road I took last August, so I knew a hard hike was ahead. Everyone was in great spirits despite the rain clouds (dondo in language) lingering overhead. 

The hike from Wainasasa to Ambanga was hard—uphills and downhills and creek crossings (oh my!) and complete with an intense knife incident. Thomas was in line ahead of me as we climbed up a hill. He lost his footing and threw his bush knife into the ground to try and catch his fall. Bad, bad idea. His hand slid down the machete’s blade and did a number on his digits. He’s lucky the blade wasn’t facing the other way or else his palm would be a mess! The cuts were really deep, but eventually we got the blood flow under control. After the initial shock wore off, he was a brave trooper and agreed to hike to Ambanga before deciding if he should continue on. Once we arrived there for lunch, we cleaned him up and he was ready to face the Ambae wilderness, deep gashes or not. 

"thumbs up!" so clean, so naive

stomping through a bush garden

watcha doin up there?

funky mushroom

avery

the scratch

The hike was grueling. I’ve never had a reason to use that word, but it’s what comes to mind here. Day one was lots of ascending and at a quick speed – papa chief was leading the pack and even though he’s 70, he was waiting on us to catch our breaths over and over again. The trail hadn’t been used for a while, so I’m not sure what we would have done without his invaluable knowledge of the land and impressive knife skills to bushwhack us back on path. I’m usually a steady, but medium-paced hiker, but today I was feeling strong and keeping up with the leader. It felt great! But after 6 hours of going up, I was just as beat as everyone else. It was getting dark and rainy, so we cleared a piece of the trail and laid out our shelters: Papa chief and David sharing a tent, the two girls in another one, Grace and Thomas in their own hammocks, and Kathleen Avery and I 3-manning a 2-person tent. All squished together on a bushy trail. It was an amusing site! Once our bodies cooled down, we realized how cold it was and eventually found warm bliss in our dry things. Dry bags to the rescue! For some reason I brought my heftiest pair of wool socks to a tropical island from home a year and a half ago. I say “for some reason” because that reason didn’t present itself until I was on the side of Mount Manaro and I slipped them over my blistered, sore, freezing (and now very grateful) feet. Irrational packing has its hidden benefits!

Once everyone was situated, we passed around the bottle of wine, feasted on peanut butter, chips, oreos, and crackers, and laughed in exhaustion while our delicious hobos were marinating at the bottom of our backpacks. Nothing even closely resembling dry wood could have been found up there and it’s not like anyone was interested in searching for it anyway.  It was time for sleep, but sleep we did not. The tent ended up being more spacious than I’d originally imagined it, but we were restless and couldn’t quite get into rem. Around 2 am, we asked each other if anyone had fallen asleep yet and the answer was nope. The hammock kids were snoring and there was storian happening in the other two tents. We sang out to them, checking to see if they were alright, and we all just accepted our sleepless fates. The girls played music on their phones and Kathleen, Avery, and I storied about whatever came to mind.  

When she was hiking in Australia, Kathleen screwed up her big toe and now it was hanging on (hovering is a better description) by a thread. Earlier in the hike, Thomas and I had named it Sybil Penbrook, but Kathleen wasn’t as amused as we were. Now in the middle of the night, I tried it out again, and it stuck! Kathleen even started referring to it as Ms. Penbrook! This is a good example of the group vibe. It’s amazing how the group’s energy sets the tone of the trip. Everyone was in a cheerful mood, happy to go with the flow, and down with the idea that this rainy, cold hike was an adventure we wouldn’t forget.

It must have been around 4 or so when we all shut our eyes and drifted off for a couple of hours before the sunrise woke us up. We packed up and began the hike down into the center of the island. This part is a cluster of sliding down mud cliffs and scaling up rock faces (while realizing that we’d have to make the return trip on all of these obstacles, too) We reached the creek and drank from it while we got ready for the last push. By this point we were all pretty exhausted, except for papa chief, surprise surprise. After another hour of sloshing through creeks, climbing, butt-sliding, balancing on logs, stomping through thick vegetation, and falling during all of these steps, we arrived to the eerie top.

ready for day 2

curly ferns

The top of Manaro looks like the elephant graveyard from Lion King. Because the weather was still overcast from the night before, we didn’t have the clear view of the lake that we hoped for. On both of my bad-weather trips, the view at the top was underwhelming, but that didn’t subtract from the hike for me. I’ll make the trek one more time before I leave Ambae, but it’s going to be a cloudless day so I can take in the full thing. Papa chief sang out to the volcano and before too long, some of the clouds separated and we saw the cone. I loved this— less because of the view and more because of the pride in his face when the mountain listened to his request. We snapped a few photos and got ready for the daunting hike back to Ambanga. It was incredibly hard, but we did it. By the time we collapsed in grassy Ambanga village, we had been hiking for 17 hours between the two days… and about 2 ½ more to go before reaching Kathleen’s house. We eventually made it back with dreams of hot tea and our hobos for dinner as our strides’ motivation. After eating, everyone passed out hard at Kathleen’s, not wanting to get up early the next day. But that we did. Grace, Thomas, and I hiked down to Vuivetu to catch a truck back to our sites before 6:30. When I got home, I miraculously threw all my muddy things in a bucket of soapy water and crawled into bed for the rest of the morning. An exhausting last few days, but a wonderful new set of memories on this rugged little jungle of an island.

elephant graveyard

a long way down!

what! a! view!

a week of learning

My usual school schedule is teaching something English-related between 7:30-9:30, rotating between the classes throughout the week. Mondays are a little different – I work with kindy and 1st grade, both classes that don’t speak Bislama (much less English) so we throw that out the window and play games, make musical instruments and bang on them, and do arts and crafts. This is always fun because, frankly, teaching English isn’t my forte and I enjoy playing games, making musical instruments and banging on them, and doing arts and crafts as much as any other kid! Mondays are no doubt made possible because of the class teacher, serving as the Bislama/local language translator and my partner in managing wild little kiddies. One Saturday in May, the class 1 teacher Mrs. Aru was informed that the next day she’d be hopping a boat over to West Ambae for a workshop. I offered to look after her class for the week, clearly having no idea what that entailed. 

It was a very long week! I’ve already expressed on here my deep gratitude for teachers. What an exhausting profession, successful only with a certain type of both patience and passion. And the understanding that your work, serving as a foundation, may or may not be effective, and the fruits of your labor won’t fully flourish until long after that school year has ended and another (and another and then another) flock arrives. Teachers know the balance of the classroom: each student has his or her individual needs that deserve unique attention while the class as a unit needs its flow through the lessons. Its richest rewards are internal as you see the changes in the students that you know intimately through daily challenges and failures and successes. These are all qualities I can’t help but sincerely admire, and these are all qualities I have to admit I don’t necessarily have. Which is okay! I love children and I enjoy teaching and sharing, but I am not a school teacher. I never really thought I was, but now it has been tested and can be confirmed. Which means I’m something else – I’ll have to figure that out at some point or another! 

Class 1 is taught in local language, so my Bislama is only faintly familiar to them. This just doesn’t make sense to first graders. In fact, my mama taught me the phrase “I don’t understand local language” in local language because kids would just blabber to me, tattle-taling or just rambling about first grader topics, and I wouldn’t understand a lick of it. Usually I’d just respond in gibberish and laugh with them at our mutual confusion. Teaching is hard, but trying to teach students who you don’t share a language with you is a challenge. A challenge you must get creative with! We spent the week drawing and coloring lots of things, singing songs and playing games. We started each day with yoga, meowing and mooing during cat/cow and naming trees of Ambae while wobbling in tree pose. 

We sat around and told plenty of kastom stories — “we” really meaning “them” because I’m clueless to the language, but still equally entertained by their dramatic storytelling. The first student Braunia said “dom dom,” which I thought was the title, and then everyone responded with a phrase. It happened again when Flexson started the second story. I interrupted, oblivious to how little I knew, and said that Braunia has already shared that story, choose another. Flexson looked at me in confusion and again said “dom dom” and so it went again and again. After class I told my parents how the kids kept telling the same kastom story called “dom dom” and they cracked up. Turns out “dom dom” is what the leader sings out, asking permission to tell a story. Only when everyone responds with “sige gom gale” you can begin. Ha! I can only imagine what the students thought of this tuturani telling them they were the crazy ones.. 

One day I arrived to a room full of argument and, with my mama’s help, discovered someone hit someone who had kicked someone who had yelled at someone who had teased someone etc. We had a whole sorry chain going and spent the morning doing a sunshine circle, an activity I learned during an alternative spring break where you pass on a compliment (aka sunshine) to the person next to you. 

nap time

And when all else failed, we took naps. Lots of whispers and giggles at first, your classic naptime behavior, but eventually everyone surrenders to the mat and enjoys a good rest. Including Miss Alison! It brought me back to my own kindergarten naptime where we got to choose our teddy bear and lay out on those silly cots. And I hadn’t thought about those rolled up pads we used in preschool (and the pattern of my own, lambs in a meadow) which I can’t remember ever thinking about before now. It’s lovely how the strange situations we find ourselves in evoke the most distant of memories to show back up in the confines of our headspaces. The past year and a half have been filled with times like this and I’ve come to relish in the trails my brain wanders down. Jessie Rae pointed out once that both of us love reminiscing. I can’t believe it took so long for me to come to this realization! I love thinking about good times, basking in the laughs and smiles that accompany them. Spending so much time here in my own company has allowed me to venture deep in nostalgia and because of this, has reminded me how lucky I am to have so many good memories to linger on, while creating a whole new set of ones to return back to in the future. The continuous cycle of life pleasures sustains itself. What a beautiful thing!  The week of class 1 ended up being a great time, but I think I did more learning than the class did.

even cows want to come to school

wala, my favorite pig in a tree