On November 5th I got back to Ambae. I’ve said it before, but here it is again- it’s always such a pleasure to be back home. And I guess that applies to wherever home is or was or becomes. Reuniting with the people you love, returning to your groove, and being comforted by the familiarities you’ve cultivated. I love traveling, but I love returning, too. One of my favorites-“Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” My humble little home was still intact and welcomed me back. No dead rat faces or tails scattered about and no leaks/mold/old veggies rotting away. Hurray!
Sunday November 8th was Thomas’ birthday so all of the island mates (minus Avery who was off the island) got together for shenanigans. That morning I woke up and made black bean and lentil dip! It was a morning transformation in the bush kitchen. It drastically changed from dried beans to mushy nothingness to delicious southwestern bean dip. I was about to begin my walk when my Uncle Wordley drove by and scooped me up. Come to think of it, maybe his name is Worthy? It’s unclear. I just call him Uncle and he calls me Uncle, too. All my uncles call me Uncle!
I got to Grace’s and Thomas, Grace, and Kathleen were already knee deep in weekend celebrations. We traded stories, drank beer, ate dip!, and let Thomas choose the course of events. Kathleen found, deep within Grace’s food safe, an electric hand mixer. What! By the way, Grace lives in town (Saratamata) and has town things such as generator-run electricity, running water, tile floor, and an ice box. She might as well have a mixer, too! She has a bunch of random hand-me-downs. Our friend Chris from New Zealand who was a VSA volunteer last year lived in Grace’s current house. He left her all of his goodies and on this pleasant Sunday afternoon, we discovered the mixer. Or whatever its proper name is. We immediately chopped up some mango and pawpaw and milked a coconut to make a smoothie. Grace had some rum she got during Tim’s departure so we poured that in and enjoyed some tropical drinks.
In the afternoon we made burgers, fried eggplant, watched Thomas’ favorite show Rick and Morty, and ended the evening with a Knight’s Tale, so good! And then the guests slept on the porch and caught the ocean breeze all night.
Monday Kathleen and I held a Van Morrison clean up hour and I started my walk back to site. I picked up two pineapples at the market and rigged an over-the-shoulder traveling stick to carry them home. The walk back from town is about 2 hours because most of it is uphill. Some village members from Lovonda were doing road work so I stopped and spelled with them for a bit. With about 20 minutes left in my walk, a truck scooped me up and I was home free! With two of the sweetest pineapple in tow.
On Tuesday Jenita, one of the women who work in the Peace Corps office, came to do site development for a place in North Ambae for the next round of volunteers. She asked me to join and talk about my experience with the school and my host family. So we headed North to Lolovange for the morning. This will be home to two new volunteers – a health vol will work at the dispensary and an education vol will teach at the school. We had our meetings, were treated to delicious simboro and laplap… and freshwater prawns! They were so good! The women gave me extra to bring back to my family for dinner.
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| prawn party! |
That afternoon I got back to site and got a call around 5 from an unknown number. It ended up being some people from Cole and Caroline’s village in South Santo who I had met when I visited. They were stret family with Vetai, the woman who I had the cooking day with. They said they couldn’t get in touch with Vetai and asked if I’d pass a message to her. I said sure, and they told me that her dad had died unexpectedly during surgery in Vila and they were sending the body back to Santo the next day for the funeral. Pretty heavy messenger job. No one was at the school to go with me and it was getting past the time I like to be alone outside of school grounds.
But, of course, if someone had this urgent of news to share with me, I’d hope they’d do their best to find me. So! I strapped on my tennis shoes and ran down to Vetai’s house. The whole time I was trying to figure out how to deliver this information. I arrived and they tried making small talk, but I cut them off and shared the news. I think I did it correctly, but there’s really no telling. I cried the whole run home, but I didn’t even trip or fall once, so that was impressive. We drank kava and dedicated our shells to Vetai’s family. I taught my family the toast “L’Chaim” which means “To Life!” in Hebrew. We fried up the prawns with old bay seasoning and talked about celebrating life and not fearing death and other profound topics brewed up in a kava buzz.
On Wednesday I walked to town to collect the solar dehydrator materials I had shipped from Santo. I got back in the afternoon and some papas approached me asking about yoga. I hold a mama’s yoga class twice a week and they were wondering if men could also do yoga. Yes yes yes I told them. And we had our very first papa’s yoga class that afternoon. Now Tuesdays are for women and Thursdays for men. It’s pretty simple stretching and balancing, but they really love it and so do I.
Friday I woke up to the sound of gunshot and spent some time thinking about how I didn’t feel threatened or scared by the sound. And how this wouldn’t be the case in America or in many other places. Instead, I was thrilled because I knew it meant that either a pig or a cow was killed and I could buy some fresh meat. I got dressed and went into my backyard and saw some men gathered around the cow they had just shot. I put in my order for 2 kilos and I got to choose filet as the cut. My plan was to keep a kilo for myself and bring a kilo up for Kathleen’s birthday. I’ve never given meat as a birthday gift, but there’s certainly a first time for everything! I grilled up some pineapple and then some of the meat on my cast iron skillet and feasted for breakfast and lunch. I steamed and salted the rest of the meat for the next few days and got ready to head north.
Grace and Thomas scooped me up and we got dropped off at Lovuivetu to hike up to Kathleen’s site. Grace was carrying two 2 litre jugs, Thomas was carrying two more and a flat of eggs, and I had meat and flour and other goodies. We were ready to climb! We got up to her site, caught our breath, and gave Kathleen her presents. Thomas gave her 30 eggs and offered his labors and rope to build a bamboo swing and Grace had collected emailed from family and friends from home to pass on to Kathleen along with some New Zealand treats. The best birthday present was Kathleen’s best friend Kami came to visit! Kami is on a working visa in Australia and came to the bush for a week. Kathleen made some popcorn, but when she put it in the plastic strainer, it melted through. So we turned it into a flowery birthday crown. We took some swigs of wine and took the rest up to her birthday bash at the village nakamal.
Man. Wainasasa knows how to throw down! The nakamal was dolled up with flowers and ribbons and balloons. There was so much food and cake and kava. The kids sang songs, her papa performed a kastom ceremony, and we all sang happy birthday to her. They use a different tune here. And they have a second verse, replacing “happy birthday” with “happy long life.” We drank kava and some wine and went back to the house to storian and pass out!
Next morning I had to wake up far too early and walk down the hill to catch a truck back to site. It was Speech Day or graduation at St. Patrick’s where my brother and sister go to school and I was planning on going. I got to Lovuivetu and waited around with a lot of fancy and clean (and a lot less disheveled than me) women heading that way, too. Well the truck wasn’t coming so we began to walk and after a half hour, the truck showed up. Phew! I got dropped off at home where my mama and papa were still getting ready to go. I told them I’d come behind. So I sat on my porch, relaxed, and drank coffee. The women’s council would be selling food and kava on the side at Speech Day because there are so many mouths to feed and food always runs out. So I decided to make some popcorn to sell at our table. This ended up taking what felt like 4 million years because I had no plastic bags. But at this point I had huge bowls of popcorn and I was determined to make it work (they call this tin head here, by the way) so I took plastic and burned it into small baggies. When all was said and done, I had 19 bags. At 20 vatu each, that’s $3.80. Ha! That’s less than I paid for the popcorn itself. But that’s okay. Sometimes it just feels good to contribute. And I really wasn’t in a rush, so no worries at all.
I walked to St. Patrick’s and joined my family for the rest of the afternoon. Speech day last year I didn’t get home until 9, but this year it was shorter and sweet. The truck ride back to site was full of my siblings’ and our cousins’ boarding school lives. And I looked around and was in the truck bed with most of my favorite Ambae people! Got home cooked some more of the meat from Friday morning, watched Seinfeld, and went to sleep.
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| the result of a long morning over a hot fire |
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| julima and petrina! |
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| CHILD'S PLAY |
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| rolin with sweet little geraldina |
The time had finally come to paint the water tank! The Niko Si Club has 35 members and the plan was to paint an underwater mural on an old cement tank with each kid painting a sea creature. It was so fun! And it turned out beautifully. There are some funky fish, floating starfish, and dancing lobsters. A real mishmash of art. We ran out of ocean blue paint, but I’m going to bring that back at the end of December. My family got into the arts and crafts spirit, too, and added their own.
There are a bunch of language words people spit out that mean different things. “Iso” is when you are trying to do something, like bring over a stick to mash up nuts with, but you don’t do it correctly, like when the stick you chose is too big for the mashing cup. Iso! “Wiriu” means dog and people say it when you’ve done something odd. And same with “wirise” which is the name of a large mouthed fish. People say “wirise” when you act or say something bizarre or silly. I love these and attempt to use them – and sometimes even successfully do so. My papa drew a wirise on the tank and my brother painted it. And I drew a small fish saying “Wirise!”
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| tank art! |
One Sunday, Rodney and Ham came over and helped me build the solar dryer for the market house. It’s a climate change adaptation project for food preservation and it will be an income-generating aspect of the market house. Thomas rode his bike down to help out, too, because he was interested in the solar dryer and had helped me connect the dc fans with the solar panels. So you prepare the food and put it on the trays. The sun heats the black corrugated iron and the flat iron underneath which heats the trays. The two small dc fans face outward and pull out the moisture. After two days of building, we finished! It looks fantastic and we’re just waiting for the full moon weather to pass to try it out. While I’m in New Zealand, the mangos will ripen and start dropping like flies. There are so, so many mangos and they end up rotting everywhere, so this will reduce that waste. Definitely looking forward to some dried mango!!
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| solar dehydrator construction |
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| when you don't have a screw driver |
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| rodney and ham with our completed dryer |
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wa la!
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inside
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| a real beauty |
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When I was in Santo I found some shelf-life cheese! I sent a block down to Dave for a cheesy birthday gift and brought back one for myself. Then Kathleen found it hidden at a store on Ambae so I bought 3 more! The shopkeeper Bertha asked me what I was buying and what I was going to do with it. So I had the unique opportunity of explaining what cheese is used for and of convincing someone to try it. Here I am spreading the gospel around the world!
Lately things have been getting hairy. There’s local politics and power struggles, too many instances of nearby domestic abuse, school troubles, and problems with market house construction. Many of the challenges here are shaped by the way things are handled. The Ni-Vanuatu are much less direct than we are with problem solving and conflict resolution. It is a peaceful culture, but also one where feelings become suppressed. Small island/village/community politics is even harder to navigate than small town politics. They do not have the convenience (or is it a luxury?) of burning bridges. This is where they are going to live their whole lives. Everyone is family and you must coexist with these people whether you like it or not. This can make things difficult, especially as an outsider looking in. People turn their heads at domestic abuse, rubbish yungfala, stealing, cheating, violence, etc. because it’s easier than confrontation. These are some of the underlying struggles of small island life.
I’ve been extremely lucky here. The good times far outweigh the bad, but there was a week or so that I was stuck in funk valley. One day I was talking to someone and looked down and my legs were crawling with ants. I thought, sometimes you find yourself in a pile of ants. And it’s true. I even had a pretty impressive melt down in Lolowai where I cried it all out.
“I said, hey you know, breakdowns come and break downs go. So what are you gonna do about it, that’s what I’d like to know” Well, Paul Simon, that’s a great point. So I decided to turn my Fun Fund into a Fuck It Bucket. I have a stack of scrap paper and a pen next to it, so whenever something frustrates me, I write it down and drop it in the bucket. Trivial things, jumbo things, and everything in between. At the end of my service, I’m going to pull them all out and have a burn ceremony. I have sincerely loved my service and I know that the lows have to exist in order for the highs to exist. It has been both rewarding and challenging in innumerable ways living on a remote island in a small village fish bowl, and I wouldn’t change a single step of this adventure. The fuck it bucket is the perfect addition to my life. And my upcoming trip to New Zealand is arriving at the perfect time. I’ll have a chance to step away for a few weeks and come back for Christmas revitalized for the last 3 months of service.
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| from the backyard |
School break up was on Wednesday November 25th. While we were making the program, my headmaster kept reassuring us that it was actually going to start on time. He would be sure of it and make a point of starting no matter what. One thing I’ve learned here is that island time rules all, no matter how hard you try and fight it. So 7:30 start actually became 10:00 start. The closing ceremonies were good! There were a few speeches, class report, and prizes presentations. They have a first, second, and third prize for each subject and a first, second, and third prize for Best Overall. The teachers were pushing hard for a first, second, and third prize for Most Improved and Best Leadership, but I convinced them to just choose one of each. I gave a short toktok about Niko Si Club and why acknowledging good behavior is just as important as acknowledging good grades.
I also talked about Thanksgiving, which was happening the next day, and how it’s our kastom to go around sharing what you are grateful for. I was missing this home tradition, so I told them instead. I said that I was grateful for my parents because every day when I’d get home from school, they would ask me what I had learned. At the time I’m sure I was sick of the question, but now looking back, this small and simple act demonstrated how much they were (and are) interested in my future and success. And by having their loyal support, I’ve been able to follow my own path of adventure and happiness. I encouraged the parents in front of me to be present in their kids’ lives and express interest in their learning. And also to say thank you. They aren’t a big “thank you” people. This is not to say they aren’t thankful – I’m sure they are – they just don’t vocalize their appreciation very often. And that’s totally okay, but I find that expressing my gratitude makes everything that much sweeter. I knew this was one of my last times to speak in front of plenty of people here, so I thought it was important to share these messages and I’m glad I hopped up on my hope box soap box and did so.
The highlight of the break up ceremony was the music. I think they were going for classy background music for the day, but it was actually just the instrumental “here comes the bride” tune on repeat. I was definitely the only one to pick up on this, which is hilarious. On top of that, it was too loud and for a while they didn’t see the benefits of turning it down or, God forbid, off, so each presenter had to yell over the music. Eventually someone twisted the knob and it was at a comfortable volume, like what you’d expect to hear when a bride actually walks down the aisle.
My papa looked so fancy in his slacks, dress shoes, and collared shirt. But later that night we made fun of him saying that he was official for a few hours, but now he’s back to being barefoot and shirtless, drinking kava and spitting all over the place. That is, back to good old normal papa. We talked about how it’s good to be able to get dolled up, but even better to be comfortable. Amen!
We ate and cheered for the graduation 6th graders as they walked out to Yellow Submarine. It was glorious. And after the closing prayer, the school year was officially over. School’s out for summer! And for me, school’s out forever!
Someone with a long pinky nail (not sure who it was, it’s more common here than you’d think) left a small slice on my hand during a handshake. Have I mentioned that fingernails are called shellfingas here, as in seashells on your fingers? It’s darling. Anyway, this little cut was perfectly places to affect my handshaking experience for the rest of the day. How many hands could you possibly shake, Alison? Well. At the end of the ceremony, all 150 students line up, hands extended, and we go down and shake em all! So 150 handshakes, plus all of the invited guests and teachers. Too many handshakes! But then it was all over and it was time to relax. My papa brought back kava and the three of us drank to summertime!
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| mama and peti, flower queens |
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| salu salus |
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| my favorite bumbu simeon |
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| my fancy papa giving his toktok |
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| laplap for all! |
The next day was Thanksgiving. We had a big taco feast with mince, black beans, round cabbage, salsa, cheese, and pineapple. We went around and shared what we were grateful for and gobbled up all the delicious food. Now there are a few days left at site before I head to Port Vila for my trip. I’m planning on spending these days in my favorite hammock spot by the water, hanging out with my family, and finishing the last 300 pages of Les Miserables. And I’ve gotta fit packing somewhere in there, too. And then off for some more adventures! Here are a few more random shots from site -
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| breeeeeeze |
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| dale's sauce - youngest fan |
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cargo for vila
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| class pignic |
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