HVV, Rats, and Dead Chickens oh my.

So I realize this may sound like some rat disease but really I just wanted to say that my room has a rat or three and they are very annoying at night. They have plenty of access points into the room all of which I think they created themselves. I believe the rats here think they are safe because there are plenty of wild puskats outside but none in my room so they think they have no predator in their safe house, luckily I am here to prove them wrong and will now be avidly hunting them after they chewed a small hole through one of my backpacks.

So papa Pascal gave me this medieval rat trap, needless to say night one was unsuccessful  and the trap went off at some point but there is still no rat and I’m quite sure they were munching away all night on something.

Update! It is now 11/9 and the rat has been dealt with. For a night or two I spelled something pretty nasty in my room and I couldn’t figure out what it was and my apuwoman said she would clean my room, now papa Pascal didn’t tell me he put down rat poison so they found one very large and very dead rat. Needless to say it smells much better in my room now and no more rats, woo!

Anyway on to the HVV – Host Volunteer Visit. Today is 11/6 and in a week on the 13^th is when we all leave our training village for about a week (I return Friday 10/18) to go stay with another volunteer. We get to see what it’s really like to be on our own for once and what life is really like for a volunteer. Everyone gets paired with a different volunteer and Tim Filipa and I are going to see Josh A. who lives on Malekula. I’m pretty pumped because this is one of the 5 IT sites that I could be going to so I’m excited to see what it looks like and where I could possibly be living for the next two years.

Now a few days ago our village had the volunteers prepare a big lunch for everyone. We made everything from banana simporo (sp?) to actually killing a chicken and eating it. It was a very eventful day with many pictures to prove it:

A banana

rasprasp the banana..

We had a hunting party and caught this unlucky fowl..

Looking for a chicken..

Got him!

I feel bad - he is a very beautiful bird

Also I’m just posting this one update today since we (volunteers) we’re invited to go to this government cocktail party with free cheese and booze, sounds good to me.

Here are some random pics for some further enjoyment:

At one of the café’s I went to you had to order something to get Internet so I wisely chose this blooming flower tea

At some other store I stumbled upon a cake with my name on it J

Mitrifala go lo wan wokabout nomo.