Sunday, April 8, 2012

Last Post Bakegan

So this will be the last post again before I go back to Ambae and won’t have Internet until hopefully the next scheduled time and not another broken bone. Oh did I mention? I broke another bone. This time it was my thumb, and it hurt like hell. All I did was fall down, in front of all my students, which was pretty embarrassing but sucked even more when I realized that the pain I was in was pretty bad and I figured it was broken. That’s the reason I’m able to update my blog right now so it isn’t all bad.
Anyway before this, my friend Zack and I took a trip up to Joel’s site which is way up in the bush in North Ambae. It was his birthday so we wanted to have a small party. His village is past Waluriki (the hell hike I told you about earlier) and you have to walk up even more. We got there and we had a great time, Joel’s got a great village and we had fun.

Now I’ll skip to the pictures part, most of these are on Facebook but in case you don’t go on you can just check them out here with a little description for each, enjoy!

This is my favorite spot at the Pier where I do most of my reading

This is how you make copra, the sun dries out the meat of the coconut
and is then exported out for the copra market

This is taken from the pier, looking towards Manaro, the ominous volcano

My buddy Sam cooking some crabs we found 

THIS is laplap, I seriously cannot describe it to you
I can only tell you, it is not delicious

All the mama's are preparing takeaway banana leaves

When they're done, it looks a little something like this!
Just carry this baby on home

Zack and I eating some bat

Delicious hand of the bat

Cow tongues are a little chewy,
you must boil them a long time

Some students and teachers working on my new house!

Here's the inside

I've got myself a pretty sweet garden and ocean front property

As you can see it's very open and breezy

That mosquito net is quite invaluable

Apparently this keeps the rats out but they just
seem to chew through my screen

Say hello to my little friend.

She does like backpacks

Ni-Vans get a kick out of a white man carrying
a dog in a basket

My buddy Joel 

Joel's host brotha, just used a slingshot to
catch a wild faol

Man Ambae on a dry creek

Joel encouraging the children to clean the kava

I accidently fell in that green well with Mac..

Joel has to build a fire when he wants to cook
Man Ambae makin some food

Hungover and trekking, this sums it up

Two New Things

Very recently I received two great new things. The first one is that I finally moved into my new house! It’s pretty fantastic and I will certainly have pics to show of it a little later. It’s a natangora house which means it’s a thatch roof and woven bamboo walls. It’s very open so I live with many lizards, geckos, spiders, ants, grasshoppers, rats and anything else that lives on the ground.  The other thing, and I’ll give you some hints, it has four legs, a tail, and doesn’t shut up. It is in fact not an elephant, but, a puppy! Her name is Shaiah (Shy-uh) and she looks pretty healthy and not too inbred for an island dog. Yes I know after reading that other post you must be thinking “he caved” and yes, I did. Unfortunately this doing is going to know what it’s like to be loved by someone which I’m afraid can only hurt it once I’m gone. Anyway she’s really cute but also very annoying, puppies are a lot more responsibility than I thought and she’s finally just learning how to be potty trained.  People are so nice here that, as I was carrying my dog in my small basket (see pic below) I walked into a store where the shop owner gave me free milk powder and sugar for the dog, which was a super nice thing to do and I’m sure my puppy enjoyed the calcium. 

Another Day, Another Name

I happened to be walking my usual route when I meet an exceptionally friendly Ni-Van who proceeds to talk to me for quite a while. I told him I was hungry and that there were no stores open so he immediately brought me to his village where they gave me some chicken and rice on top of a banana leaf (that’s the plate, you don’t eat it). It was so nice and after talking with a bunch of the villagers I found out that there’s a ded ceremony later that day (a ded is when someone dies and the family makes a bunch of food for everyone). So naturally I went back for dinner and with deds here they celebrate big on the 5 day, 10 day, and every 10th day after that until the biggest celebration which is the 100 day and then it’s over. Because I was there on the first day, and then again on the 5 day and the 10 day, on the 10th day the village gave me something special. It wasn’t a material gift, and it was something I could only receive out of respect and it was a name. They honored me with the name of the man who died and now whenever I go to the village of Fatuanga they singout: “Richard Tauroroa” which is pretty damn awesome. 

More Ambae Antics

The other day me and Zack had a bigfala walkabout to a place called Waluriki. It was probably the most strenuous hike I’ve ever made and took about 3 ½ hours one way. What you need to know is that Ambae is extremely mountainous and just goes up and down so harshly it doesn’t care about your sole. (Get it? Ha) Anyway we finally get there but my socks were creating the worst blisters on my heels and I was starting to feel extremely sick. For some reason I was terribly sick during this walk which made it about 10x harder than it was and it was already on the extremely difficult scale. That night I went home and looked up the symptoms of malaria, I seemed to have every single one. I took my tests and they were negative but whatever I had closely resembled it and made me feel pretty crappy.

As I walk through West Ambae (which I do every day) I meet more and more people who teach me more and more language. Hardly anyone uses Bislama on the islands, they just use their local language and each island has their own. Because Ambae’s West, North and East are just so inaccessible and difficult to traverse, they each have their own dialect. Since I live in the West, I’m learning language blo West Ambae, here’s a sample sentence that I learned:
Ningko tanaloymaeto fanemae cancan mwa-mwave guaratu.
Roughly translated to: You, blackman, come eat hot flying fox (bat)
You say blackman? That’s racist, right? Wrong. Everywhere I go, people singout “tamtan” which literally means “white man”. There is no negative connotations to saying either tamtan or tanaloymaeto, it’s just what you are and there’s nothing wrong with that. 

Teaching in Vanuatu

So the day finally came when spell was over and it was time for all the students to go back to school and for me to start being a teacher. Now we were told that sometimes school doesn’t always start on time, and this was not an understatement. First day of school? No kids show up. First week of school? No kids show up. Second week of school? Two students have shown up. When the third week of school rolled around the principal declared the school open and for classes to start. During this third week I just received my class schedule but the problem was, no one showed up for my class. Let me tell you when the students finally did start showing up, it was quite an experience. I’ve never taught in my life and to go from having some knowledge about computers to actually formally teach children was a big step up. It was somewhat scary at first but as I became more comfortable in my role of the teacher rather than the student which I’ve been for so many years, I grew more accustomed to it over time. It’s a pretty great experience and so far things are going well, but what you must know is that these kids are at a very basic level.

Now I know you may be thinking “What, they just learning how to use Microsoft Word?” Nope, sorry. These kids are from outer islands and some have never even seen a computer before. That’s right, that means I’m teaching them how to use a mouse, in a world where “click” is not in their vocabulary, pretty crazy.

My role here seems to be evolving, and fast. Not only am I an IT teacher, but an IT teacher trainer when I started holding sessions for the teachers who have also never used a computer before to start clicking and typing. It’s pretty incredible to be able to able to empower these people with the knowledge that they just didn’t have access to, to become more integrated with technology where they otherwise never would have received it. Not only that but soon I’m going to be working for an NGO called Save the Children to start teaching their staff how to use the Microsoft Office Suite to make their lives easier. Lastly I’ve become somewhat of a medical officer by offering advice such as, instead of wrapping that banana leaf around that deep gash in your leg, try this antibiotic.  Basically my role is ever changing and I must be ever adapting if I want to survive and thrive in this place which I think I’m doing well so far.

White Man Requests

Me being the token white man on the whole west side of the island, I get quite a few looks, but most of all requests, and really random ones at that. The other day a neighbor came by and asked me for my hair clippers so he could shave his head. I had to tell him I don’t have any, because well, I don’t have any. He then proceeded to ask me to help him write a budget for the school. I’ve no experience in doing this and told him I was not a business volunteer. Another day a random villager asked if I could help build a poultry farm because that’s what the last agriculture volunteer did so I had to explain to him that I just teach computers. The next day a random man came up to me to talk to me about a program he watched (I have no idea where because we don’t have TV’s) called “Building Scare”, now maybe some of you have heard about it but I certainly hadn’t but he proceeded to tell me that the US Navy goes around and helps building toilets for people. He then let me know that he wants help building toilets and if I could call the Navy later that day to arrange something that that would be great. It’s moments like that when you’re just at a total loss as to what to do or say. 

Life on Ambae

Many of you may wonder how I keep myself occupied, even if you don’t I’m going to tell you. I swim at a wharf near my house where most of the Ni-Vans go swimming which is pretty cool. I also do a little fishing, which is a little bit different here. I don’t think there’s a single fishing pole on any of the islands, at least I’ve never seen one, and yet people here still collect a large amount of fish, any guesses? Here are some of the main methods: the first and my most personal favorite is using a spear gun. You must take a spear gun which is spring loaded and dive down and stay still so you don’t scare the fish and then shoot you’re mini harpoon at the nearest fish you see. This not only takes great skill but a very long breath. Some of the men can stay down there to shoot a fish, reclaim the harpoon, reload the gun and then shoot it again. I can barely stay down for 30 seconds so obviously I haven’t caught many fish, I usually leave it to the Ni-Vans to take care of it. I do get to be the shark bait though, once they catch a fish they put its head through a wire so you can carry many fish (like a belt, while you’re swimming, filled with dead fish) and that’s what I usually do. Since you have to stick a wire through their head and they just got harpooned you can imagine that some of their organs are hanging out along with bleeding. Whenever I’m the shark bait (fish carrier) I like to hold a knife, just to feel a little bit safer.

The other day I was with my buddy Zack and we wanted to go swimming. All I had on my mind as far as plans go for that day was just swimming. It was then that I saw my friend who stopped his truck and asked if we wanted a ride. We gratefully obliged and hopped in; he told us he was going to Devils Rock so we obviously went with him. It turned out to be an all-day fishing trip complete with a fish roast (along with one lobster) on the beach. Afterwards I went back to his village where we drank kava at his nakamal. The name of the village was Lolowalaquesa (sp?) Where we baked laplap, I was adopted by a papa, and then was then made into a high ranking chief with the name being Alanamoli, which has something to do with pigs tusks swirling around and my papa told me I outrank the chief of the village there currently. I wasn’t too sure how that worked as I didn’t really do anything but hey, there ya go, some days you just plan on going swimming but you can turn into a chief at any moment. Only here could something like this happen, oh man, TIV (This is Vanuatu).

Dogs & Other Paraphernalia

What would if you’ve ever only known happiness? There was no hate, no malice no contempt that ever came anywhere near you what could that feel like? Rather, what wouldn’t that feel like? It’s quite plausible that you wouldn’t know, but now imagine the exact opposite. In case you’re wondering, I’m talking about our loyal canine companions. It’s a well-known fact that I’m an animal person, a model student after my sister the teacher when I was young, to be their voice because they don’t have one.  It came to me after a pretty ghastly but typical dog-eat-dog experience here on the island.

It was once again a hot muggy night, walking back from my favorite spot on the pier reading until the suns last rays reflected off the sea. It was there I spotted a neighbor who was waiting for her husband, as we spoke she handed me a piece of bread for dinner which I was duly grateful.
He (we’ll call him Brian) emerged from the night, slightly kava drunk ready to go back to the house which was quite a walk but luckily, Brian holds much power in the village so, we found a truck. There’s one thing you need to know about Brian, he has two very loyal dogs. I did not say loving dogs, and I did not say happy dogs, but they would die for him.

As we boarded the back of the pickup I realized the two dogs we’re still on the ground and was wondering what we would do with them, either A) just go and they’ll follow us home later or B) pick them up and take them with us. Since Brian was already in the truck I figured we would take option A, which of course was until Brian reached over the bed of the pickup, grabbed the older dog by only his left front leg and hoisted him up onto the truck. As the dog cried in pain, so did I, on the inside anyway because what I just witnessed was something that I’ve never seen before, let alone imagine anyone could pick up a dog like that. It was quite the gruesome sight and as he picked up the dog and it yelped terribly he turned to me and just smiled like he dropped a piece of food that maybe he still wanted to eat.  Unfortunately it only seemed to be an injustice to me and I’m sure to many of you reading but that’s just one more thing about life as a Peace Corps volunteer, learning to deal with culture that isn’t your own.

 Is it cruel if an animal has never experienced joy? If its never been where the grass is greener? I was going to go on a tirade about animal cruelty in this country but if that’s all it’s ever known could that be the comparison of a dog only ever knowing love? I’ll let you be the judge of that but while everyone has their own views and mine are obviously leaning one way, it’s something hard to swallow but things are done differently everywhere and treating their animals is most certainly one of those ways.

(Oh and as for what happened to the second dog I immediately jumped out of the truck and picked him up and put him in the back in case you were wondering)