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 10^th 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 10^th 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)

Phase II Training

Phase II Training started in Port Vila, where all of the VITEL members (English + IT) were flown into Vila for about two weeks of final training before school starts. It was really great to see everyone because it’s been a while, not only that our counterparts came with us as well. A counterpart is a teacher at the school that the Peace Corps says each volunteer must have and it was great for them to come into Vila too to learn more about the Peace Corps and what it’s all about. I did realize I’m going to be teaching..a LOT. Most IT volunteers have an IT counterpart who helps teach the kids computers but since I’m the first IT vol at my site there are no teachers who are teaching computers besides which leads me to teach year 7, 8, 9, 10 and the vocational school all about IT, woo! That’s going to be a lot of work but this training definitely helped prepare me for it by getting my curriculum and lesson plans in order.

Anyway I’m going to keep this one short because it’s pretty late and in about 4 hours I have to wake up and hop on my plane back to Ambae. This time it’s a little bit more of a big deal because we’ve had all these trainings and my broken toe so I’ve been to Vila a lot and now I’m not going to come back in for three months. So for the next three months I’ll be teaching children and really starting to get to doing my job I came here for and yes I won’t have any Internet at all, you can feel free to call me anytime or write letters (I love mail!).

Oh and on a side note I watched the super bowl at a bar overlooking the ocean, it was awesome.

Thanks for reading, take care all and I’ll talk to you again in a few short months!