Sunday, March 13, 2011

Bislama Bekegen! Ni-Van Phrases and Stories…

So, for the first month or two, I would always hear “fuck” when the locals would talk in local language. I would hear it quite often too. It sounded like a transitional word in the language, like Long or Blong in Bislama, meaning to, at, on, belonging, etc. So, for the longest tome I just assumed it was part of language and eventually I might derive the purpose of it. After a while though I became suspicious and decided to ask. At the nakamal one night I heard “fuck” (or in Bislama “fak”) and turned to one of my brothers (from my extended family), Dennis, and asked: What does “fak” mean? Dennis turned to me and said: Fak? It’s a swear. Oh! Well that makes sense. Good to know the Ni-Van culture has picked up swear words, even in the most remote parts of the country. I’m sure I will find some more language gems, but for now I can tell you some of my favorite Bislama phrases I have learned.
 
Folem rod ia i go
When you walk around in Vanuatu, or Maewo, a lot of times you don’t where you’re going. One time I was walking back from the garden with my two brothers (Siro and Pato) where we had grabbed a stump of kava and bamboo for my house and I reached a crossroads. Since I was leading, I had to decide on which way to go and since I didn’t know I turned to my brothers and Pato told me: folem rod ia i go. Well that’s great. Translated, folem rod ia i go means: follow that road—that’s about as specific as Bislama gets. So, now I’m stuck at a crossroads and I’ve got two choices and my brother tells me, without any hand gestures indicating which way, to follow that road. Lucky for me I guessed the right road, but this phrase pops up quite often when you need directions.

Antap and Daon
You probably already guessed what these words mean, but I will clarify anyways: On top and down. Simple enough, right? Well, these two are also important in telling directions. While I spent a few days “antap” in Ngota, the middle bush village, completing the survey, I got used to the function of these two words in Bislama. Ngota is basically laid out in a straight line, coming away from Naviso, with bunches of house on the left and right as you make your way through. Now, depending on where you are in the village people might tell you to go “daon” or “antap”. This means that sometimes I might be closer to Naviso and they would tell me I have to go “daon” (closer to central Ngota) or they might tell me to go “antap” in the same context. The more frustrating part about this is most of the time “antap” to me means going to middle bush and “daon” means leaving middle bush, but they get much more complicated. On West Maewo, if you’re in the North and are going South, you’re going “daon”, if you’re in the South and you’re going North, you’re going “antap”, but if you’re in Central Maewo and you’re going South, you are going “antap” and the same goes for heading “North”. Let’s not make life too complicated now.

Lo wei
This one is a real gem for directions. When you want to know the location of a person, place, or thing, many times the response is “lo wei”. This means, basically, over there. Well that doesn’t help much, but sometimes this is accompanied with a hand gesture giving a general direction. That helps a great deal, because without that you have to guess what general direction was indicated. I can’t really complain though, because I use “lo wei” quite frequently.

Saed i go / Saed i kam
These two mean: This direction and that direction, respectively. They are generally more specific than the other aforementioned phrases, but they are also completely dependent on context. This means you must always take into account where you are and hope that when they say “saed i go” (this direction) you understand the context and pick the right direction (unless of course hand gestures are used, then you’re usually in the clear).

Well that finishes up some of my favorite Ni-Van and Bislama phrases. Now I can share with you a story I was told at the nakamal, late one night, after many shells…   

Arthur @ Bon Marche
Arthur is apparently a bald white man that came to Vanuatu and became a male prostitute (or might have been before—they didn’t clarify) and charges according to time and movement (Ni-Van for sexual position). Additionally, everyone knows about him and is well aware of his true profession, but, apparently, he works at Au Bon Marche during the day and I can see him there. When I asked what Bon Marche (Central, Downtown, Nambatu) I was simply told: “Bon Marche”, with a nod of the head confirmation. Bon Marche. PERIOD.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

The 12 Days of Christmas and the Wokbaot from West to East Maewo and Back

Other volunteers have visited Naviso. Before Jennifer and I came to Naviso, plenty of the old volunteers of Maewo had made the journey to the other side, but this past Christmas Group-23 made Naviso history again by bringing over 5 more volunteers, meaning that 7 white people were in Naviso at the same time! But just getting everyone there was an adventure by itself.

On the 23rd of December, Jennifer’s Papa-Luke, my Brother-Siro, and I went to the other side to bring the group back to Naviso on the 24th. After being repeatedly asked what road we should take I decided, while it would be the longest, walking to Berterrara and taking the truck road over would be the easiest way. This meant we would walk roughly 2-hours north and then begin the approximately 3-hour hike over to Naviso. We attempted to get a truck to take us up to Berterrara, but that fell through when Jill never showed up. After about 8-hours we finally arrived in Naviso. Yes, that does say 8-hours. I am not quite sure why the trip took so long, even today I don’t know, but once we got to Naviso we were able to relax for a few days before trekking back.

The next few days were filled with celebration, plenty of food, and, of course, kava. On Christmas Day, all the guys in Naviso stone ground kava for us and this resulted in a lot of kava drunk Peace Corps volunteers as the kava is quite strong in Naviso, but everyone made it out alive, so that’s a positive.

On the 26th we made the trek back to Telise. This time we took the road to Norovorovo and it once again took 8-hours to reach our destination and once again I have no inkling why it took so long. And on the 27th we took a boat north to go and see “Big Wota”.

Big Wota: Stop Punching Yourself

The Epic Wotafal of Not Maewo
“Big Wota” is a massive waterfall in North Maewo that you can walk to the top of, if you don’t mind walking up a rock face with rushing water. I minded, I minded a lot, I don’t like messing with forces of nature, especially raging water, but peer pressure of course gave way. In the end we reached the top and Nic Thiltges was able to get some epic photos with his waterproof camera. The trip also resulted in the epic cave crawl.

The Stalag-tite or mite (the one hanging from the ceiling) and the Amazing Punch to the Head
As we are about to leave “Big Wota”, Nic Thiltges finds a cave underneath one of the waterfalls and decides to climb in while inviting us to join him. As we reach the spot, I find him holding stalag-tites or mites and positioning his feet on the wall to climb sideways into the cave over a pool of water. I think twice and just about don’t make the attempt, but the other volunteer behind me, unwittingly, pressures me into making the climb. As I grab the first stalag-tite or mite and position my feet, the stone breaks, resulting in all the force I put into holding that stone coming at my head. I punch myself in the head with my fist still holding the stone in my hand and fall backwards into the pool of water. As you can imagine, it looked pretty epic and I did come out alive in the end, so it was a pretty good laugh. After staying one more night in Telise, our group headed over to Ambae to meet some more volunteers for New Years on East Ambae at St. Patrick’s College in Vureas.

The Mysterious Internet of Lolowai
Lolowai, the Provincial Health Center for Penama Province, the location of the Provincial Hospital, and home to wireless internet…  WHAT!? Sometime in the past, an Australian installed wireless at Lolowai Hospital, but nobody knows where it comes from or where or why it was installed. This is one of the mysteries of Vanuatu and most likely will not be solved anytime soon. More or less one of those mysteries that people are fine to: leko i stap (live and let be).
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The Journey of the Chinese Handbags
Way back in November, Jennifer and I sent 5 total Chinese Handbags to Maewo via the Makila, the one cargo vessel that travels to West Maewo. A Chinese Handbag is a large bag with two handles and a zipper on top. The bag costs 300 – 600 Vatu based on size and they usually break very easily. PCVs use these bags to transport mass amounts of Vila purchases to the outer islands on cargo vessels. Ahead of time, Jennifer and I knew that the Makila very rarely came to Maewo. I know, accurately, now that the Makila tries to come to Maewo once every two weeks (depending on weather). Safe to say, considering the trip you must take to get to Naviso, we were not expecting to see our bags for a long time: while I got one bag earlier, we did not get the other 4 bags to Naviso until somewhere around January 15th, right before Jennifer had to go back to Vila for her Phase II Training.

When I heard the Makila was coming to Maewo, after I we had arrived, I assumed that meant our bags had come. After making the walk to Telise, I learned that the Makila dropped off one of my bags and no others. Fortunate for me, but confusing too: where are the other bags? First we are told that the Makila was full and couldn’t carry the bags, so they had been left in Vila until the Makila came back. After a couple more weeks, I walked on top of the mountain to call Nic Thiltges and ask if the bags came. The answer: a clear and resounding no. FROM WANEM!! Soon after, a villager, Hamlinson, comes back from the other side with a note from Boe Malo (that’s Nic Thiltges’ Kastom name at site). The note told me the bags had come the first time, but someone had written Berterrara on all of the addresses, so they were dropped off in Berterrara, North Maewo. Since the last PCVs had just left Gambule Secondary School in November, the people of Gambule decided to just abandon the bags in Justin and Sheridan’s (the past PCVs) old house—and not tell anyone. Luckily, Boe Malo had found them when he walked north one day for a small trip. Unfortunately, the Headmistress had the key; the Headmistress who was currently on East Ambae. Moreover, when my Host Papa and I walked over to the other side and showed up in Berterrara to get these bags, we were unaware that the Headmistress had taken the key with her to Ambae. This led to us walking another 1 ½ hours – 2 hours south to Telise to get the one bag that made it to Boe Malo (where they were supposed to go). After we got to Telise and spent the night, we made the unfortunate journey, following the creek, through the bush back to Naviso (when I had some of my biggest “road falls” to date). After this we didn’t think about the bags until after New Years; I had requested Paul Wren to move the bags to his house as soon as the Headmistress came back.

Once back from Ambae, after New Year, with additional baggage, due to Christmas packages picked up at Lolowai Post Office, we decided that we would grab a truck and get everything up to Quatevol, a little bit closer to Naviso. After that, we have a much better chance of getting the contents brought piecemeal to Naviso. So, the day after we got back I tried calling every truck driver who might go on top: nobody answered. This led Boe Malo and I to walking north to ask truck drivers in person. What we discovered is that the rains destroyed the road and the only driver willing to risk the trip, Jill, is currently fixing his truck. Well, that’s just dandy! In the end, Boe Malo and I walked back to Telise empty-handed.

After this string of failures, I was still committed to getting the bags on top and to Naviso before Jennifer left for Vila in two weeks, so the next day we planned to get the new baggage (Christmas gifts, etc.) to Berterrara and try to find some yungfala to help us carry them on top. The next morning I called Walter, a truck driver in Norovorovo, to pick us up and take us and our baggage north to Berterrara, so Walter came and picked us up that morning and we started the drive north. Unfortunately for us, after about 10 minutes of driving we hit one of the river crossings and the rain had destroyed the road. Clarification: the road is impassable. Well, shucks! After this we turned around and headed back for Norovorovo where we got a boat to take us and our things north. Finally, an hour later, we reached the north with all our things to learn that all the yungfala couldn’t help us because there was a funeral… In the end, all my efforts this time ended in ultimate failure. I did manage to carry my bag of Christmas gifts up to Quatevol, but it practically killed me and made the rest of the walk very tiring. Luckily, that was later carried the rest of the way for me and made it after 3 or 4 days. I had not given up on my commitment to get the bags to Naviso before Jennifer left though.

The Sunday after we got back, we announced to the community, at the community meeting after Church, that we needed those bags to get there before Jennifer left. I read off names of yungfala, that Jennifer’s Host Papa—Luke—had provided. The following Tuesday, the group of 12 Man Naviso, my Host Papa, and I headed to the other side to get the bags. After a full day of walking,  3 hours there and 3 hours back, we successfully got all the bags to Naviso: a mere 2 months after we put them on the Makila for delivery to Maewo—All I do is win.

The Doti Waetman of the Not
A Doti Waetman (in English, though it’s already pretty close, Dirty Whiteman) is a North Maewo Ni-Vanuatu, so named by Boe Malo’s Host Papa. This story fits into the middle of the “Journey of the Chinese Bags”, the time when Boe Malo and I traveled to the north looking for a truck. Our final destination was the house of Master Ron (in Bislama, Master is equivalent to Mister, I know, it’s just as racist as dirty white man-once you learn what it means). At Ron’s house we were fed ridiculous amounts of food and introduced to the westernized part of Maewo. Ron owns trucks, boats, and has a white man house with a manicured lawn and pool. This place is ridiculous and the income/wealth disparity between him, alone, and the rest of the island is amazing. He is called a dirty white man because he is half-white, half-black: WAM BAM! TOTALLY POLITICALLY INCORRECT!

Back during World War II, when America stationed their military in Vanuatu to watch the Japanese, many soldiers were stationed throughout Maewo. One German-American soldier decided to “localize” and ended up with kids. After he left, back to the states, he left his Ni-Vanuatu family with enough money to outshine every other Man Vanuatu. Now, his descendants have a large business in copra, transportation, and sales in Maewo. This makes them very wealthy, especially by Ni-Vanuatu’s standards. Unfortunately, as helpful and kind as they were to Boe Malo and me, they could not provide us with a truck on top (as you learned above). I guess Doti Waetman cannot solve every problem.   

Monday, March 7, 2011

The Death and Rebirth of an IPOD: A Lifetime Original Movie

P1000479 (Small)After my IPOD died, about 10 days after I got to site, after I had killed my computer battery to charge it, I discovered that Jennifer and I had no way to effectively charge a USB Device. So, from mid-November to Christmas, I learned to sing songs to myself. This consisted mostly of ‘Down’ by Jay Sean and ‘Move Along’ by The All-American Rejects. During the Christmas/New Year “spell” I was able to charge the IPOD and then plan trips to West Maewo and Sulua School where I can use an AC Adapter to charge the IPOD with electricity (through a massive solar set-up), but after a few hurricanes my plans changed, I was unable to go west, and my IPOD died. This led me to discover that the small solar chargers (for charging USB devices) Jennifer and I have might not charge the IPOD effectively, but can keep it alive while the IPOD is playing: a rebirth like the rise of the Phoenix from the ashes… 
                                           
UPDATE: I now have an effective solar charger. Best case scenario: it actually charges my IPOD. Worst case scenario: it actually charges my IPOD, but doesn’t make it to Maewo or Naviso.


Photo: My artistic side (basically non-existent) managed to capture a tropical landscape in the IPOD screen.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Running: Masochism Refined

P1000553 (Small)P1000556 (Small)Field blo Futbol and the Skul Loop, my 45 second running loops—you should be envious. Sometimes I choose to run around the soccer field because it is longer than my school route, but when too much rain comes I have to move up the ‘slight’ hill to the school (which is next door to the soccer field). The school route, while usually being drier, is a much more technical route, involving varying drills of bounding and quick feet every 45-second loop. Oh how I spend my mornings in Naviso! As you can imagine, during a 40-70 minute run I really rack up the loops. Beyond that I have literally carved a path around the school and soccer field. You can see my exact, unwavering route. Additionally, most mornings I am joined by children who either run some loops with me or run in front of me wanting me to chase them (which can create quite gut-wrenching interval training). The most surprising factor in all this is my willingness to run in circles every morning. This might be drive me crazy in the states, but here I find it quite enjoyable: masochism refined.
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Friday, March 4, 2011

The Mission to Find Something to Do

Dwindling Books and the Journey to the Westside
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This all began with my first trip to the Health Center in Kerembei, with my Host Papa, back in November, when my Host Papa (head of the Dispensary Committee) was going to call Lolowai (Ministry of Health for Penama Province) and ask about our new Dresser, who still has not come. There I was invited to come back on December 1st for the World AIDS Day Program at the Health Center; what a perfect way to get introduced to Vanuatu MoH Programs!

In late November I came back to the other side, this time coming in through Telise. The MoH Program was supposed to involve a tour up West Maewo, with all the officials from Lolowai. Meaning that I would observe the program in Telise first and then move with the program until it came to Kerembei (a 3-4 day program). Once on the other side, I learned that none of the officials came to Maewo and the program was reduced to one day at Kerembei. Fortunately, one of the programs was still on and I had reached Nic Thiltges’ site for the first time and was able to steal some books from him as half my luggage still hadn’t made it to Naviso/Maewo and that included my sole form of entertainment: books. As well, the other side has Coca-Cola and, a more recent discovery, Chocolate/Strawberry Milk (this is “long-life” milk, so it doesn’t need to be refrigerated before opening). This makes the other side something like a small paradise. After a few days of travel up West Maewo, I made it to Kerembei for the World AIDS Day program.

World AIDS Day: An Honored Guest and an Impromptu Speech
My original plan was to simply observe the program, but I shouldn’t really have expected that little. The program started with a small march/parade and was followed by a Introduction ceremony. The first problems with the program presented themselves in the schedule: an hour was allotted for the 10-15 minute march, for example. During the introduction ceremony I am introduced as an honored guest and brought into the little speakers pavilion and then presented with a microphone where I am expected to give an impromptu speech in Bislama to 100+ Ni-Vans; lucky day. Later the schedule became a problem and led to my next Bislama AIDS Toktok.

After lunch, which started 45 minutes early, there was still 90 minutes until the program was going to start again and people were growing restless. Paul Wren and I tried finding the Nurse running the program to start the program early, but she was nowhere to be found. What was Paul Wren’s solution? Entertain the crowd! This involves a megaphone and discussing AIDS in Bislama to the entire crowd once again. Luckily, this did keep the crowds in check before the program was able to start again. Just a Vanuatu MoH Program I was able to save.
  
Paul Wren Tari
Nuf said…

The former Speaker for Parliament, now living on West Maewo, in Berterrara, in the rough equivalent of a shack, yet still running a generator 24/7 with an array of various mobile chargers belonging to everyone else, jammed into one power-strip that looks about to short-circuit. The first time I met Paul, he asked me a lot of questions about myself and after asking my age he responded: 23? Fuck I’m old!

Paul runs the Post Office and is a community leader. He is a very effective leader-compelling and educated, but the problem is with Paul is that he is basically retired (and that means a lot more in Vanuatu, where life is relaxed to begin with). This means that some things just don’t happen unless Paul feels especially motivated. This isn’t too large a problem, but could present difficulties, but Paul is just too cool to really get frustrated with.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Tok blo Rod

In Bislama this means rumors or unsubstantiated facts, but, in this case, these facts are substantiated by my first-hand experience. No one ever told us what the roads were like before we go to Maewo. As I have stated before, coming in, we knew that getting to our site involved a two-hour hike after getting to the truck road, but beyond that nothing was really described. Additionally, the “two-hour” part was more of an understatement, lending more to the abilities of locals and people who know the road well. As I came to learn there are many more roads that lead into and out of Naviso-going to different parts of Aelan Maewo. The roads differ in difficulty and a lot depends on the weather. As well, I learned that a Ni-Van’s idea of difficulty greatly differs from my idea of “what is difficult”. Basically the level of difficulty can be broken down into four categories: Sop Mud (soft mud), Glis (slipperiness), Size of Hills, and Length of Road. 
“Trak Rod”
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The “Trak Rod” is the main road to Naviso and the first road that we took. The truck road to the eastside starts in Berterrara (the Southernmost-North Maewo Village). During good weather and assuming the road hasn’t been devoured by rain a truck can get to Quatevol (middle bush West Maewo). After that you must walk the rest of the way. Apparently the truck use to be able to get to Ngota (middle bush East Maewo), but that, of course, is a thing of the past. If the truck can’t get “antap” to Quatevol, that just adds an additional hour uphill hike. Basically, the hike is three-hours, is not overly hilly, not much soft mud, and the “Glis” isn’t that bad-making this road the easiest route to Naviso.
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When the Government of Vanuatu first attempted to build a truck road to Naviso, they managed to reach about a thirty-minute walk outside of Naviso before the machinery, apparently, broke down. This means that at least to Ngota you have a run down, non-maintained, fossil of a truck road, and then after that you have a massive downhill hike into Naviso, that becomes very technical climbing from rock to rock once you reach the point where construction stopped. To summarize the difficulty of this road comes from “Glis” and the Size of the Hills (short mud and Length don’t really factor in).

“Tufala Rod lo Telise”
The next roads that I took to and from Naviso were the roads to Telise Vilej (Central Maewo), where Nic Thiltges makes his home above Sulua School. These are not truck roads or even attempted truck roads, these are bush roads. Every road I talk about now will be a bush road because the road to Naviso in Berterrara is the only attempted truck road to East Maewo. Now the two roads to Telise are described by the people of Naviso as the one that follows the river (Folem Krik ia i go) and the one that goes up the huge hill (go lo bigfala hill). Now the people of Naviso know these roads suck, they’re not oblivious to this fact; they can just walk them because they were born doing it. They realize how tough they can be, but they just laugh it off because, well, what else can you do? The bad part about the two times I took these two roads the weather was horrible. Meaning that it had poured rain the previous nights and that just means it’s going to suck on these roads. The first road I took I walked up the “bigfala hill” because we couldn’t follow the river because it had rained too much and the river was too big (not dry enough) to follow; that should have been my first indication not to go. Basically, the hill is about 90-minutes uphill and steep enough that while standing up straight I would be looking directly into the hill. Lucky for me, it was slippery enough that I kept feeling like I was going to fall backwards down the hill and I had to scramble on hands and knees to keep making forward progress because I kept slipping backwards in the mud. And, of course, about 70% of the way up, I get a mad cramp in my hamstring. Once we finally got to the top, I was reminded that we still had two-hours to get to Telise and now was the downhill part, where I slipped and fell on the “Glis” a number of times. All in all, the hill road difficulty can be categorized (in my “non Ni-Van” estimation) as “Glis” and Size of Hills (that’s not going to be a theme-I just hate “Glis”).

Now, the time I followed the creek I was going back to Naviso. It had poured rain the night before and my Host Papa greeted me with a wonderful, knowing smile, the morning of, as he already knew the road was going to suck. In the first fifteen-minutes I lost both my sandals in “Sop Mud” and fell up a hill and then down it as we realized we had gone the wrong way. “Following the river” doesn’t actually mean “following alongside” like I thought it did. It literally means walking upstream in knee-deep to thigh-high water. The nice thing about this road is that you don’t walk up a huge hill; you just follow the river through the valleys and then have to walk downhill. Unfortunately for me, the downhill portion was a nightmare that involved me falling, pretty dramatically, numerous times and one time sliding down the hill about ten to fifteen feet. I would, personally categorize the difficulties of this road as Short Mud and “Glis”. Additionally, I believe this road deserves the benefit of another award for difficulty. I would throw in the “Walking upstream on slippery rocks” category.

“Rod lo Norovorovo”
Now the last road I have taken out of Naviso and back (there is one other road that I have just learned about that goes north and follows the saltwater to Lalaone, a village next to the airport in Naone). This road takes you south to Norovorovo, approximately a thirty-minute walk south of Telise. This road is somewhat easier, the hills are much smaller going up and down, but the real difficulties arise before the hill and after the downhill. To take this road you walk south from Naviso and follow the saltwater which means walking along the stones of constantly changing size. These stones go from pebbles to stones the size of large grapefruit to stones the size of a large dog. The grapefruit stones are the most annoying because they constantly shift and move as you try to walk (like soft sand).

 Once you get close to the hill you come upon the part that actually, truly presents a danger to your life. On one side you have a sheer rock face and the other side the changing tides of the South Pacific Ocean. While it’s raining or if has just rained you have the problem of rocks falling on your head from the sheer rock face. The other worry is the ocean waves that can reach the rock face during certain times of the day. If this is the case, unless you plan on waiting, you must run from place to place in between waves hoping you reach a place where you can avoid getting hit by a wave. This has not yet worked out for me yet and I usually come out soaking wet.

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Now that you have some background knowledge about the roads to ad from Naviso, I can go into what this means for every Man Naviso.
  
The Mobile Connection

The Two Towers
Using a mobile in Naviso isn’t possible. Coming to site I was told that you could in fact use a mobile in Naviso, even though the site identification sheet spoke to the contrary. Once arriving in Maewo I learned the truth and, more explicitly, what “around the saltwater” and “on top of the hill” meant for mobile “hotspots”.  In order to use a mobile in Naviso you must either walk up the road to Ngota (following the “Trak Rod”—“folem road ia i go-wokbaot antap maontan ia”) about 60 minutes to 75 minutes uphill. This is a rather new option as they just recently built a tower in the north (seems like a good idea to have that for the airport). Basically, you walk to the top of the hill and sit in a certain place where you have a clear view to the tower in the north. The other, older option was take the road to Norovorovo and you can get service right before the downhill portion from the tower on East Ambae; this is approximately a two-hour to three-hour trip. Simply put, you must become a mountain goat before you can talk regularly on a cell phone in Naviso.  

Hurricanes, Flooding, and a River Runs through It
Coming from the Pacific Northwest, I am use to pretty docile weather. Yes, Oregon is wet. That does not mean the same as tons of water. In Oregon it might rain everyday for a month, but we might only get 4 or 5 inches, but while I was in Boston it rained 6-8 inches in 72 hours. That’s a vastly different experience; Vanuatu is much more like Boston, but mixed with the always wet part of Oregon (only a little though). It doesn’t rain here all the time, but everything is constantly green, so it keeps a good balance. Other than that, Vanuatu has Hurricanes (or Cyclones in this part of the world). I never really experienced hurricanes before I came to Vanuatu. Moreover, I experienced flooding a little in Boston, but not overmuch. In Vanuatu, I have experience a number of hurricanes and various “bigfala” storms. The most recent hurricane left a lake (knee-deep) in front of my house. Additionally, all the roads in Naviso become raging rivers which makes walking around a real great time. The best part of the hurricanes is the fact that we are stuck in Naviso and, of course, our one form of the communication, the Satellite Phone (SAT Phone), died in December and we had no consistent way to charge it.

The EAP, Satellite Phone, and the Three Separate Deliveries of our Solar Set-up
The EAP (the Emergency Action Plan), which we don’t actually have a copy of, depends on our ability to communicate and receive information via the SAT Phone and keep the phone charged. This is highly dependent on our access to a power source; a solar set-up was supposed to be sent to us early, but due to a change in technology the order was delayed. Then the Peace Corps Office learned that we had no way to power our SAT Phone and it was about to die, they decided to send us another solar set-up to use while the other one came. Of course, to get the solar set-up to us fastest, they decided to fly the set-up into Maewo instead of putting it on a boat: that was the first mistake. The plane to Maewo comes once a week, only if the weather is good, and all baggage has to transit through the airport on Espirtu Santo.

One day I was over in Telise and was told a “solar” came for the Peace Corps in Naviso. When I was brought to the “solar” I discovered that it was one part of three and the other parts (the regulator and battery) were still in Santo because not all the parts could get on the plane. This means I will have to come over to the other side again at some point to get the other two parts. The next time I am on the other side I had gone to Berterrara and had heard that Nic Thiltges was at Gambule visiting the Youth Challenge volunteers, so I headed down there and while there ran into Paul Wren Tari (who I will talk more about later). Paul told me that a package for me was at Ron’s house, one of the truck drivers and “Doti Waetman of the Not”. When I came to his house I found the regulator, which was addressed to go to Telise and Nic Thiltges, but because Ron lives in the north and only happened to pick up the package for me, it never got past his house. After two weeks in Naviso, I ended up walking over to the north and then down to Telise, where I discovered that the battery did not reach Berterrara or Telise. After calling the Peace Corps Office I learned that the battery had never actually left Port Vila and that’s why it never reached Maewo. All in all, after three months we still don’t have all three parts of the solar set-up and after the first four months at site, we still have no way to charge the SAT Phone consistently. Oh, the inconsistencies of mail when living on an island. The moral of this story: while ships might be slower, packages on planes to Maewo are inconsistent in so many ways that the ship will always be the better route. Period. 

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Becoming Aelan Boe: Integration

Integration: the goal of my first 3 months (now 4 months) of service in the Peace Corps. With a different training style, Peace Corps adjusted pre-service training to last only 2 months (opposed to the original 3 month training) and bring the PCVs back in for 2 weeks of training after 2-3 months at site. In regards to Community Health Volunteers, our training was backed to March 1st, opposed to February 1st, because our Program Manager needed to go to training in Washington D.C. from mid-January to mid-February. Disregarding the delay of our first months of service the main goal of these first months is to integrate into the community and thus make working in the community on such sensitive subjects such as Sexually-Transmitted Infections, Domestic Violence, and why you should wash your hands with soap after going to the toilet. Additionally, we were given the option of performing a Community Health Survey (not a requirement); I chose to perform the Community Health Survey, but that is a different story too and will have to wait. Now I can explain the complex intricacies of the integration process and my vast repertoire of techniques.

Seven Lock, Kava, Wokbaot: Roksta blo vilej blo mi
Scratch my chin, spit, relax, and repeat. This is essentially the key to my integration. One day, market day, all the people were at the market house, right next to the Nakamal and I had just come to “storian” with everyone at the market. Most people in the village use market day as an excuse to drink kava early and not have to cook (because they can just buy “already-pr)epared food” at the market). Anyway, as I was leaving I proceeded to eye one of the Mamas at the market, as she asked me where I was going, I told her: bae mi go lo haos festaem lo karem wan smol samting afta bae mi kam bak lo ples ia (I will go to my house to grab something then come back) and after I scratch my chin. From previous posts you probably understand the significance of this: I told her I wanted to drink kava. The Mamas, who were sitting in a group, burst into hysterics as I walked off all awesome-like. In another situation I was walking with Jennifer and came upon a group playing Seven Lock. Seven Lock is the card game of Vanuatu (kad gem blo yumi), no other card game is played by Ni-Vanuatu. I’m not going to go into the details of the card game. It’s entertaining-to a point-you are forced to play it for quite long stretches of time and almost every day. Regarding the game, you try to get rid of your hand first and you throw down cards matching the card in the center (suit or number/face card). Each card has a numerical value and if someone throws down the Seven of Heart (Seven Lock) before anyone has emptied there hand everyone must total the number in their hand and the lowest total wins: this results in almost everyone saying “Lock’em” every time someone is about to throw down a card. Now, as we walked by I started saying “Lock’em” to the group playing cards (I didn’t have to guess that they were playing Seven Lock for the above reasons). As we continued to walk by one of the guys in the group started the kava spit with the Swa-A and I responded with the spit: S-Fee. The group exploded with joyous shouts.Now the kava spit has become an important part of integration, with the chin scratch. I frequently hear now, as I walk through the village the beginning of the spit: Swa-A. I am expected to finish it with the S-Fee. The funny thing about the spit: it’s part of the custom with kava, but most of the people are too self-conscious to want to draw the attention. Lucky for me, I have no humility. Essentially these things have been essential to integration and a few more things have made me: wan man Naviso finis mo wan Aelan Boe.

Due to the fact that I enjoy running long distances it has made it quite easy for me to want to walk long distances and to get anywhere in Maewo, from Naviso, you must walk long distances. On top of this, years of running has pounded my feet into oblivion making it much easier for me to walk around barefoot for long distances. Now I’m not saying this is easy because it is far from easy. The bush roads to Naviso are ridiculous (another story) and most of the roads have sharp rocks all over them and make my feet feel horrible, but unlike many volunteers whose feet the rocks would cut, my feet come out considerably less mangled. The walking all over Maewo and the sometimes barefoot walking bring out some of the more significant adjectives in the Bislama language: yu fit, strong, Aelan Boe. Additionally, thanks to me being a hipster and all, I could not resist the urge to buy an Aelan Basket (basically a messenger bag or “murse” made from local leaves) and only use the Aelan Basket when I wanted to “wokbaot”. The Aelan Basket (which would run about 3000 Vatu-30USD-in Vila) cost me 150 Vatu at the local market-1.50USD-quite a deal! In a nutshell, those were my integration techniques and have seemingly worked majestically. It might be because I’m just such a likeable person, but that would be too arrogant to say.
    
The Guy Everyone Knows and Loves: The Niceties of Maewo
The great thing about Maewo is that everyone is super nice. Everyone on Maewo knows who I am also: I’m Nik Naviso, the first Peace Corps on the Eastside. Since everyone on Maewo knows the difficulty of getting to and from Naviso everyone wants to help me out and this basically results in free food wherever I go as well as really nice faces who all want to talk. This isn’t only for volunteers on the Eastside. Nic Thiltges at Telise Vilej receives quite the same response when he walks up and down West Maewo.

Some examples include the time we were walking back from Naviso after Christmas and had just reached Telise Vilej. Our group had split up and I was walking with Jennifer, from Naviso, and Megan and Kara from Ambae. As we reached one house, we were immediately greeted with: Nik Naviso, kam, yum as spel smol wetem mifala, mifala jas bin karem wotamelon ia lo karen, bae yufala i kakae mo spel smol (Nik Naviso, you must come rest and eat this giant watermelon we just brought from the garden). Now mind, this guy new me and I might have met him, but I’m pretty sure I meet 10+ new people a day. After we finished as much of the watermelon  as we could and the remains were bagged for us to take we walked for another ten minutes before another family insisted that I take some corn they had just finished cooking.

Another time (part of another story too, which I will go into later: The Doti Waetman of the Not) Nic Thiltges and I had walked to the North, after we got back from our New Year on Ambae, to find a truck to take Jennifer, me, and our Chinese Handbags (from before we left Vila, another story for later: The Journey of the Chinese Handbags). As we reached one of the truck owners in the North, we were given an assortment of different food from crab to buttered bread to rice and meat. Additionally, as we left they decided to give us cold sodas and some meat for dinner from their ice box; this was the first time we had ever met these people.

Lastly, as Nic and I walked back to Telise from the North that same day, a man came from nowhere, out of the bush and said: tufala Nik, yu go wea (Two Niks, where you going)? After he proceeded to hand Nic Thiltges a giant bean he had just grabbed from the garden and had happened to be holding: the niceties of Maewo. Now, all my examples have been on the Westside, but don’t get me wrong this happens on the Eastside too. The thing is these stories were times where we really shouldn’t have expected anything. Not that I walk around the Eastside expecting to be given food. It just happens quite often that I’m walking around and given ridiculous amounts of food that I can’t possibly finish. This is one reason market days can be a death sentence for me. Beyond food, I have been offered multiple places to sleep in case I ever happen to be in their village when it is dark and I have to stay. Basically, I can walk all over Maewo and be completely provided for wherever I go: something I did not expect in the Peace Corps. Now I just have to do good by them to make sure the next volunteer, who replaces me, hates me when they constantly compare them to me.