A Series of Thoughts: American Local Language

Talk in that Language

Before I begin, I must state that Naviso is Anglo-phone, meaning the schools teach in English – though Anglo-phone kind of implies they speak English, which isn’t the case. Anyway, one night I was in the Nakamal rather late after drinking kava, The kava was finished and I was hanging around with the late night crowd (the guys who never go home at night and just eat dinner at the Nakamal – usually the younger guys – similar to the bar patrons who are there until past closing every night) and in comes a visitor, from West Maewo, who starts spouting about going to University in California – in not broken, but definitely not fluent English. At this point, my small brother looks at me and says talk to him, I don’t quite get his meaning, so I ask again and he says, with a big smile on his face: Talk to him in the language you talk in America! Oh! English!

I want to party all night long

When a person dies in Naviso, a hundred day celebration follows – a Bongi. Every 5 days until the 20^th day they make a lot of food and drink a lot of kava. After the 20^th day, they do the same every ten days. On the 15^th and 100^th day (and some other days if they decide to) they hold an all-night custom dance which involves stomping of feet, clapping, and singing – for the men – and, basically, running in place and pounding your feet for the women. I have to say, the women’s part is much more physically exhausting and demanding, but after about 4 – 5 hours, I regretted dancing for so long and decided my time was better spent sleeping on a mat in one of my Bubu Women’s open air kitchen.

Is that safe to drink? – Peace Corps is bad for your health

When you really think of the demands of the Peace Corps you come to the realization that Peace Corps is bad for your health.  Besides the obvious stress factor, the moving from home to the middle of nowhere really beats at your emotional, mental, and physical health. Country-specific, my liver probably looks like Swiss cheese thanks to the incredibly culturally-appropriate kava. Of course, what I’ve heard is that the effects of kava, on the liver, disappear after a small amount of time where you have not drank kava – at least, that’s what I keep telling myself. Fortunately, I have absolutely no regrets in joining the Peace Corps and actually encourage everyone else to consider service, but I am a little off my rocker.

The irony of the question ‘wota ia i sef blong dring?’ (is that water safe to drink?) is that, by our standards in America, it probably never will be safe. Our question also hinges on local knowledge about, to put it crudely, what shit happens to be in the water. In America, all our water is treated, thus safe drinking water means treated drinking water (there are some possible exceptions of course in the bottled water sector – though I don’t believe anything those guys tell us anymore). While my water source is one of the cleanest in Vanuatu – a spring/cave source – it still isn’t treated. With rain catchment, I inherently don’t trust it and more people seem to get sick from these giant disease buckets than any other source. Really, water runs down a dirty gutter, is strained once, and then sits in this giant tank for who knows how long – a disease bucker wan taem. But, to get back to the point, how do the people know if the water is, in fact, safe? I believe the appropriate question should be: How sick will drinking this water possibly make me?