Jun 2006

A big thankyou to those who have written letters and emails (and blog comments). They mean a lot to us and are our connection with family and friends. The mail is erratic but reliable to Nikaura. It arrives in Lamon Bay on the twice weekly flights and is then eventually opened at the post office (which is the high school office). The truck driver, or anyone from Nikaura who happens to be in Lamon Bay, collects the mail and brings it to our village where anyone might pass it on to us. Our last delivery was brought to us by one of the boys playing soccer on the school pitch.

We are back from a short trip to Vila for me to sit an exam (and to catch up on some shopping while we had the chance). Vila is incredibly expensive, and we were pleased to get back to Nikaura to relax. Several letters awaited our return too which was great.

Deb ran her first workshop for the teachers when we got back – reading strategies. It went over well with the staff at the primary school who now number four (two teachers, one trainee teacher and one volunteer teacher). It was very gratifying to see some of the strategies in use the following week. Deb is now hard at work preparing her next workshop – multiple intelligences. For those of us who aren’t teachers, multiple intelligences refers to the many ways in which kids absorb information; e.g. reading, writing, music, pictures etc.

Lopevi the volcano has also come back to life since our return. The last few nights have been spectacular with the clouds lifting high enough to expose the top of the mountain (nearly 1500m). The lava flows reach about 2/3 of the way down. Local legend goes that the volcano is extinguished by the traditional owners of the island washing it to put out the flame. The owners don’t live on Lopevi anymore since a major eruption last century. They now live on Epi and some on Paarma, the two nearest islands. Occasionally people paddle canoes out to collect crabs. Last week some youth from Nikaura returned with a haul of crabs and our neighbour cooked one for Deb. Crab in coconut sauce, apparently very delicious.

Our vegie garden is up and running with tomatoes, pak choy, basil, snake beans, cucumbers and snow peas growing well. The snake beans were four centimetres high just three days after planting the seeds. Growth might slow down though because it has got cold! Last night it dropped to 18 before we went to bed, the coldest it has been since our arrival. This morning was the first time I put on a jacket. (sorry to all you people living in the south, I can’t resist the temptation to rub it in a bit!)

Domestic duties call, so I must sign off. Cheers from Vanuatu.

No photos of the insects, much more pleasant photos here!

Nic and the boys sitting in the 'window' of the nakamal during the big lunch feast for the Shefa Day celebrations. Shefa is our province and we have a public holiday to celebrate the 11th anniversary of the setting up of the council. There were some fun and games as well as the huge amounts of food!

The Sack Race in action.

The women had a weaving race...

...and supposedly the men had a fishing comp but 2 women joined in as well (there were only 2 men in it!)

A soccer championship, of course! Everyone here is following Australia's progress in the World Cup too.

And a volleyball match for the girls, they're the two sports of choice: soccer and volleyball!

More pics of cute kids later!
Love,
Deb & Nic

We have been thoroughly entertained by Kel’s friend Kate, who is doing some volunteer work and living in a village in Kenya, and her descriptions of her terrifying insect encounters. So I’ve been inspired to share with you some of my terrors as well…

The Mozzies
Least terrifying but perhaps most annoying are the mosquitoes. The ones that carry malaria aren’t too significant looking, they’re small (of course the malaria is a concern but not at this time of year) but there are some huge ones. I came back from the shower one evening exhausted after trying to avoid being carried off by one persistent little blighter.

Invisible Headlice
This one is especially for my sister, Min, who has a bit of a phobia, understandable when she was hairdressing.
All the kids here have headlice and they regularly check each other’s hair, parting their frizzy locks to search for the lice. One day I had some girls come and sit with me while Nic was in Vila (I think they worried I was lonely) and they started this head-checking procedure. They obviously thought I didn’t know what headlice were so whenever they found one, they gave it to me to look at and squash! Ever since then, my head has been itchy but Nic’s had no luck finding my invisible lice!

Beetle Laplap
Finally, one insect that got Nic instead of me. At the mother’s day feast in front of the nakamal we sat and ate laplap. The lighting wasn’t very good, we’d had a shell of kava and we aren’t yet really up on all the types of laplap yet but Nic was pretty sure that the mouthful that contained a bettle wasn’t actually supposed to. He said it made his lip go numb (like kava) so perhaps it could be used for a new line of local cocktails…

1000001 Flies
The toilet here isn’t exactly a treat in the first place but I drew the line at sharing it with this many others. I went in after dark one night and the previously writhing mass at the bottom of the long drop had obviously matured into adult flies and all took flight towards the light I was carrying, this might have been OK except I had on the headlamp and I got a face-full of blowies! The mortein was never before such a praised purchase.

Cockroaches
Another toilet story. Our long drop is regularly invaded by cockroaches that are so big they would easily carry off a bullock. I generally take the same action as I did with the flies and douse them in mortein but just this week when I tried this the ‘roach took off out one of the many gaps in the toilet wall. Thinking I was safe I prepared to go when the beast came back in and in search of the safety of darkness ran straight up the leg of my fish-pants. I issued a squeal of terror that apparently went unnoticed or ignored by everyone but Nic. (Just the white woman screaming about something in the toilet again!)

The “Huntsman”
They have a spider here which looks much like a huntsman and is also harmless but it moves much faster. Nic and I have chased a couple around our house before but this time it was much worse. We were getting ready to go for a swim so I grabbed my towel to wrap around my boardshorts (which is the culturally appropriate thing to do, nobody is meant to see women walking around away from their house in pants) and we were just about to leave when I felt something inside the leg of my shorts. I slapped the offending area and out fell the biggest spider I had seen yet and it fell writhing in it’s death throes to the floor. In the meantime I had shot across to the other side of the room and commenced sobbing and rocking in the foetal position. Nic finished off the spider but I was still too scared to let him bring it past me to throw it out the door! I’m sure most of you know my fear of all things eight-legged and you’ll understand that I jumped at shadows and every tickle of clothes or breeze for days!

That’s about it for the time being (let’s hope that’s all the insect stories I have while we’re here!!!)

Halo ol yufela blong Australia!
Firstly, sorry about the photos on the last blog entry. We were trying something different and it obviously didn’t work.
School started 2 weeks ago and although it has taken 2 weeks for them to get used to me, most of the kids are attending now. So the time Deb’s had to just sit around under our verandah has been greatly reduced (but I’m still managing - Deb). Since the last photo of the house, the verandah has been renovated again. It now has low woven walls and open lattice windows all made of bamboo. The theory behind this was to reduce the risk of spectator injury during the regular afternoon soccer matches (our verandah is directly behind one set of goals so it’s a good viewing position but a bit risky!) Nic helped John (the principal’s husband), Milla (their son) and Robert (the school handy man) create the structure. Robert finds Nic constantly amusing and he laughs at EVERYTHING Nic says (even “hello”)!
We really have been welcomed with open arms here and the past week has been testament to that. Last Friday a group of people came from the village to do weeding and tidying up around the school (all with bush knives, even the small children!) Leipakoa (the principal) explained that they came because they were all from her and John’s tribe, Matonglai, and asked us to be part of their tribe as well. The men all call each other “brother” and the women are all “sisters”. But they are also all fathers and mothers to all the children of the tribe. So now we have pikininis and yesterday was Mother’s Day in Nikaura!
The day began with John and Milla making Leipakoa and Deb a breakfast of fresh bread, avocado and fried egg. Next came James (another of Leipakoa and John’s sons who also lives in the village) and his family with kato (type of dohnut), a salu-salu (lei) and an island dress for Deb. His family also cooked us lunch. In the afternoon we went into town for speeches honouring all the “mamas” from the chief, the fathers and the youth. Deb got more gifts from the head elder of the village and then we had a handshaking ceremony where all the mamas lined up and the rest of the village lined up opposite and the filed along shaking all our hands. And then, of course there was more food! Every kind of laplap you can image, rice, soup, symboro (grated manioc wrapped in island cabbage) and plates of it just kept arriving at our mat. There was no way we could have finished even half of it! (but it was fun trying – Nic).
We continue to be given gifts of food. Wednesday we were given a pawpaw that we might actually be able to eat. The one before that was literally 50cm long! No way 2 people can eat that in one day, and they just don’t keep. We were given a bunch of bananas too. Not a hand – a bunch. About 40 bananas for us to eat in probably a week (they are delicious though, better than in Melbourne.) Sometimes we do have to buy vegies though. We bought a bag of kumala (sweet potato) for 40vt (50cents). It had 16 kumala in it! Enough for 6 meals.
So, we’re living well and having a great time. Nic has even met Mike, the local Peace Corp, and is working on developing a project that will work in with what Mike is already doing at the bungalow. Things are working out.
Thank you SO much to all the people who have emailed, posted letters or posted a message on the blog. We love hearing from you, coz then you don’t feel so far away!
Lukum yu!
Deb trying her hand at local cooking - grating yam to make laplap!