Wokabaot (Walkabout)

So last week was walkabout week, a week where we all went and visited our sites that we will be stationed at. I went to my site in Tanna, close to a village called Green Hill. My village has a whole 10 people living in it, so I'm thinking I will need to branch out to meet some people from the neighboring villages. The closest village to me is only a half hour walk if you hike through the bush. The hiking is pretty sketchy, but the men hop through the jungle and mountains like you and me walk down the sidewalk. The first picture above is a view from the stream that I take my showers in. I must say that it's the best view you could have while showering. I have to hike down a steep trail, and at the bottom there is a completely vertical rock face that has holes chiseled into it for your feet so you can scale down it. I was only in Tanna for 3 days and I was already naked in the bush, some people saw that coming. My house is pretty large for village standards. It sits a couple of feet off the ground. I have a front room for cooking, and study room, and a bedroom. Everything is made from local materials. The walls are made from bamboo, my roof from thatched leafs, tables from more wood, and my "carpet" is made from woven pandanus leaf mats. Things aren't quite as primitive as I was expecting, people wear clothes and stuff, but some stuff is pretty out there. My papa walks around with a bow and arrow he made to shoot fruit bats. I hear they taste good, and soon enough I'm sure I'll try one. My papa is very nice to the cats and dogs, which is strange because most people are cruel to them. But then I figured out he's nice to them and feeds them just so he can easily catch them and eat them in the future. I'm not sure how I feel about eating dogs. I think if I do eat one, it will be because they won't tell me what I'm eating until after I finish. They did that the other day when I was eating shark, but I must say that was very good. The area I live in is right next to two big hills or mountains covered in jungle. I'm supposed to help set the area up as a conservation area. I will get to hike the bush and map the place using GPS, making me the first person to ever map the area which is pretty cool. There also hasn't been a whole lot of research done on the plants and animals of the area. I will be working with a department called the Environmental Unit, and they sort of want me to explore and see what I can find and observe in the forest. My job involves more than that too, like traveling to other places in Tanna to help other villages establish conservation areas. One of the villages is right next to the volcano, so I hopefully I will get plenty of free trips to it. Ok so that's my very very breif over view of my site in Tanna. Now I head back to the training village in North Efate for a little more than 3 weeks of training. After that is finished, I will be heading back to Tanna for my 2 years.

Mother's Day

Well, I can honestly say I had the strangest Mother's Day last Sunday. It all started normal, I woke up, ate breakfast, and got ready for church that morning. I walked over to a near by house to see a group of 25 or so people sitting around with tea mugs in hand. I sat down next to Seth, another volunteer, and asked him what was going on. He wasn't quite sure, but from what he understood, everyone was going to drink a potion to protect themselves against black magic. It sounded pretty interesting to me, so I stuck around for it. The families drinking the potion believed that black magic had been put on a house that they were trying to build, because it's just been a pile of bricks for over 4 years. I just think that it's not getting built though because everyone is on island time. And island time is slow. Brandon would not only be on time to everthing here, he might even be early. And for those who know Brandon, know how slow he is. Ok, so a man called a clever came with this potion. I couldn't understand most of the things he was saying, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to drink the stuff anyways, since black magic only affects you if you believe in it. The clever gave the potion to Seth and me first, so we started drinking. It tasted awful, so I started drinking it faster to get rid of it. About half way through though, Seth's mama pointed out a bucket we go to incase we have to throw up. Seth turned to me and said, "So do you think this stuff is supposed to make you throw up?". I told him, "I guess that's what they mean when they say the potion will get rid of all of the bad stuff inside you, but it's too late now, so just keep drinking." And so we did. A few minutes later I had finished my drink and told my papa that I was heading to church and that I would meet him there. After sitting in church for a few minutes though, I wasn't feeling too good. I also realized that no one else in my family had shown up. So before I threw up my potion and breakfast in church, I decided to walk the few minutes back home. I returned to see my cousin puking everywhere, but apparently I had just missed all of the real action. Seth told me that he was first to puke, while all of the others laughed at him for it. He told them to just wait for their turn, and within minutes, 20 or so people were running for a bucket to go throw up in. My mama fell to the ground and was crawling on her knees while puking. Another mama felt she was ok, so she went to go cook. While holding a pot in her hands, she would turn her head periodically to vomit too though. So yeah, I decided to go and lay down after all of this action. I slept for a couple of hours, and woke up feeling absolutely terrible still. I had to go and cook lunch though even though I was sick. We were making spaghetti dinner for our mamas, a way to show them appreciation for mother's day. And for a bit of cultural exchange, to give them a taste of the food we eat. So even though I was sick I shoved it all down because it was delicious. Our mamas and papas couldn't get over this amazing thing called garlic bread. I think we went through 6 loafs. So after lunch I slept some more, still trying to get over the potion from the morning. I woke up and storiadan with my papa for a while about the morning's events and black magic. He talked to me about some of the things the clever had found in our house that was responsible for the black magic, things that another man had put there as some kind of curse. At midnight the clever was going to take the objects (some charcoal sticks, stones, a snake tail) and throw them in the saltwater to destroy their powers. Apparently the saltwater boils when he throws the objects in. My papa shared some other things like how that day the clever helped another man with stolen property. He went to the man and described two people who had stolen some of his things. The people in our village recognized the two men by the physical descriptions he gave. Some time later this week, they are going to bring the police to arrest the men. I hope the clever doesn't pin any crimes on me. Ok so I'm running out of time, I don't have time to share everything else. Some of it has to do with more black magic mind stories, and some with all of us male peace corps volunteers dressing up in island dresses and giving a skit to our mamas. All in all though, it was a very unexpected and interesting mother's day. I find that it's hard to describe how strange this day was in words, or even describe how strange Vanuatu is for that matter though. But it's going good and I can only hope that I continue to have these odd unexpected experiences. Tomorrow I head off to Tanna, and from what I've heard, I'm sure I will have more of those days there.

Tanna man

Just last week I was told that my site for the next 2 years will be in the village of Green Hill on the island of Tanna. I will be working at a forest conservation, not on coral reefs like I expected. I'm going to push to try and get to work on a reef as a secondary project though, but I will have to wait and see. Tanna itself will be a great place to stay. It's farther south than where I am now, so that means the weather should be a little cooler. Tanna is also known for its strong kastom (traditional culture) and for having the world's most accessible volacano. You can climb up to the rim and look down at the lava. The people in Tanna are fond of eating cats and dogs, and apparently they don't tell you that you are eating your favorite local dog until it's too late. But all in all, I think it should make for an interesting experience. Well that's all, I only had a few minutes to be by a computer. For those of you who sent me emails to my hotmail address, please start sending them to volunteer@vu.peacecorps.gov with my name on the subject line. I never really get a chance to check my email so send it to that address instead, and peace corps will print it out and send it to me.