Home

I've spent the past two weeks in Port Vila on the main island. Initially I was excited to come here. It was my chance to see other volunteers that I hadn't seen in a year, get clean and change clothes, and eat lots of food that is terrible for me. I stayed in a very nice resort for three days, with a jacquzzi, washer, and drier in each room. I also had a chance to go sailing on a small catermaran. After a few days of the good life though, I began to notice how tired I was becoming of city life. All I wanted was to leave and go back to my little village where I can live in peace and quiet. Unfortunately the airport lost my reservation for the day I was supposed to go back, and for the next few days all of the planes were booked full. Tomorrow I will finally be off though. I'm very excited to return to my bamboo house where I can fall asleep with the sound of the bush around me. I want to go back to hunting with my sling-shot with my dog by my side. I want to take in the rainforest while I cool off in a stream. I want to hop on my horse and take off to anywhere I please, and to do anything I want with out spending a dime. I want to climb a coconut tree and drink green coconuts as the sun goes down. I want to eat flying fox and tanna soup. I want to feel in my element. I want to go home. Go home to Tanna.

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As many of you know, the story of my life for the past three months has been rain, mud, and mold. The relentless rain turns meandering streams into roaring rapids, foot paths and roads into rivers, and everything else to sloppy mud. When hiking to a stream to get clean, you return just as dirty as before you set off. Every small scratch on your foot quickly becomes infected. Walking anywhere, which is what you must do to get everywhere, becomes an unpleasant task. I’ve spent many days stuck in a hut with nothing to do but stare, read, and think; think about how much I hate the rain. Give me desert, give me snow, anything but rain. As I sit inside, the rain joins me. The constant wetness has molded my roof, steadily drip dropping onto my bamboo and pandus leaf floor, which is now molding too. My clothes are never dry, but smell like some kind of wet animal. Mold has over taken photos from home, book, shoes, pens, shirts, anything you can think of.
To add to these already less than desirable living conditions is my work situation. With all the rain, everything is at a stand still. Scheduled workshops have been cancelled. Kids don’t go to school because they can’t cross the flooded streams to get there, and even if they did their dirt floor classrooms will be turned to mud. The only thing I was able to make happen in the past month was hold a meeting. I needed a chief and other villagers to sign a statement concerning the ownership of the conservation area I’m working with. I sat waiting for everyone to come. After nearly four hours of lying on the bare ground I decided to go ahead with the meeting. I asked them all to sign the paper, and then I was told that nearly everyone present didn’t know how to write their names, so I did it for them. Four hours for that. Only in Tanna.
Yet during these past three months I’ve learned to deal with the life I have chosen. Take it all in stride. Dirty? Don’t worry about being falling in the slimy mud. Hungry? Imagine that laplap you’ve eaten for the past 30 straight meals is pizza, a cheeseburger, chocolate cake, whatever it may be. Lonely? Talk to your dog. Sick? Be glad it’s not malaria. Bored? Read that magazine for the fifth time. Going crazy? Laugh at yourself. Laugh at the situation that you’re in. Why in the world am I living with a handful of people in the bush on a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean? Because it’s interesting, that’s why. And it’s challenging, and it’s different.
After so long the laughter stopped though. It’s not funny anymore, or entertaining. I just wanted to go home, see my family, see my friends, be clean, eat food, and be surrounded by a culture that I actually understand. And then suddenly things changed. Yesterday something remarkable happened. The rain stopped and the Sun came out! The world looked like a different place. Trees stood proud and green, birds sang and hopped from twig to twig, and flowers shown more vibrant than before. Nature and I rejoiced in the Sun. A tremendous burden was lifted, it is a feeling I cannot describe. The gloom was gone, crisp blue sky remained. It filled me up.
At first light I was outside. I began working in my yard, pulling weeds, shifting and planting flowers, and enjoying the heat of the Sun rising on my back. After a few hours I took a break. It was Sunday, time for church. I walked to an opening of grass and coconut trees to find my horse who neighed in greeting me. I leaped on his back, and off we were. Galloping threw a small winding trail through thick bushes and tall grasses, over a hill covered in red clay, down into a trail lined with hibiscus flowers, and there we arrived at church. It is a small bamboo house. Only a few men and women are present, along with their 15 or so small children. We huddle into the hut, and church begins. Everything is spoken in their native language, not Bislama, and though I am starting to learn their language, nearly everything escapes me. I sit and watch the children. They’re sitting just as impatiently as me. I can feel the fresh wind slipping through the bamboo walls and want to get back outside where everything is bright. An hour or so later and it’s finished. I lay outside in the grass, and try to eat my laplap. It proves to me unusually inedible. Normally I can choke down most of this revolting food, but even this proves too hard. I eat half, give the other half to my brother, and off I go. My horse rides swiftly back, always in a hurry to get back to his life of munching grass. When I return home, I continue to work on my yard. One of my sisters comes to keep me company. As I work, she sits and helps me practice speaking their native language. We begin to grow hungry, and she spots and hornets nest in a near by tree. I grab my slingshot and hit it on my second try. This does nothing but make the hornets mad. I grab a few large sticks and cut them into pieces two feet long. We often use sticks like these to knock fruit out of trees, or bats, and in the case, a hornet’s nest. A few well placed throws knocks the nest to the ground, and I run for cover, wait a few minutes, and then come back with more sticks. I hit the nest, run again, and then repeat, until finally only a few very angry hornets are left on the nest with many circling around. Slowly I approach their nest. My sister reminds me how bad these hornets hurt when they sting. I say thank you and let her know I am trying my best not to purposely get stung. Slowly I pick up the nest, shake out the last remaining hornets, and smash a few of them. To the victor go the spoils. We pull out the hornet larvae, throw them on a fire, and eat them like popcorn along with a kind of fruit called niətu in native language. I have no idea what it is in English, and have never seen anything like it, but I am beginning to like it as much as rosy mangoes and juicy pineapples.
We rest outside, and the day winds down. As the sun begins to cool, I go to fetch drinking water. I carry it from a spring at a neighboring village and hall the heavy container over my shoulder back to my village. It wares me down and makes me thirsty. I climb a near by coconut tree to get a sweet drink from above. Using my remaining strength I can just barely hang on long enough to get one down. I drink it as I watch the sun dip behind the hills edging the ocean. A grey blue sky with wisp of salmon is over head and a fiery orange glow to the west. A perfect ending to my perfect day.
I head back to my house and wind down in a book, when my younger sister comes to my house to let me know they had just killed a calf which was grazing near by. From what I could gather my papa decided the calf wasn’t going to make it much longer so it would be better just to kill it and eat it now. I came to the circle of huts to find my sister hack at the already skinned calf with her machete. Legs, tail, heart, liver, and all are thrown onto a pile of leaves and blood. I eat yam and watch her crudely slashing at bones, cutting off legs, breaking the spinal column, and throwing it into the existing pile of organs and flesh. Nothing will be wasted. She cuts me off a piece of the thigh, which I in turn jab onto a sharp stick and set it over a fire of wood and stone. She soon joins me with the legs and head, throwing them onto the fire. Occasionally she reaches in with her hand, pulls out a part, scrapes the singed hair off, and throws it back on the fire. The head is staring at me, eyes slightly open, tongue halfway out. After all of the hair is burnt off the head, she cuts from underneath the mouth to remove the tongue. She detaches it, but can’t seem to pull it out as the cow has a pretty good grip on it with his teeth. Comically and morbidly she pries its mouth open just enough to get the tongue out, and flings it back on the fire. After a few minutes she cuts up the tongue, and we eat it together with the sandpaper texture of it still unmistakable. I enjoy it none the less. I call it a night though, now it really is time to end my day. I walk back to my house under a full moon. It cast shadows all about my path. Dewey grass is bathed in silver, and the reflections of wet leaves in the surrounding bush seem to glow, almost as attentive eyes. Not of something terrible, but of something mysterious. The forest is looking out for us, sustaining us. I go to bed with the sound of insects chirping and flying foxes wooshing over head.

Sunday on a Sunday

Well, I can now say that I've suruvived my first quest on horseback, and I'm grateful not to be sitting on that terrible thing anymore. It may be another week before I am able to ride again. It all started last Sunday. After countinuous rain, we had a break of blue sky that looked like it was going to last all day. I grabbed a rope and bridle, broke off a stick for whipping, and hopped on Sunday, my horse. I didn't really know where I was heading to, I just knew that I wanted to go. I told my brother I would be back in a few hours, although I wasn't quite so sure about that. We started out slowly, winding through a relatively flat and muddy trail through the bush for about a half hour. We emerged from the bush onto the main road. The one and only road, corrugated and covered in mud. Certain areas were semi-dry and flat, which allowed us to run. We galloped for a few minutes, full speed ahead, before I would slow him down to rest and carefully navigate the muddy pools dotting the road. We ran past a school, where my horse decided to turn shaply into a fence that he didn't see. Luckily I did, so I braced myself with my legs. As he stopped quickly, I was flung foward and was able to catch his neck, wrapping myself around him. No harm done. I hopped off the horse, where he then stepped on my bare foot. Stupid horse. After a few minutes of yelling at the horse I hopped back on and continued south for another half hour. But by this time he had become pretty tired, so I decided to let him rest while I visited a near by Peace Corps Volunteer at his site. We storied for a while, and I contemplated just sleeping at his hut for the night, but in the end I decided to keep moving. I kept southward, going through an area of Tanna known as Middle Bush. Middle Bush is relativly heavily populated, and a fair number of men and boys ride horses here, unlike the North. Naturally every person I passed on the road stopped to ask me questions. 'What island are you from?' they'd ask. 'America' I tell them and they whistle in awe and approval. After some more small storian I would keep moving. As I ride on, kids on the side of the road are yelling to their friends in language. The only words I can ever pick out is white man and horse, and then packs of kids run to the road to get a good look at me. Some of the braver ones follow behind on foot. I gallop ahead, and after I stop I hear their barefoot running to catch up. We play this game until they are too tired to run any more. I come to a village centered around the road. Once again all eyes are on me and everyone is telling me that I must run. I whip my horse, but he has no intention of moving. They give me pointers like just keep whipping him, and so I do, enough to make the large animal that I'm sitting on rather mad I imagine. He starts fighting me, bucking, rearing, and then takes off galloping off the side of the road, sending a group of girls running for their lives. I get him turned back to the road, and with a few more bucks, I'm off again. The villagers shout behind, excited to see a white man ride like them. A few minutes out of the village and another boy on a horse comes and joins me. We ride together for a while, flying through winding trails not more than a foot wide. His smaller horse is in front and my horse is galloping behind him, without an inch between the two of them. I feel like were going 40 mph. The brushes are scratching at my shins and barefeet, and I'm squeezing my horse as tight as I can with my legs to hold on. We come to a large shallow puddle on the path. The first horse runs through it, but my horse decided to try and jump the whole thing. I'm sent off the back of my horse and somehow land on my stomach. I'm cut up by a few sharp sticks but nothing serious, and I find myself laying on the ground and laughing. I couldn't believe my horse just jumped this huge gap and I was so close to hanging on. My horse went ahead though, still following the other one. After 10 minutes of riding, the boy looked behind him and realzed I was no where to be seen so he came back for me. I of course hopped right back on, but this time a little bit sorer than before. I have now been riding my horse for three hours with absolutely no padding or cushioning and only wearing a pair of shorts. Sitting down was getting more and more painful, and now I had cuts across my arm and chest, but we kept going. At this point I figured I must be pretty close to Lenakel, the main town in Tanna. The other boy showed me which rode to follow to get there and then he left. I continued on my own, following trails that I had never seen before. I faced numerous Y's in the road, and often chose the wrong one. I ran into a man who corrected me, I turned around, and took the other path. After another hour I again came to a fork in the road. I saw a girl about my age and asked her which one would take me to Lenakel. She stared at me and couldn't manage to get a noise out. I asked her again, and then she ran away. I think she was afraid of me. I made a choice on my own which turned out to be right. I followed gardens, valleys, and thick bush. I followed a ridge top for a while, and could look down upon the many coconut trees dotting the flat coastal areas below. The sun was beginning to set, a bright red reflecting off deep blue waters and lavender skies. I didn't have time to stop and enjoy the view though, I still didn't know how long I had to go to reach Lenakel. A half hour later I arrived in the dark and stars. By this point it was pooring rain and I was exhausted. It had taken me 6 hours to reach town by horse thanks to my short conversations with everyone that saw me on the road. I started to head towards a Peace Corp's house in Lenakel to crash for the night, when I found out that my horse is afraid of truck lights at night. The roads were relatively empty, of course except for where I was at when my horse decided freak out. As the truck approached he began rearing up, and then he took off, as fast as he could in the pitch dark and I had absolutely no control of him. People were running and screaming, afraid of getting run over by my horse on a rampage. I was hanging on for dear life as I could see we were approaching a large pool of water at full speed. I thought for sure I was going to get laid out on the hard coral road, but he managed to stop at the last possible second throwing on the breaks. I quickly hopped off and decided to just pull him with a rope instead. I struggled pulling him for another half hour when I finally reached the Peace Corp's house. She turned out to be sick, so I had to walk to another Peace Corp's house. When I got there I fell on the hard floor and didn't move until the morning. When I woke up I realized there was no way I was going to be able to sit on the horse. I couldn't even sit in a chair. I spent the day around Lenakel, getting a little work down on a workshop I'm planning, and then I stayed the night again. I woke up at sunrise the next day, still in a lot of pain, but ready to go regardless. I taped up my backside, which looked like it had been rubbed with sandpaper for a few hours, and hopped on the horse trying to ignore the pain. I decided to follow a road near the ocean for half of the way back. I made good time and covered what would have taken 4 hours to walk in less than an hour. At the very end of this road I had my second accident of the trip though. While galloping, my horse shifted directions quickly and stopped and threw me over his head. I managed to do a front flip, landing on my back on the rocky road. Stupid horse. I evenutally pulled myself off of the ground and gave my horse a few good shots to the head, hopped on again, and then I turned into the interior of Tanna. By this point he was already tired, so the going was somewhat slow. My back was getting more and more sore, and my legs were getting rubbed raw from trying to hang onto him while running. My feet were also pretty bruised too. Everytime he ran, his legs would come back and his leg bones would catch my ankle. All I wanted to do was be home, but that was a long ways a way. Four hours later I was close though, still trying to keep the pain out of my mind. I began seeing people I know in my area, and of course all they wanted to do was see me run. I reluctantly would get my horse going, bouncing up and down on my raw skin. Finally, six hours after setting out that morning I arrived at my house. I slid off my horse and walked awkwardly to my house. For the next two days I laid there on my stomach. I couldn't sit down, sleep on my back, and walking around hurt just as bad too. I felt like a truck had run down the middle of my back. But it was completely worth it. I was able to take off on my horse on my own time, meet countless people around the island, see new villages, travel through lush valleys, have little children chase me on the road, and explore new places. Give me another week of recovery, and I'll be back at it.

Imayo

Earlier this week I took a trip to Imayo, a village located next to the volcano. Although I went for work related purposes, I had plenty of free time to relax. I had heard that there was a waterfall in the area, and I soon found a few men to guide me there along with two other environmental workers. In all there were six of us, hiking through the bush, up and down the narrow trails. I was in the head of the group, along with another local boy. We pushed the pace hard and soon found that the others could not keep up. We decided to go ahead, and the others agreed that they would just see us at the waterfall.
The hike took us through thick forests, covered in moss and ferns. An occasional opening in the canopy would reveal the steep hills around us, jutting up into the clouds. Occasionally we would walk across an area of bare dirt, previous landslides which had wiped out everything in its path. After about two hours of quickly scrambling through the hillsides, we came to a fork in the path. The boy was hesitant about which way to go. If we chose to sit and wait for the other’s to come, we might be waiting an hour, so we decided to push on. I trusted his decision, being that he lived in the bush his whole life. We went deeper into the bush. All signs of villages disappeared, and the trail was becoming less obvious too. After some contemplating, I realized that I was alone in the middle of no where with some one I had just met a few hours earlier, and I wasn’t sure if he knew where we were going.
We came to a river, quick flowing and filled with huge boulders. I crossed it cautiously as the water pulled at me legs and tried to drag me down. Once reaching the other side, we followed its bank until it became impassable. At this point we had to cross to the other side and follow that bank, until once again, it became impassable. Previously I had been able to keep up with him while hiking in the bush, but I couldn’t match his ability to move so effortlessly through the boulders. Pushing myself as fast as I could, I would come to a bend in the river and he would be gone. I had no idea which way to keep going, so I would shout for him. After hearing his voice I knew what direction to go. Ten minutes later he would be gone again, and I would be lost. I thought it was only a matter of time before this unknown person decided to just leave me where I was. I kept faith in him though. Man-Tanna are good natured people, otherwise I probably wouldn’t be in the middle of no where with this complete stranger who doesn’t speak English but carries a very large knife. At this point I just wanted to get to the waterfall and see the other members in our group. I knew that if I saw them at the waterfall, it meant that they had taken a different route than we had. If they were following the same path that we were taking, they had no chance of reaching the waterfall before dark at their pace.
After a few more hours of muddy, sweaty, river crossing hiking we reached our destination though. The bush opened up to an emerald pool being slammed by tons of water plunging down from above. The crashing water created waves at the shore. I walked behind the waterfall. A few small trickles of water fell on me, feeling like someone had aimed a fire hose at my head. I can only imagine that bearing the full force of the waterfall would instantly render you unconscious. I started making my wake back from behind the waterfall, very cautiously stepping on the stones. With all of the mist in the air the rocks were as slick as ice. I managed to fall, jabbing my toe into one of them, and breaking off the front of my big toenail. Just then I saw the other members of our group arriving. Wincing in pain, I couldn’t help but to be happy that they had followed an easier trail to get here, meaning the walk back would be much less taxing. After what seemed like only a half hour at the waterfall, it was time to head back before the sun dropped. But we were told that we would take a completely different way back this time, simply following the river the majority of the way.
Right on cue, the rain came. Being that I was already soaked from swimming at the waterfall, you would think that the rain wouldn’t bother me. But we were in the stream and valley filled mountains. A little rain can raise the main tributary very quickly. We started walking, my toe burning with every brush against a plant. This was going to be a long walk. Three hours of hiking on unsteady boulders and crossing a now roaring river, all in my flip-flops. Numerous slips, falls, and frustrations later we were still crossing the river, perhaps for the tenth time now. Ash from the volcano was continually falling from the sky, covering the plants and sticking to my wet legs and sweaty face. Crossing the river temporarily washed away the fine black ash, but it would quickly come back. Three hours and we had reached the trail heading up into the bush back to the village. My legs felt like rubber by now, but it had been worth it.
It’s easy to complain about the weather and other unfavorable conditions, but I can’t deny the fact that hiking through pristine forests, hanging out at waterfalls, and staring out at an ominously glowing red sky from a near by volcano at night isn’t enjoyable.

Make it stop, please make it stop

I can sum up the past few weeks with one word, hot. The kind of hot that won’t let you sleep at night. That makes you sweat when you’re sitting in the shade, makes you sweat when you eat, and makes you sweat when you’re trying to fan yourself with whatever you can find. That hot humid miserable heat that melts gum and makes it feel like somebody has already chewed it before it’s been in your mouth. What I wouldn’t do for a pile of snow, even if it would only last a few minutes.
And then there’s the rain. The buckets of rain falling for days on end making every trail a river of mud. The mud swallows up your feet, making it impossible to wear any kind of shoe, which isn’t so bad except when you share the trail with pigs. The mud and pools of stagnant water are also much appreciated by the many mosquitoes, not to mention the flies and various other small insects. Now being that I enjoy my bugs a great deal more than most people, you would think I would be happy about this. But the constant buzz of bugs in your ear, stuck to your sweaty face, or swallowed while panting in the heat gets old.
Now given the weather the past few weeks, or maybe months, you can understand why I am slightly lacking in motivation. Things like working on my garden or cutting my grass by hand become monumental tasks. Even something as mundane as using the telephone can be unpleasant. Last week I sat inside all day as it rained, waiting for a hint of blue sky. I got the break I was looking for and set off toward the phone. Fortunately for me it’s only a little over an hour away. After that, there isn’t another one within six hours. I hiked my way down to a stream and followed the foot steps ingrained in the banking rocks, impressions left after possibly hundreds of years of men using the same trail. After some splashing around to cool down, I climbed back out onto the other side of the valley. After winding through fields of wild cane towering over my head, passing gardens and banana trees, villages, and the one road in all of North Tanna, I arrived at the phone sufficiently hot and sweaty. I sat outside the crude phone booth, which is simply a few pieces of wood supporting a rusted tin roof, and waited for my turn.
The phone system here is not what you are used to. Since only one person can use the one phone at a time, you often have to wait a few hours before that phone becomes available for your use. Once it’s your turn to use it, you often realize that the phone line is busy even though no one is even on the phone. ‘How could this be?’ you might ask. If anyone else is on a phone somewhere else on the island it can make your phone busy too. So then you wait some more. While waiting, I sit down to rest. The flies are relentless, and swarm to all of my cuts and scrapes. They mostly ignore the ones covers in dirty mud though, but I don’t know if that’s bad or good.
A woman and an old man approach me to storian. In typical Tanna fashion the woman is nursing her baby while talking to me. The baby is covered with sores from scabies, drawing even more flies to our area. There’s another child next to me. He’s leaning over and vomiting heavily. Everyone chooses to ignore him though; kids take care of their own problems. Through all of this, the sun is beating down on me, and all I want to do is use the stupid phone. I kill time answering questions, the same questions that every other person in Tanna asks me everyday. ‘Where are you from? Are you from the north or south? (Since Tanna is broken up into north and south, they think of every place as only having a north and south. If another Peace Corps volunteer has told them they live in the north too, like in New York, they think that we live close together and that I know him.) How many brothers do you have? (They’re dumbfounded when I tell them none since they all have about 10 siblings) and How long will you live here for?’ (Always reminding me that I have more than a year to go). So after an hour of this I’m happy when it’s my turn for the phone. I call the person I need to reach who doesn’t answer. I call another person, no answer. A few more tries, and then I sit down and wait some more. Repeating this process for the next five hours, I successfully make contact, talk for a few minutes, and then the phone cuts out. I laugh to myself in frustration and walk back home through the dark, 8 hours after I left that afternoon. The rain comes and doesn’t stop for the entire walk. All for a few minutes on the phone.

Vila

As many of you know I've been in Vila the past week. I came here to sort out some village issues and hopefully I will be returning to Tanna with most of those resolved. I have my fingers crossed that my home is still there when I go back, being that Hurricane Gene hung out there for a few days, Vanuatu's second hurricane in as many weeks. We also were hit with a pretty good earthquake yesterday (a 4.9) and have another tropical depression to the north of us that can potential form another hurricane. Add this to my volcano experience and I can understand why Vanuautu is the 3rd most disaster prone country in the world. I can't imagine what the the number one country has to offer.
Most of my time spent in Vila was enjoyable, although I had one experience that reminded me that this is still a very much developing country, even in the main city. I had gone to a friend's house to eat and enjoy some normal conversation. As we sat outside, a man approached us, and in very choppy english asked us to help him come carry something. Me and three other guys said no problem, and followed him straight to the hospital across the street. We got there and saw many people crying. We found out his friend had just died a few hours ago, and this man wanted us to carry his body. Not knowing what to say, we sat there and apprehensively waited for the task at hand. As we waited on a bench outside the building we heard a lady becoming hysterical. At first we assumed she was a friend of the man who had just passed away, but then we noticed a small crowd gathering around her, and I realized something was amiss. The lady had gone to a garbage can after noticing an unusually large number of flies swarming around it. To her horror she discovered it was her dead baby in the garbage can, which she had given birth to 3 days earlier when it had gone missing. At this point, somewhat in shock of what was transpiring around us, we decided to leave the hospital and return to our friend's house.

Playing with Fire

Yesterday I took a much needed break from village life. After a certain point, even staring at my ceiling gets old. I woke up early in the morning to begin my walk into town. The sun had yet to come above the horizon, but a pale glowing light indicated that it was about to rise. The flying foxes flew over head, returning to the trees to sleep for the day. The only noise I heard was the flapping of their giant wings, along with my mama busily scratching coconuts in order to get coconut milk from them. I assumed the milk was going to be used to make some sort of lap lap, but frankly I didn’t want to stick around to find out. Enough lap lap already.
I passed my mama outside, indicating to her with a combination of gestures that I was heading down into town. She looked at me and gave me her normal laugh and smile, not saying a word, since she only knows a local native language, not the bislama language that I use to communicate with others. I started walking through cattle pastures dotted with coconut trees. The cows were already busy munching away at the grass and the birds were beginning to sing. I passed through the pastures, the hills, and the streams that I am so familiar with. I walked the narrow trail, overgrown with everything in green and covered in dew. After a few minutes I was soaked from the dew, which was much appreciated. Even though the sun had just come up, the heat was already heavy. I followed the trail, winding though the forest and the gardens, the mango trees and banana plants, reaching the ocean after an hour and a half of effort. I followed a new trail along the ocean, occasionally passing an isolated village with children wearing tattered clothes staring at me with curious eyes. I smile, wave, and keep walking. A cove comes into view. It is picturesque with black sand, deep blue water dotted with turquoise reefs, and not a single person within miles. Not a single villager, and never a tourist. I decide to take a break here and cool off. With no one around, no clothes are needed, and I jump into the water. I have never felt better, it’s paradise. But I can’t stay forever, the sun is rising higher into the sky and I still have 3 hours of hiking until I reach my first destination.
I get out of the water, and I am instantly dry. I continue down the dusty dirt path, coming across more secluded coves. No one is in site, only their carved wooded canoes laying on the sand. The sun is high in the sky now, its intensity unmatched outside of the tropics, and I am starting to get tired. I arrive at a nice bamboo house, complete with a rusted blue tin roof. This must be the home of Tom, the horse man. The women and children stare at me, wondering where has this white man come from. Eventually a woman approaches me and points me to Tom’s direction. I see he’s wearing long pants and long sleeves, he’s crazy. He comes and greets me and I tell him that I’ve come to buy a horse. He sends a boy to go get two horses, and he tells me to take a short ride on the horse. I agree, knowing that I am getting in way over my head.
A few weeks ago, I decided having a horse would make getting around not only easier but more fun. I have rode horses a few times back home, and thought I would give it a try here. But on Tanna, riding horses isn’t quite like hopping on the pony at the fair. Most of the horses are wild. A few of them are captured, tamed, and then trained. The problem is though that people here do not know how to train horses. There’s also no such thing as a saddle.
Knowing this, I hop on the horse. This should be interesting. They tell me to kick the horse on its side. Nothing happens. A boy runs to a tree, grabs a branch, and tells me to hit the horse with it. I do, but nothing happens. I try a little bit harder, and he starts into a slow walk. This isn’t so bad. I ride next to another boy on his horse, who is giving me pointers; how to speed the horse up, slow it down, and turn him in the right direction. After a few minutes I feel more comfortable and we begin to trot. My horse continues to pick up speed, and before I know it, my horse is going full speed ahead, leaving the boy and my guidance behind. He’s yelling at me to pull back on the horse. I’m pulling with all of my might, and at the same time squeezing my legs with all of my might in an attempt to stay on the horse. He just keeps going faster and faster though. I fly by villagers and they look amazed, as if I knew what I was doing. I guess they didn’t see the look on my face. He just won’t stop. After what felt like eternity he finally slowed to a walk again. The boy caught up to me and informed me that he didn’t stop because I was holding the tree brand in the air, which signals them to go faster or get whipped. I wish he had told me that before I got on the horse. I survived though, although a much serious threat to my life was later to come that day.
Tom told me to come back in a few days and I can try riding a few more horses, and then hopefully take on home with me. With that I was on my way. Next stop, the airport. I came to the air port and found the only other white man there, laying in the shade on the ground. I assumed this was Doug, John Robert’s father. John Robert’s was a Peace Corps Volunteer on the island of Erromango, the closest island to Tanna. He was killed in November, only 2 weeks away from finishing his service and going home to see his family for Thanksgiving, which he was so excited about. His dad had come to Erromango to visit the village where his son had lived and hopefully give him some closure. But before he headed back home to America, he decided to stop and stay on the island of Tanna. Doug had something that he wanted to see here, and I was happy to join him and some other volunteers to see it with him. Five of us hopped into the back of a truck and started the very long, uncomfortable, dusty, and bumpy ride to Yasur Volcano.
We arrived at Yasur a few hours before sundown. The volcano itself isn’t all that large, only standing at about 1000 feet. For those geology and nature geeks out there like me, Yasur is a cinder volcano, surrounded by a desert of ash which starkly meets with the lush green mountains surrounding it. The contrast of jungle and ash, green and black, is an amazing site. From the truck, I could see plumes of smoke rising from the top. Apparently, the volcano was more active than normal. My lucky day.
As soon as the truck stopped, I jumped off the back and was ready to head to the top. I think I passed a sign filled with warning and cautions, but I ignored it and rushed as fast as I could up the slope. There was a volcano to see! I got to the top, and headed to an area where other tourists had already gathered. Within seconds of arriving at the rim, there was an echoing boom, followed by pieces of molten rock hurled 100’s of feet into the air. I was hooked. At least every minute there would be an eruption. Some bigger than others, most resembling gigantic fireworks that would cause some serious destruction. Between the eruptions, I could hear the lava churn below. The volcano was angry at something, at least that’s the feeling I got.
I quickly grew tired of standing next to tourist and watching these explosions. I wanted a better view. Being that this is Tanna, and there are no such things as safety precautions, you are allowed to go anywhere you want on the volcano. I started wandering, but was told by some friends to stay close by. That settled it; I needed to get closer to the volcano and further from the tourists. I started walking around the rim of the volcano to the other side. As I walked, I kept one eye on the volcano vents, tracking the molten rock flung into the air, hoping that I would avoid meeting it. No need to worry, the lava wasn’t able to reach me from my position, but I figured I would play it safe anyways. After some more climbing I reached a nice point looking down at the vents. I sat down with my camera, mesmerized. Boom. I could feel a small shockwave hit me before I saw the explosion. Fiery orange rock was shot into the air, some pieces the size of me. As the sun went down, the fiery orange color grew in intensity. The vents and smoke rising above them were glowing red. The real show was beginning. I watched the explosions get larger and larger. Sometimes, two vents were erupting simultaneously in a deafening rumble that shook my stomach. Some blasts made the ground shudder; stronger blasts rattled the ground like an earthquake. I wanted to stay all night, all day, and the next night too, but I knew I had to force myself to say good bye to Yasur. I stood up and started heading back towards the others.
And that’s when it happened. An explosion which overwhelmed my sense of sound with the sound of a bomb detonating sent a shockwave that nearly sent me to the ground. The sky was instantly filled with red fire balls; they faced me like a wall quickly closing in. For a fraction of a second after that blast I thought that was the end of this volcano, that it was the end of me. I started back peddling, started to turn and run, and then came to my senses and looked up in the sky, hoping to avoid the molten rock raining down. Up until this point, no lava had reached me, but this burst sent lava clear over my head, 100s of feet behind me. I watched it land, realized that indeed I was alive, and then I began to run, my body full of adrenaline. I didn’t want to stick around for the next blast. As I ran down the volcano I couldn’t help but to stop and admire a giant rock lying on the ground, glowing like an electric neon sign.
My heart was still racing, yet I was laughing. I was laughing and running, thinking to myself, this is going to be even funnier if I finally get off of this thing in one piece. I don’t know why it was funny; I guess I just get my entertainment in strange ways. I met my friends at the bottom, grinning from ear to ear, laughing to myself, and thinking about when I will be able to come back to Yasur again.

Christmas in Tanna

Christmas was good. I started into town on the 23rd. Got in at night and stayed at a PC's house. The next morning I watched Elf on her little portable DVD player, reminding me it was indeed Christmas. Until that nothing seemed Christmasy. That afternoon I headed to another volunteer's house where we were having the Christmas party. Someone brought me my mail, there was a package from my mom and dad and aunt Becki. Pretty good timing. The food we had was good. Roasted chicken over the fire, and I ate lots of sweet potatoes and other veggies. Also speared a rat, a Christmas first. (I didn't eat it) I was up early the next morning to start my jounrey back. I walked for 3 hrs. until I took my first break to rest in the shade and storian with random people. After another half hour of walking I reached Whitegrass Resort. I figured I would stop and check the place out and get out of the sun. At Whitegrass I asked about lunch. It wasn't being served for another 2 hrs. but it was a special buffet so I stuck around for it, it was Christmas afterall. I ate sweet potatoes, ham, meatballs, sausages, potaote salad, fish, and whole fresh lobster. I felt pretty out of place at first, since everyone was with family, but once they figured out who the dirty kid eating like a pig by himself was we got to talking. One family was from America and the other from Australia.
It's amazing how fast my world changes leaving a nice resort and then comong back to real life in Tanna. One minute I'm speaking English in a normal conversation, next I'm swatting flies down a dirt road as everyone stares at the white man. The next day I started to feel sick, headache and dizziness. It got worse the next day and I was stuck in bed. I knew it was getting bad when I was sleeping in pants and longsleaves under a wool blanket in 80 degree weather. After a few days of this I decided to test myself for malaria. I was actually hoping to test positve, that way I know what I had and I could treat it with malaria medicine. The results was negitive. Not long after I started feeling better and feel pretty much back to full strength.
Sunday at church men stood up and gave "toktoks" about me. They say their ancestors said a white man would come to them in the future and that I'm here fulfilling a prophecy now, they're dead serious too. All in a days work.
Just a note...I was asked by my brother's wife to name her new baby. There is now a Leslie living in Tanna!