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.