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.