Arrival

I've joined the Peace Corps and have been assigned to the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu.

My group!
Vanuatu Peace Corps Volunteers, Group 29.
We arrived in Vanuatu last night, Monday, April 17, 2017, touching down at 7:45pm.  It took about 42 hours of travel and airport delays to get here.  Long day, but other than the delays everything went well and everyone was in a good mood anyway.
This is the Fiji airport (NADI).

One vol. suggests keeping a pillow on your backpack for airport delays.
Long layover at the Fiji airport.

The Vanuatu International Airport at night, from the tarmac.

I think we were all blown away by the greeting we received at the airport last night.  I mean, we were dazed after 40+ hours of travel, but still.  The PC staff, which consists of both local staff and US staff and volunteers, overwhelmed us with joyful and enthusiastic greetings.  One woman wrapped a colorful cloth around my waist (we all got one) and told me now I'm an island boy.  Everyone got a handmade lei and a coconut with coconut water too.  But it wasn't the stuff.  They were genuinely happy to see us.  Given that they too had to wait at the local airport for hours and hours because of our delays made me really appreciate this.  I've never received such an energetic and warm welcome.

Unexpectedly we're going to be staying at a Holiday Inn resort on the capital island (Efate) until Friday.  (The hotel the PC normally uses was damaged last week by Hurricane Cook.) The place is, well, a beautiful tropical resort with pools, beaches, endless great food, and even a trampoline.  The PC is going to train us all to be cabana boys I guess. :)

After that we'll be assigned to live with individual host families for several weeks, where we'll hopefully pick up on how to live in  the culture, go to the market, not insult everyone, and so on.  Our days will be filled with language classes.

The other volunteers are a diverse bunch.  This is the second PC tour for one person.  There are a couple other middle-aged people like myself, but most of the other volunteers are in their 20s.

Time to go to the first session!

Comments

  1. SteveApril 17, 2017 at 6:15 PM

    Woohoo!

    Sounds great - glad to hear you have arrived well.

    You could be the first PCV trained as a cabana boy - someone has to do it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownApril 17, 2017 at 6:53 PM

    They were short cabana boys so they put in an order through the PC. How do I submit an order? 😋

    Good to get an update!

    ReplyDelete

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