A day in the Peace Corps
I wake up at about 5:30. It is Saturday morning, and rain is falling lightly. I like light rainy days, so far, because it means the place won't get so hot. Light rain means it won't get too muddy.
I brush my teeth and take a bucket shower, which means I dump water over my head and wash my face. Wash my face means I rub a few handfuls of water on my face. I've been letting my hair grow, and have a good mullet going now, some real hockey hair. I take my real bath in the afternoon or evening before bed, where I go swim in the ocean. I rub sand on my feet and lower legs to clean them. Otherwise I just rub my hands over my body and hair to try to get it cleaner. I don't use soap or shampoo.
For breakfast I eat half a dozen breakfast crackers with peanut butter, and a couple cups of a 3-in-1 Chinese coffee mix that everyone just calls Chinese coffee. It is coffee in the same way I am Chinese, but I like it.
Today I decide to make bucket wine. I finally have a bucket full of mangoes to use, and they won't keep so today's the day. It is sadly the end of mango season. Fresh mangoes are a delight, and pineapple is starting to come into season.
I peel and slice up all the mangoes, about 2-3 dozen. Amazingly, even though the knife is sharp and the mangoes slippery, I don't cut myself at all. I give a couple mangoes to Joel who has come to watch. Joel is a friend I've made here and a real island man. Joel doesn't have a cell phone, or even a small solar system to light his house. He just doesn't need them. He farms, makes cement blocks, gathers coconuts, gathers firewood, makes charcoal, and goes spear fishing for income. Joel has a wife Mara, and three kids.
Mangoes ready, I boil them for about 30 minutes to help soften them up and release more juices. While they boil I clean a bucket with hot soapy water. The bucket is large and white with a tight-fitting lid, the kind breakfast crackers are sold in. Buying bulk crackers is the cheapest way to buy a bucket with a good lid.
I dump the mangoes, yeast and sugar into the bucket, and add water until it is close to full. I stir it up, put on the lid, and bucket wine is on the way. It will be ready in two weeks.
I wash the pot I used to boil the mangoes down at the shore. Sand is an effective and free abrasive. Scrubbing pots this way is hard work, but the people here do it every day. I've been thinking about a simple machine that could be used to do the same thing, but haven't built anything yet.
A group of people going to the soccer game in Vila are outside. The Pan Pacific Mini games are in progress, and Vanuatu is hosting this year. They ask me if I want to go. I was in Vila on Monday, Thursday and Friday. I've had enough of Vila for the time being and am really not that into soccer, so I don't go. I did go to the opening match between Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands earlier.
Next I decide to make a small table for my kitchen. I sketched out a simple table design the week before. I disassembled a pallet a few days ago which I'll use for wood. When I build things I like to give myself challenges, like not using any nails or screws, or limiting the amount of wood, or just trying out a new design idea like an unusual shape.
I'm keeping this one simple though because I have enough challenges already and I really need a functional table. My saw is dull, there are no power tools, and I have no drill so I have to nail everything, which I don't like. My lumber is already limited and has broken off nails in it. The plywood sheet which will be the top is leftover from another organization's project.
I finish the top. Joel comes over and helps me with the legs and we finish the table. Painting is about my least favorite thing in the world, so I'll buy a plastic table cloth and staple it to the top. I did that on another table and it works great because it is easy to clean. The table is done and I put it in my kitchen.
I noticed earlier that a few people had ice cream cones. One of the stores has a solar-powered freezer and they sell ice cream. I walk to the store and buy one for 100vt. It is vanilla and delicious.
It is about time for lunch. I usually eat with my host family, but it depends. They eat a lot of tinned food, like tinned fish or tinned meat. When the meal is tinned something over rice, I often just make some eggs. If I don't have eggs I use a lot of hot sauce. Today I make some eggs. I eat them out on the benches by the shore near my house, where a few other people are hanging out.
I bring out my phone and bluetooth speaker. I have 3G Internet at my site and can stream the radio broadcast of the soccer game. Radio reception on the island is nonexistent except for one staticky am station, but Internet streaming works. The feed to the game is lost a couple times, during which the station plays music. 90s country and reggae are popular here. I miss having radio. Both of the carriers here (Digicel and TVL) rolled out 4G/LTE two weeks ago, but it only works in Port Vila, and really only in parts of Port Vila.
Vanuatu is playing Fiji, and it is an important game. The game ends in a 1-1 tie. I don't understand why you'd construct the rules of a contest like that so it could end in a tie.
After lunch and the game, Joel and Kaltang come over and we watch episode two of the new Netflix series, The Punisher. I think it is as boring as can be, but they like it. I'm glad it is only an hour long. I doze off during it. People here crowd around a phone to watch a movie; the three of us watching a movie on my 12" laptop is a luxury.
The sky is still overcast so I decide to do laundry. Doing laundry by hand is a lot of work. Several buckets of water need to be brought from the well to do laundry, and all washing and wringing is done by hand. There aren't even hand-powered crank wringers. A large wet towel or bedsheet is really heavy. Normally when I plan to do laundry, if I can't get it all done before 7am I wait until the next day, just because it gets too hot. But today with light showers is a good day.
Washing and rinsing is done in a large tub. Laundry is done almost exclusively by women, to the point that it is a novelty that I do my own laundry. People often tell me they need to find a Vanuatu girlfriend for me while I'm doing laundry. I always say OK, sounds good. Bring 'em on. Hasn't worked yet.
The tub, which they call a dish, is always on the ground, except for me because that is just too uncomfortable for me. I set mine on a 55-gallon drum and wash standing up. A wooden plank is placed like a ramp in the tub, and an article of clothing is placed on the plank. A brush is used to scrub the clothing, paying special attention to the collars and under arms. Plus, try to remember any stains or spots to pay special attention to. Powdered wash soap is most commonly used.
When I am done washing I capsize the tub as usual to dump out the dirty water. The rim around the edge is not folded under enough, and I slice the tips of all of my finders on my right hand. There is a lot of cheap Chinese shit sold here, and my wash tub is one of the better ones, but still. They're not deep cuts but they hurt and more importantly I'm bleeding and have to stop doing laundry until the bleeding stops.
I get more water from the well for rinsing. and continue. A woman shouts to me that my clothes aren't clean enough and I need to keep washing. I invite her to finish up for me, and she just laughs and walks away. Heavily perfumed fabric softener is used during rinsing. It helps. I wring out each article of clothing and use two clothes pins to hang each on the line. The light rain has stopped.
Laundry is done, and it is late afternoon. I go inside my house to rest and read a little, or "spell" as it is called here. I fall asleep easily, but if I sleep too long in the afternoon I wake up not feeling very good. To prevent oversleeping, I lay down only on my back, and in one hand I hold my kindle up. I'm not holding up my arm, my elbow is on the bed, so I'm really balancing the kindle. When I fall asleep, my arm falls and the kindle does too and I wake up a little. This works for me to get as much rest as I need without getting to much.
Later I come outside to see what's going on. My host father, Terry, is making improvements to his kava bar. He's added a few benches and a roof. I see Joel has started making cement blocks. Then I remember that Tamara, a baker, might have bread today. I get 240vt, enough for two loaves, and head to his place. It isn't ready yet, but I give him my 240vt in advance so he holds two loaves for me.
On my way out, Janice calls me over. Janice is a gregarious, happy, singing and dancing woman. She's an ideal grandmother. We are always mean to each other, and in between jibes I profess my love to her. I start giving her a hard time as usual, but she is serious and wants to talk about something and tells me I have to listen.
A few days ago I decided to swim the channel between my island (Moso) and the big island of Efate. Sometimes the water is choppy, but we hadn't had any wind for days and the water was calm and perfect for snorkeling all the way across. I had been wondering if I could make the swim, and how long it would take. So off I went. The swim from my village of Tassiriki to the dock on the other side, named Meten, I took me about two hours.
In the middle of the channel it is very deep, and when you swim there is nothing but blue. Sometimes I'd stop over the deep blue and just relax and stare. It felt like I was in outer space. Out in the deep I didn't see anything but a few jellyfish. The jellyfish in the channel don't sting. I've been out snorkeling before, and been surrounded by thousands of them, so I wasn't worried about jellyfish.
I'd also asked about sharks before. Many guys here spearfish. They told me there are sharks, but they don't bother people. But when you spearfish, you have to bring a long rope and string your caught fish to the other end of the long rope, so if a shark goes for a fish, it won't accidentally bite you.
About halfway across, a boat full of guys going to collect sand passed by in a boat. They just looked at me like I was weird. They even took my picture. That is the only picture anyone (other than other vols) has taken of me here. Really, there is no reason to swim across with all the boats here. I just wanted to see if I could.
After I swam across, my plan was to wait at Meten until a boat showed up and hitch a ride back. Boats are coming and going all the time. Kalosickei and his wife Florina showed up, to pick up two tourists going to The Moso, a boutique resort on Moso Island. Their tourists didn't show up and they went to their garden (farm) to pick up some of their family and take them back.
I went with them, and helped out a little in the garden by helping carry some bamboo and a chainsaw. Really, it was so minor and they were giving me a ride already. When we got back to Tassiriki they gave me a ring of bananas (about 20 bananas) and three green coconuts. Fresh green coconut water is maybe the best thing in the world.
Janice asks me who gave me the idea to swim across. I tell her it was my own idea. She tells me how worried she was about me because there are sharks in the deep channel. She tells me I am very lucky because I went during low tide when there aren't so many. I tell her I asked about sharks, but nobody told me about sharks in the channel.
Janice tells me about two incidents. One was in 1942, when a visiting American had his leg cut off by a sawfish in the channel. The other incident was sometime in the sixties, when she and her husband were in a canoe in the channel, and watched a large black shark of about 3m length attack a sea turtle. Her husband speared the shark and it dove away. The turtle was badly injured, frightened, and wanted to stay near their canoe, which it did until it died.
Two incidents in the last 75 years didn't send a chill up my spine. One involved a not-shark and the other involved a not-person. But I got it, there are big fish out there that could kill you. And to be fair, maybe there have only been two incidents because nobody swims the channel.
Janice went on about how worried she was about me. She tells me I'm their first Peace Corps volunteer and she didn't want anything to happen to me. She asks me to promise not to do it again, so I do.
She and her husband go to play peltanque with some others. I've played with them before, and they're both very good. I see Tamara has the bread ready, so I go get my bread and head home, one loaf in each hand. When I buy bread, I always buy two -- one for me, and one for my host family. Island bread is made from only flour, water, sugar, salt and yeast, and is excellent.
I head back to the benches by the shore, where a couple people are hanging out. The benches are popular because they're a comfortable enough place to sit, and often there is a nice breeze. They're right in front of a busy jetty too.
Pastor Peter comes by with three white people in tow. We don't get too many visitors. These are with a religious group called YWAM (Youth with a mission). One of the guys is a talker, so we hear a lot about YWAM. He talks about it as though the group would be common knowledge, but nobody had heard of it. I'm not religious but don't care if other people are, and many church-based aid groups do some great work. The talker uses fellowship as a verb, e.g. We came here to fellowship. I don't understand. But this guy just talks and talks. I try to politely listen and still enjoy the meager breeze in spite of him. Joel continues to make cement blocks.
Terry tells them about how easygoing life is in Vanuatu, how people here don't work too hard. I still don't know how to process this. Terry is a busy as anyone I've known and works very hard. So many people here do. They know how to relax and take it easy too. I'm not sure if he is just humble or maybe he really doesn't believe he works that hard. Is that the same thing as true humility? Hm.
Two boats full of guys with bags of sand show up. They take the bags up near Papa Noel's house. It is a lot of sand, so I think he must be building a new house. I help out and carry bags of sand too. Some of the guys carry two at a time, but I stick with one. To their credit the YWAM guys help out too. So many guys come to help carry sand that the two boats are emptied quickly.
The YWAM guys leave with Pastor Peter. A boy and I help Terry with his upgrades by carrying some cement blocks (cinderblocks) over, which he uses to make sort of a counter. Joel is done making cement blocks. He made 88.
It is getting dark, and I see Terry, Kaltang and Joel all hanging out, and Terry's upgrades are done. I decide the kava bar improvements and a good day of work is cause for a beer. I grab four beers from my house and we each have a beer. All the guys here unhesitatingly open bottles with their teeth, while I unhesitatingly cringe each time.
I ask Joel, who dives as much as anyone and knows the waters well, about my swim across the channel, and whether I need to be worried about sharks. I know he knows I made the swim, and he didn't mention anything to me about sharks, but I ask him again anyway. I want to know if Janice is just a worrier, or if there really is a risk. He tells me that yes, there are sharks, and that was the first time and last time I will swim across the channel. I am surprised but tell him I understand. He tells me he is serious about that, that I cannot do that again. I heard him, but again tell him I understand.
Huh.
Dark now. The tide has come back in enough that now is a good time for me to go bathe/swim. I put on my swimsuit, grab my diver's flashlight and head out into the ocean. The tide here is on a very gentle grade; I walk out at least a hundred feet before the water is deep enough to swim in, maybe knee-deep. I get the bathing stuff out of the way early.
Many nights I see a new creature. Tonight I see a shrimp that hops like a frog on the top of the water. I think it is attracted to my light. It hops across the water in a zig-zag pattern toward me until it gets to my light. Only then do I see it is a shrimp and not a fish. It swims away.
Other nights there is something in the water that lights up when I move through the water quickly. It is subtle and silent and it seems to go away as soon as I look at it, but it is there. Sometimes I just float on my back and look up at the stars, or close my eyes and enjoy the gentle movement of the ocean.
I come back in, dry off and get dressed. People have asked me about rinsing the salt off. I don't. You just get used to it, I guess.
No kava grows on the island; we have to buy it elsewhere. Terry usually gets 6-10 1.5l bottles of it to sell. This is Saturday and he buys 10. Saying kava tastes like dirt is too kind. Kava tastes like refined sewage. I'd like to take credit for that description, but another volunteer came up with it.
Word gets around that the kava bar is open and the usuals show up. I give Terry the rest of my package of crackers because people like to eat a cracker after drinking a shell (cup) of kava to get rid of the sewage taste. A lot of us drink kava. I rarely if ever pay for it. The white guy drinking kava is still a novelty. Another vol told me that will continue for the entire 2 years I'm here. Also, I helped Terry with the improvements, gave him a beer and donated crackers to the business.
Somewhere during the kava evening, Leinawota summons me via one of the kids, Vicki. Leinawota and her husband run the store next door. He's not back yet from the football match. I come over and all the lights in the store don't work. The flashing light on their solar system indicates it doesn't have enough power. I give her my Peace Corps-supplied solar light to use for the evening. While I'm in there I sell a few things because it is busy and sometimes I help out with that too.
You don't eat before drinking kava, and after kava you should eat before going to bed. I had enough kava.
A couple guys build a fire, trim it to coals and put a grate over it to grill chicken wings. My host mama, Sima, has also made chicken with tomatoes and island cabbage. I eat some of that too.
Sometime after that I go to bed. I'm sleeping and don't know what time it is when I hear a knock at my bedroom window. It is Kaltang. He wants to buy two bottles of beer. The store is closed, apparently, so he's trying me. It must be late. I can't believe he woke me up to buy beer. Well, I can. Kaltang likes beer, a lot. I sell him two bottles, at cost, and go back to bed. I will talk to him about this tomorrow.
I brush my teeth and take a bucket shower, which means I dump water over my head and wash my face. Wash my face means I rub a few handfuls of water on my face. I've been letting my hair grow, and have a good mullet going now, some real hockey hair. I take my real bath in the afternoon or evening before bed, where I go swim in the ocean. I rub sand on my feet and lower legs to clean them. Otherwise I just rub my hands over my body and hair to try to get it cleaner. I don't use soap or shampoo.
For breakfast I eat half a dozen breakfast crackers with peanut butter, and a couple cups of a 3-in-1 Chinese coffee mix that everyone just calls Chinese coffee. It is coffee in the same way I am Chinese, but I like it.
Today I decide to make bucket wine. I finally have a bucket full of mangoes to use, and they won't keep so today's the day. It is sadly the end of mango season. Fresh mangoes are a delight, and pineapple is starting to come into season.
I peel and slice up all the mangoes, about 2-3 dozen. Amazingly, even though the knife is sharp and the mangoes slippery, I don't cut myself at all. I give a couple mangoes to Joel who has come to watch. Joel is a friend I've made here and a real island man. Joel doesn't have a cell phone, or even a small solar system to light his house. He just doesn't need them. He farms, makes cement blocks, gathers coconuts, gathers firewood, makes charcoal, and goes spear fishing for income. Joel has a wife Mara, and three kids.
Mangoes ready, I boil them for about 30 minutes to help soften them up and release more juices. While they boil I clean a bucket with hot soapy water. The bucket is large and white with a tight-fitting lid, the kind breakfast crackers are sold in. Buying bulk crackers is the cheapest way to buy a bucket with a good lid.
I dump the mangoes, yeast and sugar into the bucket, and add water until it is close to full. I stir it up, put on the lid, and bucket wine is on the way. It will be ready in two weeks.
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| Mango wine on day 2, after the daily stirring. |
I wash the pot I used to boil the mangoes down at the shore. Sand is an effective and free abrasive. Scrubbing pots this way is hard work, but the people here do it every day. I've been thinking about a simple machine that could be used to do the same thing, but haven't built anything yet.
A group of people going to the soccer game in Vila are outside. The Pan Pacific Mini games are in progress, and Vanuatu is hosting this year. They ask me if I want to go. I was in Vila on Monday, Thursday and Friday. I've had enough of Vila for the time being and am really not that into soccer, so I don't go. I did go to the opening match between Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands earlier.
I'm keeping this one simple though because I have enough challenges already and I really need a functional table. My saw is dull, there are no power tools, and I have no drill so I have to nail everything, which I don't like. My lumber is already limited and has broken off nails in it. The plywood sheet which will be the top is leftover from another organization's project.
I finish the top. Joel comes over and helps me with the legs and we finish the table. Painting is about my least favorite thing in the world, so I'll buy a plastic table cloth and staple it to the top. I did that on another table and it works great because it is easy to clean. The table is done and I put it in my kitchen.
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| The new table is 550mm x 1220mm (21" x 48"). Mug for scale. |
I noticed earlier that a few people had ice cream cones. One of the stores has a solar-powered freezer and they sell ice cream. I walk to the store and buy one for 100vt. It is vanilla and delicious.
It is about time for lunch. I usually eat with my host family, but it depends. They eat a lot of tinned food, like tinned fish or tinned meat. When the meal is tinned something over rice, I often just make some eggs. If I don't have eggs I use a lot of hot sauce. Today I make some eggs. I eat them out on the benches by the shore near my house, where a few other people are hanging out.
I bring out my phone and bluetooth speaker. I have 3G Internet at my site and can stream the radio broadcast of the soccer game. Radio reception on the island is nonexistent except for one staticky am station, but Internet streaming works. The feed to the game is lost a couple times, during which the station plays music. 90s country and reggae are popular here. I miss having radio. Both of the carriers here (Digicel and TVL) rolled out 4G/LTE two weeks ago, but it only works in Port Vila, and really only in parts of Port Vila.
Vanuatu is playing Fiji, and it is an important game. The game ends in a 1-1 tie. I don't understand why you'd construct the rules of a contest like that so it could end in a tie.
After lunch and the game, Joel and Kaltang come over and we watch episode two of the new Netflix series, The Punisher. I think it is as boring as can be, but they like it. I'm glad it is only an hour long. I doze off during it. People here crowd around a phone to watch a movie; the three of us watching a movie on my 12" laptop is a luxury.
The sky is still overcast so I decide to do laundry. Doing laundry by hand is a lot of work. Several buckets of water need to be brought from the well to do laundry, and all washing and wringing is done by hand. There aren't even hand-powered crank wringers. A large wet towel or bedsheet is really heavy. Normally when I plan to do laundry, if I can't get it all done before 7am I wait until the next day, just because it gets too hot. But today with light showers is a good day.
Washing and rinsing is done in a large tub. Laundry is done almost exclusively by women, to the point that it is a novelty that I do my own laundry. People often tell me they need to find a Vanuatu girlfriend for me while I'm doing laundry. I always say OK, sounds good. Bring 'em on. Hasn't worked yet.
The tub, which they call a dish, is always on the ground, except for me because that is just too uncomfortable for me. I set mine on a 55-gallon drum and wash standing up. A wooden plank is placed like a ramp in the tub, and an article of clothing is placed on the plank. A brush is used to scrub the clothing, paying special attention to the collars and under arms. Plus, try to remember any stains or spots to pay special attention to. Powdered wash soap is most commonly used.
When I am done washing I capsize the tub as usual to dump out the dirty water. The rim around the edge is not folded under enough, and I slice the tips of all of my finders on my right hand. There is a lot of cheap Chinese shit sold here, and my wash tub is one of the better ones, but still. They're not deep cuts but they hurt and more importantly I'm bleeding and have to stop doing laundry until the bleeding stops.
I get more water from the well for rinsing. and continue. A woman shouts to me that my clothes aren't clean enough and I need to keep washing. I invite her to finish up for me, and she just laughs and walks away. Heavily perfumed fabric softener is used during rinsing. It helps. I wring out each article of clothing and use two clothes pins to hang each on the line. The light rain has stopped.
Laundry is done, and it is late afternoon. I go inside my house to rest and read a little, or "spell" as it is called here. I fall asleep easily, but if I sleep too long in the afternoon I wake up not feeling very good. To prevent oversleeping, I lay down only on my back, and in one hand I hold my kindle up. I'm not holding up my arm, my elbow is on the bed, so I'm really balancing the kindle. When I fall asleep, my arm falls and the kindle does too and I wake up a little. This works for me to get as much rest as I need without getting to much.
Later I come outside to see what's going on. My host father, Terry, is making improvements to his kava bar. He's added a few benches and a roof. I see Joel has started making cement blocks. Then I remember that Tamara, a baker, might have bread today. I get 240vt, enough for two loaves, and head to his place. It isn't ready yet, but I give him my 240vt in advance so he holds two loaves for me.
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| After trying a few methods, this is my preferred way of keeping bread fresh the longest. It can't be put in a container or bag, even an open one. It will just mold. With the cut face down, the bread stays fresh for a few days. By the 4th day it is still OK for dipping in coffee. |
On my way out, Janice calls me over. Janice is a gregarious, happy, singing and dancing woman. She's an ideal grandmother. We are always mean to each other, and in between jibes I profess my love to her. I start giving her a hard time as usual, but she is serious and wants to talk about something and tells me I have to listen.
A few days ago I decided to swim the channel between my island (Moso) and the big island of Efate. Sometimes the water is choppy, but we hadn't had any wind for days and the water was calm and perfect for snorkeling all the way across. I had been wondering if I could make the swim, and how long it would take. So off I went. The swim from my village of Tassiriki to the dock on the other side, named Meten, I took me about two hours.
In the middle of the channel it is very deep, and when you swim there is nothing but blue. Sometimes I'd stop over the deep blue and just relax and stare. It felt like I was in outer space. Out in the deep I didn't see anything but a few jellyfish. The jellyfish in the channel don't sting. I've been out snorkeling before, and been surrounded by thousands of them, so I wasn't worried about jellyfish.
I'd also asked about sharks before. Many guys here spearfish. They told me there are sharks, but they don't bother people. But when you spearfish, you have to bring a long rope and string your caught fish to the other end of the long rope, so if a shark goes for a fish, it won't accidentally bite you.
About halfway across, a boat full of guys going to collect sand passed by in a boat. They just looked at me like I was weird. They even took my picture. That is the only picture anyone (other than other vols) has taken of me here. Really, there is no reason to swim across with all the boats here. I just wanted to see if I could.
After I swam across, my plan was to wait at Meten until a boat showed up and hitch a ride back. Boats are coming and going all the time. Kalosickei and his wife Florina showed up, to pick up two tourists going to The Moso, a boutique resort on Moso Island. Their tourists didn't show up and they went to their garden (farm) to pick up some of their family and take them back.
I went with them, and helped out a little in the garden by helping carry some bamboo and a chainsaw. Really, it was so minor and they were giving me a ride already. When we got back to Tassiriki they gave me a ring of bananas (about 20 bananas) and three green coconuts. Fresh green coconut water is maybe the best thing in the world.
Janice asks me who gave me the idea to swim across. I tell her it was my own idea. She tells me how worried she was about me because there are sharks in the deep channel. She tells me I am very lucky because I went during low tide when there aren't so many. I tell her I asked about sharks, but nobody told me about sharks in the channel.
Janice tells me about two incidents. One was in 1942, when a visiting American had his leg cut off by a sawfish in the channel. The other incident was sometime in the sixties, when she and her husband were in a canoe in the channel, and watched a large black shark of about 3m length attack a sea turtle. Her husband speared the shark and it dove away. The turtle was badly injured, frightened, and wanted to stay near their canoe, which it did until it died.
Two incidents in the last 75 years didn't send a chill up my spine. One involved a not-shark and the other involved a not-person. But I got it, there are big fish out there that could kill you. And to be fair, maybe there have only been two incidents because nobody swims the channel.
Janice went on about how worried she was about me. She tells me I'm their first Peace Corps volunteer and she didn't want anything to happen to me. She asks me to promise not to do it again, so I do.
She and her husband go to play peltanque with some others. I've played with them before, and they're both very good. I see Tamara has the bread ready, so I go get my bread and head home, one loaf in each hand. When I buy bread, I always buy two -- one for me, and one for my host family. Island bread is made from only flour, water, sugar, salt and yeast, and is excellent.
I head back to the benches by the shore, where a couple people are hanging out. The benches are popular because they're a comfortable enough place to sit, and often there is a nice breeze. They're right in front of a busy jetty too.
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| Sunday afternoon on the benches. Sunday is a day of rest, and a breeze helps make that happen. |
Pastor Peter comes by with three white people in tow. We don't get too many visitors. These are with a religious group called YWAM (Youth with a mission). One of the guys is a talker, so we hear a lot about YWAM. He talks about it as though the group would be common knowledge, but nobody had heard of it. I'm not religious but don't care if other people are, and many church-based aid groups do some great work. The talker uses fellowship as a verb, e.g. We came here to fellowship. I don't understand. But this guy just talks and talks. I try to politely listen and still enjoy the meager breeze in spite of him. Joel continues to make cement blocks.
Terry tells them about how easygoing life is in Vanuatu, how people here don't work too hard. I still don't know how to process this. Terry is a busy as anyone I've known and works very hard. So many people here do. They know how to relax and take it easy too. I'm not sure if he is just humble or maybe he really doesn't believe he works that hard. Is that the same thing as true humility? Hm.
Two boats full of guys with bags of sand show up. They take the bags up near Papa Noel's house. It is a lot of sand, so I think he must be building a new house. I help out and carry bags of sand too. Some of the guys carry two at a time, but I stick with one. To their credit the YWAM guys help out too. So many guys come to help carry sand that the two boats are emptied quickly.
The YWAM guys leave with Pastor Peter. A boy and I help Terry with his upgrades by carrying some cement blocks (cinderblocks) over, which he uses to make sort of a counter. Joel is done making cement blocks. He made 88.
It is getting dark, and I see Terry, Kaltang and Joel all hanging out, and Terry's upgrades are done. I decide the kava bar improvements and a good day of work is cause for a beer. I grab four beers from my house and we each have a beer. All the guys here unhesitatingly open bottles with their teeth, while I unhesitatingly cringe each time.
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| A pallet with legs makes a good bench at the kava bar. Also note the cinderblock counter and roof. |
I ask Joel, who dives as much as anyone and knows the waters well, about my swim across the channel, and whether I need to be worried about sharks. I know he knows I made the swim, and he didn't mention anything to me about sharks, but I ask him again anyway. I want to know if Janice is just a worrier, or if there really is a risk. He tells me that yes, there are sharks, and that was the first time and last time I will swim across the channel. I am surprised but tell him I understand. He tells me he is serious about that, that I cannot do that again. I heard him, but again tell him I understand.
Huh.
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| A kastom (traditional) canoe, built just a couple years ago by Papa Noel. Good for my next channel crossing. |
Dark now. The tide has come back in enough that now is a good time for me to go bathe/swim. I put on my swimsuit, grab my diver's flashlight and head out into the ocean. The tide here is on a very gentle grade; I walk out at least a hundred feet before the water is deep enough to swim in, maybe knee-deep. I get the bathing stuff out of the way early.
Many nights I see a new creature. Tonight I see a shrimp that hops like a frog on the top of the water. I think it is attracted to my light. It hops across the water in a zig-zag pattern toward me until it gets to my light. Only then do I see it is a shrimp and not a fish. It swims away.
Other nights there is something in the water that lights up when I move through the water quickly. It is subtle and silent and it seems to go away as soon as I look at it, but it is there. Sometimes I just float on my back and look up at the stars, or close my eyes and enjoy the gentle movement of the ocean.
I come back in, dry off and get dressed. People have asked me about rinsing the salt off. I don't. You just get used to it, I guess.
No kava grows on the island; we have to buy it elsewhere. Terry usually gets 6-10 1.5l bottles of it to sell. This is Saturday and he buys 10. Saying kava tastes like dirt is too kind. Kava tastes like refined sewage. I'd like to take credit for that description, but another volunteer came up with it.
Word gets around that the kava bar is open and the usuals show up. I give Terry the rest of my package of crackers because people like to eat a cracker after drinking a shell (cup) of kava to get rid of the sewage taste. A lot of us drink kava. I rarely if ever pay for it. The white guy drinking kava is still a novelty. Another vol told me that will continue for the entire 2 years I'm here. Also, I helped Terry with the improvements, gave him a beer and donated crackers to the business.
Somewhere during the kava evening, Leinawota summons me via one of the kids, Vicki. Leinawota and her husband run the store next door. He's not back yet from the football match. I come over and all the lights in the store don't work. The flashing light on their solar system indicates it doesn't have enough power. I give her my Peace Corps-supplied solar light to use for the evening. While I'm in there I sell a few things because it is busy and sometimes I help out with that too.
You don't eat before drinking kava, and after kava you should eat before going to bed. I had enough kava.
A couple guys build a fire, trim it to coals and put a grate over it to grill chicken wings. My host mama, Sima, has also made chicken with tomatoes and island cabbage. I eat some of that too.
Sometime after that I go to bed. I'm sleeping and don't know what time it is when I hear a knock at my bedroom window. It is Kaltang. He wants to buy two bottles of beer. The store is closed, apparently, so he's trying me. It must be late. I can't believe he woke me up to buy beer. Well, I can. Kaltang likes beer, a lot. I sell him two bottles, at cost, and go back to bed. I will talk to him about this tomorrow.
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