My last week in Mangaliliu kicked off, as usual, with class. By this point, all of us had gotten quite sick of going to class and really wanted to either get to site or just hang out in the village. We were, however, given an interesting lecture (there's usually one really good one a week) about land in Vanuatu. When Vanuatu gained independence, all land in the country was supposed to return to its “custom” owner. Meaning the village, tribe, family, etc. that had owned it before the colonial government. The problem with this, as you might be able to guess, is that it's often not easy to figure out who the custom owner of a piece of land is. All history is oral history and is thus prone to the usual inaccuracies or has been forgotten. Because of this, almost all court cases currently under consideration in Vanuatu are with regards to land. There has even been some violence around Vanuatu related to land disputes. To me, however, what's more troubling is the growing problem of development. Land developers are starting to push pretty hard, especially on the island of Efate, to buy up land from the Ni-Vanuatu. Developers will often offer something on the order of $20,000 for a stretch of beach. This is a huge sum of money for most people and sadly, this has tempted many Ni-Vans to sell their land. We're actually in the middle of such a land crisis right now in Mangaliliu. There are developers pushing to try to make a resort down by Mangas beach, our favored weekend getaway and historical site of Chief Roi Mata's village, as well as up by Survivor beach. This involves both cutting large roads near Mangas as well as through many of the villager's gardens. The potential destruction of an important cultural site aside, I personally would be quite upset to see such a nice and peaceful stretch of beach turned into a resort. Fortunately, the chief of Mangaliliu has block land sales. Unfortunately, some of the developers have been trying to go behind his back and get people to sell anyway. In one such incident, an Australian got one of the villagers good and drunk in Vila and talked him into selling the island on which Roi Mata is buried. Oops. On Monday one of the villagers was driving through town showing off his new truck, the obvious conclusion being that he'd sold some land in order to be able to afford it.
It's a difficult road to walk, because many Ni-Vans welcome the opportunity to sell their land in order to buy cars, generators, TVs, etc. and it's not really our place to tell them that they shouldn't. On the other hand, Vanuatu sometimes seems like a house of cards ready to fall over. The selling of land breaks up village communities as people move to the cities. However, it is the strength of village communities that holds back problems such as hunger, poverty, and homelessness. The influx of money into a community from land sales often also disrupts the power of the local chiefs. However, in the absence of any law enforcement, Vanuatu relies on chiefs to maintain order in the outer islands. To me, it seems impossible that unchecked development can continue without causing major problems in the country, possibly leading to instability such as that found in Fiji, The Soloman Islands, or PNG. I sometimes feel stuck in the classic “the grass is always greener” problem: Ni-Vans envy the amenities and luxuries of a more developed country, while I envy the peacefulness and freedom of their life.
On Wednesday we got our final site announcements. Granted, I'd pretty much known where I was going for several weeks, but it was nice to get it in writing. My next two years are indeed slated to be spent on the island of Malakula, the second-largest in the country. Those of you familiar with romance languages can probably recognize the peculiarity of this name: “mala” meaning “bad” and “kula” meaning “ass.” Why would you name an island “Pain in the Ass?” you might ask. The story goes that French missionaries arrived on the island and began preaching to the natives. The natives, however, did not appreciate this very much and rather wished that the French would leave. However, they considered it rude to ask visitors to leave, and so they took the passive-aggressive route. They tricked the missionaries into using poisonous leaves as toilet paper, giving them all nasty rashes on their butts. The French left, cursing the island and giving it its name. Granted, this story is widely believed to be apocryphal, but even if it's not true, it certainly should be.
Aside from having an interesting name, Malakula is also known as the island where the most recent incidence of cannibalism took place, back in the 1960s. The implication of this fact, of course, is that there's a possibility that some of the people present at this nefarious cook-out might still be around and thus I might get the opportunity to ask if people do indeed taste like chicken. Cannibalism, like many of Vanuatu's customs, was something the missionaries decided had to go, if not from personal distaste, then at least over concerns for personal safety, as visiting Europeans were often the ones that went into the cooking pot. I gotta say, it is pretty tempting to side with the missionaries on this one. However, given that the diseases brought over by Europeans would eventually wipe out something like 80% of the native population (a loss which Vanuatu's population has yet to recover from), and that Ni-Vans were routinely taken as slaves to work on plantations in Australia or PNG, maybe the natives had the right idea on this one.
Wednesday was also Halloween, a holiday which is very much non-existent in Vanuatu. However, given that Wednesday was Vila day and we weren't back in the village until late, we decided to postpone the whole affair until Thursday, which was actually kind of fitting because (due to the ever-confusing international dateline) it was still Wednesday, and thus Halloween, in the US. While in Vila, I took the opportunity to stock up on chocolate and purchase a pumpkin from the outdoor market. Unlike in the US, where one must traipse through a hot, dusty, picked-over, pumpkin patch looking for that perfect pumpkin, only to discover that it costs upwards of $20, in the market pumpkins were littering the floors and cost about an average of a dollar a piece. Interestingly enough, at the French supermarket in town they also sell pumpkins, which they purchase from the outdoor market and resell a mere 100 yards away for several dollars more. Having procured my pumpkin, I noticed that something wonderful had happened: pineapple season had begun. The market was absolutely crawling with pineapples. I immediately purchased the biggest one I could find (it was probably actually bigger than the pumpkin I bought), and struck out for the Peace Corps office, an enormous piece of produce clutched precariously under each arm.
Thursday afternoon, we led the village kids in pumpkin carving in which, just like kids in the US, they quickly lost interest. The mamas, in turn, seemed very perplexed as to why you would want to do anything with a pumpkin besides eat it. I was forced to concede that this was indeed something of a valid point. More interest was garnered by the pinyata and the trick-or-treating, thus proving the fact that eating chocolate and hitting things with sticks transcend cultural boundaries. One of the more crafts-y members of our group rigged up a pinyata with cardboard and starch paper. It was a little overly reinforced, however, and proved to be resistant to the best attempts of all the village children as well as the chief, the Peace Corps country director, and other prominent community members. The village children were probably even more desirous of candy than kids in the US, if this is possible, and the ground was cleared of candy mere milliseconds after we had to rip the pinayta open. For trick-or-treating, we all set up mats around the community center, taught the kids how to say “trick-or-treat” and, of course, “thank you,” and had them make the rounds collecting candy. They quickly discovered what every American kid eventually discovers: that if you can hit house two, or even three, times you can vastly increase your candy haul. Unfortunately for them, this doesn't work too well when there are only about 20 kids in the village and they're all trick-or-treating in an area about the size of a soccer field. We decided to humor them, however, and everyone had good time. Tomorrow morning we heard reports that many kids, and even some mamas, had earned themselves horrible stomach aches from eating too much candy the night before.
Friday, tensions in our training group were palpable as people were more or less done with classes and anxious to get out to site. The day seemed to drag on forever, but finally we wrapped up and I threw some items into my hiking bag to take with on my week long expedition. Me and some friends spent our last night hanging out at Ryan's house playing spades (card games get a lot of face time in the training village). We were going to call it a night, it being around 9:30 and well past our bedtime, but, out of the blue, Ryan's host papa showed up from Vila with 10 cold Tuskers (the national beer of Vanuatu, named after the infamous twisted pig's tusks which are a symbol of wealth) and a bag of ice, both precious commodities in Mangaliliu. Thus, I ended up not getting home until midnight, which was nice considering I had to wake up at 4am the next day to catch my 6:45 flight.
Checking in for a flight in Vanuatu was a real treat. I handed them my ticket in exchange of a small slip of paper on which was scribbled a few incomprehensible words. This, it was explained, was my boarding pass. My luggage was weighed, and then I was motioned on to the scale. I saw a clerk carefully writing down the weight of everything going on the plane. I guess every ounce (or, should I say, gram) counts when you're flying a plane about the size of a SUV. I sure hoped the scale was accurate. There was a security check, which consisted of a guy handing out blue tags with the word “SECURITY” printed on them, which we were instructed to attach to our bags to show that they had cleared the security check. The plane took off more or less on time, which was kind of shocking considering how long everything takes around here, and landed a short 45 minutes later. I say short because, of course, I slept through the entirety of it. The airport in Norsup was very modern, by Vanuatu standards, meaning that it had a paved runway. This will definitely be a plus in the future when I'm trying to travel and won't have to worry about flights being canceled because the runway (ie. field) is too muddy, or some guy was too lazy to get out and mow the grass. The airport building also looked fairly modern, being a reasonably-sized concrete structure with a metal roof. It probably would've looked nicer, however, if it didn't have the appearance of being recently firebombed. A lot of the roof was missing, most of the walls were covered with scorch marks, and some walls had big holes in them. Later on, I was to find out that the reason that the airport looked like it had been firebombed was because it had been firebombed. By the chief of my village. Or possibly the guy who owns the electronics store, as part of a land dispute. We (I shared a flight over with 2 other volunteers who will be posted near me) were greeted by some of the current Malakula volunteers at the airport and taken to a pickup truck, where I met my host papa. We piled into the truck and were driven to our respective sites.
My site is situated more or less between Norsup, where the hospital and provincial education office are located, and Lakatoro, where the general store is. My village is called Tautu which, together with Lakatoro and Norsup, sort of forms a tri-village area in north-central Malakula. The whole area is covered in coconut plantations, as the main cash-crop is copra, a coconut derivative. There's a large dirt and coral road which runs up and down the eastern coast, and it is pretty big and well-maintained. Tautu is a fairly large village, and has such deluxe amenities as cell phone service (stay posted for my cell number) and 24 hour electricity. The village is very pretty and, although it is sweltering hot, there's a nice breeze coming off the ocean pretty much 24-7 which cools things down nicely. The general store in Lakatoro sells cold beer and cheese, the two staples of life, and is a short $1 truck ride to get to.
My host family had a fairly nice house, although it wasn't fully finished yet, so all the walls and floors were bare cement. The crowning glory, though, was that I walked in to find three ENORMOUS pineapples sitting on the dinning table. I instantly felt at home. After eating pineapple, I slept for most of the day, and actually slept through the tour of the village my papa had offered to give me. I woke to the sounds to kava being made outside. As it turned out, my papa runs a nakamal and sells kava. Now, this is both good and bad. The plus side is that my house is more or less like a bar, and if I want to meet people and get to know the community it's no more difficult than chilling in my front yard. The downside, of course, is that drinking kava is a gastrointestinal feat of endurance that my green American stomach is not yet really up to. I do, however, get free kava, as my host papa was quick to inform me that the kava business is in the family and that I should never attempt to pay him.
That night, in addition to a lot of random community/family members, I met the chief (who seemed really nice, all allegations of firebombing aside) and Andy and David, two Americans from Oklahoma who were actually brother and father, respectively, to a past Peace Corps volunteer and who came to visit Vanuatu and were never really able to leave. My host papa filled me in that they'd been spending about half their time in Vanuatu for the past few years. It was definitely nice to have some other English speakers to talk to, and I also had an opportunity to show off my Bislama, as Andy and David had been in the country for a good deal longer than me, and yet I had picked up more of the language.
Sunday I headed to church, where I stood outside the door and shook hands with about a billion people after the service. Much like Sundays in the training village, me and my family spent most of the afternoon by the beach, where I read a lot. I also got to take a look at my house-to-be, which was about 20 feet away from the beach. I was very excited to see the house. It had a raised cement floor, which is always a plus as it keeps the bugs out, but the walls and roof were made from local materials, which are a lot cooler during the daytime than the more “deluxe” tin roofs. I also have legit power outlets, not just the more typical power strips hanging precariously down from the ceiling. There's also theoretically running water because some guy from Israel came through a few years back and offered to install and electric pump and plumbing system if the village made him a chief. This seemed like a pretty good deal to the people of Tautu, so they let him kill a pig (the official chief-making pastime) and he, as promised, installed the water system. The only problem is that the electric pump, of course, runs on electricity, a lot of electricity, and the village soon racked up an electric bill in the tens of thousands of dollars. Obviously, they couldn't pay the bill, so the power company cut off service to the pump until the outstanding bill is paid. According to the villagers this should happen sometime in December, maybe before I come back, but based on my experience in Vanuatu I'm gonna go ahead and guess that it will be more around the time our sun collapses, sending billowing clouds of hot gases outwards, burning the surface of earth to a crisp, and making the whole issue moot. Not that I'm becoming cynical. Fortunately, I have a rain cistern to hold me over until them.
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