Monday training switched up a bit. We were now in “technical training week,” during which we were supposed to be learning practical skills. I'm not entirely sure why we weren't doing practical skills from the beginning, but whatever. We started off the morning with everyone talking briefly about their sites. It was cool to hear what everyone had to say about their walkabout experiences. As it turned out, I had a pretty deluxe site. Twenty-four hour electricity alone was a rare commodity. The week after walkabout, we were told, is generally a time when a lot of people re-assess their ability to do Peace Corps, and some people go home. There were certainly some volunteers in our group that had had a tough time. Boredom was a common complaint. We'd all thought that life on Efate was pretty damn slow, but compared to the pace of things on the outer islands, Efate moves at a break-neck pace. The two volunteers who had gone to Tanna were particularly hard-hit by this. Like I've mentioned before, Tanna is a very traditional island, where people still live off the land more or less like they've been doing for the past few thousand years. Also, since Tanna is a volcanic island (as in, it still has an active volcano on it) the soil is ridiculously rich and thus living off the land doesn't take much effort. “People in my village literally do nothing.” Chris, one of the Tanna volunteers, told us. It's difficult, especially for Americans, who are used to hectic lives and often would jump at the chance of doing nothing for a while, to anticipate just how trying boredom can be on a person. It's something we've all dealt with somewhat since coming here, and I think we've all more or less come to the conclusion that doing nothing is only fun when there's something that you should be doing.
Another volunteer had come back literally covered with mosquito bites, to the point that one of the Peace Corps nurses suspected that she'd caught chicken pocks, and was determined not to return to her site. At first, I though this was something of an extreme response to a mosquito problem, but then I remembered back to some stretches of the AT that I'd been through where I was being swarmed by mosquitoes and wanted nothing more than to book it out of there.
After debriefing, we split into our assignment groups. The Vanuatu education project has three branches: Teacher Trainers, Math and Science Teachers, and Rural Trainers (kind of like vocational school teachers). I am one of three math and science teachers, which put me in a group learning various math-teaching techniques led by a volunteer who's been teaching here for a year and uses the f-word at least once per sentence. These math-specific classes were a little more entertaining and potentially useful than a lot of trainings that we'd had, which was good. That night me, Ryan, and Alyssa stayed up waiting for Elin, the last of our number, to return from site. Flights off her island had been canceled indefinitely because nobody wanted to cut the grass on the runway, and thus it had become unusable. She ended up having to take a boat to another island and a plane from there back to Efate. She didn't get back to Mangaliliu until 9 or so at night, but had managed to bring home 10 beers from Luganville. Of course, lukewarm beers are a crime against humanity, so we still needed a source for ice, but at least we were halfway there.
I'd received a few mosquito bites while in Malakula, and I had made the mistake of scratching one open. While, normally, this might not be that big a deal, you have to remember that bacteria, like people, also need a place to go on vacation, and Vanuatu is one of their favorite spots. The tiniest cut or nick, if not soaked in iodine and smothered in antibiotic ointment, will quickly turn into an enormous, gaping, pussy, fly-infested hole that takes weeks to close up. We're actually issued oral antibiotics in case we contract blood infections from scrapes. This is, we were told, not that uncommon an occurrence. At any rate, my tiny mosquito bite had blossomed into such a monstrosity, and so I lathered up in iodine and squeezed out the contents of several ointment packets before heading to class. I think we'd all started counting down the days until swearing in. I was getting tired of being stuck in the limbo of the training village and took to occupying my time by planning out home improvements, culinary exploits, pastimes, and hobbies to try once I got to site. The first two months after swearing in, December and January, are school holidays and are supposed to the be the most mind-numbingly boring times we were to encounter, so I figured I'd need some entertainment ideas at my disposal.
On Wednesday Ryan's host papa was headed to Vila, and so we arranged for him to purchase some ice and more beer for us, so we'd have a good collection of cold beer for Thursday night (and yes, planning parties for Thursday nights still reminds me of Princeton). On Thursday afternoon, however, we suffered out first casualty. Samantha, who'd been attacked by mosquitoes on walkabout, hadn't been able to convince Peace Corps to change her site, and so decided to head back to the states. In a surprising turn of events for Vanuatu, Peace Corps was shockingly efficient at getting her out of the village and on a plane as soon as possible. We cost them money every day we're in country, so I guess they don't want us hanging out any longer than necessary once we've decided to call it quits. They had her packed up and headed to Vila before lunch, and she was slated to fly out on Saturday. We all said our goodbyes, had a group hug, and went through the other standard niceties. The whole thing was actually surprisingly depressing. We'd all developed a pretty strong sense of family within our group, and seeing someone go got a lot of us down.
Thursday afternoon our village had a taboo ceremony. A variety of sea slugs, giant clams, and other assorted ocean mollusks were being released on the reef just offshore of Mangaliliu and the chief was declaring the whole area closed to fishing (taboo) until they had a chance to repopulate. A bunch of chiefs from a variety of nearby villages came to give speeches, as well as representatives from various sea-related government ministries and organizations. I was sitting on the beach with Ryan, watching the proceedings. One of our trainers wandered up to us. “There's a lot of important people here today,” he said, addressing Ryan, “could you please put on a shirt?”
In addition to giving speeches, an important part of any ceremony in Vanuatu is killing a pig. It's kind of like how no agreement in the US is official unless everyone has signed the contract. Here nothing is official unless a pig has been clubbed over the head with a wooden mallet. Needless to say, if you're a pig, Vanuatu would definitely not be the place to raise your children. Also an integral part of any ceremony, kava and food were served and we all partook. After dinner we headed over to Ryan's house to enjoy some frosty brews. It's amazing how something as simple as frozen water can seem so wondrous and amazing. Like taking a hot bucket shower on a cold morning, drinking a cooler full of frosty beers represented an almost criminal-seeming defiance of the second law of thermodynamics, for which I expected to be reprimanded by the entropy police at any moment.
Saturday we were slated to go into Vila for a cultural festival and to watch a FIFA World Cup qualifier match between Vanuatu and New Zealand. Unfortunately, this meant we had to catch a bus into Vila at 7 in the morning, which was starting to seem earlier and earlier as I got more and more used to sleeping through the roosters and dog fights which take place in the early hours of the morning. The cultural festival involved a display of custom dance and dress, and, surprise, surprise, the killing of a pig (our chief's second pig of the week), and kava. Given Vanuatu's heinously hot and humid climate, “custom dress” is usually more or less equivalent to “naked.” Those of you who've been to Disney World have no doubt noted the peculiar European tendency to wear slacks and long-sleeved shirts no matter the circumstances, as it is always possible to pick out the tourists from Europe in the sweltering south Florida sun by the in appropriateness of their clothing. One can image their reaction when they came to Vanuatu and saw the scantily clad natives. “But of course!” They said, slapping themselves on their foreheads, “When it's HOT we can wear LESS clothing!” However, rather than admit this rather embarrassing centuries-long oversight, they decided instead to use their cannons to force the hapless Ni-Vans to share their mistake. Probably the most infamous member (no pun intended) of the Ni-Van custom dress code is the “namba,” which is a woven grass tube that men use to cover their penises. These are fastened to the body using grass rope around the waist. Another grass rope is used to secure the namba to the stomach, permanently in the up position. Apparently the penis was the only body part deemed necessary to cover, as all other clothing is lacking aside from the namba and two pieces of rope (try that one out for “Three Pieces of Clothing Night”). On Malakula, variation in namba size led to the creation of two quarrelsome tribes: the “Big Nambas,” or “Overcompensaters,” and the “Small Nambas,” or “Those Comfortable with Their Manhood.” Over the centuries both tribes gained reputations as fierce warriors, despite their relative nakedness, and were responsible for the consumption of many a missionary and slaver.
After the festival, we headed over to the stadium for the game. One of our number had taken the opportunity to stock up on wine to take back to the training village and was carrying it around with her in her backpack. At the gate, our bags were searched and she was told she couldn't take her wine inside the stadium. “I won't drink it inside,” she promised. “Well, OK,” said the security guard. I love Vanuatu. To be honest I was surprised they even bothered to hire security. Not going to lie, I was a little disappointed to see the Vanuatu national team wearing regular soccer jerseys. I was secretly hoping that instead of the standard polypropylene jerseys, that they'd be decked out in matching Hawaiian shirts (the style of choice for Vanuatu) with their numbers in acrylic on the back. Vanuatu put up quite a good fight, but ended up loosing 2-1 in the last five minutes of the game. To be honest, however, both team's play was a little disappointing, nowhere near as fluid, organized, or impressive as soccer I was used to watching. I guess that's what you get when you only watch the world cup games.
Two of our group had birthdays on Saturday, so that night we arranged to stay in Vila for dinner and cocktails. A good time was had by all and we wrapped up the night with our usual bonfire on the beach. We only had a few weekends left together as a training group and we had to live them up. Sunday I slept until 10:30, a record for me in Vanuatu and spent most of the rest of the day laying in my hammock. All in all, a weekend well spent.
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