Life in the Ring of Fire Part 34: It's not reunions, but it is All-Vol
Before I kick off this blog entry, I want to say a few words to the Princeton contingent of my readership. I've, of course, been getting all of the reunions-related emails from our various class officers and I just want to let you all know that you're a bunch of lucky chumps for being able to go whilst I can't (also, let me give a shout out to any other P-ton 07's who won't be making it because they're residing in bizarre countries). Alas, since I realize that this is a fate of my own choosing, I won't hold it against you guys and will quietly resign myself to the fact that my beer jacket will remain tucked away in storage for yet another year. I will, however, be expecting each and every one of you to drink a beer in my honor and pour some out for any and all of us unable to be present. I also want pictures. And I'll be expecting everyone to show up for our third reunion in 2010, as it's the first one I'll be able to make it to. I will except no excuses, so plan ahead.
OK, well, it's no reunions, but Monday was the start of All-Vol, Peace Corps Vanuatu's annual conference which every volunteer in the country attends. All-Vol is the brainchild of Kevin George, our country director, and was created as an attempt to prevent us all from going absolutely, bat-shit insane during our service (think Kurtz from Conrad's Heart of Darkness. That's what we're trying to avoid). Peace Corps fronts the airfare for all 100 or so of us to fly in off our islands to Port Vila and puts us up at a luxury resort for four nights (your tax dollars at work, thank you very much). Really, Monday morning was like training all over again, except that when I was woken up absurdly early by my alarm in order to make it to our scheduled trainings on time, I washed up in a spacious stone and glass shower instead of a bucket inside a coconut leaf hut and I ate freshly baked croissants instead of stale breakfast crackers. Also, I didn't immediately start flop sweating the moment I got dressed because my room was air conditioned, and the resort thoughtfully stocked each of the rooms with bathrobes, so I got to spend a good hour or so each day strutting around in a bathrobe (an excellent pastime, if I do say so myself). Other than that, though, it was exactly like training. But, oh yeah, also, there was a swim-up bar with $2 beers at happy hour. OK, so, really, it wasn't actually like training at all, except for the fact that we had to wake up absurdly early every morning to go attend training sessions. Which, really, isn't that big a deal, as I have to wake up at similar times every day to teach but, honestly, what is the point of getting a plush bed with an abundant variety of oddly-shaped pillows if you can't use them to sleep in until well past lunchtime?
Anyway, needless to say, after a day or so, I was ready to get back to my ant-infested cinder-block house, corrugated metal bath shack, and rickety electric fan. Well, not exactly. But in all seriousness, having all those amenities at my fingertips wasn't as gratifying as you might think, given the circumstances. As it turns out, I don't really sleep all that much better on an enormous mattress as opposed to a tiny foam mat, I actually find hot showers to be too hot these days and was never able to turn the knob past the tepid setting, I don't really notice how much I'm sweating anymore, and so our air conditioning went basically unused, and, as for the bathrobes, well, actually, the bathrobes were pretty sweet, I'll give you that. Not that I'm trying to complain about getting to stay at a nice resort, I'm just saying that the whole thing seemed a little wasted on me. It was like it was too much at once, and so I didn't get a chance to savor and appreciate every aspect of it appropriately. Being presented with so many luxuries at once is like standing in front of an all-you-can-eat buffet filled with a large selection of your favorite foods: you want to eat a lot of each kind of food to fully enjoy it, but your stomach can only take so much and when you're full the remaining food goes wasted and unappreciated. Also, having easy access to things tends to make you take them for granted. A candy bar just tastes so much better when it comes out of a long-awaited package from the States than when it can be easily purchased at a nearby store. A beer is so much more refreshing when you've personally scrubbed the spider's eggs out of the bottle, filled it up with brew, pounded the lid on, and let it sit in your house, taunting you, for three weeks before you drink it. When the window unit at the bank in Lakatoro is inexplicably working one day, I might sit for a good hour inside, just savoring it, but when a simple push of a button can activate my own, personal, AC unit, it doesn't feel as nice. Anyway, sorry to wax philosophic there. Suffice it to say that going from living in the bush to staying at an island resort is an odd experience. At any rate, it was good to see and talk with all of the usual suspects from training again, as well as meet some of the other volunteers that I hadn't run into yet. And of course, we had our fair share of partying going on (I'm sure every other guest at the resort hated us for making so much noise at night. This was irrelevant, however, because all the staff loved us because we could speak Bislama, meaning that we could probably have gotten away with murder), the details of which I won't go into because this blog is dedicated to chronicling those things unique to Vanuatu and, let's face it, we've all been to high school and/or college, so use your imagination.
The last dinner of the conference was somewhat bittersweet, as we were saying goodbye to Kevin George, who was stepping down from being country director of Peace Corps Vanuatu after an unheard of seven years of service (the usual term is three years, I believe). Kevin, or K.G. as we call him, is an adorably dorky and always well meaning individual who is so stereotypically Peace Corps that it's hilarious. You can easily picture him as an earnest young college student attending human rights rallies and filling out his application to become a volunteer (he served in Africa as a volunteer). He's also pretty much singlehandedly responsible for the current well-being of the Peace Corps Vanuatu, which started out as a small, underfunded, program and is now the largest Peace Corps operation in the Pacific (although it's still underfunded, of course. If you're ever bored go online and pull up the US spending chart and find your favorite single piece of military hardware that costs more than Peace Corps' annual budget). Most of us volunteers know K.G. on a more personal level as a champion kava drinker, reputed to be able to drink any and every volunteer under the table and then, quite competently, drive back to the office and get back to work. At any rate, he gave a hilarious farewell speech and everyone was sorry that he would soon be leaving. Myself, I was also a bit concerned about the remainder of my tenure as a volunteer which was now slated to be spent under the watch of someone who would probably, at least initially, be a lot less lax about the rules.
At the end of the conference, I was signed up to attend an in-service training about integrating the teaching of Vanuatu history into the curriculum at school. Since I'd been placed in this training more or less randomly, I wasn't particularly interested in the topic, but what was cool was that I was in it with Dennis, who happens to be the only other Math/Science teacher from our training group. The two of us started brainstorming some ideas for a program to try and improve the science curriculum, as the current curriculum is of zero usefulness (it may in fact be of negative usefulness, actually, as it could possibly make you less intelligent if you were taught it). It is built around a number of experiments which are supposed to illustrate key scientific concepts, which is a good idea. The problem is that all of the experiments require materials that probably don't exist in the country, and certainly don't exist in any of the schools outside of the capital, such as Bunsen burners or copper sulfate. Thus what the students usually end up learning is how one would, theoretically, set up the said experiments and the what the results would be. Now, not only is this a waste of time (as it's information with absolutely no applicability to these kid's lives), but it also is basically the exact opposite of science, as the kids are just being told things instead of learning how to figure them out. Dennis and I decided that we would try and write up a parallel curriculum which illustrates the same scientific concepts as the current one, but uses materials that are actually available. As an added bonus, we hoped to come up with some simple activities or games that would encourage independent thought and reasoning (if you have any ideas, by the way, please email them to me), as these are skills that tend to be lacking around these parts. To illustrate this point (and, ironically, this happened basically five minutes after we'd come up with the idea) the person running the training (which was mostly attended by Ni-Vanuatu teachers) asked that, as an exercise, we design a lesson plan that integrates Vanuatu history into a current topic in the school curriculum. One of the teachers raised his hand and asked what topic we should integrate. He was told that it was up to him. Another asked if we should work in groups or individually. He was also told that this was his choice. Finally, someone raised their hand and said (although not in so many words): “If you don't give us more instructions it will be too hard. Could you please tell us what to do?”
Sunday I flew back to Malekula. I was happy to go home. Vila had worn me out with its size and fast pace of life. No matter the circumstances, however, going home in Vanuatu is always a gratifying experience. From the moment I set foot in the airport in Vila, I was recognized and greeted by fellow Malekulians who were also returning to the island. When we landed in Norsup, ground crew all shook my hand and asked how I was doing. As I walked home, passengers in passing trucks waved and shouted “Daniel! You just come back?” I unlocked my house and found that Duncan and Linda and cleaned it while I was gone, and I had only been inside for about ten minutes when a knock came at the door. Duncan was waiting outside. “Oy, Dan!” He greeted me, as he always does “come, we made a lap-lap.” Despite all the faults, you can't help but love Vanuatu.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Life in the Ring of Fire Part 33: Emerging from the Bush
**NOTE: OK, so I've tacked on an ending to my previous post "Adding Insult to Injury." I didn't actually mean to leave you hanging, somehow the end just got chopped off. Sorry.**
Monday was the day I thought I was scheduled to fly into Port Vila to attend an in-service training before our all-volunteer conference at the end of the week. I called in to retrieve my ticket from the Peace Corps office and discovered that, due to some sort of miscommunication, they had me marked down for a training the following week instead. However, since basically every volunteer on my island had either already left for Vila or was leaving Monday, I decided that I wasn't about to be left behind and went about trying to get my ticket changed. First, I stopped in at the Air Vanuatu office in Lakatoro where I was told by the lady behind the counter that every single flight from Norsup to Vila was booked solid from now until approximately the time when Earth's sun can no longer sustain fusion and begins to balloon outward, enveloping us all in a giant ball of flame, and that if I wanted to get to Vila during my lifetime I would have no choice but to wait until my scheduled flight on Saturday. I didn't find this particularly surprising, as this is what everyone who tries to change their flight reservations is told. Not to be deterred, however, I told Duncan what had happened with my ticket and expressed my desire to fly to Vila on Monday. He put a call through to one of his friends working at the airport, who assured us that it would be no problem for me to get on the flight. Thus, the two of us trekked over to the airport Monday morning. To my surprise, I discovered that the lady in the airline office wasn't exaggerating as much as I had at first thought: the airport was indeed jam-packed with people trying to get on the flight to Vila. A dauntingly large line snaked out of the tiny corrugated tin shack that served as the check-in counter. Just then McKenzie, who was actually booked on the flight, but would still need to go through the line in order to check-in, showed up in a truck from Lakatoro. “Give me your tickets,” Duncan said to us “I'll take care of this. You go sit down.” Obediently, we both handed him our tickets, watched as he violently busted his way through the line, haphazardly shoving other passengers out of the way, and then headed over to one of the benches and took a seat. About five minutes later, Duncan re-emerged from the shack, smiling and holding two boarding passes (well, not really, they're actually laminated pieces of paper that say “BOARDING PASS” on them that you have to return when you get on the plane so they can re-use them for the next flight), which he presented to us. “You're confirmed for the flight,” he told me. McKenzie and I both thanked him and settled in to wait for the flight, me wondering what hapless soul had been booted off the plane at Duncan's urging so that I could get on. I felt somewhat bad, but I really wanted to go to Vila that day, and I rationalized by thinking that, really, no Ni-Vanuatu would actually care about having to wait another day or two to get to where they were going. In fact, most had probably left lap-laps in the oven at home in anticipation of not getting on the flight. A little while later, Ben and Thad, two volunteers from the south of the island, joined us on the bench. They were both drenched in sweat and looked quite pissed off. “I f**king hate flying in this country,” Thad said, in lieu of a greeting, and then proceeded to launch into an explanation of all the trouble he'd had trying to get his luggage checked and how much he hated it when people cut in front of him in the check-in line. “Yeah,” I agreed, purposely looking away from him and trying not to laugh, “flying here sucks.” McKenzie rolled her eyes at me.
A short plane flight later, the four of us were in Vila. It was my first time back in civilization since training, almost six moths earlier and, needless to say, I felt very out of place. For instance, the first thing I did upon stepping out of the airport was to start climbing into a pickup tuck parked right outside the door before realizing that, this being an actual city, I couldn't just impose on any random motorist for a ride (and, might I say, this makes absolutely no sense. The difference in fuel cost incurred by carrying an extra passenger is basically insignificant and we could really cut down on gasoline consumption if more people were amenable to hitchhiking). Eventually, we found a bus to carry us to the hotel, where we deposited our belongings before starting the walk over to the Peace Corps office to use the internet. “This place is weird,” I commented to McKenzie as we stepped out into the street. Just then, a go-cart came careening around the corner and zoomed past us, its driver hooting wildly. “Yeah,” she agreed.
At the Peace Corps office I re-united with a number of volunteers who I hadn't seen since training, as well as a marvelous invention called broadband internet. As it got on toward lunch time, a bunch of us headed downtown to Jill's American Cafe because it was Cinco de Mayo and there were rumors that tacos were being served. On the way down, we crossed paths with a couple of JICA volunteers (JICA is Japan's version of Peace Corps) stationed on Malekula, also in for some sort of conference. “Where you headed?” I asked them. “The Japanese restaurant,” they answered, “you?” “The American restaurant.” As it turned out, the taco rumors were unfounded, but I was able to procure a big plate of chili-cheese fries, a chicken burrito, and a chocolate fudge brownie sunday. That afternoon I fondly remembered the days when I used to be able to eat large amounts of cheese and ice cream without spending the next four hours in the bathroom.
That night one of the volunteers stationed in Vila was hosting a Cinco de Mayo party, which we all went to. On the way back, we ran into a group of four French tourists who turned out to be staying at the same hotel as us. We hung out with them in the lobby of the hotel for a while and things began to get exponentially stranger. None of the French spoke very good English, and only one of our group knew any French at all, so communications were difficult from the beginning. One of the Frenchmen sat down next to the one French speaker among us and launched into a very impassioned monologue in French that, we were later told, was mostly him expounding on his philosophy of living life to the fullest. Two others sat down on either side of one of the girls in our group, Lizzie, and very animately tried to explain something to her in very broken English. For the longest time neither her, nor any of us sitting nearby, had any idea what they were saying, yet they kept insisting “You KNOW what we are talking about!” After about half an hour, we put together the fact that they were discussing an old video game, Sonic the Hedgehog, and wanted to know the name of one of the characters in it. After this issue was resolved, the four of them got into a very heated argument, in French, which left us all looking, open mouthed, from one to the other, trying to figure out what in god's name was going on. It was like they were living parodies of themselves, like they'd gotten together beforehand and decided that they were going to act really, preposterously and stereotypically French in order to mess with us Americans. Eventually, we decided that the night had gotten weird enough and we all turned in.
The next day, those volunteers that were scheduled to attend trainings were whisked away to the north of the island leaving me, and a few others who'd decided to fly in early, to our own devices in Vila. This proved to be an excellent opportunity for me to take care of all the errands requiring the use of technology that had been piling up for the past six months I'd been on Malekula. I spent most of the rest of the week alternating between scurrying around town trying to get things done and curling up in the fetal position in my hotel bed, exhausted and convinced that it was only a matter of time before I was killed by a speeding automobile.
Sunday was the first day of our conference, and so we all went to check in at Iririkki Resort, located just off the coast of Vila on its own island. I'd been to Iririkki before a few times to hang out at their pool and take advantage of their happy hour, but never as a guest. It's the kind of place frequented by well-to-do Australians and New Zealanders looking for a vacation consisting mostly of sitting around on the beach being waited on. In other words, basically the polar opposite of all of our experiences as Peace Corps volunteers up until that point. McKenzie and I had gotten tied up eating pizza and drinking margaritas at a restaurant in Vila, and so we ended up checking in an hour or so later than everyone else. Upon giving our names to the lady at the front desk, we were instantly handed enormous, colorful, tropical juice drinks (complete with decorative flower garnishes) and two bellmen appeared to take our bags and escort us to our rooms. Dazed and bewildered by such treatment, we each tried to insist that we could carry our own luggage. When this failed, we obediently followed the bellmen into the resort. Not willing to let go of our Peace Corps personas completely, however, we were both soon deep in Bislama conversations with the Ni-Vanuatu staff. Along the way, we crossed paths with a very sunburned middle-aged Australian couple. Noting that one of the bellmen was carrying my hiking backpack, she turned to me and said “Now, that's the only way to do backpacking!” I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at her as she continued on her way and then turned to the guy carrying my luggage and asked him to give me my bag back.
**NOTE: OK, so I've tacked on an ending to my previous post "Adding Insult to Injury." I didn't actually mean to leave you hanging, somehow the end just got chopped off. Sorry.**
Monday was the day I thought I was scheduled to fly into Port Vila to attend an in-service training before our all-volunteer conference at the end of the week. I called in to retrieve my ticket from the Peace Corps office and discovered that, due to some sort of miscommunication, they had me marked down for a training the following week instead. However, since basically every volunteer on my island had either already left for Vila or was leaving Monday, I decided that I wasn't about to be left behind and went about trying to get my ticket changed. First, I stopped in at the Air Vanuatu office in Lakatoro where I was told by the lady behind the counter that every single flight from Norsup to Vila was booked solid from now until approximately the time when Earth's sun can no longer sustain fusion and begins to balloon outward, enveloping us all in a giant ball of flame, and that if I wanted to get to Vila during my lifetime I would have no choice but to wait until my scheduled flight on Saturday. I didn't find this particularly surprising, as this is what everyone who tries to change their flight reservations is told. Not to be deterred, however, I told Duncan what had happened with my ticket and expressed my desire to fly to Vila on Monday. He put a call through to one of his friends working at the airport, who assured us that it would be no problem for me to get on the flight. Thus, the two of us trekked over to the airport Monday morning. To my surprise, I discovered that the lady in the airline office wasn't exaggerating as much as I had at first thought: the airport was indeed jam-packed with people trying to get on the flight to Vila. A dauntingly large line snaked out of the tiny corrugated tin shack that served as the check-in counter. Just then McKenzie, who was actually booked on the flight, but would still need to go through the line in order to check-in, showed up in a truck from Lakatoro. “Give me your tickets,” Duncan said to us “I'll take care of this. You go sit down.” Obediently, we both handed him our tickets, watched as he violently busted his way through the line, haphazardly shoving other passengers out of the way, and then headed over to one of the benches and took a seat. About five minutes later, Duncan re-emerged from the shack, smiling and holding two boarding passes (well, not really, they're actually laminated pieces of paper that say “BOARDING PASS” on them that you have to return when you get on the plane so they can re-use them for the next flight), which he presented to us. “You're confirmed for the flight,” he told me. McKenzie and I both thanked him and settled in to wait for the flight, me wondering what hapless soul had been booted off the plane at Duncan's urging so that I could get on. I felt somewhat bad, but I really wanted to go to Vila that day, and I rationalized by thinking that, really, no Ni-Vanuatu would actually care about having to wait another day or two to get to where they were going. In fact, most had probably left lap-laps in the oven at home in anticipation of not getting on the flight. A little while later, Ben and Thad, two volunteers from the south of the island, joined us on the bench. They were both drenched in sweat and looked quite pissed off. “I f**king hate flying in this country,” Thad said, in lieu of a greeting, and then proceeded to launch into an explanation of all the trouble he'd had trying to get his luggage checked and how much he hated it when people cut in front of him in the check-in line. “Yeah,” I agreed, purposely looking away from him and trying not to laugh, “flying here sucks.” McKenzie rolled her eyes at me.
A short plane flight later, the four of us were in Vila. It was my first time back in civilization since training, almost six moths earlier and, needless to say, I felt very out of place. For instance, the first thing I did upon stepping out of the airport was to start climbing into a pickup tuck parked right outside the door before realizing that, this being an actual city, I couldn't just impose on any random motorist for a ride (and, might I say, this makes absolutely no sense. The difference in fuel cost incurred by carrying an extra passenger is basically insignificant and we could really cut down on gasoline consumption if more people were amenable to hitchhiking). Eventually, we found a bus to carry us to the hotel, where we deposited our belongings before starting the walk over to the Peace Corps office to use the internet. “This place is weird,” I commented to McKenzie as we stepped out into the street. Just then, a go-cart came careening around the corner and zoomed past us, its driver hooting wildly. “Yeah,” she agreed.
At the Peace Corps office I re-united with a number of volunteers who I hadn't seen since training, as well as a marvelous invention called broadband internet. As it got on toward lunch time, a bunch of us headed downtown to Jill's American Cafe because it was Cinco de Mayo and there were rumors that tacos were being served. On the way down, we crossed paths with a couple of JICA volunteers (JICA is Japan's version of Peace Corps) stationed on Malekula, also in for some sort of conference. “Where you headed?” I asked them. “The Japanese restaurant,” they answered, “you?” “The American restaurant.” As it turned out, the taco rumors were unfounded, but I was able to procure a big plate of chili-cheese fries, a chicken burrito, and a chocolate fudge brownie sunday. That afternoon I fondly remembered the days when I used to be able to eat large amounts of cheese and ice cream without spending the next four hours in the bathroom.
That night one of the volunteers stationed in Vila was hosting a Cinco de Mayo party, which we all went to. On the way back, we ran into a group of four French tourists who turned out to be staying at the same hotel as us. We hung out with them in the lobby of the hotel for a while and things began to get exponentially stranger. None of the French spoke very good English, and only one of our group knew any French at all, so communications were difficult from the beginning. One of the Frenchmen sat down next to the one French speaker among us and launched into a very impassioned monologue in French that, we were later told, was mostly him expounding on his philosophy of living life to the fullest. Two others sat down on either side of one of the girls in our group, Lizzie, and very animately tried to explain something to her in very broken English. For the longest time neither her, nor any of us sitting nearby, had any idea what they were saying, yet they kept insisting “You KNOW what we are talking about!” After about half an hour, we put together the fact that they were discussing an old video game, Sonic the Hedgehog, and wanted to know the name of one of the characters in it. After this issue was resolved, the four of them got into a very heated argument, in French, which left us all looking, open mouthed, from one to the other, trying to figure out what in god's name was going on. It was like they were living parodies of themselves, like they'd gotten together beforehand and decided that they were going to act really, preposterously and stereotypically French in order to mess with us Americans. Eventually, we decided that the night had gotten weird enough and we all turned in.
The next day, those volunteers that were scheduled to attend trainings were whisked away to the north of the island leaving me, and a few others who'd decided to fly in early, to our own devices in Vila. This proved to be an excellent opportunity for me to take care of all the errands requiring the use of technology that had been piling up for the past six months I'd been on Malekula. I spent most of the rest of the week alternating between scurrying around town trying to get things done and curling up in the fetal position in my hotel bed, exhausted and convinced that it was only a matter of time before I was killed by a speeding automobile.
Sunday was the first day of our conference, and so we all went to check in at Iririkki Resort, located just off the coast of Vila on its own island. I'd been to Iririkki before a few times to hang out at their pool and take advantage of their happy hour, but never as a guest. It's the kind of place frequented by well-to-do Australians and New Zealanders looking for a vacation consisting mostly of sitting around on the beach being waited on. In other words, basically the polar opposite of all of our experiences as Peace Corps volunteers up until that point. McKenzie and I had gotten tied up eating pizza and drinking margaritas at a restaurant in Vila, and so we ended up checking in an hour or so later than everyone else. Upon giving our names to the lady at the front desk, we were instantly handed enormous, colorful, tropical juice drinks (complete with decorative flower garnishes) and two bellmen appeared to take our bags and escort us to our rooms. Dazed and bewildered by such treatment, we each tried to insist that we could carry our own luggage. When this failed, we obediently followed the bellmen into the resort. Not willing to let go of our Peace Corps personas completely, however, we were both soon deep in Bislama conversations with the Ni-Vanuatu staff. Along the way, we crossed paths with a very sunburned middle-aged Australian couple. Noting that one of the bellmen was carrying my hiking backpack, she turned to me and said “Now, that's the only way to do backpacking!” I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at her as she continued on her way and then turned to the guy carrying my luggage and asked him to give me my bag back.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Life in the Ring of Fire Part 32: It Has POINTY Fins
Saturday McKenzie was slated to return from her hospital visit in Vila and so I headed down to the airport to meet her. Unlike in the US, where airports are generally associated with stress, hassle, inconvenience and other negative feelings, Norsup airport has the care-free airport concept down pat. A casual 15 minute stroll from my house brings me to the airport. I generally like to show up a bit early so I can spend some quality time in the waiting room: a gorgeous white sandy beach complete with a pleasantly cooling sea breeze and plenty of sun; an excellent place to bring a book and strech out for a bit. After about half an hour, you honestly couldn't care less whether or not the plane you're waiting for shows up or not, which is good because, more often than not, it doesn't (really, they need to rig up a similar system at O'Hare. I can almost guarantee a 90% increase in passenger apathy regarding flight cancellations). Thus, I wasn't particularly surprised when I got a text from McKenzie informing me that her flight had been canceled. I hung out at the beach for a little while longer and then got up to leave. A couple other people, who were also waiting for the plane to come, noticed my departure and asked me where I was going. I explained that the flight from Vila had been canceled, and so I was heading back home. Apparently, I was the only person on the island to receive the flight cancellation memo, as pretty soon basically everyone in and around the airport (including the airport staff) where asking me about the flight and then leaving when I told them it wasn't coming. About five minutes later, the whole airport had cleared out, and so I hoped that there wasn't another plane or something that was supposed to be coming, because all the airport ground crew had gone to get kava.
On Sunday, McKenzie did manage to make it in, and I was happy to see that she looked significantly less like she was about to die than the last time I saw her. She also arrived bringing various new and exciting food items from Vila, including apples, yogurt (I'd forgotten about yogurt), and Snickers bars. We headed to a nakamal and she told me the various ins and outs of her morphine-filled trip to the big city. I'm not sure what I was more amazed by: her various morphine dreams, or the descriptions of such a fantastically futuristic city filled with speeding, motorized contraptions, cold air generating machines, and a plethora of ready-to-eat comestibles.
Monday I was slated to go night spear fishing with my friend, Kalo. I'd had a diving light sent from the states almost a month prior in anticipation of such an event but, so far, no one had volunteered to take me out. Thus, I was pretty excited by the opportunity, and so around dusk I set out to look for Kalo. Seeing as, in my six months at Tautu, I'd only ever seen him in two places: his house, or Duncan's nakamal, it didn't take a very long or extensive search to locate him at Duncan's, where he was about to drink a shell of kava. I took this as an indication that we were probably not going spear fishing, but I asked him about it nonetheless. “We can't go because my flashlight is out of batteries,” he explained to me. Now, I've been in this country for a while and thus am well aware of the fact that Ni-Vanuatu are kings of the ridiculous excuse (the classic “I have to wash my hair” put-off has nothing on these guys. They're so afraid of telling a straightforward “no” to anyone that “no” most frequently takes the form of “Yes, but *insert absurd excuse here*” For example, you might ask a storekeeper if they have any bread and, instead of telling you that it's sold out, they'll say “Yes, but a rat's gotten to it”), but I was still caught off-guard by the sheer lameness of Kalo's battery excuse. First of all, the lack of batteries for a flashlight seems like the kind of thing that one could easily check and remedy several hours before attempting to embark on an activity that requires a portable light-producing device. Second, and more to the point, every single store in Tautu, including the one located a mere six feet from where we were standing, sells batteries. I briefly considered purchasing some batteries for him, thus forcing him to come up with an even lamer excuse for why we weren't going fishing, but I decided to let him off the hook. I headed to Duncan's store to put a couple beers in the freezer, being careful not to trip over the enormous stacks of batteries that littered the floor along the way, and settled in for a standard night at the nakamal.
Tuesday was my last day of class for the term which, believe me, is just as exciting from a teacher's perspective as it is from a students'. For the past month or so, my students' ability to focus on my lessons had been steadily waning. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that most of my colleagues had decided to stop giving class several weeks before. I however, was doggedly pushing forward, still entertaining hopes of making it from rounding to algebra by the end of the year. The rest of the week, however, was taken up by public holidays, so I gave my end of term exams on Tuesday and called it quits. It felt good to have completed my first ever term of teaching and, an added bonus which I discovered when I graded the exams, some of my students actually seemed to have learned something.
Thursday I finally got my chance to go night fishing. The headmaster of the school had asked Kalo and I to try and catch some fish to sell at a school fund raiser the following day, which was a bit of a downer, as it meant that we wouldn't be able to eat the fish that we caught, but I wasn't about to complain. Kalo showed up at my house around six and I donned my swim trunks and grabbed my mask and snorkel and light. “Wait a bit,” Kalo told me “we can't go yet.” “Why?” I asked, “too early for fishing?” Kalo explained that, no, it was, in fact, the perfect time to go fishing, but we couldn't leave the house yet because it was too light and if a pregnant woman saw us on our trek down to the ocean, we wouldn't catch any fish. “That's why, whenever you go fishing, you have to wait until it's dark and then sneak out of the village so none of the women see you.” I deemed this plan unlikely to work as, regardless of how dark it is, it's impossible to take ten steps in Tautu without twenty people, both male and female, asking you where you're going. After about fifteen minutes of wait, we struck out. As I anticipated, we'd gone about thirty feet when a girl spotted us from the road. “You going fishing?” She asked, glancing at the enormous spear gun Kalo was carrying, and the mask and snorkel I was clutching. “Yeah,” I said, at exactly the same time as Kalo said “No, just swimming.” The girl nodded politely, as if actually believing this blatant lie, and we continued on our way. I resigned myself to the fact that there were some things about this country that I would never understand and let Kalo do the talking for the remainder of the walk down to the water, during which we were spotted by probably half of the women in the village, although, fortunately, none of them seemed to be pregnant.
At the beach, we were joined by a village boy who was carrying a makeshift spear gun that he'd rigged by tying a length of metal to a piece of elastic and the rattiest looking snorkel kit I'd ever seen. Looks can be deceiving, however, and I had no doubt that this kid could bring in more fish than me, even if I were equipped with state-of-the-art, laser guided, fish-seeking harpoons. As the person deemed (probably accurately) least likely to catch any fish, I was made the fish bag holder, which is the very definition of a shit job. When I'd first gone spear fishing with Duncan, almost two months ago, I'd been tasked with securing all the fish we caught to my body with a piece of wire. However, as it turns out, Duncan isn't a particularly good spear fisherman, and so we'd only caught two fish, which were easy enough to carry along with a wire. This time, however, I was going out with the pros and we were swinging for the fences. Thus, strapping our caught fish to ourselves just wasn't going to cut it, and so Kalo had brought along a woven plastic rice bag into which we could deposit our fish. It was my responsibility to lug this bag around as we made our way through the water. What makes this a shit job is the fact that shooting a fish with a spear gun usually doesn't kill it, as the spear is too thin, and so after about fifteen minutes in the water, I was carrying around a bag filled with very alive and very pissed off fish. Further compounding the shit job factor, it turns out that a lot of fish have sharp, pointy fins (probably to discourage animals from doing exactly what we were doing namely, killing and eating them), and a plastic bag isn't exactly fish spine proof. Thus, I had to told the bag at arm's length to avoid being skewered by fish spikes. Even so, the third fish into the bag managed to stick me in the thumb and middle finger before being consigned to its plastic prison and, apparently, this particular fish was poisonous, because my fingers quickly swelled up and began to hurt a lot more than they really should have, given the small size of the puncture wounds. I tried to fix an image of the fish in my head, hoping to be able to recognize it in cooked form the following day so that I could purchase and eat it, thus getting the last laugh. I was, understandably I think, glad when we started to head back to shore after about an hour out in the water, where we surveyed our catch. We'd pulled in 15 or 20 fish, each at least the size of my hand, which I though was pretty good. Kalo, however, was disappointed. “Bad luck for us,” he said, nodding his head sadly. I guess one of the village women was pregnant after all.
Saturday McKenzie was slated to return from her hospital visit in Vila and so I headed down to the airport to meet her. Unlike in the US, where airports are generally associated with stress, hassle, inconvenience and other negative feelings, Norsup airport has the care-free airport concept down pat. A casual 15 minute stroll from my house brings me to the airport. I generally like to show up a bit early so I can spend some quality time in the waiting room: a gorgeous white sandy beach complete with a pleasantly cooling sea breeze and plenty of sun; an excellent place to bring a book and strech out for a bit. After about half an hour, you honestly couldn't care less whether or not the plane you're waiting for shows up or not, which is good because, more often than not, it doesn't (really, they need to rig up a similar system at O'Hare. I can almost guarantee a 90% increase in passenger apathy regarding flight cancellations). Thus, I wasn't particularly surprised when I got a text from McKenzie informing me that her flight had been canceled. I hung out at the beach for a little while longer and then got up to leave. A couple other people, who were also waiting for the plane to come, noticed my departure and asked me where I was going. I explained that the flight from Vila had been canceled, and so I was heading back home. Apparently, I was the only person on the island to receive the flight cancellation memo, as pretty soon basically everyone in and around the airport (including the airport staff) where asking me about the flight and then leaving when I told them it wasn't coming. About five minutes later, the whole airport had cleared out, and so I hoped that there wasn't another plane or something that was supposed to be coming, because all the airport ground crew had gone to get kava.
On Sunday, McKenzie did manage to make it in, and I was happy to see that she looked significantly less like she was about to die than the last time I saw her. She also arrived bringing various new and exciting food items from Vila, including apples, yogurt (I'd forgotten about yogurt), and Snickers bars. We headed to a nakamal and she told me the various ins and outs of her morphine-filled trip to the big city. I'm not sure what I was more amazed by: her various morphine dreams, or the descriptions of such a fantastically futuristic city filled with speeding, motorized contraptions, cold air generating machines, and a plethora of ready-to-eat comestibles.
Monday I was slated to go night spear fishing with my friend, Kalo. I'd had a diving light sent from the states almost a month prior in anticipation of such an event but, so far, no one had volunteered to take me out. Thus, I was pretty excited by the opportunity, and so around dusk I set out to look for Kalo. Seeing as, in my six months at Tautu, I'd only ever seen him in two places: his house, or Duncan's nakamal, it didn't take a very long or extensive search to locate him at Duncan's, where he was about to drink a shell of kava. I took this as an indication that we were probably not going spear fishing, but I asked him about it nonetheless. “We can't go because my flashlight is out of batteries,” he explained to me. Now, I've been in this country for a while and thus am well aware of the fact that Ni-Vanuatu are kings of the ridiculous excuse (the classic “I have to wash my hair” put-off has nothing on these guys. They're so afraid of telling a straightforward “no” to anyone that “no” most frequently takes the form of “Yes, but *insert absurd excuse here*” For example, you might ask a storekeeper if they have any bread and, instead of telling you that it's sold out, they'll say “Yes, but a rat's gotten to it”), but I was still caught off-guard by the sheer lameness of Kalo's battery excuse. First of all, the lack of batteries for a flashlight seems like the kind of thing that one could easily check and remedy several hours before attempting to embark on an activity that requires a portable light-producing device. Second, and more to the point, every single store in Tautu, including the one located a mere six feet from where we were standing, sells batteries. I briefly considered purchasing some batteries for him, thus forcing him to come up with an even lamer excuse for why we weren't going fishing, but I decided to let him off the hook. I headed to Duncan's store to put a couple beers in the freezer, being careful not to trip over the enormous stacks of batteries that littered the floor along the way, and settled in for a standard night at the nakamal.
Tuesday was my last day of class for the term which, believe me, is just as exciting from a teacher's perspective as it is from a students'. For the past month or so, my students' ability to focus on my lessons had been steadily waning. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that most of my colleagues had decided to stop giving class several weeks before. I however, was doggedly pushing forward, still entertaining hopes of making it from rounding to algebra by the end of the year. The rest of the week, however, was taken up by public holidays, so I gave my end of term exams on Tuesday and called it quits. It felt good to have completed my first ever term of teaching and, an added bonus which I discovered when I graded the exams, some of my students actually seemed to have learned something.
Thursday I finally got my chance to go night fishing. The headmaster of the school had asked Kalo and I to try and catch some fish to sell at a school fund raiser the following day, which was a bit of a downer, as it meant that we wouldn't be able to eat the fish that we caught, but I wasn't about to complain. Kalo showed up at my house around six and I donned my swim trunks and grabbed my mask and snorkel and light. “Wait a bit,” Kalo told me “we can't go yet.” “Why?” I asked, “too early for fishing?” Kalo explained that, no, it was, in fact, the perfect time to go fishing, but we couldn't leave the house yet because it was too light and if a pregnant woman saw us on our trek down to the ocean, we wouldn't catch any fish. “That's why, whenever you go fishing, you have to wait until it's dark and then sneak out of the village so none of the women see you.” I deemed this plan unlikely to work as, regardless of how dark it is, it's impossible to take ten steps in Tautu without twenty people, both male and female, asking you where you're going. After about fifteen minutes of wait, we struck out. As I anticipated, we'd gone about thirty feet when a girl spotted us from the road. “You going fishing?” She asked, glancing at the enormous spear gun Kalo was carrying, and the mask and snorkel I was clutching. “Yeah,” I said, at exactly the same time as Kalo said “No, just swimming.” The girl nodded politely, as if actually believing this blatant lie, and we continued on our way. I resigned myself to the fact that there were some things about this country that I would never understand and let Kalo do the talking for the remainder of the walk down to the water, during which we were spotted by probably half of the women in the village, although, fortunately, none of them seemed to be pregnant.
At the beach, we were joined by a village boy who was carrying a makeshift spear gun that he'd rigged by tying a length of metal to a piece of elastic and the rattiest looking snorkel kit I'd ever seen. Looks can be deceiving, however, and I had no doubt that this kid could bring in more fish than me, even if I were equipped with state-of-the-art, laser guided, fish-seeking harpoons. As the person deemed (probably accurately) least likely to catch any fish, I was made the fish bag holder, which is the very definition of a shit job. When I'd first gone spear fishing with Duncan, almost two months ago, I'd been tasked with securing all the fish we caught to my body with a piece of wire. However, as it turns out, Duncan isn't a particularly good spear fisherman, and so we'd only caught two fish, which were easy enough to carry along with a wire. This time, however, I was going out with the pros and we were swinging for the fences. Thus, strapping our caught fish to ourselves just wasn't going to cut it, and so Kalo had brought along a woven plastic rice bag into which we could deposit our fish. It was my responsibility to lug this bag around as we made our way through the water. What makes this a shit job is the fact that shooting a fish with a spear gun usually doesn't kill it, as the spear is too thin, and so after about fifteen minutes in the water, I was carrying around a bag filled with very alive and very pissed off fish. Further compounding the shit job factor, it turns out that a lot of fish have sharp, pointy fins (probably to discourage animals from doing exactly what we were doing namely, killing and eating them), and a plastic bag isn't exactly fish spine proof. Thus, I had to told the bag at arm's length to avoid being skewered by fish spikes. Even so, the third fish into the bag managed to stick me in the thumb and middle finger before being consigned to its plastic prison and, apparently, this particular fish was poisonous, because my fingers quickly swelled up and began to hurt a lot more than they really should have, given the small size of the puncture wounds. I tried to fix an image of the fish in my head, hoping to be able to recognize it in cooked form the following day so that I could purchase and eat it, thus getting the last laugh. I was, understandably I think, glad when we started to head back to shore after about an hour out in the water, where we surveyed our catch. We'd pulled in 15 or 20 fish, each at least the size of my hand, which I though was pretty good. Kalo, however, was disappointed. “Bad luck for us,” he said, nodding his head sadly. I guess one of the village women was pregnant after all.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Life in the Ring of Fire Part 31: Adding Insult to Injury
Monday proved to be one of the most hectic days I'd had in Vanuatu since arrival. I was just finishing up my class for the day, holding back a few students still struggling with the concept of multiplication for some extra practice, when a couple of kids appeared at the classroom window and announced that I needed to come because there was someone in the courtyard wanting to talk to me. Instinctively, I told them to wait. I'd become well acquainted with a really obnoxious tendency of my fellow teachers to send kids to summon me, during the middle of one of my classes, to come speak to them. I would quickly rush outside, trying to resolve whatever issue they wanted to discuss as quickly as possible so as not to disrupt class. “What is it?” I'd ask.
“Sorry. Not much. What are you doing?”
“I”m trying to teach my freaking class! What in God's name do you want?!”
“Sorry to disturb you.”
“Yes, that's fine, now get to the point so I can go back and teach!”
“Sorry. Well, it's no big deal. I've just got this paper I need to photocopy to send home with the kids today.”
“OK.”
Long pause.
“Sorry, but the photocopier in the office is out of ink.”
“Yes, I know. Maybe if you bought some more you wouldn't have these problems.”
Long pause.
“Sorry, but I have a lot of work to do today. I don't know if I have time to go to Lakatoro to make copies.”
“Far out. I'm going to go back to my class now.” At this point I usually turn around and start to leave.
“Sorry.....”
“Yes?”
Long Pause.
“Sorry. What are you doing this afternoon?”
“What I usually do: nothing.”
Long Pause.
“Sorry. Um. If you have time. Sorry. What if I give you some money and um...”
“What?”
“Sorry. If you have time. You could, sorry, go to Lakatoro to make copies.”
“Yes, I could.”
“Sorry. I'll buy you kava tonight.”
“But you always buy me kava.”
Long Pause.
“So...” I'd say, finally deciding to have mercy, “you want me to go to Lakatoro to make copies for you, yes?”
“Yes! Please. If you have time. If not, sorry, maybe, maybe I can just not teach my afternoon classes and go to Lakatoro instead.”
Rolling my eyes, “yes, I can go make photocopies for you. Can I go teach now?”
“Oh Thank You So Much! I'll buy you plenty kava tonight!”
“Yeah, I don't want kava, I want you to man up and get to the point once in a while. No wonder it takes you six months to buy copier toner.”
Except I usually say that last bit to myself as I walk back to my class. We Peace Corps volunteers are supposed to be culturally sensitive, after all. Of course, it doesn't really take me until the end of the conversation to piece together the fact that they want me to go to Lakatoro to make copies, but I'm trying to teach assertiveness here. Also, I find it sort of amusing to play dumb and see how things pan out (yes, it's kind of mean, but don't knock it until you've tried it). At any rate, at this point five or so minutes would have passed, and my class would have lapsed into drawing unnecessarily detailed borders in their work books and it would take a few more minutes to bring them back to task. Hence, I'd started to adopt a policy of telling my colleagues that they'd just have to wait until after my class was over to talk to me. Granted, this generally only works for a few minutes before they show up at my window and put on such a show making “psst” noises and gesticulating wildly that it becomes impossible to ignore them. Still, it's a work in progress.
So anyway, when the kids showed up at my window and said someone wanted to talk to me, I naturally assumed that another obnoxiously slow conversation with a fellow teacher was about to ensue. After a few minutes, however, instead of a teacher showing up to gesture and “psst” at me from the door, a larger group of kids appeared in the window. “McKenzie!” They said “McKenzie's here!” This, I decided, was worth investigating. I walked out of class and, indeed, a truck was parked in the courtyard with McKenzie sitting in the front seat. I gave her a palms-up shrug (the Vanuatu signal for “What's up?”) and she waved me over to the truck. I peered in the window and saw that her day did not seem to be off to a good start. She was drenched in sweat and tears; her face flushed and twisted into a mask of agony. She looked like she was about to pass out. “Jesus. What happened?” I asked. “I need you to come to the hospital with me,” she said in a whimper and with an accompanying look which suggested that failure to comply would result in us never speaking again. I jumped in the back of the truck and we were off.
When we arrived at the hospital, I helped her out of the truck and repeated my question. “What happened,” I asked. “I dislocated my shoulder,” she whimpered in response. Our previous experience with the Norsup hospital when we'd taken Elin there to deal with her eye did not inspire a lot of confidence, and I had been trained to reduce dislocations as part of training for an outdoor program I'd been in college, so I briefly considered sitting her down at the hospital entrance to deal with the problem myself, but I decided that it really wasn't my place to be overruling an actual doctor, should one be present, and, since we were already at the hospital, it was probably worth it to go inside to see if there was any actual medical personnel that could help us. We were met at the emergency room by a white man wearing a white doctor's coat, which instantly got my hopes up as, not to be racist, but being white in Vanuatu usually means you've had a western education and, say what you will about the various problems with western medicine, believe me, it's what you want when you're really sick or injured. My optimism was somewhat tempered, however, when it was discovered that he spoke French and only halting English and Bislama, that he had a permanently bewildered expression on his face, and that it still took them a good ten minutes of shuffling around to get McKenzie into an examining room and start asking questions. After some initial problems with communicating through the language barrier, it eventually became clear that the doctor understood that her shoulder had been dislocated and that he intended to give her morphine and Valium injections to relax the muscles and reduce the pain and then attempt to replace the shoulder. This seemed like a reasonable enough treatment to me, and so I finally left the room after being repeatedly asked to do so by the doctor more or less since we'd arrived.
I took a seat on the concrete curb outside the hospital and tried, fairly unsuccessfully, not to listen to McKenzie's muffled yelps and screams coming from the examining room. After a few minutes of this, I decided to distract myself by calling in to our Peace Corps medical officer to advise them of the unfolding situation. Apparently taking a page from the playbook of American hospitals, there is no cell reception inside Norsup hospital (in the States, at least, this is supposedly because cell phones can somehow mess up certain types of medical equipment. I'm very skeptical of this claim, even in the US, whose hospitals contain many fancy medical machines whose inner workings I am, admittedly, ignorant of, but especially in Vanuatu, where the majority of hospital equipment consists of gauze and asprin, both of which, I'm almost positive, are uneffected by the proximity of cell phones. On a related note, I'm also skeptical of claims that cell phones and other electronics distrupt aircraft navigation systems, a claim that I've put to the test numerous times by underhandedly turning my cell phone on during a flight while the flight attendents aren't looking and seeing if the plane crashes or not. So far, my phone has yet to cause an aviation disaster although, unfortunately, it is true that you get very poor reception at 30,000 feet), meaning that I had to walk out to the road in order to place the call. Talking to Jane, our medical officer, is always a positive experience. Her soothing Australian accent combines well with her straight-to-business, no-nonsesne attitude to both put you at ease and assure you that the situation is in good hands. I filled her on on what was going on and she suggested that I try and get the Norsup hospital staff to perform and X-ray before reducing McKenzie's shoulder. I told her that, unless she could advise me on some way of rigging up an X-ray machine using only banana leaves and bamboo, this was unlikely to happen. Thus it was decided that we allow the beliwdered-looking French quasi-doctor to attempt to replace the shoulder.
I returned to my spot outside the hospital and noted that 1)McKenzie was still inside with the doctor and 2)she still seemed to be in a lot of pain. I started to get a little worried that the procedure was being botched as I was fairly certain that this sort of thing should really only take about five minutes, and McKenzie was going on about a half hour in the exam room. I thought about going in and asking them to stop and giving Jane another call, but just then a few nurses entered the room with a rolling bed and a sling, indicating to me that they were intending on moving her to a recovery room. This did, indeed, happen about ten minutes later and, after the nurses had left, I took a seat next to McKenzie in the recovery room. "What the hell did they do to you?" I asked, noting that she looked significantly worse than when we'd arrived at the hospital. She explained that, consistent with his bewildered expression, the French doctor was, in fact, incompetent, as evidenced by the fact that it had taken him a good fifteen minutes just to get an IV put in, a good 15-20 attempts at fiddling with her arm before getting her shoulder to go back in, and the pain had failed to subside significantly. Now, this is generally a very bad sign, as the more the injury is messed with, the more inflamed it gets, which both makes it less likely to get set properly when it does go back in and increases the chances that some additional damage has been done. I called Jane with another update, who told me to give it an hour or so to see if things got any better before making arrangements to get McKenzie to the airport and on a flight to Port Vila.
***OK, so there actually is more to this story, but the end got cut off somehow. Sorry to leave you all in suspense. Here's the gripping conclusion***
When the hour was up and things hadn't improved considerably, McKenzie and I left the hospital and boarded a truck to the airport. Now, Norsup hospital is north of both Tautu and the airport, meaning that you have to go to Tautu first and then catch the road down to the airport. The road connecting Tautu to the airport, however, isn't so much a road as a boulder field, with large irregularly shaped rocks protruding all about. This makes for a fairly painful truck ride, even if you're not injured, so I can't really imagine how much McKenzie wanted to kill me for making her leave the peaceful, stationary, environment of the hospital and embark on a bouncing, careening journey southward with her still considerable shoulder pain.
When we arrived at the airport, we were informed that the plane McKenzie was supposed to take had already left. Jane told me over the phone that they were trying to convince Air Vanuatu to turn the flight around and pick her up, but I considered this strategy unlikely to work. We hung out at the airport for a good half hour while the Peace Corps office was arguing with the airline before they decided to throw in the towel and charter a flight up. The charter plane arrived about an hour later and a friendly, competent-looking, Australian pilot (what can I say, there's something about that Australian accent that just makes you feel like everything's going to be OK) escorted McKenzie on the plane and they took off. I took a deep breath and meandered my way back to Tautu, glad to have the situation out of my hands.
When I got home, I told Duncan about the days adventures. I ended my story by telling him that I'd just put McKenzie on a plane to Vila and he, and demonstrating a Ni-Vanuatu talent for picking up on the most random and trivial details of a tale, sat silently for a moment and then asked: "Which flight did she take?" "Uh, Peace Corps chartered a plane," I explained. He considered this for a second and then said "Next time Peace Corps charters a flight to Vila, you call me so I can get a free flight in." "Uh, OK," I said, thinking this just a little insensitive. I changed my outlook, however, when he launched into a story of his own.
"Your brother, Frank, dislocated his shoulder once," he said.
"Really?" I asked.
"Yes, a coconut fell and hit him. It dislocated his shoulder and snapped his collar bone."
"Jesus!"
"It was a Friday and the doctor had already gone home, so we had to wait until Monday to take him to the hospital."
I had nothing to say to this. Although I doubted that this was Duncan's intention with telling the story, I felt guilty knowing that I could always fall back on Peace Corps to get me out of any serious medical situation, should the need ever arise, and considered what it would be like if Norsup hospital and the bumbling French doctor were all that I had.
Later that evening, I got a call from Jane informing me that McKenzie had seen a surgeon in Vila who had set her shoulder properly and concluded that no further damage had been done. She assured me that McKenzie would be just fine after a few days recovery time and would be back in Malekula in about a week.
Now, I'm sure some other stuff happened that week but, to be honest, nothing else particularly interesting comes to mind. I guess medical emergencies tend to overshadow other things just a bit. At any rate, I think that's quite enough material for a blog entry. Sorry to cut off the end and leave you all hanging before.
Monday proved to be one of the most hectic days I'd had in Vanuatu since arrival. I was just finishing up my class for the day, holding back a few students still struggling with the concept of multiplication for some extra practice, when a couple of kids appeared at the classroom window and announced that I needed to come because there was someone in the courtyard wanting to talk to me. Instinctively, I told them to wait. I'd become well acquainted with a really obnoxious tendency of my fellow teachers to send kids to summon me, during the middle of one of my classes, to come speak to them. I would quickly rush outside, trying to resolve whatever issue they wanted to discuss as quickly as possible so as not to disrupt class. “What is it?” I'd ask.
“Sorry. Not much. What are you doing?”
“I”m trying to teach my freaking class! What in God's name do you want?!”
“Sorry to disturb you.”
“Yes, that's fine, now get to the point so I can go back and teach!”
“Sorry. Well, it's no big deal. I've just got this paper I need to photocopy to send home with the kids today.”
“OK.”
Long pause.
“Sorry, but the photocopier in the office is out of ink.”
“Yes, I know. Maybe if you bought some more you wouldn't have these problems.”
Long pause.
“Sorry, but I have a lot of work to do today. I don't know if I have time to go to Lakatoro to make copies.”
“Far out. I'm going to go back to my class now.” At this point I usually turn around and start to leave.
“Sorry.....”
“Yes?”
Long Pause.
“Sorry. What are you doing this afternoon?”
“What I usually do: nothing.”
Long Pause.
“Sorry. Um. If you have time. Sorry. What if I give you some money and um...”
“What?”
“Sorry. If you have time. You could, sorry, go to Lakatoro to make copies.”
“Yes, I could.”
“Sorry. I'll buy you kava tonight.”
“But you always buy me kava.”
Long Pause.
“So...” I'd say, finally deciding to have mercy, “you want me to go to Lakatoro to make copies for you, yes?”
“Yes! Please. If you have time. If not, sorry, maybe, maybe I can just not teach my afternoon classes and go to Lakatoro instead.”
Rolling my eyes, “yes, I can go make photocopies for you. Can I go teach now?”
“Oh Thank You So Much! I'll buy you plenty kava tonight!”
“Yeah, I don't want kava, I want you to man up and get to the point once in a while. No wonder it takes you six months to buy copier toner.”
Except I usually say that last bit to myself as I walk back to my class. We Peace Corps volunteers are supposed to be culturally sensitive, after all. Of course, it doesn't really take me until the end of the conversation to piece together the fact that they want me to go to Lakatoro to make copies, but I'm trying to teach assertiveness here. Also, I find it sort of amusing to play dumb and see how things pan out (yes, it's kind of mean, but don't knock it until you've tried it). At any rate, at this point five or so minutes would have passed, and my class would have lapsed into drawing unnecessarily detailed borders in their work books and it would take a few more minutes to bring them back to task. Hence, I'd started to adopt a policy of telling my colleagues that they'd just have to wait until after my class was over to talk to me. Granted, this generally only works for a few minutes before they show up at my window and put on such a show making “psst” noises and gesticulating wildly that it becomes impossible to ignore them. Still, it's a work in progress.
So anyway, when the kids showed up at my window and said someone wanted to talk to me, I naturally assumed that another obnoxiously slow conversation with a fellow teacher was about to ensue. After a few minutes, however, instead of a teacher showing up to gesture and “psst” at me from the door, a larger group of kids appeared in the window. “McKenzie!” They said “McKenzie's here!” This, I decided, was worth investigating. I walked out of class and, indeed, a truck was parked in the courtyard with McKenzie sitting in the front seat. I gave her a palms-up shrug (the Vanuatu signal for “What's up?”) and she waved me over to the truck. I peered in the window and saw that her day did not seem to be off to a good start. She was drenched in sweat and tears; her face flushed and twisted into a mask of agony. She looked like she was about to pass out. “Jesus. What happened?” I asked. “I need you to come to the hospital with me,” she said in a whimper and with an accompanying look which suggested that failure to comply would result in us never speaking again. I jumped in the back of the truck and we were off.
When we arrived at the hospital, I helped her out of the truck and repeated my question. “What happened,” I asked. “I dislocated my shoulder,” she whimpered in response. Our previous experience with the Norsup hospital when we'd taken Elin there to deal with her eye did not inspire a lot of confidence, and I had been trained to reduce dislocations as part of training for an outdoor program I'd been in college, so I briefly considered sitting her down at the hospital entrance to deal with the problem myself, but I decided that it really wasn't my place to be overruling an actual doctor, should one be present, and, since we were already at the hospital, it was probably worth it to go inside to see if there was any actual medical personnel that could help us. We were met at the emergency room by a white man wearing a white doctor's coat, which instantly got my hopes up as, not to be racist, but being white in Vanuatu usually means you've had a western education and, say what you will about the various problems with western medicine, believe me, it's what you want when you're really sick or injured. My optimism was somewhat tempered, however, when it was discovered that he spoke French and only halting English and Bislama, that he had a permanently bewildered expression on his face, and that it still took them a good ten minutes of shuffling around to get McKenzie into an examining room and start asking questions. After some initial problems with communicating through the language barrier, it eventually became clear that the doctor understood that her shoulder had been dislocated and that he intended to give her morphine and Valium injections to relax the muscles and reduce the pain and then attempt to replace the shoulder. This seemed like a reasonable enough treatment to me, and so I finally left the room after being repeatedly asked to do so by the doctor more or less since we'd arrived.
I took a seat on the concrete curb outside the hospital and tried, fairly unsuccessfully, not to listen to McKenzie's muffled yelps and screams coming from the examining room. After a few minutes of this, I decided to distract myself by calling in to our Peace Corps medical officer to advise them of the unfolding situation. Apparently taking a page from the playbook of American hospitals, there is no cell reception inside Norsup hospital (in the States, at least, this is supposedly because cell phones can somehow mess up certain types of medical equipment. I'm very skeptical of this claim, even in the US, whose hospitals contain many fancy medical machines whose inner workings I am, admittedly, ignorant of, but especially in Vanuatu, where the majority of hospital equipment consists of gauze and asprin, both of which, I'm almost positive, are uneffected by the proximity of cell phones. On a related note, I'm also skeptical of claims that cell phones and other electronics distrupt aircraft navigation systems, a claim that I've put to the test numerous times by underhandedly turning my cell phone on during a flight while the flight attendents aren't looking and seeing if the plane crashes or not. So far, my phone has yet to cause an aviation disaster although, unfortunately, it is true that you get very poor reception at 30,000 feet), meaning that I had to walk out to the road in order to place the call. Talking to Jane, our medical officer, is always a positive experience. Her soothing Australian accent combines well with her straight-to-business, no-nonsesne attitude to both put you at ease and assure you that the situation is in good hands. I filled her on on what was going on and she suggested that I try and get the Norsup hospital staff to perform and X-ray before reducing McKenzie's shoulder. I told her that, unless she could advise me on some way of rigging up an X-ray machine using only banana leaves and bamboo, this was unlikely to happen. Thus it was decided that we allow the beliwdered-looking French quasi-doctor to attempt to replace the shoulder.
I returned to my spot outside the hospital and noted that 1)McKenzie was still inside with the doctor and 2)she still seemed to be in a lot of pain. I started to get a little worried that the procedure was being botched as I was fairly certain that this sort of thing should really only take about five minutes, and McKenzie was going on about a half hour in the exam room. I thought about going in and asking them to stop and giving Jane another call, but just then a few nurses entered the room with a rolling bed and a sling, indicating to me that they were intending on moving her to a recovery room. This did, indeed, happen about ten minutes later and, after the nurses had left, I took a seat next to McKenzie in the recovery room. "What the hell did they do to you?" I asked, noting that she looked significantly worse than when we'd arrived at the hospital. She explained that, consistent with his bewildered expression, the French doctor was, in fact, incompetent, as evidenced by the fact that it had taken him a good fifteen minutes just to get an IV put in, a good 15-20 attempts at fiddling with her arm before getting her shoulder to go back in, and the pain had failed to subside significantly. Now, this is generally a very bad sign, as the more the injury is messed with, the more inflamed it gets, which both makes it less likely to get set properly when it does go back in and increases the chances that some additional damage has been done. I called Jane with another update, who told me to give it an hour or so to see if things got any better before making arrangements to get McKenzie to the airport and on a flight to Port Vila.
***OK, so there actually is more to this story, but the end got cut off somehow. Sorry to leave you all in suspense. Here's the gripping conclusion***
When the hour was up and things hadn't improved considerably, McKenzie and I left the hospital and boarded a truck to the airport. Now, Norsup hospital is north of both Tautu and the airport, meaning that you have to go to Tautu first and then catch the road down to the airport. The road connecting Tautu to the airport, however, isn't so much a road as a boulder field, with large irregularly shaped rocks protruding all about. This makes for a fairly painful truck ride, even if you're not injured, so I can't really imagine how much McKenzie wanted to kill me for making her leave the peaceful, stationary, environment of the hospital and embark on a bouncing, careening journey southward with her still considerable shoulder pain.
When we arrived at the airport, we were informed that the plane McKenzie was supposed to take had already left. Jane told me over the phone that they were trying to convince Air Vanuatu to turn the flight around and pick her up, but I considered this strategy unlikely to work. We hung out at the airport for a good half hour while the Peace Corps office was arguing with the airline before they decided to throw in the towel and charter a flight up. The charter plane arrived about an hour later and a friendly, competent-looking, Australian pilot (what can I say, there's something about that Australian accent that just makes you feel like everything's going to be OK) escorted McKenzie on the plane and they took off. I took a deep breath and meandered my way back to Tautu, glad to have the situation out of my hands.
When I got home, I told Duncan about the days adventures. I ended my story by telling him that I'd just put McKenzie on a plane to Vila and he, and demonstrating a Ni-Vanuatu talent for picking up on the most random and trivial details of a tale, sat silently for a moment and then asked: "Which flight did she take?" "Uh, Peace Corps chartered a plane," I explained. He considered this for a second and then said "Next time Peace Corps charters a flight to Vila, you call me so I can get a free flight in." "Uh, OK," I said, thinking this just a little insensitive. I changed my outlook, however, when he launched into a story of his own.
"Your brother, Frank, dislocated his shoulder once," he said.
"Really?" I asked.
"Yes, a coconut fell and hit him. It dislocated his shoulder and snapped his collar bone."
"Jesus!"
"It was a Friday and the doctor had already gone home, so we had to wait until Monday to take him to the hospital."
I had nothing to say to this. Although I doubted that this was Duncan's intention with telling the story, I felt guilty knowing that I could always fall back on Peace Corps to get me out of any serious medical situation, should the need ever arise, and considered what it would be like if Norsup hospital and the bumbling French doctor were all that I had.
Later that evening, I got a call from Jane informing me that McKenzie had seen a surgeon in Vila who had set her shoulder properly and concluded that no further damage had been done. She assured me that McKenzie would be just fine after a few days recovery time and would be back in Malekula in about a week.
Now, I'm sure some other stuff happened that week but, to be honest, nothing else particularly interesting comes to mind. I guess medical emergencies tend to overshadow other things just a bit. At any rate, I think that's quite enough material for a blog entry. Sorry to cut off the end and leave you all hanging before.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Tautu: A Photo Tour
Welcome to the Life in the Ring of Fire Tautu Photo Tour!
I know I've been pretty bad with pictures as far as this blog goes. This is a result of two things. First of all, my internet connection at site is far too slow to allow me to upload pictures to the internet. Second, I'm just really bad at taking pictures. I am. I can admit it. I can carry my camera around in my pocket for days at a time and not take a single picture, or, conversely, see about fifty things I want to take a picture of in the space of ten minutes, but not have my camera with me. Also, when it gets right down to it, it's kind of hard to remember to take pictures of everyday life. I mean, it's not like you all have photos of going to the office, ordering pizza from Dominoes, or whatever and, similarly, I don't often feel compelled to take pictures of drinking kava, going to the gardens, or opening coconuts with a machete. Actually, for the most part, what we volunteers have pictures of is us partying. Unfortunately, when we party, we dress up in western clothes, eat western food, and drink western booze, which, I feel isn't exactly suitable material for a blog that's supposed to be about all the crazy non-western stuff I'm doing in Vanuatu. I've done my best to make it up to you readers with my vivid descriptions and subtle wit (although I also haven't published a written entry in a while, either, as I'm in Vila and am thus busy soaking up the western lifestyle for a bit. But don't worry, I'll get back to blogging soon and, trust me, it'll be worth it. There's some good stuff coming up: dislocated shoulders, night diving, sharp, spiny, poisonous fish, and, of course, All-Vol, so stay tuned), but I know no amount of words can make up for a good photo, so I've done my best to capture my village, Tautu, in a series of photographs, which I am now sharing with you guys, along with accompanying witty comments. I hope you enjoy. Also, I'd like to announce that I will be returning to the States for a visit over Christmas between the 9th of December and the 21rst of January. I will be staying in Austin and if anyone would like to stop by for a visit during that time, it would be great to see you (and no, I'm not flying to Chicago/New York/New Jersey/wherever to see you. I'm gonna be flying halfway around the world for Christ's sake, the least you can do is get yourself a ticket to somewhere in Texas. Honestly you can probably get one for less than $200, give it a shot). Just throwing that out there. If you're interested in making plans, shoot me an email.
Your first view of Tautu coming from the south (ie. the airport or Lakatoro). Commonly referred to as "the roundabout," for obvious reasons.
The right fork leads into the village proper (aka. downtown), down this road, whereas the left fork takes you to Small Tautu (aka. the suburbs). The family lives in Small Tautu, but I've got some prime downtown real estate going for myself.
As you can see, even in such a bustling metropolis like Tautu, they do a good job landscaping the roads with plenty of greenery.
When you pass the cow, you know you're almost there.
Home, sweet home. Notice, I've done up the front yard with a sort of "dark and foreboding jungle" theme. Keeps the Jehovah's Witnesses away.
It's just a show, however, it's actually quite welcoming from closer up. I've even got a lemon tree to keep the place smelling nice.
The facilities are located a little ways off, amongst the yams and guava trees.
Shoes and machetes must be left at the door. Sorry, house rules.
Here's the living room. It's a little messy, but what do you expect? I live here.
The kitchen and brewery are adjoining.
Conveniently, my main source of food, the papaya tree, is present in abundance in my yard.
My school's about four feet outside my front door. Keeps the commute times down, usually thirty seconds to a minute, depending on traffic.
My classroom sports all the modern amenities, including a blackboard, a roof that only leaks in a few places, and even a nice red plastic chair!
Here's the school office. Believe it or not, it's got a photocopier inside, and the school committee finally got around to replacing the toner last month after a 6 month delay. Works pretty well, as long as you don't mind the occasional cockroach limb adorning your photocopied pages.
The main school building is across the yard. Note the chickens. Everywhere in Vanuatu has chickens. Literally. And no, the little chicks aren't cute. You've obviously never been attacked by an insane, squawking hen for walking too close to her chicks. Excuse me man, I'm just trying to get to class.
Heading down to the village will take you by the community water supply: a big concrete tank fed from the rain gutters of the church roof.
Here's the church, possibly the hottest place on the planet to be on a Sunday afternoon. Don't know why they don't have services at night.
The road leading down to the main village. Interestingly enough, some guy just sold most of it to an Australian over the internet. I think he's in for something of a surprise when he comes to survey his new property.
The village square. It's no Piazza Navona, but no one's going to run you down with tiny, speeding, mopeds either.
The village store. Open 24 hours, as long as you're willing to go wake up the storekeeper at his house at three in the morning.
They pack them in pretty densely in the city.
But with that prime beach-front location, no one is likely to complain.
Sitting/standing around doing nothing: a favorite pastime for both young and old.
There's no denying it, Vanuatu is bloody gorgeous.
Tautu's formidable fishing fleet.
The family lives up in the suburbs, the left fork of the roundabout.
They've got a lot of acreage for their front yard. But I guess that's how things are in the 'burbs: long commutes, but plenty of space for the kids.
And in Vanuatu, there's never a shortage of kids.
Here's the nakamal. We've got both indoor and outdoor seating.
Although the outdoor does need a little work.
The inside looks friendly with plenty of light coming in from the afternoon sun.
But no one drinks kava in the afternoon (where do you think we are? Tanna?), so this is the view you'll see more often.
Here's the house. Remember what I said about the chickens? They're freaking everywhere.
My uncle owns the village bakery.
The family. Like in the States, it's difficult to catch them when they're not on the phone.
There we go. Linda, Duncan, Frank and Tracey.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
