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.