Life in the Ring of Fire Part 38: A Guest
Monday I began to wonder if I'm the only human being on the planet who thinks that, when you get right down to it, finding the perimeter of a square isn't all that hard. This was brought on when I introduced perimeter as the new subject of study in my class and asked if anyone could tell me what perimeter means (a topic which, in the US at least, I believe is first introduced during a child's fourth month in the womb). As usually happens when I ask a question of my class, everyone switched into robot mode and monotonously droned “length times width.” I patiently explained that “length times width” is not the generally agreed upon, Webster's dictionary, definition of perimeter, but rather a formula for calculating the area of a rectangle. Nonetheless, I congratulated them on producing an answer that at least came from the same general area of mathematics (namely, shapes), as opposed to, say, something learned in French class (I like to use positive reinforcement whenever possible). I then wrote the definition of perimeter on the blackboard in big letters, translating it from English to Bislama to ensure that there was no language confusion, underlined it about a billion times and told my students that please, if they remembered nothing else from that day's lecture, to please try and remember what a perimeter was, as it's a concept generally assumed to be understood by most mammals who've progressed beyond the fetal stage of their development. Tuesday I once again got up in front of my class and asked if anyone could tell me what a perimeter was. In the same robot voice that I'd received the previous day, everyone droned “length times width.” I wondered if Duncan had managed to purchase more shotgun shells for his ten gauge yet and, if so, he could be convinced to shoot me in the face.
Tuesday afternoon my headmaster called a teacher's meeting, which worked to further erode my faith international development efforts. The previous week the headmaster and the assistant headmaster had attended a workshop on teaching methods in Lakatoro and now wished to share what they'd learned with the rest of the school staff. Given the content of the meeting, the only thing that had been taken away from the workshop was that it was now necessary to fill out a new kind of lesson plan form before each class. Now, granted, I didn't actually go to this workshop, but I'm pretty sure that this was not the main bullet point that its organizers where hoping the attendees would take home with them. Or maybe it was, I don't even know what to think anymore. After about two hours or so, it was finally decided who would be responsible for photocopying the new lesson plan sheets and in what folder in the school office these photocopies would reside. At the end of the meeting, I was placed in charge of overseeing the implementation of the new teaching techniques we'd all just learned (which, I guess, amounts to making sure that said folder is always well stocked with crisp, warm photocopies) on the grounds that I was the only white person in the room. I tried to picture a time, not so long ago in Vanuatu's past, when these islands were home to fearsome cannibals, bane to missionary and explorer alike, ready to defend with their lives their god-given right to eat each other from the meddling Europeans; people who had no problem meeting unwelcome visitors to their beaches with spears, bows, cooking pots, and seasoning salt. I wondered what had happened in the intervening centuries that had made things go so epically downhill; what had caused the transition from a fierce, warrior-based society, to a passive, useless-paperwork-based one.
In another humorous development, the Vanuatu government decided, based on some sort of recommendation from the UN or something, to ban smoking in all public places. This is strange for several reasons. First of all, the idea of the government attempting to ban anything is inherently funny, as Vanuatu is a country that boasts a grand total of eight law-enforcement officials who, of course, are related, in some way or another, to everyone else in the country and would never dream of doing something as rude as forcing their relatives to obey some law. Second, basically all of Vanuatu is a public place, as illustrated by the fact that kids have absolutely no problem having their faces plastered up against the windows of my house as they watch me go about such mundane tasks as, for example, writing this blog entry. I mean it's not like there are a lot of restaurants or bars or museums, or even buildings, really, which can fill up with secondhand smoke because of inconsiderate smokers. There's usually not a hostess stationed at the entrance to the bush asking you if you'd prefer to shell out copra in the smoking or non-smoking section of the coconut plantation. Finally, the only people in Vanuatu who don't smoke are those who have already died of smoking-related illnesses, so banning smoking is kind of like banning breathing. Despite all this, everyone is very supportive of the new law and, as the police commissioner explained to McKenzie at the nakamal one night whilst chain smoking a pack of Peter Jackson cigarettes, the first round of enforcement is going to focus on making all nakamals smoke-free environments. I wish them the best of luck.
Friday was one of the most exciting days for a while as McKenzie, Laura, and I awaited the arrival of Elin and her real honest-to-god biological father (as opposed to the plethora of random Ni-Vans that all of us volunteers have amassed over the months who, for some reason none of us can comprehend, insist that we call them “tati” -- Bislama for daddy, I think – or “papa”), Randy, who was visiting from the States and would be our first US guest in Malekula. We were all excited to meet Randy because, as someone fresh from the US and as-of-yet uncorrupted by the Vanuatu lifestyle, he could offer an unbiased opinion on whether or not we'd all gone totally, bat-shit, insane. As an added bonus, he came bearing gifts in the form of alcoholic beverages. Friday night we all enjoyed White Russians for the first time in many months. Saturday McKenzie and I were anxious to take Randy to a nakamal for his first kava because we were curious to see if he would gag and vomit. He turned out to be a good sport, however, and kept pace with us, shell-for-shell, although I doubt he would recommend the stuff to future visitors. Sunday he and Elin headed up to her village, Lavasal. The two of them were scheduled for an early flight the following morning and so wanted to be back in Lakatoro that night. Given that it was Sunday, a day when trucks usually don't run, McKenzie, Laura, and I considered this unlikely to happen. Despite all odds, however, they made it, which we considered to be sufficient cause to break into the Tequila that Randy had brought. Me being me, of course, I wanted to make margaritas, however, I had no triple sec. Trying to improvise, I purchased a bottle of orange juice syrup, and hoped that it would make a reasonable substitute (these juice syrups are really gross. Think concentrated kool aid: lots of sugar and artificial flavors). Using this, I mixed up drinks and brought them out. Elin, Laura, and McKenzie accepted them and started drinking without a word but Randy said "What the hell are those?" You see, the syrup was dyed bright orange and so, as a result, our margaritas were neon orange in color. They tasted good though. At least that's what we thought, although we've been away from actual margaritas for so long it's hard to judge. Still, there's nothing like an orange glow-in-the-dark margarita on a fine Sunday afternoon in Vanuatu, if I do say so myself.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Life in the Ring of Fire Part 37: Mostly About Chicken
Teachers in Vanuatu are crazy about workshops (not sure why, they require more effort and take up more time than teaching class, so it's not like you get off of work for a week. And I guess it is important to have better trained teachers, but can we please have these trainings sometime when class isn't in session?), and apparently the second term of school is considered to be prime workshop territory because, after just returning from a workshop running Wednesday through Friday of the previous week, it was announced that the year 7 and 8 teachers would again be out attending a week-long workshop in Lakatoro. Fortunately, showing at least a small amount of guilt over the fact that their classes were about to go unattended for two weeks straight, it was decided to not cancel class and instead leave work for their students on the blackboard while the teachers were at the workshop. Of course, if I were giving a workshop on teaching, the first topic I'd cover would be why it's important to actually be present in your class as much as possible and not just assign work and leave, but at least this gave me the option of electing to not attend the workshop and instead go ahead teaching my class as usual (I'll grant that I decided to do this not just because I thought it was important for my students to move ahead in their lessons, but also because I knew that, as is true of any event where a lot of Ni-Vanuatu gather together to talk, the workshop would be painfully slow-paced and long-winded). The downside, however, was that, since the only class my kids had each day was mine, they were slightly less than attentive, and even my captivating lectures on dividing decimals weren't enough to hold their attention while all their friends in year seven played soccer directly outside the classroom door. Halfway through the week I realized that I'd turned into what I'd always hated in school: that one really stubborn teacher who would ALWAYS insist of having a serious class even if the rest of the school was taking it easy on us because it was the last week before summer or something.
Elin had come down to Lakatoro on Friday on her way to Vila in order to pick up her dad, who was scheduled to visit from the US. Instead of coughing up the $100+ dollars for the plane ticket, she decided to try her luck with a ship. A new ship had just opened up shop in Vanuatu, the Fresh Cargo, which was scheduled to run from Luganville to Lakatoro to Vila and then back. The Fresh Cargo's claim to fame is that it is able to make the run from Lakatoro to Vila in about five hours, instead of the more typical day and a half (it's able to accomplish this amazing feat because it can travel at speeds above 1 mile per hour due to the fact that it is equipped with engines, as opposed to all the other ships, which are powered by crew members who take turns getting out to push), thus allowing it to make two, get this, REGULARLY scheduled runs between Lakatoro and Vila a week, one on Tuesday and one on Saturday. The announcement of this new service created quite a stir here in Malekula, mostly because of its implications for inter-island frozen poultry transport. I found myself having a lot of conversations that went something like this:
Ni-Van: “You hear about the new ship?”
Me: “Yes”
Ni-Van: “How long does it take to get here from Vila?”
Me: “About five hours.”
Ni-Van: “So, if I have my friend in Vila put frozen chicken wings on the boat at nine o'clock they'd get here at...”
Me: “About two o'clock, yes”
Ni-Van: “Would they still be cold?”
Me: “Uh, I don't know, probably.”
Ni-Van: “Wow.”
Me: “Um, also, you can now get to Vila for $20 instead of $100 dollars and be back in the same week!”
--contemplative pause---
Ni-Van: “What about a whole frozen chicken?”
Of course, this is Vanuatu, so the first ship ever to boast of having a regular, reliable, schedule was a day late in coming and so Elin didn't get off until Wednesday but, still, being only a day late is pretty darn good. Ironically, this was the same day that we heard that the cargo ship belonging to the nearby plantation had capsized on the way to Vila and all the crew were missing and feared dead. Elin made it to Vila just fine, but she texted us telling us that they'd skirted the wreck on the way but hadn't been able to rescue anyone. It turned out that, in an unbelievable display of badassness, all the crew successfully swam the five or so miles to shore, including the captain, despite the fact that he had one of his legs bitten off by a tiger shark. The captain bled to death before they were able to get him medical attention, but the rest of the crew survived unharmed and would, no doubt, have quite the story to tell the grandkids.
On Thursday, we had a last kava and dinner for Bill, a volunteer that was just finishing his two years of service in a village a little bit to the south of us. He'd brought a chicken, which he'd spent his service raising, that we roasted for the occasion. We put the bird in the oven and then headed out to kava. When we returned we discovered why it is that Ni-Vans never make roast chicken out of their local birds, preferring instead to cook them for eight plus hours in an underground lap-lap oven: roast local chicken comes out having the approximate consistency of a tanned leather belt. On the plus side, Bill had been saving a bottle of wine for the occasion so all of us got to briefly enjoy imbibing a wine that was actually intended for drinking, as opposed to removing soap scum from the linoleum.
Friday McKenzie and I went to see Bill off at the airport. The plane, of course, was late, so we got to enjoy the company of a British guy who was also waiting for the flight, who decided that it was his responsibility, as a seasoned veteran of life in Vanuatu, to offer us advice on getting by in this crazy country. All three of us, each sunburned, covered in dust, and (at least Bill and I) sporting grizzly beards and hairdos, listened patiently to this well-dressed and impeccably clean Englishman list Vanuatu's eccentricities, all of which we'd long ago gotten used to and ceased noticing. “How long have you been here?” One of us finally asked. “Quite a while actually,” he responded “about five weeks.” We all nodded and resumed staring at him, blank-faced. “How about you guys?” He finally asked. “The two of us, about eight months,” said McKenzie, indicating her and myself. “And I've been here about two and a half years,” said Bill. At this, the British guy decided to stop offering advice and we waited in silence for the plane to come.
As usual, there were way more people wanting to board the plane than there were seats, leading to a scene that was somewhat reminiscent of desperate civilians fighting to board the last airlift out of a war zone before Germans panzers occupy the city. In particular, a Frenchman (I know it's cliché, but the French really are total jerks, you know?) was making a huge fuss about not being able to board the plane. He was animately arguing with the airport staff, shouting and gesturing wildly, and just generally going nuts. Finally, the ground crew acquiesced and allowed him to board the plane, thus bumping from the flight an elderly Ni-Van woman whose foot was wrapped in blood-soaked bandages. She smiled and apologized for all the trouble she'd caused as she climbed out of the plane and was escorted into a hospital van and driven off towards Norsup, presumably to spend another night at the hospital before trying to once again fly to Vila the following day in search of medical care. Bill, who'd managed to board the flight earlier, in spite of the fact that he was taking (no joke) a bow and arrow carry-on, tried to climb out of the plane and offer up his seat, but was shouted down by the now very-hassled and annoyed-looking flight crew.
“You know,” I said to McKenzie, “I'm really ashamed to be white right now.”
“Yeah,” she agreed.
(To be fair, I later explained the scene at the airport to my host mom, Linda, who told me that the Frenchman in question was actually a doctor at Norsup hospital and was wanting to get on the plane to accompany another patient of his to the hospital in Vila. Nonetheless, the whole thing still left something of a bad taste in my mouth.)
We waved the plane off and then headed to get kava. I pulled out my cell phone to text Duncan and noted, sadly, that approximately half of the numbers I had stored in my address book now belonged to people that had left the country. For the first time, the rocking party island of Malekula felt a little empty.
Teachers in Vanuatu are crazy about workshops (not sure why, they require more effort and take up more time than teaching class, so it's not like you get off of work for a week. And I guess it is important to have better trained teachers, but can we please have these trainings sometime when class isn't in session?), and apparently the second term of school is considered to be prime workshop territory because, after just returning from a workshop running Wednesday through Friday of the previous week, it was announced that the year 7 and 8 teachers would again be out attending a week-long workshop in Lakatoro. Fortunately, showing at least a small amount of guilt over the fact that their classes were about to go unattended for two weeks straight, it was decided to not cancel class and instead leave work for their students on the blackboard while the teachers were at the workshop. Of course, if I were giving a workshop on teaching, the first topic I'd cover would be why it's important to actually be present in your class as much as possible and not just assign work and leave, but at least this gave me the option of electing to not attend the workshop and instead go ahead teaching my class as usual (I'll grant that I decided to do this not just because I thought it was important for my students to move ahead in their lessons, but also because I knew that, as is true of any event where a lot of Ni-Vanuatu gather together to talk, the workshop would be painfully slow-paced and long-winded). The downside, however, was that, since the only class my kids had each day was mine, they were slightly less than attentive, and even my captivating lectures on dividing decimals weren't enough to hold their attention while all their friends in year seven played soccer directly outside the classroom door. Halfway through the week I realized that I'd turned into what I'd always hated in school: that one really stubborn teacher who would ALWAYS insist of having a serious class even if the rest of the school was taking it easy on us because it was the last week before summer or something.
Elin had come down to Lakatoro on Friday on her way to Vila in order to pick up her dad, who was scheduled to visit from the US. Instead of coughing up the $100+ dollars for the plane ticket, she decided to try her luck with a ship. A new ship had just opened up shop in Vanuatu, the Fresh Cargo, which was scheduled to run from Luganville to Lakatoro to Vila and then back. The Fresh Cargo's claim to fame is that it is able to make the run from Lakatoro to Vila in about five hours, instead of the more typical day and a half (it's able to accomplish this amazing feat because it can travel at speeds above 1 mile per hour due to the fact that it is equipped with engines, as opposed to all the other ships, which are powered by crew members who take turns getting out to push), thus allowing it to make two, get this, REGULARLY scheduled runs between Lakatoro and Vila a week, one on Tuesday and one on Saturday. The announcement of this new service created quite a stir here in Malekula, mostly because of its implications for inter-island frozen poultry transport. I found myself having a lot of conversations that went something like this:
Ni-Van: “You hear about the new ship?”
Me: “Yes”
Ni-Van: “How long does it take to get here from Vila?”
Me: “About five hours.”
Ni-Van: “So, if I have my friend in Vila put frozen chicken wings on the boat at nine o'clock they'd get here at...”
Me: “About two o'clock, yes”
Ni-Van: “Would they still be cold?”
Me: “Uh, I don't know, probably.”
Ni-Van: “Wow.”
Me: “Um, also, you can now get to Vila for $20 instead of $100 dollars and be back in the same week!”
--contemplative pause---
Ni-Van: “What about a whole frozen chicken?”
Of course, this is Vanuatu, so the first ship ever to boast of having a regular, reliable, schedule was a day late in coming and so Elin didn't get off until Wednesday but, still, being only a day late is pretty darn good. Ironically, this was the same day that we heard that the cargo ship belonging to the nearby plantation had capsized on the way to Vila and all the crew were missing and feared dead. Elin made it to Vila just fine, but she texted us telling us that they'd skirted the wreck on the way but hadn't been able to rescue anyone. It turned out that, in an unbelievable display of badassness, all the crew successfully swam the five or so miles to shore, including the captain, despite the fact that he had one of his legs bitten off by a tiger shark. The captain bled to death before they were able to get him medical attention, but the rest of the crew survived unharmed and would, no doubt, have quite the story to tell the grandkids.
On Thursday, we had a last kava and dinner for Bill, a volunteer that was just finishing his two years of service in a village a little bit to the south of us. He'd brought a chicken, which he'd spent his service raising, that we roasted for the occasion. We put the bird in the oven and then headed out to kava. When we returned we discovered why it is that Ni-Vans never make roast chicken out of their local birds, preferring instead to cook them for eight plus hours in an underground lap-lap oven: roast local chicken comes out having the approximate consistency of a tanned leather belt. On the plus side, Bill had been saving a bottle of wine for the occasion so all of us got to briefly enjoy imbibing a wine that was actually intended for drinking, as opposed to removing soap scum from the linoleum.
Friday McKenzie and I went to see Bill off at the airport. The plane, of course, was late, so we got to enjoy the company of a British guy who was also waiting for the flight, who decided that it was his responsibility, as a seasoned veteran of life in Vanuatu, to offer us advice on getting by in this crazy country. All three of us, each sunburned, covered in dust, and (at least Bill and I) sporting grizzly beards and hairdos, listened patiently to this well-dressed and impeccably clean Englishman list Vanuatu's eccentricities, all of which we'd long ago gotten used to and ceased noticing. “How long have you been here?” One of us finally asked. “Quite a while actually,” he responded “about five weeks.” We all nodded and resumed staring at him, blank-faced. “How about you guys?” He finally asked. “The two of us, about eight months,” said McKenzie, indicating her and myself. “And I've been here about two and a half years,” said Bill. At this, the British guy decided to stop offering advice and we waited in silence for the plane to come.
As usual, there were way more people wanting to board the plane than there were seats, leading to a scene that was somewhat reminiscent of desperate civilians fighting to board the last airlift out of a war zone before Germans panzers occupy the city. In particular, a Frenchman (I know it's cliché, but the French really are total jerks, you know?) was making a huge fuss about not being able to board the plane. He was animately arguing with the airport staff, shouting and gesturing wildly, and just generally going nuts. Finally, the ground crew acquiesced and allowed him to board the plane, thus bumping from the flight an elderly Ni-Van woman whose foot was wrapped in blood-soaked bandages. She smiled and apologized for all the trouble she'd caused as she climbed out of the plane and was escorted into a hospital van and driven off towards Norsup, presumably to spend another night at the hospital before trying to once again fly to Vila the following day in search of medical care. Bill, who'd managed to board the flight earlier, in spite of the fact that he was taking (no joke) a bow and arrow carry-on, tried to climb out of the plane and offer up his seat, but was shouted down by the now very-hassled and annoyed-looking flight crew.
“You know,” I said to McKenzie, “I'm really ashamed to be white right now.”
“Yeah,” she agreed.
(To be fair, I later explained the scene at the airport to my host mom, Linda, who told me that the Frenchman in question was actually a doctor at Norsup hospital and was wanting to get on the plane to accompany another patient of his to the hospital in Vila. Nonetheless, the whole thing still left something of a bad taste in my mouth.)
We waved the plane off and then headed to get kava. I pulled out my cell phone to text Duncan and noted, sadly, that approximately half of the numbers I had stored in my address book now belonged to people that had left the country. For the first time, the rocking party island of Malekula felt a little empty.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Life in the Ring of Fire Part 36: Mail and Vegetable Peelers
Monday my class size was once again restored to normal, except that one of students had vanished and been mysteriously replaced by another student who'd never attended my class up until that point. It's probably a testament to how much I've accepted the randomness of Vanuatu that I never once questioned this switch-up and simply continued teaching as if nothing had changed (and in what is perhaps a poor reflection on my teaching abilities, this girl who hasn't been coming to my class for the past three months is now one of my best students). Monday is also mail day. I rent a PO box at the Lakatoro post office for the hefty fee of about $6 a year. Conveniently, all the boxes have doors attached to them that open to the outside, thus allowing a renter to, using a key, instantly access their mailbox even if the post office is closed or if the line is too long at the counter. What's less convenient is that basically all the keys have been lost over the years, and there's no one around that knows how to make new ones, so to get your mail you have to go up to the counter and ask the post guy to check your box for you. The Lakatoro postman is perhaps the slowest human being on the planet which, especially in Vanuatu, is saying something, because the competition here is quite fierce (fiercely slow). A request for something as simple as, say, a stamp may take upwards of half an hour to be processed. And god help you if there's someone in front of you wanting to make a Western Union money transfer; those can take weeks. I've also heard stories that the postmen on the outer islands are prone to becoming drunk on power, instituting harsh reigns of terror where all mail is denied to those who displease them. One of the other volunteers on the island told me that this happened to him once, and he was unable to get mail for weeks, despite the fact that he could clearly see packages addressed to him sitting behind the counter. Another volunteer also told me a story of a conversation he'd had with the mail guy which went something like this:
“Do I have any mail?”
“Mail didn't come today.”
“Oh, well, what about that big stack of mail over there in the corner?”
“It's not sorted yet.”
“Are you going to sort it?”
“It got wet on the way over from the airport. I'm letting it dry first.”
“Then you're going to sort it?”
“No, then I'm going to burn it.”
Anyway, I, fortunately, have managed to remain on the postman's good side, and so he usually goes to pull my mail out of the box as soon as he sees me walk in the door, which is nice (also, by some miracle, I have yet, to my knowledge, not to receive a package sent to me from the US). If I don't have any mail, however, he gives me a long, forlorn look and sadly shakes his head no, as if conveying his very deepest sympathy that no postal communications have arrived for me. Needless to say, this is a little depressing, so I try to go for my mail only once a week, thus ensuring that I usually have mail when I check it, as Peace Corps thoughtfully sends me weekly shipments of notices and forms and other such things, which I use in my class as scrap paper. This week was a package week (a week where I get a package from the States, perhaps the single greatest joy a volunteer can experience), however, so I was spared the forlorn stare and, upon opening the package, I experienced the odd and yet gratifying sensation of now having almost too much chocolate. The rate at which candy bars were arriving from the US had finally begun to outstrip the rate at which I was devouring them, leaving me with a projected surplus. I resisted the temptation to blow the surplus on tax rebates, and instead began a stockpile in the hopes of being able to outlast any time of famine I might encounter in the future (sort of Joseph in Egypt style). As an added plus, this was a birthday package and came equipped with a musical greeting card from my little brother. My villagers thought this was the greatest thing next to LED flashlights (a good LED flashlight is regarded as the highest possible technological achievement of this age, even beating out such things as the moon landing and the internet), and the card's batteries were quickly exhausted.
Going into Lakatoro is always kind of intimidating, as basically everyone on the island knows me, but I've been a little slow on getting to know everyone else (in my defense, Malekula has several thousand residents, but there's only one of me), so if anyone comes up to talk to me, I'm often not sure what kind of responses are appropriate. How do I know this person, for example? Am I on good terms with them? Have I helped them out with something before? Have they helped me out with something? Do they live next door to me? etc. Thus, to avoid embarrassing situations (such as asking my host uncle what village he's from), I generally have to bluff and speak as vaguely as possible until I can gather more information. This isn't so much a problem in Tautu, both because I've gotten to know a lot more people in Tautu, but also because I can at least safely assume that anyone that talks to me in Tautu is from Tautu, thus giving me a starting point. In Lakatoro, however, I'm totally lost. It also doesn't help that Bislama, given its lack of vocabulary, relies heavily on context to get its meaning across, so when the context of the conversation is uncertain, understanding can be difficult. For example, on Monday McKenzie and I were standing inside one of the stores when I lady I didn't recognize came up to me and said:
“I have some for you but I haven't brought it down yet, sorry”
“Uh, that's alright. No hurry.”
“OK, I think I'll today or tomorrow if you'll ”
“OK, sounds good.”
“Alright see you.”
After this rather confusing exchange, I turned to McKenzie and asked: “What'd you get out of that?”
“I think she wants you to come to her store to buy meat for your family.”
“Huh,” I said “I thought she wanted to sell me empty beer bottles.”
McKenzie wondered off to take care of some business in town and I settled onto one of the nearby benches to wait for her to finish so we could get lunch. I man sat down next to me, who looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place how it was that I knew him. We talked for a good twenty minutes while McKenzie was gone and I was able to gather that 1)he seemed to think of me as a friend 2)he seemed to think that either he owed me a favor or I owed him a favor 3)he was under the impression we'd, at some point, agreed that said owed favor would be re-payed somehow in the form of kava, and that 4)he wanted me to meet him at the market Friday morning to do something involving kava. We parted with a friendly handshake just as McKenzie was returning and he shouted over his shoulder “see you Friday!”
“Who's that?” McKenzie asked.
“I don't know,” I replied. She nodded understandingly, as she has similar issues with not know who people are.
“What's happening Friday?” She asked.
“Not sure,” I told her “I'm meeting him here and he's either buying me kava or I'm buying him kava or he's selling me his kava or we're meeting with someone to buy their kava, but kava is definitely involved somehow, and whatever is happening is happening Friday.”
Tuesday I learned that classes 7 and 8 would be canceled for the rest of the week because all the teachers were going to a workshop, thus further diminishing my chances of making it to calculus by the end of the term. On the plus side, a representative from the village mama's group showed up at my door and presented me with two yams and a bunch of other assorted vegetables. Apparently they'd decided to go around and give all of the teachers a selection of foods. I appreciated the yams, which I could easily let sit in my house for months for use at my leisure. The problem with vegetables in Vanuatu, however, is that they come in quantities designed with families of 80 in mind. It's kind of like shopping at Sam's club except every single item is extremely perishable (although they don't have that annoying membership fee like at Sam's club. What is the deal with that?), so I knew that I'd end up having to either give 90% of it to my host family, or watch it rot in my house. I thanked them for it nonetheless, having to speak up slightly to talk over the sound of vegetables rotting in my kitchen. Now, I'd found out a few weeks ago that a new kind of yam was in season, a discovery that excited me more than you can probably imagine, and so I was eager to break into the new yam varietal in order to make french fries out of it (I have an ongoing project of trying to make french fries out of every root crop that enters my house in the hopes of one day stumbling upon one that actually tastes good). It was also an exciting moment because I'd picked up a vegetable peeler in Vila and had, as of yet, not been able to put it to use on a peeling job. Up until that point, I'd been doing all my peeling with my machete and I was looking forward to being able to peel a yam without fear of chopping my fingers off. Thus, I positioned my peeler and went at it. The blade dug into the tough skin of the yam and snapped in half. Yams, you see, have a thick, woody, inedible skin, not at all like the puny thin thing you find on a potato which, I guess, is why everyone peels them with a machete. Fortunately, the vegetable peeler had come as part of a two pack (why would you sell vegetable peelers in a two pack? I'd asked myself when I purchased it. I guess I found out), so I had a spare, but it seemed such a perfect Vanuatu moment to me: an exciting new piece of technology from the West, promising to make life that much simpler and easier, completely and totally failing.
Hmm, well, I'm kind of drawing a blank on any other interesting things that happened to me this week. Sorry for the short blog entry (and the fact that, really, the only stories I related were about checking my mail and peeling a yam, not exactly gripping literature). I'll work on getting into more adventures ASAP. Oh, and just so you all aren't kept in suspense, I showed up to meet the mysterious kava guy at the market Friday morning and couldn't find him, so I still have no idea what that was about.
Monday my class size was once again restored to normal, except that one of students had vanished and been mysteriously replaced by another student who'd never attended my class up until that point. It's probably a testament to how much I've accepted the randomness of Vanuatu that I never once questioned this switch-up and simply continued teaching as if nothing had changed (and in what is perhaps a poor reflection on my teaching abilities, this girl who hasn't been coming to my class for the past three months is now one of my best students). Monday is also mail day. I rent a PO box at the Lakatoro post office for the hefty fee of about $6 a year. Conveniently, all the boxes have doors attached to them that open to the outside, thus allowing a renter to, using a key, instantly access their mailbox even if the post office is closed or if the line is too long at the counter. What's less convenient is that basically all the keys have been lost over the years, and there's no one around that knows how to make new ones, so to get your mail you have to go up to the counter and ask the post guy to check your box for you. The Lakatoro postman is perhaps the slowest human being on the planet which, especially in Vanuatu, is saying something, because the competition here is quite fierce (fiercely slow). A request for something as simple as, say, a stamp may take upwards of half an hour to be processed. And god help you if there's someone in front of you wanting to make a Western Union money transfer; those can take weeks. I've also heard stories that the postmen on the outer islands are prone to becoming drunk on power, instituting harsh reigns of terror where all mail is denied to those who displease them. One of the other volunteers on the island told me that this happened to him once, and he was unable to get mail for weeks, despite the fact that he could clearly see packages addressed to him sitting behind the counter. Another volunteer also told me a story of a conversation he'd had with the mail guy which went something like this:
“Do I have any mail?”
“Mail didn't come today.”
“Oh, well, what about that big stack of mail over there in the corner?”
“It's not sorted yet.”
“Are you going to sort it?”
“It got wet on the way over from the airport. I'm letting it dry first.”
“Then you're going to sort it?”
“No, then I'm going to burn it.”
Anyway, I, fortunately, have managed to remain on the postman's good side, and so he usually goes to pull my mail out of the box as soon as he sees me walk in the door, which is nice (also, by some miracle, I have yet, to my knowledge, not to receive a package sent to me from the US). If I don't have any mail, however, he gives me a long, forlorn look and sadly shakes his head no, as if conveying his very deepest sympathy that no postal communications have arrived for me. Needless to say, this is a little depressing, so I try to go for my mail only once a week, thus ensuring that I usually have mail when I check it, as Peace Corps thoughtfully sends me weekly shipments of notices and forms and other such things, which I use in my class as scrap paper. This week was a package week (a week where I get a package from the States, perhaps the single greatest joy a volunteer can experience), however, so I was spared the forlorn stare and, upon opening the package, I experienced the odd and yet gratifying sensation of now having almost too much chocolate. The rate at which candy bars were arriving from the US had finally begun to outstrip the rate at which I was devouring them, leaving me with a projected surplus. I resisted the temptation to blow the surplus on tax rebates, and instead began a stockpile in the hopes of being able to outlast any time of famine I might encounter in the future (sort of Joseph in Egypt style). As an added plus, this was a birthday package and came equipped with a musical greeting card from my little brother. My villagers thought this was the greatest thing next to LED flashlights (a good LED flashlight is regarded as the highest possible technological achievement of this age, even beating out such things as the moon landing and the internet), and the card's batteries were quickly exhausted.
Going into Lakatoro is always kind of intimidating, as basically everyone on the island knows me, but I've been a little slow on getting to know everyone else (in my defense, Malekula has several thousand residents, but there's only one of me), so if anyone comes up to talk to me, I'm often not sure what kind of responses are appropriate. How do I know this person, for example? Am I on good terms with them? Have I helped them out with something before? Have they helped me out with something? Do they live next door to me? etc. Thus, to avoid embarrassing situations (such as asking my host uncle what village he's from), I generally have to bluff and speak as vaguely as possible until I can gather more information. This isn't so much a problem in Tautu, both because I've gotten to know a lot more people in Tautu, but also because I can at least safely assume that anyone that talks to me in Tautu is from Tautu, thus giving me a starting point. In Lakatoro, however, I'm totally lost. It also doesn't help that Bislama, given its lack of vocabulary, relies heavily on context to get its meaning across, so when the context of the conversation is uncertain, understanding can be difficult. For example, on Monday McKenzie and I were standing inside one of the stores when I lady I didn't recognize came up to me and said:
“I have some
“Uh, that's alright. No hurry.”
“OK, I think I'll
“OK, sounds good.”
“Alright see you.”
After this rather confusing exchange, I turned to McKenzie and asked: “What'd you get out of that?”
“I think she wants you to come to her store to buy meat for your family.”
“Huh,” I said “I thought she wanted to sell me empty beer bottles.”
McKenzie wondered off to take care of some business in town and I settled onto one of the nearby benches to wait for her to finish so we could get lunch. I man sat down next to me, who looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place how it was that I knew him. We talked for a good twenty minutes while McKenzie was gone and I was able to gather that 1)he seemed to think of me as a friend 2)he seemed to think that either he owed me a favor or I owed him a favor 3)he was under the impression we'd, at some point, agreed that said owed favor would be re-payed somehow in the form of kava, and that 4)he wanted me to meet him at the market Friday morning to do something involving kava. We parted with a friendly handshake just as McKenzie was returning and he shouted over his shoulder “see you Friday!”
“Who's that?” McKenzie asked.
“I don't know,” I replied. She nodded understandingly, as she has similar issues with not know who people are.
“What's happening Friday?” She asked.
“Not sure,” I told her “I'm meeting him here and he's either buying me kava or I'm buying him kava or he's selling me his kava or we're meeting with someone to buy their kava, but kava is definitely involved somehow, and whatever is happening is happening Friday.”
Tuesday I learned that classes 7 and 8 would be canceled for the rest of the week because all the teachers were going to a workshop, thus further diminishing my chances of making it to calculus by the end of the term. On the plus side, a representative from the village mama's group showed up at my door and presented me with two yams and a bunch of other assorted vegetables. Apparently they'd decided to go around and give all of the teachers a selection of foods. I appreciated the yams, which I could easily let sit in my house for months for use at my leisure. The problem with vegetables in Vanuatu, however, is that they come in quantities designed with families of 80 in mind. It's kind of like shopping at Sam's club except every single item is extremely perishable (although they don't have that annoying membership fee like at Sam's club. What is the deal with that?), so I knew that I'd end up having to either give 90% of it to my host family, or watch it rot in my house. I thanked them for it nonetheless, having to speak up slightly to talk over the sound of vegetables rotting in my kitchen. Now, I'd found out a few weeks ago that a new kind of yam was in season, a discovery that excited me more than you can probably imagine, and so I was eager to break into the new yam varietal in order to make french fries out of it (I have an ongoing project of trying to make french fries out of every root crop that enters my house in the hopes of one day stumbling upon one that actually tastes good). It was also an exciting moment because I'd picked up a vegetable peeler in Vila and had, as of yet, not been able to put it to use on a peeling job. Up until that point, I'd been doing all my peeling with my machete and I was looking forward to being able to peel a yam without fear of chopping my fingers off. Thus, I positioned my peeler and went at it. The blade dug into the tough skin of the yam and snapped in half. Yams, you see, have a thick, woody, inedible skin, not at all like the puny thin thing you find on a potato which, I guess, is why everyone peels them with a machete. Fortunately, the vegetable peeler had come as part of a two pack (why would you sell vegetable peelers in a two pack? I'd asked myself when I purchased it. I guess I found out), so I had a spare, but it seemed such a perfect Vanuatu moment to me: an exciting new piece of technology from the West, promising to make life that much simpler and easier, completely and totally failing.
Hmm, well, I'm kind of drawing a blank on any other interesting things that happened to me this week. Sorry for the short blog entry (and the fact that, really, the only stories I related were about checking my mail and peeling a yam, not exactly gripping literature). I'll work on getting into more adventures ASAP. Oh, and just so you all aren't kept in suspense, I showed up to meet the mysterious kava guy at the market Friday morning and couldn't find him, so I still have no idea what that was about.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Life in the Ring of Fire Part 35: Death by Cattle
Monday was the first day of the second school term (Vanuatu is on the trimester system) or, rather, it should have been the first day of the second term. As things actually panned out, maybe twenty of the hundred and eighty kids that should have come showed up, and myself and the headmaster were the only teachers to attend. I knew that this was frequently a problem at the larger boarding schools throughout Vanuatu, as kids tend to go back to their home islands for the break and the ships to bring them back to school are often late or don't come at all. However, my school isn't really a boarding school (we only have eight borders) and most of our students come from Tautu, Norsup, or Lakatoro. Additionally, all of our teachers live within a half hour's travel of the school. This point was driven home when the headmaster and I decided to cancel class that day and I walked down to the village. Along the way, I ran into a bunch of kids that should have been in the lower years at school. “Why didn't you come to school?” I asked them. “None of the teachers are back,” they answered. A few minutes later, I ran into one of the absent teachers. “Why didn't you come to school?” I asked. “None of the kids came,” she answered. Right.
That afternoon I went into Lakatoro, which was an especially exciting trip as I'd purchased a bicycle while I was in Vila and this was to be my trial run on it. It's a cheap, Chinese made, piece of junk (the kind of thing you'd pick up at a Wal-Mart for forty bucks) except, this being Vanuatu, it cost WAY too much money, so really it's an expensive, Chinese made, piece of junk. However, given Peace Corps' ban on us operating any kind of motorized vehicle, a bike was really my only option for upgrading my transportational situation past the era of cave drawings and woolly mammoths. It felt good to be setting out with a set of wheels underneath me once again, but this brief pleasure was quickly offset by the realization that the roads in Vanuatu really, really, really suck. Of course, I'd known this all along, as I'd spent the past few months walking and being driven around on them (Peace Corps' policy on us not driving cars is inspired out of concern for our own safety. I fail to see, however, how it can possibly be safer for us to precariously balance ourselves on the edges of truck beds than to drive a truck), but being at the helm of a wheeled transportation device really drove the point home. A fact that's often forgotten is that there were actually two important components to that most basic of inventions: wheel. The first is the circular shape of the wheel itself, which is cool because the circle's constant radius always gives a smooth ride on, and this is the second key component, a flat surface (interestingly enough – well, interesting if you're a dork like me – you can actually design a road on which vehicles with, let's say, square wheels can run on smoothly). Thus, the bike's circular tires rode anything but smoothly on the boulder-field of a road that leads to Lakatoro and after a couple of minutes my butt was sore beyond imagining. Making matters worse, it had just rained that morning and so the road was pocketed with mud pits which sucked in my wheels and made it difficult to pedal. This also meant that there was a steady stream of mud, rocks, dirt, sand, and other debris being sprayed in my face throughout the ride. I arrived in Lakatoro looking like I'd spent the morning frolicking with the pigs in the muck. “Daniel, what happened to you?” Asked the post man as I walked into the Post Office. “Did truck throw mud up at you?” No, no, I was just riding my bike, thanks.
My class population slowly increased over the course of the week, reaching the halfway mark around Thursday. I felt sorry for the four or so that had been coming the entire week, as I couldn't in good conscience start any new material while so much of the class was absent, so I had to occupy them with what was, essentially, busywork. And, of course, the kids that actually came to class were the ones in least need of extra practice with last term's material.
Saturday I headed off for my triumphant return to the gardens after a two weekend long absence. We were actually doing something a little different this time, instead of going up to the copra dryer, we were headed for the river than ran through our coconut plantation to try and catch freshwater prawns (or naora, as they're call here, pronounced “now-ra”). During the rainy season, the rivers and streams fill up and the prawns breed like crazy because of the abundant water and food washed in from the banks. However, as the rivers dry up, the prawns get stuck in smaller and smaller pools with fewer and fewer places to hide when you go to catch them. We were equipped with prawn spears: metal prongs fixed to the end of a bamboo pole with an elastic band connected to the opposite end. You tie the elastic to your thumb and hold the spear between your pointer and middle fingers. When you see a naora, you use your other hand to pull back the spear, thus stretching the elastic and sort of making a slingshot, and then release, hopefully spearing the target prawn on the metal prongs. We started where the river came out to the road and followed it up stream, going from pool to pool taking turns donning snorkels and masks and paddling around shooting prawns until the water was too murky and then moving on. The whole thing seemed like a nasty injury waiting to happen, actually, as we were all carrying these sharp metal spears and haphazardly hopping from slippery stone to slippery stone and I was just waiting for someone to mess up and trip a take a spear in the side. Fortunately, the day was accident free, and the fresh-caught prawns were delicious. We were planning on stopping at lunch time to roast the prawns we'd caught but, in the mean time, we ate them raw. You break off their heads and peel their shells off to reveal a small lump of translucent flesh. This you put on a piece of coconut and cover it in lemon juice to make a surprisingly satisfying appetizer. After a couple of hours of slowly working our way upstream through the bush, we came out at a gorgeous cascade waterfall. Probably about thirty feet wide, it sported level after level of deep pools and trickles and streams of water falling down through the rocks. It continued upstream out of eyesight. We settled in next to the largest pool, which was deep enough in some places that I couldn't stand up. I hadn't had a go trying to spear prawns yet, and so I decided to give it a shot. It was actually surprisingly easy. The key is patience. Prawns tend to just kind of sit around doing nothing, making excellent targets for the elastic spear, unless they're startled, in which case the shoot off backward at incredible into the twisted roots of the bank and are never seen again. Thus, you have to move slowly and deliberately enough to not startle them. The hard part about this was that the water was ice cold and sitting still for long periods of time in it was quite painful. I'd been offered Tylenol which, my companions claimed, made it so you didn't feel the cold. I had politely refused, however, not wanting to encourage the rampant overuse of over-the-counter pain killers that goes on in Vanuatu by taking part in it (no joke, they take Tylenol for everything: coughs, colds, stomach aches, gas, toenail fungus, whatever is bothering you). I was only able to stand the water for about fifteen minutes before calling it quits (although I did manage to bag four or five prawns, which I was proud of, but looked a little poultry next to the thirty or so each everyone else had brought in). As I emerged from the water, I saw Duncan, who'd run off earlier hunting a wild pig, standing by the edge of the water holding a large, bloody, side of meat and smiling broadly. Fresh pig and fresh prawns; I knew it was going to be a good afternoon.
We cut up the pig and put the pieces inside bamboo tubes and threw them on the fire. While we waited for it to cook, we ate prawns raw or roasted them on sticks over the fire. When it was done, the bamboo roasted pig was amazing. It was tender and juicy and spectacularly greasy and salty. We even ate the straight fat right beneath the skin (you see, when most of your diet consists of rice, you have something of a different perspective on the nutritional content of fat). When we were finished, we headed back to the village. We followed a different route than when we'd came that put us on an overgrown dirt road running alongside a field of cattle. The rest of the group was pushing on to another part of the river to try and catch more naora before nightfall, but Duncan, Frank, and I were going in early to help Linda cook. After about fifteen minutes of walking along the road, Duncan looked across the cow pasture and said “I think we should cut across, this road puts us out too fat away.” Not really giving it too much thought, I agreed and we struck out across the field. We were about a quarter of the way across when Frank started crying “Daddy! Daddy!” Duncan kept staring straight ahead and urging him to hurry up. At first I didn't realize what was going on, but then I looked back and saw that there were two bulls, each almost as tall as me, following us on either side and eying us. Now I was terrified and I picked up the pace along with everyone else. The bulls began to trot along beside us. Duncan started shouting at them, which checked them briefly, but they were still fixed on us. The field stretched on for a ways ahead and I knew that if they started running at us there'd be no way we'd make it to the edge in time. I started walking even faster when a cry of “Dan!” brought me up short. I looked to my left and saw that a third bull had joined the first two and was making pace with and angling toward me. Duncan and I both started shouting and waving our bush knives in the air. The bull checked, but now there were three following us. My heart was in my throat when the tension was broken by the sound of one of our dogs running to catch up to us. The appearance of the speeding, barking dog drew the bulls' attention, who all immediately started following it. The dog led them off perpendicular to our course and we were able to clear the pasture.
The adventure, however, was not yet over, as the cow pasture was immediately followed by a swamp. Initially, we tried to search for firm patches of ground that would carry us, but eventually we gave up on this and just trudged through the ankle deep mud. Following the swamp was a boggy river which, fortunately, we were able to avoid walking through by balancing along and hopping between fallen trees. Finally, all that stood between us and the road was a few yards of dense brush. My legs were bleeding and itching from the broken twigs and stinging needles as we pushed our way through and at last emerged to safety. A short walk later this road fed us back onto the main road leading to Tautu. I glanced behind me as we turned and saw the entrance to the dirt road we'd abandoned in favor of the short cut. The whole ordeal had saved us about 100 yards.
Monday was the first day of the second school term (Vanuatu is on the trimester system) or, rather, it should have been the first day of the second term. As things actually panned out, maybe twenty of the hundred and eighty kids that should have come showed up, and myself and the headmaster were the only teachers to attend. I knew that this was frequently a problem at the larger boarding schools throughout Vanuatu, as kids tend to go back to their home islands for the break and the ships to bring them back to school are often late or don't come at all. However, my school isn't really a boarding school (we only have eight borders) and most of our students come from Tautu, Norsup, or Lakatoro. Additionally, all of our teachers live within a half hour's travel of the school. This point was driven home when the headmaster and I decided to cancel class that day and I walked down to the village. Along the way, I ran into a bunch of kids that should have been in the lower years at school. “Why didn't you come to school?” I asked them. “None of the teachers are back,” they answered. A few minutes later, I ran into one of the absent teachers. “Why didn't you come to school?” I asked. “None of the kids came,” she answered. Right.
That afternoon I went into Lakatoro, which was an especially exciting trip as I'd purchased a bicycle while I was in Vila and this was to be my trial run on it. It's a cheap, Chinese made, piece of junk (the kind of thing you'd pick up at a Wal-Mart for forty bucks) except, this being Vanuatu, it cost WAY too much money, so really it's an expensive, Chinese made, piece of junk. However, given Peace Corps' ban on us operating any kind of motorized vehicle, a bike was really my only option for upgrading my transportational situation past the era of cave drawings and woolly mammoths. It felt good to be setting out with a set of wheels underneath me once again, but this brief pleasure was quickly offset by the realization that the roads in Vanuatu really, really, really suck. Of course, I'd known this all along, as I'd spent the past few months walking and being driven around on them (Peace Corps' policy on us not driving cars is inspired out of concern for our own safety. I fail to see, however, how it can possibly be safer for us to precariously balance ourselves on the edges of truck beds than to drive a truck), but being at the helm of a wheeled transportation device really drove the point home. A fact that's often forgotten is that there were actually two important components to that most basic of inventions: wheel. The first is the circular shape of the wheel itself, which is cool because the circle's constant radius always gives a smooth ride on, and this is the second key component, a flat surface (interestingly enough – well, interesting if you're a dork like me – you can actually design a road on which vehicles with, let's say, square wheels can run on smoothly). Thus, the bike's circular tires rode anything but smoothly on the boulder-field of a road that leads to Lakatoro and after a couple of minutes my butt was sore beyond imagining. Making matters worse, it had just rained that morning and so the road was pocketed with mud pits which sucked in my wheels and made it difficult to pedal. This also meant that there was a steady stream of mud, rocks, dirt, sand, and other debris being sprayed in my face throughout the ride. I arrived in Lakatoro looking like I'd spent the morning frolicking with the pigs in the muck. “Daniel, what happened to you?” Asked the post man as I walked into the Post Office. “Did truck throw mud up at you?” No, no, I was just riding my bike, thanks.
My class population slowly increased over the course of the week, reaching the halfway mark around Thursday. I felt sorry for the four or so that had been coming the entire week, as I couldn't in good conscience start any new material while so much of the class was absent, so I had to occupy them with what was, essentially, busywork. And, of course, the kids that actually came to class were the ones in least need of extra practice with last term's material.
Saturday I headed off for my triumphant return to the gardens after a two weekend long absence. We were actually doing something a little different this time, instead of going up to the copra dryer, we were headed for the river than ran through our coconut plantation to try and catch freshwater prawns (or naora, as they're call here, pronounced “now-ra”). During the rainy season, the rivers and streams fill up and the prawns breed like crazy because of the abundant water and food washed in from the banks. However, as the rivers dry up, the prawns get stuck in smaller and smaller pools with fewer and fewer places to hide when you go to catch them. We were equipped with prawn spears: metal prongs fixed to the end of a bamboo pole with an elastic band connected to the opposite end. You tie the elastic to your thumb and hold the spear between your pointer and middle fingers. When you see a naora, you use your other hand to pull back the spear, thus stretching the elastic and sort of making a slingshot, and then release, hopefully spearing the target prawn on the metal prongs. We started where the river came out to the road and followed it up stream, going from pool to pool taking turns donning snorkels and masks and paddling around shooting prawns until the water was too murky and then moving on. The whole thing seemed like a nasty injury waiting to happen, actually, as we were all carrying these sharp metal spears and haphazardly hopping from slippery stone to slippery stone and I was just waiting for someone to mess up and trip a take a spear in the side. Fortunately, the day was accident free, and the fresh-caught prawns were delicious. We were planning on stopping at lunch time to roast the prawns we'd caught but, in the mean time, we ate them raw. You break off their heads and peel their shells off to reveal a small lump of translucent flesh. This you put on a piece of coconut and cover it in lemon juice to make a surprisingly satisfying appetizer. After a couple of hours of slowly working our way upstream through the bush, we came out at a gorgeous cascade waterfall. Probably about thirty feet wide, it sported level after level of deep pools and trickles and streams of water falling down through the rocks. It continued upstream out of eyesight. We settled in next to the largest pool, which was deep enough in some places that I couldn't stand up. I hadn't had a go trying to spear prawns yet, and so I decided to give it a shot. It was actually surprisingly easy. The key is patience. Prawns tend to just kind of sit around doing nothing, making excellent targets for the elastic spear, unless they're startled, in which case the shoot off backward at incredible into the twisted roots of the bank and are never seen again. Thus, you have to move slowly and deliberately enough to not startle them. The hard part about this was that the water was ice cold and sitting still for long periods of time in it was quite painful. I'd been offered Tylenol which, my companions claimed, made it so you didn't feel the cold. I had politely refused, however, not wanting to encourage the rampant overuse of over-the-counter pain killers that goes on in Vanuatu by taking part in it (no joke, they take Tylenol for everything: coughs, colds, stomach aches, gas, toenail fungus, whatever is bothering you). I was only able to stand the water for about fifteen minutes before calling it quits (although I did manage to bag four or five prawns, which I was proud of, but looked a little poultry next to the thirty or so each everyone else had brought in). As I emerged from the water, I saw Duncan, who'd run off earlier hunting a wild pig, standing by the edge of the water holding a large, bloody, side of meat and smiling broadly. Fresh pig and fresh prawns; I knew it was going to be a good afternoon.
We cut up the pig and put the pieces inside bamboo tubes and threw them on the fire. While we waited for it to cook, we ate prawns raw or roasted them on sticks over the fire. When it was done, the bamboo roasted pig was amazing. It was tender and juicy and spectacularly greasy and salty. We even ate the straight fat right beneath the skin (you see, when most of your diet consists of rice, you have something of a different perspective on the nutritional content of fat). When we were finished, we headed back to the village. We followed a different route than when we'd came that put us on an overgrown dirt road running alongside a field of cattle. The rest of the group was pushing on to another part of the river to try and catch more naora before nightfall, but Duncan, Frank, and I were going in early to help Linda cook. After about fifteen minutes of walking along the road, Duncan looked across the cow pasture and said “I think we should cut across, this road puts us out too fat away.” Not really giving it too much thought, I agreed and we struck out across the field. We were about a quarter of the way across when Frank started crying “Daddy! Daddy!” Duncan kept staring straight ahead and urging him to hurry up. At first I didn't realize what was going on, but then I looked back and saw that there were two bulls, each almost as tall as me, following us on either side and eying us. Now I was terrified and I picked up the pace along with everyone else. The bulls began to trot along beside us. Duncan started shouting at them, which checked them briefly, but they were still fixed on us. The field stretched on for a ways ahead and I knew that if they started running at us there'd be no way we'd make it to the edge in time. I started walking even faster when a cry of “Dan!” brought me up short. I looked to my left and saw that a third bull had joined the first two and was making pace with and angling toward me. Duncan and I both started shouting and waving our bush knives in the air. The bull checked, but now there were three following us. My heart was in my throat when the tension was broken by the sound of one of our dogs running to catch up to us. The appearance of the speeding, barking dog drew the bulls' attention, who all immediately started following it. The dog led them off perpendicular to our course and we were able to clear the pasture.
The adventure, however, was not yet over, as the cow pasture was immediately followed by a swamp. Initially, we tried to search for firm patches of ground that would carry us, but eventually we gave up on this and just trudged through the ankle deep mud. Following the swamp was a boggy river which, fortunately, we were able to avoid walking through by balancing along and hopping between fallen trees. Finally, all that stood between us and the road was a few yards of dense brush. My legs were bleeding and itching from the broken twigs and stinging needles as we pushed our way through and at last emerged to safety. A short walk later this road fed us back onto the main road leading to Tautu. I glanced behind me as we turned and saw the entrance to the dirt road we'd abandoned in favor of the short cut. The whole ordeal had saved us about 100 yards.
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