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.