Life in the Ring of Fire Part 41: Cheers to American Independence

Monday was one of those glorious moments in a Peace Corps volunteer's service when he receives TWO packages from the US on the same day. It was amazing. One was from my family and contained a lot of snack food, which was awesome, except that I realized the problem with getting snack food as opposed to candy is that I can sit down and eat the entire package in one sitting, whereas with candy I'm limited by the fact that if I eat too much at once I get sick. Oh well, the mustard pretzels were glorious for the eight seconds that they lasted. The second package was a little more mysterious. It was from a couple of good friends of mine from college. It was large and had been packed into a beaten-up looking Weber grill box. At first, I assumed that they'd simply recycled an old box they had lying around the house to send me something, but then I noticed that the customs declaration (those things really take the surprise out of getting a package, by the way) listed the contents as a charcoal grill. I was still skeptical, thinking that, really, there was no way that they'd sent me a BBQ all the way to Vanuatu. It was only when I opened it and saw assorted pieces of metal and screws that it finally dawned on me that, yes, I had received a Weber grill. I was pretty stoked about this, mainly because the forth of July was coming up on Friday and I was looking forward to rolling in to our Malekula forth of July party sporting a legitimate BBQ. Duncan was also excited about the grill. He's very much aware of the fact that, when I leave Vanuatu in about a year and a half, I'll be leaving most of my belongings behind and that, more than likely, he'll be the one that they're given to. Thus, he tends to look at anything that I get as something that will be his in the near future. It makes me fell kind of like a really rich dying relative that everyone is nice to in the hopes of being included in the will. It is kind of nice, however, as having a large and intimidating man with a vested interest in your belongings makes them a lot less likely to be stolen. I'd described the concept of BBQing to Duncan previously, and he'd been intrigued by it, especially by my claims that one could preserve meat for long periods of time by smoking it, and that smoke can be a powerful meat tenderizer, capable of transforming a cheap, tough, and chewy cut of beef into a soft, juicy delicacy.

On Tuesday I swung by the Digicel office in Lakatoro to pick up a new SIM card so I could try out the new mobile phone service. Can I just say that our cell phone system in the US is completely and totally insane. Two year contracts, night and weekend minutes, an allotted number of replacement phones, rollover, roaming, insurance, family plans, unlocking codes, all kinds of random garbage. Ni-Vanuatu may not always be the best at finding the area of triangles, but they've really got this cell phone thing down. If you already have a phone, you pay about five bucks for a SIM card to stick in your phone. You buy refill cards with codes on them to type in to add money to your account, which is used up when you make calls. If you don't have a phone, you can pick one out to buy. They have models available from $20 to $200. No contract, no monthly bills, you don't even have to give them your name. Anyway, I was interested in trying out the new service because you can use it to send text messages to the US, which you were not able to do with the old company. I got my SIM card and immediately realized that, except for my parents, I had absolutely no one's cell number from the States written down anywhere. After about forty five minutes of trying to load people's Facebook pages, I also realized that almost no one had their cell numbers listed on Facebook. Still not a total loss, however, as I could text my parents, although I soon realized that they couldn't text me back. Thus, the whole thing was of somewhat limited usefulness. However, if any of you Stateside are interested in receiving random texts from me which, given the time difference, will probably arrive at really inconvenient times AND that you won't be able to respond to, feel free to email me your cell number.

Friday was forth of July. Or, as the Ni-Vanuatu refer to it, American independence. I have yet to be around to witness it, but everything that I've heard seems to indicate that Vanuatu goes absolutely crazy for their independence celebration (on July 30th). Perhaps it's just since it happened so recently that it seems like a bigger deal, but “namba tirti julae” (number thirty July) is, by far, the biggest holiday of the year, easily overtaking Christmas, New Years, and all other contenders. They go more for independence week, as opposed to independence day. And they naturally assume that, since Vanuatu independence is such a big deal, US independence must be HUGE. I didn't really have the heart to explain to them that, in the US, 4th of July is pretty low key. Most people just have small, family BBQs during the afternoon and then sit on blankets to watch fireworks which, because of city regulations, can only be set off by certified officials in the presence of the entire fire brigade and aren't allowed to run past 7:30 at night for fear of keeping people awake. I also, actually, couldn't really think of a good explanation for why the 4th of July is so lame in the States. I mean, come on, we make a bigger deal about the Super Bowl. This is our independence, man, we should be ROCKING it. At any rate, we volunteers realized we couldn't allow Ni-Vans to be more excited about the 4th than we were and that we'd somehow gained a reputation for throwing sweet independence day parties which we would now be forced to live up to. Also, the fact that it was American independence seemed to be taken as an acceptable excuse for us to do basically anything. My headmaster was surprised and a little concerned that I showed up to teach my class on Friday. I ordered a couple of cases of beer from Duncan and he expressed his worry that we wouldn't have enough. People saw me walking around Tautu in the morning and reminded me that I needed to get to Lakatoro to celebrate with the other volunteers. It ended up being a lot of fun, and I highly recommend that everyone reading this blog make it a point to totally cut loose for the next 4th of July. We're going to start a trend here. It's going to be epic.

Our 4th of July party was also my first attempt at using the grill I'd received on Monday. It was an interesting experience, as I lacked such things as charcoal, lighter fluid, BBQ chimneys, and other such tools that make grilling so straightforward in the States. Fortunately, Vanuatu also lacks such hindrances to grilling as fire regulations, so you can basically start a fire anywhere and burn anything you want and no one will say anything. I ended up getting a fire going on the ground first, letting it burn down a bit, and then transferring some of the embers to the grill. It worked... OK, although future attempts would definitely require some refinement of technique. It was also a funny reminder of how inept I am at working with fire. Ni-Vanuatu are masters of the element of fire. They don't have a choice. I'd say about 99% of the country has to start a fire every day just to cook their food, so they get a lot of practice. It's pretty amazing actually, it could be raining for three months straight and Duncan or Linda (or, like, a six year old) will sit down to get a fire going, stack some soaking wood and leaves and stuff together, light a match and, before I can even blink, there's a giant roaring fire which, somehow, manages not to burn down the bamboo and thatch house it's made in. I, on the other hand, take a stack of bone-dry wood and paper, spend half an hour putting a lighter to it, and end up with a pitiful little blaze that goes out in about twenty seconds and only serves to give me a face full of smoke. In the end, though, I did get a fire going for the 4th. I'd forgotten how nice it is to bite into a nice, smoky, BBQed burger. I'll definitely be busting out the grill again in the future, but maybe after Duncan has given me some fire-starting lessons.