Life in the Ring of Fire Part 51: Really, Really, Long Goodbyes

This week's Tautu language word is “kopo.” It means “only” or “just.”

Monday was the first day of school after term break which, of course, meant that nobody showed up. We pulled in a grand total of 22 kids, which was a record low since I've been here. The headmaster gave his usual speech, berating those kids who actually bothered to show up that day about how important it is to come to school, and then we let everyone go. Tim from Ambae and his three friends from the US were staying with me again, waiting for some sort of transport off the island. Tim's friends had a flight back to the States on Tuesday and were confirmed on a flight to Vila that morning, which is cutting things a little too close for Vanuatu, so they'd been trying to get on a flight standby since Sunday. Tim was trying to get to Santo via ship so he could get a flight to Ambae, which meant that he could be stuck on Malekula for weeks. The girls that had flown in from Vila were still around as well, staying with McKenzie in Litz Litz, waiting for the Fresh Cargo (the only reasonably fast ship in the country) to come in. After breakfast, the guys headed to the airport for their second attempt at standby and Tim headed to Litz Litz wharf to check for ships. Shockingly, all three of Tim's friends managed to get on the flight that morning and Tim got on a ship that night, thus cutting the number of guests on Malekula down to three.

Tuesday was a repeat of Monday as far as school was concerned, and so we decided to have a staff meeting instead of class, which was pretty much the worst thing ever as all eight of us teachers were crammed together in a little metal hut baking in the early afternoon sun. Fortunately, midway through I got a respite when a truck showed up at the school with a couple Peace Corps staff looking for me, including our new country director (the head of the whole program in Vanuatu), Eddy, who'd just arrived from Fiji a few weeks prior. He seemed quite friendly, although he looked a little out of place as, for example, he was still wearing socks and shoes instead of sandals and hadn't yet amassed the wardrobe full of bright Hawaiian shirts that our previous country directors was famous for. They did a brief inspection of my house and school and then headed off to the south of the island to look at potential sites for the new volunteers who would be arriving for training in September. Eddy also promised that, as long as not too many of the new group left during training, we'd be getting a volunteer in Norsup, just up the road from me, which was pretty exciting. The number of volunteers on Malekula had been dropping steadily over the last year, so we were definitely in need of some new blood.

That afternoon I headed up to Litz Litz to hang out with our three remaining guests, Bridgett, Alexia, and Lizzie, who were still waiting for the Fresh Cargo, which was stuck in Santo because its engine was on fire. I advised that, if they wanted to get off the island anytime this year, it might be wise to look into some airplane tickets, but they were determined to hold out for another couple days at least. They'd also made McKenzie and I crab cakes and pasta, which was pretty cool. We spent the day on the beach at Litz Litz and then headed to Lakatoro to meet Eddy to partake in the time-honored tradition of having your country director buy you kava.

Wednesday I had everyone down to the beach near me at the airport for a bit of a change of pace and we all had margaritas and discussed what a shame it was that having margaritas on the beach wasn't a more common occurrence in Vanuatu. Also, the Fresh Cargo office had apparently stopped answering their calls, further decreasing hope that it would be possible to get off the island via boat. Thursday morning, the girls caved in and decided to try for a plane. They headed out to Lakatoro to buy tickets and then to the airport. Bridgett managed to get on the flight that afternoon, bringing us down to two. That evening Duncan returned, and so I took my two remaining guests to my nakamal to meet him. Duncan was in fine form, playing with lots of obnoxious new ringing tones he'd downloaded onto this cell phone while he was in Vila, and Lizzie and Alexia both said they no longer doubted that all the stories told about him are true (Duncan is a famous character Peace Corps Vanuatu-wide).

Friday morning Lizzie set out for the Air Vanuatu office to trying and get her and Alexia confirmed on the flight that afternoon. Alexia and I stayed behind and made banana pancakes and smoothies and waited for Lizzie to come back. And waited. And waited. A couple hours after her departure, I got a call from a number I didn't recognize. It was Lizzie “Dan,” she said, a little frantic “Can't talk right now. I'm in Wala. We're confirmed on the flight. I'll be back to pick you guys up at noon!” “What the hell are you doing in Wala?” I asked. Wala is a village about an hour's drive north of me. “No time to explain!” She said “Gotta go!”

It was still a couple of hours until noon, so Alexia and I used the last of our ice to make frozen margaritas and settled into waiting for Lizzie. She showed up almost exactly at noon, as promised, with a truck, and explained her story. She'd gotten a truck to Lakatoro no problem and had gone to the airline office and secured seats for her and Alexia on the flight that afternoon. Then she caught a truck back and asked the driver to let her off at Tautu. The driver forgot, and ended up driving up to Wala to pick up someone's copra. Three hours later, she was back in Lakatoro where she started. On the upside, however, the driver felt bad enough about the whole thing to not charge us for taking us to the airport.

The plane was late in arriving, of course, but by late afternoon Lizzie and Alexia were in the air on their way to Vila and all of our guests had finally departed, leaving me with the weekend to recover and come up with some lesson plans because, if experience was any indicator, on Monday I would have a full class and would once again be expected to teach something.