Life in the Ring of Fire Part 59: Meet the Newbies

This week's Tautu language word is “nik.” It means “you.”

While Laura and I were in the Maskelynes, the new group of Peace Corps volunteers, who'd arrived in Vanuatu back in September and been in training, went on wokaboat (walkabout), a week-long visit to the villages where they'd be spending their next two years. We were slated to get two new volunteers in Malekula, one in Norsup and one in Wowo, a village in the north near Laura. I was somewhat concerned about the volunteer to be placed in Norsup, because Norsup is only about a fifteen minute walk from me, and I'd actually been informed the previous week that, while they'd be working in Norsup, they'd actually be living in Tautu. Having been the only white person in Tautu for almost a year, I'd become somewhat territorial and was not really sure how to respond to the information that I'd now be sharing my site with someone. Laura and I were somewhat disappointed at not having been at the airport to greet the new arrivals, so Sunday afternoon we called McKenzie from the Maskelynes to get the scoop.
“They seem pretty cool,” McKenzie informed us.
“That's not very helpful,” I said.
“Hey, what do except,” she replied “I'm sitting in the same room as them.”
“Well, go outside,” I suggested.
“Ah, Jesus, really?”
“Come on, this is important. These people are our future.”
“Fine. Hold on.”
--pause--
“Right,” McKenzie said, finally, “I think we're going to be OK.”
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Marie claims that margaritas are her favorite drink,” she continued.
“Well, that's promising,” I agreed.
“And Karen's a little older, but she seems like she's still down for partying. She's the one going to Norsup.”
“Alight,” I said.
“Also, they both claim that they can cook.”
“OK. Good. That's good.”
“Yeah. Can I go back inside now?”

We spent Sunday night in Lemap, and hoped that the river had gone down enough over the weekend to allow a truck to take us up to Lakatoro the following day. Jack's host family drives the trucks that run between Lemap and Lakatoro and Jack's host brother told us he'd be by Jack's house to pick us up at 4:30am Monday morning. This being Vanuatu, we naturally assumed that 4:30 meant more like 6 or 7, so we were pretty shocked when the truck actually showed up on schedule. Standing in the back of a pickup as it sped its way north to Lakatoro through the morning dimness, I experienced a sensation I hadn't felt for a long time: cold. I was actually, legitimately cold. Not kind of cold, or passingly cold, but, with the crisp morning air slicing its way through my t-shirt, actually cold. I wasn't entirely sure how to respond to this, so I decided to just roll with it and that it would probably go away in half an hour or so. Speculations began amongst our fellow passengers as we neared the river as to whether or not it would be passable. Word was the they'd tied to go up on Sunday but had had to turn back, which didn't bode particularly well. About an hour and a half into the ride, I saw what all the fuss was about, the river was pretty formidable. Well, OK, not really formidable, I mean we're not exactly talking about the Mississippi (and yes, I did sing the M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i song when I wrote that. And now you are too). The river was about fifty meters wide and maybe two feet deep. Not exactly a journey-ending obstacle for the traveler on foot, but I sure wouldn't have been comfortable driving a truck through it. The driver got out and stumped up and down the river a few times, frowning and muttering periodically. “We're good,” he announced at last. It was no longer a mystery as to why trucks rarely last longer than couple years on Malekula. We forded the river successfully (no oxen or party members lost... What's that a reference to? Anyone?), although the truck did seem on the verge of being torqued over in the middle of the river.
“They should building a bridge already,” Laura said.
“Yeah,” I concurred.
We both agreed that we would be angry about the lack of a bridge for the remainder of our service. I mean, look, we're not talking about the Golden Gate here people. All you need is your standard length of stone/metal/wood spanning a void of the variety that could have been built by, for example, the Romans over two thousand years ago. In the end, however, we did make it back to Lakatoro that morning and got to meet the two new volunteers before they headed off to their respective sites. They did, indeed, seem “pretty cool.”

On Tuesday I got giardia. Well, actually, I don't know what the incubation period for giardia is, so I might have contracted it sometime before, but on Tuesday symptoms of giardia became apparent. I was actually pretty stoked. Up until that point I hadn't contracted any kind of bizarre disease/parasite, and I was a little upset that I would be going back to the US in December and would be forced to tell friends and family that the most exotic aliment I'd wrestled with while in Vanuatu was the common cold. Giardia is an intestinal parasite transmitted through contaminated drinking water. Those of you outdoors-y types are no doubt familiar with giardia, as it is a common concern when camping, hiking, or backpacking. You know how when you eat a really big, greasy meal from some dive diner and a little while later your stomach informs you that it is not terribly pleased with you at the moment and you spend the next hour or so on the john? Having giardia is kind of like that, except it just doesn't go away. All in all, it's a pretty good disease to contract because it sounds really hardcore to say that you've had it, but having it is really more of an annoyance than anything else. Also, to treat it, you just take four pills all at once and, a few hours later, magically you're better. They really need to work on more medicines like that.

On Friday we put on a party for our newbies. They both came into Lakatoro on Friday and reported to have had enjoyable walkabout experiences, which was good because we were counting on them committing to two years here, as we're in desperate need of new volunteers to replenish our diminishing numbers. We decided to go with a Mexican night theme in celebration of the fact that one of our local stores, The Consumer, had started carrying tequila (well, it's not ACTUALLY tequila because it's not made with 100% agave, but it does have “Tequila” written on the bottle and says “Hecho en Mexico,” which is about as much authenticity as you can hope for around these parts). This, combined with ice from Mindi's freezer and the blender I purchased in Australia allowed us, for the first time, to make frozen margaritas in Vanuatu (suggested listening: “Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffett), which was simply amazing. We also had chips and salsa which, in Vanuatu, requires a three hour long process to prepare. First, you have to make tortillas then cut and fry them to make chips. Then you have to chop tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, and squeeze limes for the salsa and either mash it all together or throw it in the blender. I find it hard to believe now that chips and salsa are given away, free of charge, at most Mexican restaurants. We followed this up with fajitas and tacos which, due to the fact that they were prepared after most of the margaritas had been drunk, were a little haphazardly put together. All and all though, fun times were had by all and we closed the week optimistic about our new blood.

Life in the Ring of Fire Part 58: Dante's Inferno Revisited

This week's Tautu language word is “bemblen.” It means “a little bit.”

One of my favorite things about Vanuatu is the strange meld of modern technology and western culture with 3000 year old customs, technologies, and traditions. For example, a hut made of woven bamboo and natangora thatch, building materials that have been used in basically the same way for thousands of years, housing a five foot long sub woofer and a speaker setup that would be the envy of a hip-hop club in California. Or a picture of the vice President, done up in an expensive business suit, using a wooden club to beat a pig to death (better watch the pig's blood splatter on that one). Or the guy that boards the plane to Vila with a live chicken and bow and arrow as carry-on. Or the group in Southwest Bay that, in response to an archeologist's find suggesting that Ni-Vanuatu were originally from Taiwan, wrote a letter in to the newspaper politely explaining that, while some Ni-Vanuatu may have indeed come from Taiwan, they were in fact begotten by Kabat, the rock-god (rock in the geologic sense, not the musical genre, although that would actually be a lot funnier), and inviting the archaeologist to come to Southwest Bay so that he might see for himself the truth of this. Or the representatives to the national council of chiefs that showed up to the national assembly wearing only penis sheathes. Or, my personal favorite, the guy who was accused, charged, tried in court, convicted and imprisoned for making it rain during a festival.

I had my own such moment on Wednesday evening when I got a call from my host-uncle asking if I could come to Norsup to help him with a computer issue. My host uncle, Jonasi, is what passes for a computer geek in Vanuatu, meaning that he understands that computers require electricity to operate (in all seriousness, some people can not quite grasp this concept. I'm involved in a computer project that's selling refurbished computers from the US to people and organizations here in Vanuatu for a very low price, and I continually get orders from people from remote villages in the middle of the bush who I know have no electricity to speak of, and I'm always having to explain that the computer that they're purchasing will not work unless hooked up to a generator. What's even better though is the people who tell me that they understand their computer won't be able to be turned on, they just want it as a decoration). Actually, Jonasi is pretty computer savvy, especially considering Tautu has only had electricity for about five years. He can take apart and reassemble computers, for example, and understands what an operating system is and how to install one, both fairly advanced skills, even in the US. At any rate, he makes a bit of money fixing computers for people who, for some reason, happen to have them (usually the reason is to play solitaire). He's taken to calling me whenever he gets stumped, however, and I usually go help him out because Vanuatu is almost entirely a favor-based economy and I've found that generally the more people that feel like they owe me favors, the easier it is to get things done. I rode up to Norsup and ducked inside a little concrete and tin shack and felt like I'd just walked into some gear-head's basement in the US. Every available surface was covered in computer parts. There were a couple tables covered with computers in various stages of assembly, some running with their cases open and IDE cables snaking out of them to attach to hard drives and CD drives sitting on stacks of newspapers. The floor was covered with cables, circuit boards and unused drives. I was stunned. I'd never felt more at home anywhere else in Vanuatu. I was introduced to the owner for the computer shack, who'd hired Jonasi to help him resolve some computer issues. He explained to me that the building I was in was actually his internet cafe which, due to some technical difficulties, had not had internet access for many months. Fortunately, internet cafes in Vanuatu generally don't make their money by providing internet access, but rather by copying and selling bootleg DVDs, printing documents, fliers, and digital photos, and uploading new ring tones to people's cell phones. He and Jonasi were trying to install Windows on a new hard drive, but were having some difficulties. The problem ended up being fairly simple, and I fixed it quickly, but I stayed around to supervise the install because it was mentioned that kava would probably be involved. About twenty feet outside the internet cafe is a bamboo and natangora nakamal, and once they finished making their kava, the three of us had a few shells while we waited for the install to finish. A woman from Norsup came by a little after the nakamal opened and dropped off a covered tray of food to be sold along with the kava. I watched as the cloth covering the dish was removed to reveal about fifteen enormous lobsters. “How much are those?” I asked in disbelief. “Hundred vatu for one,” replied the woman. About a dollar. I bought two. Holding a lobster in each hand, and enjoying the effects of kava, I followed Jonasi and the internet cafe owner back inside his computer shack and the three of us watched the install progress. Since we were surrounded by so many computer parts, and since were probably the three most knowledgeable people on the island about computers, it was inevitable that we started talking shop. And so there I was, drinking a traditional tribal beverage derived from the root of a pepper plant out of a coconut shell, munching on fresh-caught lobster, and discussing motherboards, BIOS settings, boot orders, operating systems, LiveCDs, and how to circumvent activation codes. It was a strange night.

Thursday, Laura and I were planning on heading down to Lemap, on the southern tip of the island, and then chartering a speedboat to go to the Maskelynes, a group of islands off the southern coast of Malekula known for their excellent snorkeling. A volunteer stationed in the Maskelynes, Ben, was finishing his service and so was having a going away party. However, it had rained heavily the previous night and I was skeptical that we'd be able to get a truck down. There's a large river about an hour's drive south of Lakatoro that's shallow enough for a truck to drive through when the weather's been dry, but after any kind of significant rain, it becomes impassable (keep in mind that Vanuatu gets A LOT of rain, so the river is impassable for about six months out of the year, effectively cutting Malekula in half. Since the commercial center is in Lakatoro, anyone from the southern half of the island who wants to conduct business – sell copra, kava, cocoa, etc, is unable to do so for half the year. Although it's trendy now among international donors to provide millions of dollars in funding for things like bio fuels, they're hesitant to invest the ten grand or so it would take to build a decent bridge across the river which, although not exactly a “sustainable” project, would be a big step towards increasing the amount of revenue coming out of the island). Sure enough, after my class on Thursday Laura showed up at the school to inform me that none of the trucks from Lemap had been able to cross the river. Then a mischievous smile lit up her face as she told me that we would be taking the Moiaka the Lemap. Yes, the Moiaka, the hell-boat responsible for the worst 48 hours of my life spent in route to Vila several months before. “You've got to be freaking kidding me,” I said.

It actually wasn't nearly as bad as before. We knew what we were in for and thus could prepare accordingly. We packed plenty of snacks, so as not to be reliant on the measly plates of rice we knew the ship would be providing. I also made sure to bring my fleece, knowing it would be cold on the boat once the sun went down. Most importantly, however, we brought a couple bottles of wine to alleviate what we knew would be a soul-crushingly boring 12 hour start-and-stop journey down the coast of Malekula. Also, they'd cleaned the bathroom since we were last on the ship, which was a definite plus. I'll re-iterate: I still don't know how ships can make any money. They've got to be using more money on fuel burned by stopping and idling every thirty feet than they're taking in to transport a single watermelon to Vila. A few glasses of wine later, however, and I decided that such time and fuel budgeting problems were quite happily somebody else's, and I actually kind of enjoyed the journey. We arrived in Lemap around midnight and made our way to Jack's (a volunteer from my group based in Lemap) house. Surprisingly, he was still awake and got out mattresses for us to sleep on. After a short session of complaining about how difficult it is to teach Ni-Van kids, we all went to sleep.

The next day as we were waiting for the boat to go the Maskelynes, we wandered around Lemap. Lemap was a French controlled village which means that it's attractively laid out and not covered with garbage (not sure how the French pulled it off, but, even twenty years after leaving, all the areas that were controlled by them are still kept immaculately clean). Lemap is also known for being overcast and getting a lot of rain, which was actually awesome because it meant it was about ten degrees cooler than Lakatoro, which had become unbearably hot. I was even almost cold at night. Probably the most distinctive fact about Lemap, however, is that it's completely covered with pigs. There are pigs everywhere. Literally, everywhere. I probably tripped over pigs three or four times while walking around. Despite their lousy reputation, pigs are probably the most pleasant animal to live in close quarters with. Unlike their wild brethren, domesticated pigs are very friendly and quite harmless. They don't bark insanely like dogs, or crow at odd hours of the night like roosters, or try to peck you to death like hens, or leave giant piles of poop all over the place like cows. Plus, they eat almost anything and so are great for keeping a place nice and clean. Also, they're probably the most delicious animal. I'm seriously considering taking up pig farming after Peace Corps. Pigs are awesome. At any rate, Jack ordered us a pig to take over to the Maskelynes, which was delivered to us a few hours later, tied up in a rice sack. We met up with Julie, Chris, and Noah, volunteers form the south also heading down for the party. While motoring along in the speedboat, Jack let out a fishing line and, about five minutes later, was wrestling with a large tuna. After a bit of a struggle, he hauled it into the boat and our Ni-Van captain drove a pocket knife into its brain. It was probably about two and a half to three feet long and looked like it would make excellent sushi. We arrived in the Maskelynes in the late afternoon and lounged around until evening, when the festivities were set to begin. Although not that much to look at, the small island we were on did boast an excellent climate: a strong breeze worked its way through the village the whole time we were there and kept the temperature decidedly pleasant.

That night, the seven of us volunteers and Ben's village gathered around a trash can full of kava, which disappeared surprisingly quickly. We listened to a number of speeches given by various people in the village while eating lap-lap and then headed of sleep. The next day, I was fairly devastated to discover that the tuna we'd caught was an albacore, and thus wouldn't make good sushi. Thus, we surrendered it to Ben's host family to put in a curry. I was expecting mediocre results, because, when Ni-Vans make soup, they generally start with a bland, flavorless broth, add some small bits of overcooked meat or fish and then top it off with some slimy island cabbage served on a disproportionately large mountain of rice. However, I was surprised to find that Ben's host family were particularly good cooks and we were presented with steaming, reasonable portions of rice topped with satisfyingly large hunks of tuna covered in a nice curry sauce. It was very good. After lunch, we piled into a fiberglass canoe to check out the snorkeling. The Lonely Planet, the only guidebook that covers Vanuatu, raves about the snorkeling in the Maskelynes. I guess we should have anticipated that a lot of it was hype, as it also talks up, for example, the excellent cuisine options in Lakatoro (where there are exactly zero restaurants). It actually seemed like it might have once been a pretty spectacular sight, but the sad fact was that about half of their reef was dead and the rest was dying. I'm not a marine biologist, so I don't know what's generally responsible for killing coral. They don't exactly get a lot of large boat traffic in the Maskelynes, so pollution doesn't really seem particularly likely, although if the village was dumping their waste into the ocean from shore, I guess that might do the trick. Or maybe climate change is responsible, or some sort of coral disease (is there such a thing?), or maybe it was all the crown-of-thorns that I noticed, which I think kill coral, I don't know. Whatever the reason, the brilliant blues, greens, pinks, and yellows of the reef were too often interrupted by large patches of lifeless gray. I wondered how long it had taken for that much of the reef to die and how long it would be until the rest of the reef went with it.

We returned to shore to see our pig being butchered and dressed by Ben's host family in preparation for dinner. After the pig was cleaned and de-furred, Chris miraculously produced a bottle of Stubb's BBQ rub which he'd brought back from the States a few months before. I was particularly shocked by this because Chris isn't even from Texas. I guess it's possible, although unlikely, for people from other states of have good taste in BBQ as well. I was elected the resident meat expert and given task of seasoning the meat for roasting. I instructed Ben's host brother to make some lacerations in the pig's skin to expose the meat, and into these I rubbed the spice mixture. I wasn't entirely sure the rub would take, as I'd never had to season a whole pig (skin and all) before. When this was done, Ben's family got a fire going and cut wood to fashion a spit. They dug two y-shaped branches into the ground on either side of the fire, drove a long stick through the pig, and rested it in the nooks of the y-branches to cook. It turned out quite good (of course it did, pigs are awesome, see above), with the rub actually adding a nice touch to the meat. Chris also produced a tube of spicy mustard, which we applied liberally. In a country where meat is considered a delicacy, not a routine part of a meal, the pleasure of stuffing oneself with nothing but meat is truly unbeatable. I went to sleep happy that night.

Life in the Ring of Fire Part 57: I Just Know the Chinese Are Up to No Good

This week's Tautu language word is “nesib.” It means “knife.”

This was a good week for strange nakamal experiences. It all started on Sunday. I'd gone to Duncan's early to hang out while the kava was being made. Myself, Duncan, and five other guys from the village were milling around talking. Some of the guys started complaining about sore arm and leg muscles from working in the garden and, before I knew what was happening, I was surrounded by six guys all giving each other massages. I was seated on a wooden bench, legs and arms tucked in as tight as possible, while on either side of me a guy was lying on his back being massaged by another guy. On top of that, Duncan was lying down on the next bench over getting a massage from a visiting family member from Southwest Bay. It was one of those moments when I really wished there was someone with me who could appreciate just how strange the whole scene was. Now, I'm not sure if I've covered male-female relations in Vanuatu yet, so I'll give a brief overview. I think everyone probably goes through that phase in middle school or high school when it becomes incredibly awkward to be around the opposite sex. In Vanuatu, however, it was apparently decided that, instead of getting over it after a couple years, it would be a much better idea to make said awkwardness part of the culture. Thus, you often see guys in their mid thirties who still get tongue-tied around women and thirty-something mothers of three who can't talk about guys without giggling. Remember in middle school how, when you liked a guy/girl but were too shy to go talk to them, you'd send one of your friends instead to try and find out if they like you? Yeah, well they do that here well into their twenties. Sometimes people get married based on such indirect social encounters. Even after they get married, the awkwardness persists. I've seen married couples who rarely speak to each other and yet live in the same house and have five kids. Physical contact between men and women in public is strictly forbidden. I've been living with Duncan and Linda for a year now and I have not once seen them touch each other. Not a hug, a pat on the back, nothing. If it weren't for the fact that they somehow managed to produce my younger sister, Tracey, I'd probably be willing to wager that the most intimate contact they'd had was a handshake. To make up for the fact that they're not allowed to touch their significant others/spouses, both men and women are incredibly hands-y when they're around people of the same sex. It's pretty common to see two guys walking along holding hands. Often I'll be shaking hands with someone, only to have my hand trapped for the entirety of our conversation. I've gotten kind of used to this, but I'm still pretty disconcerted if they start petting the top of my hand. Worse still are guys who talk to me at the nakamal with their hand resting on my thigh. No joke. It makes it kind of difficult to focus on what they're saying. Anyway, the point is that group massages aren't all that unusual thing to happen around here. Still though.

On Tuesday, Duncan's nakamal was host to one of the Lakatoro area's resident crazy people. There are three of four crazy people around that I see on a regular basis. I know it's probably not politically correct to refer to people as “crazy” these days in the States. We prefer phrases like “mentally disabled” and we've got all kinds of mental disorders, most of them acronyms, that we like to label people with. I think this is because in the US we're all so high strung and on the verge of going nuts that we want to be sure that other people don't make fun of us when we do. In Vanuatu the sane-insane boundary is a lot more black and white: if you can carry on a coherent conversation (and keep in mind that the standards for what constitutes a coherent conversation are a lot lower around here) for at least a minute, you're fine. So, when we say someone is crazy it doesn't mean they're bi-polar, or ADD, or learning disabled, or autistic, or agoraphobic, or anything-phobic, or OCD – people with these disorders can function normally under some circumstances, they just have some quirks. Crazy means that the person is totally and absolutely bat-shit insane: not a single thing they say or do makes the slightest bit of sense. The first crazy guy I met in Malekula is named Cesar. He hangs out at the LTC a lot and wears these great striped pajama pants with alphabet blocks on them (if anyone happens to run across any while out shopping, grab me a pair). The Digicel (Vanuatu's mobile phone company) folks sometimes set up speakers at the LTC as a promotion and on such days it's fairly common to see Cesar with the microphone stomping his feet wildly and singing “LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA!” not quite in time with the music. At first I wondered why it was that there were so many outright crazy people in Vanuatu, but then I realized that we probably have an equal percentage of them in the US, it's just that in the States we keep them locked up, whereas here they're free to wander around. I don't know the name of the guy who was hanging out at Duncan on Tuesday, but I call him ukulele guy because he's most commonly seen walking up and down the street wearing a blindly-bright yellow shirt and a giant hibiscus flower in his hair strumming a ukulele and singing incomprehensibly. He usually has such a giant smile on his face, however, that I sometimes wonder if perhaps the whole sanity thing is a bit overrated and that maybe he has the right idea. A popular pastime among the Ni-Vanuatu is messing with the crazy people (this may seem cruel but, like I said before, in the US we keep our crazies locked up in mental hospitals. Which one seems worse? Hard to say. Or, perhaps a more relevant question, can crazy people tell the difference? Also, hard to say), this usually this consists of giving them things and seeing what they do with them (ie. what would happen if we give Cesar the microphone?), which is probably how ukulele guy got his ukulele in the first place. Thus, the patrons at Duncan's undertook a project to see what would happen when they got ukulele guy to drink a lot of kava. He gamely took down three or four shells in a row, which seemed to have no discernible effect on him. They then switched to giving him cigarettes and finally beer before it was concluded that he was immune to mind-altering substances. At this point they got bored and ukulele guy wandered off.

Thursday I got a text from McKenzie instructing me to meet her for kava in Lakatoro because Yoshi had asked her to come meet his Chinese friend and she wanted some backup. Yoshi is a volunteer from Japan who works for the Fisheries Department in Lakatoro. There are four Japanese volunteers (with a program called JICA, similar to Peace Corps. No, I don't know what it stands for) near me. They all seem very nice, although it's always difficult to carry on a conversation with them. None of them speak English and, although their program does give them Bislama training, it's monstrously difficult to learn Bislama if you don't know English first. And, given that it's difficult enough to communicate with someone who speaks Bislama well, it's all but impossible to communicate with someone who speaks Bislama poorly. Thus, all of our conversations with the JICA volunteers tend to be a little strained and short lived. Thus, when were introduced to Yoshi's friend, who'd flown in from Vila for a vacation, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that she spoke both English and Bislama quite well. We had a few shells of kava and she explained that she was employed by the Chinese Ministry of Education to teach Chinese in a number of schools in Vila. She seemed pleasant enough at first but, about a third of the way through the evening, things took a turn for the bizarre. She cornered McKenzie and I and started running us over the coals with questions that sounded like they'd come, verbatim, from some kind of questionnaire. Questions like: “What are the top three reasons American join Peace Corps?” or “What percentage of Peace Corps volunteers end their service early?” or “What percentage of volunteers get married while in Peace Corps?” It honestly sounded like she was going to be reporting statistics back to some sort of Chinese intelligence agency. I don't think McKenzie and I were particularly helpful in answering her questions, not so much because our fierce loyalty to the US made us wary of cooperating with foreign intelligence agents, but more because we both get really, really annoyed whenever anyone tries to talk to us about anything serious over kava. We kept trying to move the conversation on to lighter topics such as, for example, how exciting it was that watermelon season had started, or, when this failed, cutting her out of the conversation entirely. She was remarkably persistent, however, and had absolutely no qualms about busting into the middle of a conversation to continue asking her questions. Eventually, we both claimed to have to go to work early the following day and headed home before we started getting asked questions along the lines of “How many patriot missiles does your government have deployed in the Pacific region?” or “Can you give an overview of the technologies involved in producing MIRVs?” Needless to say, a very unusual night. We wondered why Yoshi had been so insistent on us meeting his strange Chinese friend, but we finally concluded that she'd probably spent the whole day grilling him with similar questions about Japan and he wanted a break.

Life in the Ring of Fire Part 56: World Food Day

This week's Tautu language word is “nanen”. It means “food.”

So, this was a pretty slow week, so I'm just going to skip to the weekend (don't you wish you could do that in life? Just skip right to the weekend? That'd be pretty awesome). Friday had been deemed World Food Day by, I don't know, I guess the UN or whoever is in charged of declaring world awareness days. This year's focus was the challenges to food security from climate change. Specifically, the increased demand for crops to be turned into fuels as well as more generally the problems related to possible drastic changes in weather patterns ruining crops. Now, I don't get a lot of chances to catch up on news of the rest of the world, but I have heard that there have been some international stirs with regards to rising food prices, so maybe such a day of awareness would make sense in the US or in Europe or whatever, I don't know. Also, I'm not sure who, exactly, was responsible for suggesting/deciding that the Vanuatu government should take steps to raise awareness of these issues within Vanuatu. Perhaps it was an entirely Ni-Van initiated program, but I doubt it. I think it's considerably more likely that some representative from the Australian or New Zealand or other western government came over and suggested the idea and the Vanuatu government, ever polite and obliging, especially to governments whose aid is their largest source of revenue, agreed. A similar thing happened four or five months ago regarding smoking. I discussed this in a previous blog, but basically the government of Vanuatu, responding to a UN Department of Health recommendation, outlawed smoking in public places. This was ridiculous firstly because, due to a generally poor understanding of concepts such as private property or trespassing, basically all places in Vanuatu are public. Secondly, it's not like there are a lot of restaurants or bars or theaters around to get filled with second-hand smoke, most places are outside. Finally, and most practically, the majority of the country is so remote as to make sending police to arrest people for murder difficult, much less sending police to fine people for smoking at the beach. We also observed World Population Day, which focused on how to reduce the birthrate to prevent overpopulation. That's all well and good for China, but Vanuatu is an UNDER-populated country. It's current population is about one fifth of what it was before the Europeans arrived with smallpox. World Food Day struck me as a similar imposition: some committee thousands of miles away deciding that they know what's best for some country they've never been too or, even worse, a lot of countries they've never been too.

Here's the thing: there is no food shortage in Vanuatu. There's not going to be one for a very, very long time. Walking around, you have to be careful not to get beaned by falling food. I mean this literally. I was hit by a falling mango the other day. I've had a couple near misses with papayas. And a few times a year people are seriously injured by having coconuts fall on them (no joke. Image having that listed as your cause of death in an obituary). Bananas, mangoes, papayas, cucumbers, pumpkins and coconuts rot on the ground. Like I said before, Vanuatu used to support five times its current population in hunter-gatherer societies with no imports. Asking Vanuatu to worry about food security is, quite simply, absurd. But absurd is OK I suppose, I've gotten used to absurd. What was downright insulting, however, was bringing bio fuels into the picture. With some urging from the EU, the Vanuatu government is starting to look into producing fuel from coconut oil. The EU has even donated something like $3 million Euro towards setting up production facilities. OK, well, let's put aside for a moment the fact that the idea of producing fuels from food crops is inherently unsustainable because we don't grow enough food to offset any substantial fraction of our energy consumption, and we REALLY don't grow enough food to do this while still feeding ourselves, and focus more on the problems with this particular project. First off, in order to extract oil from coconuts, the coconuts have to, one by one, be split open with and ax and the meat scooped out with a knife (and it takes a lot of coconuts to make even a little bit of oil). Then the meat has to be dried over a fire for several days, being turned regularly. This whole process is done by hand. As far as I know, there are no machines in existence to mechanize the procedure. In other words, there's a reason why coconut oil is expensive at the grocery store: it's a pain to make. Secondly, from my understanding, in order for the coconut oil fuel to be cheaper than gasoline, the current fuel of choice for both stationary and mobile power generation, the production facilities would have to be buying dried coconuts (copra) for less than private buyers offer for the same product. So, either the coconut oil fuel would be more expensive than gas, or they'd be relying on people being willing to sell their copra at a lower price than they can get elsewhere. But even that's all more or less OK, I suppose. The EU is free to waste its money as it sees fit. The insult is this: Vanuatu imports a tiny amount of gasoline each year. They pay exorbitant prices to have it carried, in 55 gallon drums, on ships across thousands of miles of ocean so it can be used to power three power plants (and when I say power plant, that's kind of an exaggeration, they're just collections of two or three large diesel generators running constantly), maybe some thousand cars and boats (probably less), and perhaps a few hundred private generators. They do this for the oh-so-opulent privilege of having electric lights in their bamboo huts. And now, a group of western governments is telling them that, because of global warming, a problem which they (the western governments) are ENTIRELY responsible for and, because they are the largest consumers of energy, entirely responsible for handling, Ni-Vans have to spend thousands of man hours splitting coconuts with an ax to make an alternative fuel that COSTS MORE than gasoline. Personally, I think all of Vanuatu would be completely justified in telling the EU to go stuff it. But I'm just ranting. I guess I don't really have a right to get mad on behalf of my Ni-Van friends and family. They seem content to (at least pretend) to go along with whatever Australia or New Zealand or the US or Japan tells them to do. I feel like I know something that they don't, but maybe they know something that I don't. I guess we'll see.

OK, now that I'm done raving, let's move on the various humorous particulars of the event itself. It was being hosted at the market, which made sense because that's where all the food is sold. They were giving agriculture show style award for people bring in the best yam, watermelon, manioc, etc. Since there isn't anyone on the island that actually knows anything about how to judge produce, McKenzie was made the judge on the grounds that she's white and works for an organization that has something vaguely to do with agriculture. Most people who showed up for the market, of course, had no idea that the event was taking place, but they generally agreed to have their produce judged when they were told there was a chance to win 1000 Vatu (about $10). McKenzie circulated through the competing fruits, vegetables and root crops, nodding thoughtfully and scribbling on a piece of paper. When she was finished she sat down next to me. “How did you choose the winners?” I asked.
“I just went with the bigger ones,” she replied “but not the biggest, because you know, like, how sometimes the really big watermelons don't taste as good?”
I agreed with the wisdom of this scheme. After the judging, there were speeches. It's impossible to have any sort of event in Vanuatu without speeches. Speeches in Bislama tend to consist of several impassioned rants connected together by long, unnecessary ramblings (kind of like this blog entry). They also tend to go on a lot longer they need to (again, kind of like this blog entry). Most of the speeches tended to focus on how Ni-Vans need to stop eating imported foods and return to eating locally grown crops (this is actually a pretty relevant point to cover. A lot of Ni-Vans prefer rice over their various local root crops. You actually can't really blame them. With rice, you open the bag, dump it in the pot, boil it for 10 minutes and it's done. With root crops, the first step is generally digging them out of the ground). Most of the speakers also touched briefly on the use of bio fuels in a way that suggested that they had absolutely no idea what a bio fuel was or why they were being given money to produce them. The highlight however was someone working themselves up into a very passionate rant that ended with the shouting of “China is not going to feed us any more! We don't need their food and we don't want their food! China is not going to be feeding us any more!” Enthusiastic applause followed. Now, I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure the Chinese are unaware of both the fact that they were supposed to be feeding Vanuatu and of the amount of resentment that this was creating.

The whole event was finished off by a display and sampling of a number of baked goods made with locally produced manioc flour (manioc, or cassava as it is known in some places, can be ground up to produce a flour which many Americans might recognize as tapioca flour) instead of imported wheat flour. Apparently, the ministry of agriculture had been running a large grinder capable of making said flour and interested Ni-Vans could bring in their manioc to have it ground for them. The whole point of the show was to publicize the existence of the grinder and the service they were offering with it, as well as showcase the fact that it's possible to make many of people's favorite baked goods (breads, cookies, pastries, etc) using manioc flour instead of conventional flour. Many of the goods on display were indeed quite good, and I probably wouldn't have been able to tell that they were made with a different flour had I not known in advance. All in all, it would have been quite an effective publicity move had the bake show not been immediately followed by the announcement that, due to the fact that not enough people were coming to use it, the manioc flour grinder was going to be removed to Vila. Such is life in Vanuatu I supposed.