August-December Roundup

I had thought that I would do a quick round up of what I have been doing every two months or so, but I haven’t since the end of July! So here are the main points of what has been going on and what I have been doing from August until now (mid-December).

-          -August brought about the end of the second (of three) terms at the school. During the break I did an English camp with classes 5 and 6. I basically did the same kind of English camp that I did in Korea, but I just took out or modified anything that required money or technology. It was a fun week!

Some students at camp.

  -       -At the end of August I went to Santo for vacation for a week. I already wrote about this in another blog post so I won’t elaborate on it. I also visited two volunteers on Ambae, in my quest to walk to all the volunteers on Ambae (four down, three to go). 

A blue hole in Santo

-      - September brought the start of the third and last term at school. I continued to teach English every day until the end of November, when the school year ended.

Some students playing a game during break.

-         - In the middle of September, a group of Australians came to the village for a week. They are trying to set up a partnership between their church in Australia and some of the churches on Ambae. It was an interesting week, filled with a lot of church and English.

The Australians at the school for a day.

-         - In October I went to a Project Design and Management workshop in Port Vila. The workshop itself was just alright, but the best parts of the week were being able to eat different food, see other volunteers, and go to a music festival that luckily happened to be going on that week.

Music festival in Port Vila.

-          -At the end of October a safety and security manager from Peace Corps headquarters came to Vanuatu and our country director took him to Ambae and Maewo (one of the islands I can see from my porch). I was lucky that they let me hop on the trip and I got to see all nine volunteers on Maewo! Maewo is stunning. It was a quick two day trip, but I am hoping to get a chance to go back again!

View from a hike to see a volunteer on Maewo.

-        -  In October the community had a meeting and it was decided that I will work on a solar project. In November I submitted a grant to help cover the costs, and I am hoping that that project can be successfully completed in the next few months. 

-        -  In November a friend stayed with me for a week. Luckily she was here when the presidential election happened so I didn’t have to be alone for that! We just sat on my porch staring at the view waiting for people from the US/people with internet to message us with the updates and the final result. It was surreal. 

-        -  I celebrated Thanksgiving with another volunteer and some people from the village. I’ll probably write a blog post about the holidays later, but it was a really nice Thanksgiving celebration!

Thanksgiving!

-         - In the beginning of December I went to gorgeous Nguna, an offshore island of Efate, for a Kamp GLOW/BILD (girls leading our world/boys in leadership development) training of trainers. It was a really fun and informative week, made all the better that we could swim in the ocean every day!

A view on Nguna island.

 -An old chief from the village died while I was in Nguna, but I arrived back in the village for the memorial service and the 10 day commemoration after his death. The village killed seven cows and cooked mountains of taro. It took a whole day of preparation but the food was delicious! It was interesting to see the kustom surrounding death, although it was hard to handle all the loud wailing continuously happening.

Preparing food for the 10 day

So that is basically what I have been up to for the past few months. When I write it down it seems like a lot has been going on, although I haven’t really accomplished anything and I still have a lot of free time. Here’s to a busy and productive 2017!

June-July Roundup

There has been a lot going on the past two months which has been great since I like keeping busy. The downside is that a lot of it was out of site, which hasn't helped with figuring out a community project that I can work on while I'm here. Anyways, here's what has been going on these past two months.

- I started a vegetable garden! At the beginning of June I planted tomatoes, peppers, and cabbage. They should be ready for picking soon! More recently I planted lettuce, beans, and lemons. This has been very satisfying and makes me feel more connected with the community, since everyone has gardens (although most people don't have a vegetable garden, mainly just root crops and island cabbage). Somehow everyone knows about my garden, even though it is behind my house in an out of the way spot, and I get asked about it a lot. A hassle has been keeping chickens out of the garden and they've dug up some plants more times than I can count. Relatedly, I recently started a compost pit to deal with my food waste.

- I've been teaching grades 4-6 every day that I've been at site. The headmaster wants me to do an extra class, not teaching out of their textbook, which is what I've been doing but I might have to change that eventually. This isn't really what Peace Corps wants me to be doing, since we're supposed to be co-teaching, but it's working out for now. The students are great and I've been enjoying getting to know them.

-A psychologist from D.C. along with our Peace Corps Vanuatu nurse came to Ambae for a visit. They visited my site and then I went with them to visit another site I hadn't seen yet. It's really great to visit other sites because they are all so different, even on the same island. 

-I spent a week translating for a medical ship that docked at Ambae. What a week it was! I spent the week translating during the day, swimming and eating delicious ship food in the evening, and sleeping on a friend's hammock at night. I'm not sure of the exact numbers,  but a few hundred people came to go to the dentist, get reading glasses, and see a doctor. This was something I never thought I would ever do because I am not good at languages, so I never thought I'd be translating anything, and I can't look at needles so anything medical is not in my future. However, it was really interesting and sad to see what people's common medical problems are. The following week they were supposed to go to another island,  but ended up staying in Ambae and sending out trucks to villages. A truck full of people came to my school to give checkups to the students and some members of the community. Here is a video of their time on Ambae (I'm in a few pictures): 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/5B8Zu4A8KyU

- I went to Port Vila with the headmaster of the school for reconnect, a training that happens after 3 months at site. The training was pretty good and mostly focused on working with the counterparts. The week was also good because I got to see all the education volunteers, eat pizza and yogurt, use a lot of internet, stock up on dried food such as lentils, and meet people from my village who live in Vila. I also ended up going to a diversity workshop, which was thought provoking. 

- I just finished re-reading all the Harry Potter books. Wow, what a great writer JK Rowling is!

- I ended July celebrating Vanuatu's 36th Independence Day in North Ambae. There was lots of good food, sports, and dancing.