I just went up to Epau, on the northeast side of Efate, for two nights to visit another volunteer from my group. I'm leaving for Samoa tomorrow (tomorrow!!!) and I've been meaning to go see Divya for a while, so it was great I was able to do that this weekend.
We just hung out, made some pretty good Mexican-esque food (tortillas+salsa+island vegetables, what?), went swimming, watched some movies, drank a lot of kava.
Which brings me around to my point.
So her village is right next to Ekipe village. Ekipe is all man Tongariki. On both Friday and Saturday night we ended up going to the nakamal in that village, and today (Sunday) the bus drove over to Ekipe before coming into town. It's always so cool to see people I know from Christmas and holidays over there. It makes me really happy to feel like I just know so many people.
What was really funny, though: so I'm sitting at the nakamal with Divya, the guy who owns the local recycling company, his girlfriend, and all their friends. I look over and I see this guy who looks just like my brother John, but I'm like, no, can't be. He's still on the island. This guy is from Ekipe, but he went to Tongariki for Christmas and just ... hasn't left. I'm like, no, must be his brother or something. Turns out -- he just came in on the last trip of the ship, to be the MC for Ekipe Independence celebrations, and then he's going to head back.
So this isn't a total small world scenario, because I do expect to see people I know in Ekipe. But really, really, funny to me that that happened.
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