Fatfat

Most Ni-Vanuatu are fairly slim. You do sometimes see some big mamas or some papas with a gut, but most people are on the smaller side. Especially on the island, there aren't a lot of heavy people. I know some women with two or three children who have the figures of cheerleaders. My school of 70 kids has one teenage girl who's on the chubby side, but I'd say she's within a pretty normal range for puberty.

So in comparison, most of us volunteers are enormous.

The word in Bislama for fat is 'fatfat', and it doesn't really carry the same negative connotation as in the States. If someone calls you fatfat in Vanuatu, it's the same as saying that you're short ... or have a big nose ... or pretty eyes. It's not meant to be an insult but rather a statement of fact. It's like a way to cheek someone a little bit. Sometimes it's even a compliment -- as in the phrase 'oh, yu fatfat gud we.' (You're very nicely fat.) 

Obviously, though, for us it's weird. In America, we don't use fat as a neutral description. It's like it's assumed that if you call someone fat, you're trying to insult them or cast aspersions on their looks. We say that someone is big, or heavy, or overweight, but you don't usually say that someone you like is fat. 

It really used to hurt my feelings when people would call me fatfat, because I'd be just like, come on, that's so mean. Talking like that violates normal American codes of behavior. Now, it doesn't so much, especially as I've come to realize that only the very thinnest volunteers have escaped being dubbed fatfat. There are some volunteers with great figures who've been told by people on their islands 'you are so fat.' So that makes me feel better about being, you know, colossally gigantic. 

I do still feel like it's rude, but I wonder if Ni-Vans don't have the right idea. In America, it seems like a lot of women are really concerned with their bodies, and a lot of attention is devoted in the media and in education to developing healthy body images. The only time I've heard anyone in Vanuatu sound concerned about how they looked was a friend who was worried her new boyfriend might not like how her stomach looked (because she'd had a baby the year before and her stomach wasn't flat anymore). Maybe in America we all need to just chill out about being fatfat. No worries, yumi evriwan i fatfat lelebet, laef i olsem nomo.