I just spent the last two nights in Matenvat village on Northwest Malekula. It's a really interesting place -- the villages is separated into different stations by religion, which I've never seen before. On Tongariki, there were definitely certain villages that were more heavily Presbyterian/New Covenant/Bible Church, but they weren't physically separated in the same way. In Matenvat, it was about a ten minute (?) walk from Matenvat Presbyterian to Matenvat SDA, and then there were Catholic and Praise and Worship stations, too.
It's about an hour and a half, maybe, to go up there from Lakatoro over a reasonably bumpy road. The trip up was carrying all sorts of cargo just taken off of the ship -- a bicycle, spare tires, bags and bags and bags -- and it was so crowded that three younger guys were sitting on top of the cab. Mega squish. I don't think the roads up there are so terrible, but they are really, really dusty. It hasn't rained in a while up here and after a few hours, the dust just coats you. By the time I got to Matenvat, I looked pretty ridiculous--my whole face was covered in dust except for the parts covered by my sunglasses, so I looked a bit like a racoon. At least it didn't ruin my hair too much!
It was a total relief to head up that way. It's nice being in a small village where everyone knows everyone. Tautu, where I'm staying now, is nice, but it's not the same. There are lots of strangers going in and out all the time, and I don't feel like I've met that many people yet. Laura, the volunteer up there, is really great and I really hope this project idea we cooked up together can actually come to fruition. It's one thing that I really like about Malekula so far --there's Maureen from G24 and then a bunch of really cool volunteers from the new group. I like having a social life! We hung out and ate couscous and colossal egg sandwiches and wandered around. I got to see their class 8 closing -- so sweet. Malekula is a little different from Tongariki in how they do salusalu. The students and their families gave the teachers some calico, but they gave just a trillion flower necklaces -- I think one of the teachers had more than ten, to the point that it looked a bit like an Elizabethan ruff. On Tongariki, we usually just did one flower necklace and then the rest of the salusalu would be tied calico.
The main reason for going was to do my first climate change awareness toktok. I like doing presentations, but I hadn't given a climate change talk before so I was a little nervous. It went surprisingly well. The basic message that the Vanuatu government is promoting now is that Vanuatu needs to adapt to climate change. Unlike western countries, Vanuatu isn't really emitting that many greenhouse gases ... but also unlike western countries, Vanuatu's economy is based on agriculture. And in agriculture, when the weather patterns change, it's serious business. Things don't go the way that they used to, so you need new breeds and varieties of fruits, vegetables, and livestock, new techniques, and even new business ideas. I spoke maybe for about 45 minutes or so, distributed some materials, and then we watched the BBC Human Planet Ocean episode. It's such a good piece of TV; literally the kids were gasping at points.
The disaster office's projector came in handy later. Laura and I traced her world map (so much faster with a projector than by using a grid!) and then we showed the Lego Movie after dinner. I think I'm going to stick with that as a model -- if I'm already in a village to make a toktok and I'm sleeping there, videos on projectors are definitely the way to go.
I got in around 7:30 this morning, spending a few hours at the computer lab at Norsup hospital before I go to Lambubu for the weekend with all of the other volunteers on Malekula. Naes wikend!
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