Life

Things are going well at work! All of my counterparts are currently in the office, and we've got a big two weeks ahead. On Tuesday, we're going to give a big disaster/climate change/health/environmental health toktok in Tautu village, which is basically a big suburb village ten minutes out of Lakatoro. Then on Thursday, we're going to Uripiv Island to give the same awareness. Then next week, I'm going to go to Lambubu Primary School on the west side of the island to do environmental health lessons with the kids. I'm really excited about this last bit. We've mostly gotten the kinks out of the community awarenesses, but I haven't done any work with kids yet. Since the Vanuatu government now links disaster with climate change and environment (the name of the ministry is the longest thing you've ever seen), I feel like our office should also have a broad focus. Hopefully it will all work out; otherwise, very happy Jon is there so he can smooth it over if the lessons don't work out as planned. Very hopeful!! Yet concerned. I have this one great book called 'Paradaes i lus', which is all about why you shouldn't cut down all of your dark bush (ie old forests) and sell them all off, and then there's a 10 lesson curriculum another PCV made in 2009. I also want to try to do child-centered community mapping--mostly about the environment, what areas are clean and dirty, what areas are good and bad, and so on.

We made this big work plan but we're changing it as time goes on. Sylveste, Abelson, and I were supposed to go to Paama in March, but I think I'm going to delay it a few months because I'd like to go when the newest volunteer is there for real. So I'm not sure! It's basically split up:

Central
NE
NW
SW
A litttttlleeeee bit of SE
SE Ambrym
West Ambrym
Paama

And we're very close to finishing up the Central area. After this week, only Lingarak/Hatbol will be left as a major population center. I think I'm going to push to go to the big villages on NW Malekula next. They're considered a very at risk area because they have a history of disasters, difficulty in transportation, and very bad to no cell phone reception. We'll see how it goes!