I love Vanuatu because...

1. My mom sent me a care package with dried fish and shrimp in it. The guys at quarantine cleared it and sent it to my office. The charge was 2000 vatu (about 20$) for the quarantine fee. They just delivered the package, and trusted me to go to the post office to pay for it. I went to pay, and they said they'd sent the receipt to my office ... and I trust them to do so. Isn't that great?

2. Planes are so civilized here. Things you can carry on a plane: puppies. Chickens. MACHETES. Other people's babies. All you have to do for a domestic flight is show up, get weighed, check in, and wait for the plane. You seat yourself wherever you want to sit. The plane gets there when it gets there, and leaves whenever every passenger is on it. It's so calming. None of this 'take off your shoes, get rid of your water, remove your jewelry' stuff that we have to do in America. 

3. Whenever I meet someone from anywhere, if I have literally met anyone from the same village, I name drop it. I have had a virtually 100% success rate of people saying, "OH! Hemia stret anti/kasen/abu blo mi." (That's my aunt, cousin, grandfather/mother...) Whenever I meet someone I don't know from Tongariki, I tell them that I lived with Paul Jerry and Esther Norsee, and always they sing aot something to my host dad and something to my host mom. It's beautiful. On Malekula, I recently made friends with a staff member's niece from Ifira. I've met another staff member's brother when he gave me a lift to my house. It's so beautiful.

4. When you need to find someone, often people will tell you to go to a nakamal or to find a yard by a church. You go, and ask them: Hey, I'm looking for SoAndSo. And then they tell you SoAndSo if over there and they go get them. Imagine being in America, having someone tell you to just go to a neighborhood and find someone. It's just impossible. It would never, ever work.

5. Culturally, this place has taught me to relax and not worry about things that I can't change. It's taught me to be more stoic, or at least, to complain less when there's nothing that can be done. Maybe the better word is patience? In America, I feel like you always feel like you have the option to change things, to make them better, or to make them hew closer to your vision of what might be acceptable. Here, that's not an option. You have to accept what you have and work with those limitations. It inspires flexibility and innovation.