If you look in the distance, the first two islands are uninhabited. In the far back is the island of Tongoa, where my airport is.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Looking at other islands
I took this photo while walking around a while back. Tongariki is really, really green:
If you look in the distance, the first two islands are uninhabited. In the far back is the island of Tongoa, where my airport is.
If you look in the distance, the first two islands are uninhabited. In the far back is the island of Tongoa, where my airport is.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Traveling to Tongariki
It's been a long time since I updated this blog, but that's what happens when you live on an island without internet access! I've been back in town since January 18th, but I've been postponing an update in the hopes that my new laptop would one day come in the mail. Unfortunately, since it's now over three weeks late, and DHL can't promise that I'll get it before I go back to Tongariki on Friday, I can't delay this any longer. I hope that over the next few days I can retrieve some photos from my old computer--without any photos, I think it's really hard to understand how this country looks, and, specifically, what my site looks like. I could tell you to imagine Jurassic Park with a shanty town, but I still don't think that gives it quite enough credit. Tongariki looks amazing.
As I said in the last post, to get to my site I have to fly to the airport on the island of Tongoa and then take a fiberglass boat over to Tongariki. Flights from Vila to Tongoa are not particularly reliable, but they do occur regularly three days a week--Monday, Wednesday, and Friday--when you can catch them. I was originally scheduled to leave Vila on Monday, December 10th--but since the water was too high for safe travel in the boat, I was delayed until Wednesday the 12th.
On Wednesday, I went out to the airport, laden down with all sorts of bags, mattresses, and boxes, only to find out three hours after the flight was scheduled to depart that Air Vanuatu had cancelled the flight. A minister from Tanna, the big kastom island down in the south of Vanuatu, had died up in Santo in the north, and so they needed an airplane to take his body down for burial. The domestic terminal of the airport was absolutely packed with people holding mats, flowers, and food, so I had thought that it might be a wedding, but it was actually just a bunch of man Tanna who had come to do their part for the dead. I heard from Rose, the volunteer down in Tanna who I visited back in November, that it seemed like every truck in that island took part in the funeral procession--he was a very important man in Tafea province, and Tanna especially is famous for going all out for kastom celebrations.
I finally was able to leave Vila on December 14th. It was a pretty emotional day for me--a volunteer went home early that morning, while the last two of us from our group were finally heading out to site--and I felt like I was constantly ricocheting between excitement and terror. When we had site announcements, I felt a little underwhelmed about my site. To be perfectly honest, I had been hoping for an extremely bush site, probably since I had some weird ideas about how a bush site would be this classic Peace Corps/Zen experience. Then, when I found out that I was going to Tongariki--which is moderately bush and fairly isolated--I immediately realized that I was an absolute moron and would probably want a proper shower or electricity in my house at some point in my service. At site announcements, I had learned the basics: no running water, no electricity, water seal toilet, solar charger at the school, no market, no bank, no post office, no airport... Furthermore, since Tongariki is in the Shepherds, it's more isolated than a lot of other posts. I'm lucky to have a very lovely volunteer on a nearby island, but the next closest volunteers are up on Epi or back on Efate, which is like the capital island. That means that while a lot of volunteers can hike a couple of hours or take a truck to another volunteer's site for the weekend, I can't really visit anyone on a casual basis (except for the aforementioned nearby girl). If I want to visit someone, I have to jump on the cargo ship that comes to my island (the MV Brooklyn) and commit to staying somewhere else in week-long increments. Tongariki is nowhere near one of the bushest sites here in Vanuatu, since the school has a big solar panel, I have reasonably full cell phone coverage (TVL everywhere, Digicel [which I can use for free texts/calls to other PCVs] at the school and down by the beach, and there are little stores on the island that sell basics like peanut butter and tinned makerel. But at the time -- as I was preparing to leave -- I kept thinking to myself, I went to college for this?
The plane from Vila to Tongoa is a little eight-seater, counting the pilot and (always absent) copilot. You don't need to present any identifying information; you don't have to go through any security line; and, as Mike from my group found out, no one will stop you from carrying a gigantic bush knife with you on the plane.You have to weigh all of your belongings (and yourself) to get on the plane, but there are basically no rules about what you can or can't carry. In fact, on my flight back into town, a woman carried a live chicken--all Air Vanuatu did was make her put a checked sticker on its leg. Despite how it might sound, it's actually a really civilized experience to fly in this country, and the whole system is pretty honest, too. When my flight was cancelled on that Wednesday back in December, I was able to leave some checked luggage at the airport for two days without any of it going missing. Unfortunately, since the plane is so small, flying is not the most pleasant experience. It only takes about thirty minutes to go from Vila to Tongoa, but since it's such a short distance, it's a recipe for motion sickness.
When I got to Tongoa, I had another moment in which I thought to myself, Wait, what am I doing? In my defense, the airport in Tongoa is a grass landing strip and I saw pigs running across the field while the plane landed. The airport itself is a two-room aluminum house that gets locked up with a padlock at night, and I have since met the man who does check-in. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, like all other things in Vanuatu, travel is a fairly personal experience.
When I got off the plane, I was greeted by my then-headmaster and the pastor of the Presbyterian church in Erata village. The headmaster has now been transfered to Ekipe village on Efate (chockfull of all man Tongariki) but since he was the one to apply for a Peace Corps, he was the one to greet me. I was introduced to a bunch of people that I think are part of my extended family but who I have never seen again. A strange thing about Vanuatu is that everyone is related to everyone somehow; if you put two strangers in a room for three hours, they'd somehow find out that they are tawis, or in-laws. It's absurd. After about twenty minutes we hopped on a truck for a very bumpy thirty minute ride. There are a fair number of trucks on Tongoa, but the dirt roads are in such poor condition that travel is fairly slow. When we got to the pasis, there was a small boat waiting on the beach for me. As it turns out, it is the only motor boat that my island has--when my neighbor is too busy to take passengers, we have to use the boat from Buninga.
That day was drizzly and a little gray, so as we headed off to Tongariki, islands appeared out from under the mist one by one. At first, it was thrilling--here I am, at the edge of the universe! An hour later, when we finally got to the black stone beaches, I was mostly thrilled that I hadn't vomited all over myself. The men on the boat helped me get off onto the stones, and then threw all of my belongings off of the boat (...). While they jumped off into the saltwater and dragged the boat back onto the beach, I looked around dazed. Tongariki--as I will prove tomorrow--looks like something out of LOST.
I honestly don't understand how I live here.
As I said in the last post, to get to my site I have to fly to the airport on the island of Tongoa and then take a fiberglass boat over to Tongariki. Flights from Vila to Tongoa are not particularly reliable, but they do occur regularly three days a week--Monday, Wednesday, and Friday--when you can catch them. I was originally scheduled to leave Vila on Monday, December 10th--but since the water was too high for safe travel in the boat, I was delayed until Wednesday the 12th.
On Wednesday, I went out to the airport, laden down with all sorts of bags, mattresses, and boxes, only to find out three hours after the flight was scheduled to depart that Air Vanuatu had cancelled the flight. A minister from Tanna, the big kastom island down in the south of Vanuatu, had died up in Santo in the north, and so they needed an airplane to take his body down for burial. The domestic terminal of the airport was absolutely packed with people holding mats, flowers, and food, so I had thought that it might be a wedding, but it was actually just a bunch of man Tanna who had come to do their part for the dead. I heard from Rose, the volunteer down in Tanna who I visited back in November, that it seemed like every truck in that island took part in the funeral procession--he was a very important man in Tafea province, and Tanna especially is famous for going all out for kastom celebrations.
I finally was able to leave Vila on December 14th. It was a pretty emotional day for me--a volunteer went home early that morning, while the last two of us from our group were finally heading out to site--and I felt like I was constantly ricocheting between excitement and terror. When we had site announcements, I felt a little underwhelmed about my site. To be perfectly honest, I had been hoping for an extremely bush site, probably since I had some weird ideas about how a bush site would be this classic Peace Corps/Zen experience. Then, when I found out that I was going to Tongariki--which is moderately bush and fairly isolated--I immediately realized that I was an absolute moron and would probably want a proper shower or electricity in my house at some point in my service. At site announcements, I had learned the basics: no running water, no electricity, water seal toilet, solar charger at the school, no market, no bank, no post office, no airport... Furthermore, since Tongariki is in the Shepherds, it's more isolated than a lot of other posts. I'm lucky to have a very lovely volunteer on a nearby island, but the next closest volunteers are up on Epi or back on Efate, which is like the capital island. That means that while a lot of volunteers can hike a couple of hours or take a truck to another volunteer's site for the weekend, I can't really visit anyone on a casual basis (except for the aforementioned nearby girl). If I want to visit someone, I have to jump on the cargo ship that comes to my island (the MV Brooklyn) and commit to staying somewhere else in week-long increments. Tongariki is nowhere near one of the bushest sites here in Vanuatu, since the school has a big solar panel, I have reasonably full cell phone coverage (TVL everywhere, Digicel [which I can use for free texts/calls to other PCVs] at the school and down by the beach, and there are little stores on the island that sell basics like peanut butter and tinned makerel. But at the time -- as I was preparing to leave -- I kept thinking to myself, I went to college for this?
The plane from Vila to Tongoa is a little eight-seater, counting the pilot and (always absent) copilot. You don't need to present any identifying information; you don't have to go through any security line; and, as Mike from my group found out, no one will stop you from carrying a gigantic bush knife with you on the plane.You have to weigh all of your belongings (and yourself) to get on the plane, but there are basically no rules about what you can or can't carry. In fact, on my flight back into town, a woman carried a live chicken--all Air Vanuatu did was make her put a checked sticker on its leg. Despite how it might sound, it's actually a really civilized experience to fly in this country, and the whole system is pretty honest, too. When my flight was cancelled on that Wednesday back in December, I was able to leave some checked luggage at the airport for two days without any of it going missing. Unfortunately, since the plane is so small, flying is not the most pleasant experience. It only takes about thirty minutes to go from Vila to Tongoa, but since it's such a short distance, it's a recipe for motion sickness.
When I got to Tongoa, I had another moment in which I thought to myself, Wait, what am I doing? In my defense, the airport in Tongoa is a grass landing strip and I saw pigs running across the field while the plane landed. The airport itself is a two-room aluminum house that gets locked up with a padlock at night, and I have since met the man who does check-in. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, like all other things in Vanuatu, travel is a fairly personal experience.
When I got off the plane, I was greeted by my then-headmaster and the pastor of the Presbyterian church in Erata village. The headmaster has now been transfered to Ekipe village on Efate (chockfull of all man Tongariki) but since he was the one to apply for a Peace Corps, he was the one to greet me. I was introduced to a bunch of people that I think are part of my extended family but who I have never seen again. A strange thing about Vanuatu is that everyone is related to everyone somehow; if you put two strangers in a room for three hours, they'd somehow find out that they are tawis, or in-laws. It's absurd. After about twenty minutes we hopped on a truck for a very bumpy thirty minute ride. There are a fair number of trucks on Tongoa, but the dirt roads are in such poor condition that travel is fairly slow. When we got to the pasis, there was a small boat waiting on the beach for me. As it turns out, it is the only motor boat that my island has--when my neighbor is too busy to take passengers, we have to use the boat from Buninga.
That day was drizzly and a little gray, so as we headed off to Tongariki, islands appeared out from under the mist one by one. At first, it was thrilling--here I am, at the edge of the universe! An hour later, when we finally got to the black stone beaches, I was mostly thrilled that I hadn't vomited all over myself. The men on the boat helped me get off onto the stones, and then threw all of my belongings off of the boat (...). While they jumped off into the saltwater and dragged the boat back onto the beach, I looked around dazed. Tongariki--as I will prove tomorrow--looks like something out of LOST.
I honestly don't understand how I live here.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Interrupting for an important announcement ....
When you live in a country without good internet access, you can't hope to keep your blog updated too regularly. But with me, this is going to be exceptionally bad.
At noon today (12 December 2012), I'll be leaving for my site. I will be serving on the island of Tongariki in the Shepherds chain. Although the Shepherds are relatively close to the main island, Efaté, they are very bush and quite difficult to get to. I don't anticipate easily getting on and off the Shepherds--I've already been delayed a few days because water levels were too high. Whenever swells are above 2m, I can't leave Tongariki to head to Tongoa, which is the only island in the chain with a (grass) landing strip. Although I will have TVL access in my house and Digicel access at my school, I will not have internet access on my island at all. Mail access will also be pretty spotty as my mail is going to come in through the cargo ship MV Brooklyn. Word on the street is that the captain of MV Brooklyn is one man Tongariki, so he does come reliably, but mail will be very slow.
I'm going to have four kastom bamboo huts (sleep house, cook house, swim house, small house) without electricity or running water for the next two years. I'll next be in town (with internet) at the end of January, and after that, probably in August, and then December (should Mama and Papa Russell come for Christmas on the islands.)
If you'd like to write, my new address is:
Amanda Russell
Pis Kops/Peace Corps
Kokonak School
PASIS: Tongariki
c/o MV Brooklyn
Tongariki, SHEFA, Vanuatu
SOUTHWEST PACIFIC
At noon today (12 December 2012), I'll be leaving for my site. I will be serving on the island of Tongariki in the Shepherds chain. Although the Shepherds are relatively close to the main island, Efaté, they are very bush and quite difficult to get to. I don't anticipate easily getting on and off the Shepherds--I've already been delayed a few days because water levels were too high. Whenever swells are above 2m, I can't leave Tongariki to head to Tongoa, which is the only island in the chain with a (grass) landing strip. Although I will have TVL access in my house and Digicel access at my school, I will not have internet access on my island at all. Mail access will also be pretty spotty as my mail is going to come in through the cargo ship MV Brooklyn. Word on the street is that the captain of MV Brooklyn is one man Tongariki, so he does come reliably, but mail will be very slow.
I'm going to have four kastom bamboo huts (sleep house, cook house, swim house, small house) without electricity or running water for the next two years. I'll next be in town (with internet) at the end of January, and after that, probably in August, and then December (should Mama and Papa Russell come for Christmas on the islands.)
If you'd like to write, my new address is:
Amanda Russell
Pis Kops/Peace Corps
Kokonak School
PASIS: Tongariki
c/o MV Brooklyn
Tongariki, SHEFA, Vanuatu
SOUTHWEST PACIFIC
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Saturday, December 8, 2012
26 October 2012
[Updating this early on 12 December 2012, right before I go out to site ... But I'll get to that later! At this point in my journal, I was still in training. These days are not a great example of what I did in training because they were just about the most idyllic. However, I also have journal entries for these dates that I can crib from without worrying about putting up anything inappropriate, so they're going up.]
Some days are beautiful here. Yesterday was almost immeasurably perfect and I think today is going to be similar. Today and yesterday have both been cooler, somewhat crisp, quiet--kind of incongruous in the tropics, and really reminiscent of high school camping trips with my dad. (I'm a little homesick sometimes; can you tell?)
But yesterday--got up, went to morning class. It was just Bislama, so it wasn't super exciting, but it was nice--Neneth is my trainer this week, so she set us up on a scavenger hunt using the word 'klosap', which means 'around', 'nearby', 'close.' We were digging in the dirt, looking under stones and in giant buckets for tiny little scraps of rolled up pieces of paper. Prize: one giant bag of Philippines-origen barbecue corn chips!
After a brief afternoon class, I went out snorkeling in the marine protected area with Michelle K, Mike, Sara, Molly, Noni, Jess, and Lynn M. Usually it's tabu to go into the marine area, but as Mike's Apu Charlie is the man in charge of the reserve, it was all right as long as we didn't touch anything... lukluk nomo. Denis and Zac stayed on the shore hanging out and playing guitar instead of coming in, and they really missed out. The snorkeling was fantastic. My mask was a little leaky (whoops! not getting a new one, hahaha) but there were parrotfish and butterfly fish and I even saw what looked like a red snapper ... There are giant clams that close when you snorkel too close to them, and some people (i.e. Lynn Marie) saw these giant blue starfish all over the water ... Hopefully next time I can find them!
After, we went to the stream behind Ulei Secondary. It's clean fresh water--some people actually wash clothes there still, and you can bathe there if you'd like, which I think is pretty cool. Before Tanoliu got its water system put in place, everyone had to go to the stream, but now it's just a good option if you'd like to wash your laundry at high noon (much cooler underneath all the trees) or if you'd like to socialize. Walking down the street back to the village, Denis was playing all of these songs with guitar and harmonica--either Lynn M or Noni commented that it was like the soundtrack to the Peace Corps-section of our Oscar-winning biopics.
I went home, took my bucket shower, then sat for a few minutes with my mama and som smol pikinini gel I didn't recognize cutting long beans. I left to go play ultimate frisbee and got over to the Presbyterian church just in time to find out that Denis was still playing guitar, now with an audience of around 30 pikinini, a few parents, and a handful of Peace Corps (Jess and Graham, I think), ending with another rendition of Kids (at my request.) Sitting on the ground, propped up on my elbows, I couldn't help but think what everyone in Peace Corps probably feels at some point--I could be in grad school right now, or putting in my dues interning somewhere or being a baby office worker, stressing out about getting my dry cleaning done, wondering what on earth I could get for dinner... And there I was. There are all of these little stresses in my ordinary life that I feel have completely disappeared in this country. It feels like I rejected them wholesale for a new and different experience that's going to mean so much to me in the future. I mean, there I was sitting on grass here in the South Pacific listening to someone play guitar when I could have easily not come here at all, made a whole different set of choices that would have led to me becoming a whole different person entirely.
I played some frisbee with a bunch of kiddos and storianed with Lynn A and two teachers -- Class 1&2 and Class 6, they're married--then went back to my house when it started to get dark. By that point, Jess had transitioned all of the kiddos from frisbee to duck duck goose, so I was able to grab my frisbee back. Went home where--SHOCK OF ALL SHOCK--I realized that I might finally be starting to get the hang of this horrible island food business. It was cucumber, tomato, tin meat and long bean stew, kumala, and milo, and I ate two helpings of everything, even though I made my first cup of milo with salt instead of sugar. (Whoops.) I storianed with my host mama and papa about kastom and how it's different in Tanna (where my mama comes from, and where I'll be visiting in two weeks), about weddings, and why most people take such a very long time to get married. (Answer: it takes forever because it's mind boggingly expensive--bride price on Efate is 80,000 vt, or 800$, which is big bucks considering that a lot of people make only a couple hundred vatu every day.)
Some days are beautiful here. Yesterday was almost immeasurably perfect and I think today is going to be similar. Today and yesterday have both been cooler, somewhat crisp, quiet--kind of incongruous in the tropics, and really reminiscent of high school camping trips with my dad. (I'm a little homesick sometimes; can you tell?)
But yesterday--got up, went to morning class. It was just Bislama, so it wasn't super exciting, but it was nice--Neneth is my trainer this week, so she set us up on a scavenger hunt using the word 'klosap', which means 'around', 'nearby', 'close.' We were digging in the dirt, looking under stones and in giant buckets for tiny little scraps of rolled up pieces of paper. Prize: one giant bag of Philippines-origen barbecue corn chips!
After a brief afternoon class, I went out snorkeling in the marine protected area with Michelle K, Mike, Sara, Molly, Noni, Jess, and Lynn M. Usually it's tabu to go into the marine area, but as Mike's Apu Charlie is the man in charge of the reserve, it was all right as long as we didn't touch anything... lukluk nomo. Denis and Zac stayed on the shore hanging out and playing guitar instead of coming in, and they really missed out. The snorkeling was fantastic. My mask was a little leaky (whoops! not getting a new one, hahaha) but there were parrotfish and butterfly fish and I even saw what looked like a red snapper ... There are giant clams that close when you snorkel too close to them, and some people (i.e. Lynn Marie) saw these giant blue starfish all over the water ... Hopefully next time I can find them!
After, we went to the stream behind Ulei Secondary. It's clean fresh water--some people actually wash clothes there still, and you can bathe there if you'd like, which I think is pretty cool. Before Tanoliu got its water system put in place, everyone had to go to the stream, but now it's just a good option if you'd like to wash your laundry at high noon (much cooler underneath all the trees) or if you'd like to socialize. Walking down the street back to the village, Denis was playing all of these songs with guitar and harmonica--either Lynn M or Noni commented that it was like the soundtrack to the Peace Corps-section of our Oscar-winning biopics.
I went home, took my bucket shower, then sat for a few minutes with my mama and som smol pikinini gel I didn't recognize cutting long beans. I left to go play ultimate frisbee and got over to the Presbyterian church just in time to find out that Denis was still playing guitar, now with an audience of around 30 pikinini, a few parents, and a handful of Peace Corps (Jess and Graham, I think), ending with another rendition of Kids (at my request.) Sitting on the ground, propped up on my elbows, I couldn't help but think what everyone in Peace Corps probably feels at some point--I could be in grad school right now, or putting in my dues interning somewhere or being a baby office worker, stressing out about getting my dry cleaning done, wondering what on earth I could get for dinner... And there I was. There are all of these little stresses in my ordinary life that I feel have completely disappeared in this country. It feels like I rejected them wholesale for a new and different experience that's going to mean so much to me in the future. I mean, there I was sitting on grass here in the South Pacific listening to someone play guitar when I could have easily not come here at all, made a whole different set of choices that would have led to me becoming a whole different person entirely.
I played some frisbee with a bunch of kiddos and storianed with Lynn A and two teachers -- Class 1&2 and Class 6, they're married--then went back to my house when it started to get dark. By that point, Jess had transitioned all of the kiddos from frisbee to duck duck goose, so I was able to grab my frisbee back. Went home where--SHOCK OF ALL SHOCK--I realized that I might finally be starting to get the hang of this horrible island food business. It was cucumber, tomato, tin meat and long bean stew, kumala, and milo, and I ate two helpings of everything, even though I made my first cup of milo with salt instead of sugar. (Whoops.) I storianed with my host mama and papa about kastom and how it's different in Tanna (where my mama comes from, and where I'll be visiting in two weeks), about weddings, and why most people take such a very long time to get married. (Answer: it takes forever because it's mind boggingly expensive--bride price on Efate is 80,000 vt, or 800$, which is big bucks considering that a lot of people make only a couple hundred vatu every day.)
Friday, November 16, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)