That's how hot it is
For my birthday, I went to a fellow volunteers site for a fundraiser she was hosting for her village.
Krissy couldn't come because there was a training starting in our village that she had to be around for.
I jumped in to the back of a camion (a big open trailered truck) with 20 of the new volunteers from 20B. A number of older volunteers from our group and some others also came along. It was a hot grey, rainy day, with lots of wind. There was a cyclone in the Northern most islands of Vanuatu which created heavy windy stormy conditions down here in South-Central Vanuatu.
We drove around to the North side of Efate close to our training village Emua and piled into two small boats for my first real excursion off the island of Efate.
A short 20 min ride later and we were across to Nguna
We jumped out into the choppy waves on shore and grabbed our bags in the steady drizzle. The thirty of us climbed up a giant hill, we climbed and climbed and climbed and when we got to the top, we realized we weren't at the top yet. Eventually we all reached the village ontop even the 72 year old volunteer who was a trooper the whole trip.
At Dominique's house we all unloaded played some frisbee, some Scrabble, some Cranium. We ate steaks and chicken wings for dinner, drank kava, a string band played that night, we all danced with the mamas and kids in the village.
The older volunteers set up camp down below the village at a clearing that was just 75 ft. from a huge cliff. The cliff dropped down to the GIANT boulders some 900 ft below. Big crashing waves and water as far as the eye could see.
In all it was a great birthday, fun, wonderful, inspiring.
Halloween was pretty great. Krissy and I had one of our friends, another Peace Corps Volunteer staying over cause there was a training in our village. So we got some candies from Jeff Rice and Krissy's family and we told the kids to come over when it was klosap dark for trick or treating. Halloween is An American Holiday, we explained, where kids get lollies if they dress up in costume and yell TRICK OR TREAT! Well, klosap dark can mean both afternoon and 4:30 in the fucking morning. So at a knock on our door before the sun had risen, I got out of bed to see what the hell was going on I opened a window and saw four kids dressed not in costumes, but in kastom (custom dress) which basically means some leaves strapped to various parts of their bodies. I started laughing my ass off as I went to get candy. Krissy told them that "You have to singout something, remember?" So in unison all the kids yelled AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH (A kastom war cry). To which we laughed our asses off again. I then opened the door and gave them each one measly little candy pumpkin. We laughed at how they probably went home thinking "This holiday sucks, you have to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn, put on your whole kastom dress, and all you get is one measly little candy?"
Longside Work:
We met with the newly elected water/health Committee in Ekipe and have begun plans to secure water for the village. Our engineering/mechanical genius friend Phil (also a PC Volunteer in a neighboring Village) came down to go look at the water source. We didn't really know what this would entail, but 5 hours later we had hiked through heavy bush and up and down big hills. Our guides walked in front of us and cleared new paths with their machetes. When we reached the swampy mud pits that enveloped our legs up to our knees Krissy made fun of me for wearing socks and shoes when everyone else was wearing sandals. Instant Karma struck when shorty thereafter everyone with parts of their feet exposed was attacked by big black biting ants. These little fuckers bite hard, it hurts like a bee sting, and then itches tremendously for about a week. It doesn't get better, at all for an entire week. Krissy got eleven bites in all.
After getting to the source, we came up with some plans for getting water piped from up there to the village, and have now all begun the preliminary work towards that project. We surveyed all the pipe that is currently laid throughout the village and talked to some agencies regarding funding. The village has a lot of the materials necessary to start building, so in a couple weeks we will be going up and starting to build the dam and fixtures ontap.
My sports project:
I have begun Ultimate Frisbee training with the youth in our village, to fire them up and get em motivated I've told them that this youth group in Vila has already challenged them to a game. In fact I have also set up a workshop to teach Ultimate to the youth group on Dec. 1st where I will tell them that the Ekipe team is challenging them to a game. Hopefully the Aussie volunteer at this org will be able to get a team up and playing regularly. so that the first scrimmage will be good.
I also taught kickball this week which will help in getting kids accustomed to baseball rules for when we start doing that. Elijah kicked 3 Home Run's in 3 at bats (at kicks?)
Left to Right: Elijah, Terrenson, and Keven
Me and Seth, (another volunteer and Cubs fan(bastard)) are working on this sports project together. We will be doing youth development camps the next few months teaching sports and teamwork, following that we will be doing some league management and event planning workshops where we will hopefully build capacity of individuals in the rural communities to run and take ownership of these leagues. We're hopeful that this will have a number of positive effects:
Provide something to keep youth from drifting to the urban center of Port Vila by providing something exciting to do on the other side of the island,
Teach local youth leaders skills such as fundraising, promotion, and planning which can be used in lots of different avenues,
build up sports infrastructure on Efate to increase the level of play in a number of different games,
provide local opportunities for fundraising and potential tourist draws through tournaments and games,
Draw funding for infrastructure development on North Efate
We will also be having the teams engage in workshops and trainings in first aid, waste management, and others as well as doing service projects related to these areas for their communities.
I will be sending out some materials on how you can help us secure equipment and funding necessary for these projects in the future, so stay tuned and start thinking about all your old little league and high school teams that might have old bats, gloves, Catcher's gear, helmets, shoes, etc. that they'd be willing to donate. The biggest problem will probably be shipping costs but we have some strategies we'll be developing in regards to that as well.
Alright, well that's it for now.
Peace in the Middle East
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