Friday Jan 4
"High Highs and Low Lows,"
this is the cliche description of the quintessential Peace Corps experience. When you're happy and feeling good, it feels like the best time of your life, the top of the world, the greatest life you could possibly lead. You thank God, Fate, and anything else you can think of for your good fortune. But when you're feeling down, it feels like every decision you've made has been wrong. You feel isolated, alone, scared, sad, you long for the comforts of home and a familiar face. I guess I would say that the best thing about experiencing the Peace Corps with my wife by my side is that the lows are never as bad as they would be if I was on my own. Everything was going so well for so long, we were just constantly amazed at our good fortune. We felt blessed and lucky, and to a large extent we still are, but the last stretch here has been a little rough.
To be fair, we were warned that nothing happened in Vanuatu in December and January, but our projects in Ekipe seemed to be moving forward with such ease and support that we couldn't imagine suddenly taking a two month break. At the beginning of December Krissy and I finished the preliminary work on the water proposal. The community had held a number of productive work days. We measured all of the existing pipes, drew maps of where the community wanted the new pipes to be lain, we even received some strong words of encouragement from two different funding sources. We submitted an excellent grant request to the two potential funders and went back to Ekipe hopeful we'd hear something in late January from one or both of them. We tried to hold a final meeting with the Water/Health committee in hopes of doing a final year end report, but twice no one showed up. Not a huge deal but made us realize that December would truly not be a time for getting any work done. This was disheartening for me because we had been trying to get the community to hold a youth leadership camp for all of the youth who were home for the holidays from their boarding schools. It quickly became apparent that this was not going to happen.
I scaled back the plan and kept hope alive that we might still be able to do some sports workshops that had previously been just one component of the larger youth workshop, but as Christmas approached it became obvious that everyone was focused on the holidays and all of the travel and visitations that went along with them. We had also heard that the holidays were wild in Vanuatu and that many single female volunteers took vacation during this time, because if they didn't they would have to stay inside their houses at all times for safety. We got a few indications why in the weeks leading up to Christmas as we walked around at 9am and encountered groups of young guys bleary eyed drunk, shouting randomly and dancing. 9am mind you.
On Christmas eve Krissy and I woke up early and packed for a 2hr walk up the road to a little hotel/ hot springs/ restaurant called BeachComber Resort. It rained the entire walk there and we were soaked through and through. Fortunately it cleared up by the time we got there and we were able to enjoy the perks of electricity and refrigeration. We listened to Christmas music on the laptop, ate a big expensive lunch and in typical Vanuatu fashion, enjoyed a few Tuskers well before noon. We walked back that evening and made a big Christmas Eve meal.
Christmas morning we were awoken at 4am by a bunch of young guys still drunk from the night before. Off in the distance we could hear them chanting Whoah- Ohh-Wo to string band music on a boombox, they walked right by our house chanting the whole way. By 5am a young kid that we call Mr. Fart (I'm sure you can figure out why)showed up and told us that we were supposed to eat with our host family at their house. Our host mama had mentioned something about this late last night, she quickly told us how to walk up the road and to go through (under or over which ever we preferred) 4 no 3- no 4 barbed wire fences, she assured us it wasn't very far. As Mr. Fart led us through wet muddy trails that caked to the bottom of my sandals and eventually forced me to walk barefoot, he also assured us that the house was just a little further, we reached the first barbed wire fence after walking maybe 40 min. I asked how far and he assured us it was just over that hill, we heard that about five more times (and sure enough 3 more fences) before it was actually true. Once we got there however we had a nice breakfast of bread with peanut butter and tea and watched some string band videos.
After breakfast our host papa took us back to Ekipe in his truck which was very nice, and we proceeded to make our rounds to the various houses we had to go to. The first one was in full party mode by 11am. There was booming music, kids, adults all dancing. One mama was dancing while proudly holding a live chicken in the air and bouncing it up and down so that it flapped it's wings all about. The young guys were still drunk from the night before and were making raucous merriment. Some mamas suddenly broke out in a food fight they were rubbing raw laplap, a mushy substance with the consistency of oatmeal, into each other's hair. They were running and finging laplap at each other, one mama after getting a facefull of the yellow goop launched the big metal mixing bowl in her hand at one of the other mamas like a frisbee. The other mama just ducked it and gave out a long satisfied cackle. One of the drunk guys tried to join in the fun by getting his friend (who was not drunk) with a handful of laplap, the sober one convinced him not to and so the young guy looked around for what to do with his handful of laplap. He saw our big dog Oreo and decided that she would look better covered in yellow goop. Oreo looked at us sullenly with her best Eeyore expression, as if to say "Why did you bring me here?" One guy started dancing with another dog and a big group went on a beer run, we took that as our cue and assured them we would be back that evening, "to party until the sun comes up." We made our rounds all day and found similar situations everywhere we went. By night-time we were exhausted, but we promised adamantly that we'd be back, so we made an appearance. The situation had not gotten better. More people were drunk, and there were a number of people who just seemed kind of menacing, so after dancing to a few songs we checked out and went home quietly to sleep.
The next day was supposed to be family day, where you spend the day with your family. After an early morning run Krissy and I, and our two dogs went down to swim. This is our normal routine after a run, we all cool down with a quick dip into the water and walk back to the house about 2 minutes away. On our way back a group of young guys were coming by in a truck. As always we shouted at our dogs not to chase the truck but they never listen and we didn' do a good enough job of training them. So as usual we just kept walking assuming they'd have enough sense to get out of the way. I saw our small puppy walking in front of the truck, and kind of cringed, but the truck was going real slow, so I assumed it would stop if he didn't move. After a few steps I heard our dog Ninja yelp and two crunch sounds.
Krissy cried out and I turned around sad and scared and asked if he was dead. I saw from the look on one of the young guys faces that he had indeed had been run over, before I saw him. When I got to him, all the kids who had been walking with us gathered around and confidently assured us, he was dead. I got down and tried to talk to him as he gasped for breath. I wanted to try and give him rescue breaths but couldn't with all the kids watching. I picked him up and carried him back to our house. The truck didn't stop. When we got back home I had to ask the kids calmly and politely to let us be alone about 5 times before they left. Once they did I tried to breathe in through his nose to see if it would help, but he had loosed his bowels and bladder by this time and it was a lost cause. I closed his eyes and wrapped him in some cloth. Because it's so hot and humid here, it's important to bury anything that dies very quickly. We borrowed a shovel from one of our neighbors. Fortunately she has spent a lot of time around ex-pats and had a lot of sympathy for us because she realized that animals are like a part of our family. Most of the kids and people who heard however laughed when we told them we were sad. It would be as if someone was really sad about a dead street rat back in America. It would seem weird and almost comical. I was often unable to restrain myself from explaining somewhat curtly why it wasn't funny. After burying Ninja, we had to go eat lunch with our host family at one of the chiefs houses. It was there that we realized the young guys in the truck were all sons of our host family. Only in Vanuatu do you have to eat lunch with the guys who killed your puppy. They were ashamed a little bit, and apologized because our host mother had already found out and reamed them a new one for still being drunk and spoiling everyone's Christmas.
That night the drunkenness continued. As we ate dinner with a family we were interrupted by a frantic young guy who shouted something in language to our host who then ran off. Everyone was moving hurriedly, but they were all talking in local language so we didn't know what was going on. I got up to investigate and saw a bunch of drunk guys gathered around, some of them covered in blood. The guy laying prone on the ground had a huge gash in his leg and I immediately began giving directions to people to help me administer first aid. The leg was spurting all over and there were mostly only drunk guys around to help so it didn't go as smooth as possible but it could've been worse to. We patched him up the best we could and commandeered a bus to bring the youth to the clinic (about a 20 min. drive). I figured he would be alright when he roused himself from an unconscious stupor when he smelled a plate of food passing nearby. He reached out a hand and quickly snatched a chicken wing and began chowing down.
The rest of the week was sad as we mourned Ninja's death but we had to move on and prepare for New Years as we were hosting a party in Ekipe for a few other volunteers. A couple days before New Years Eve our host family had us over for the whole day as they had a bunch of relatives in town. We ate and made food all day, I set up a tire and hung it from a tree and we played a game to teach pitching and the strike zone. In the afternoon we had kave. Ekipe kava is strong. I have only had it about 5 times since I've been there and every time I get pretty drunk. But this time after one of the youngfalas chewed mine and his and we drank I was completely immobilized. I was trying to eat, but could barely lift up the fork. I looked up to see if everyone had noticed and was looking at me but all the other guys had the same worn out look about them and none of the 14 people sitting around were talking. All of us basically stared at our plates. after about 20 minutes of this I decided to go home, on the way I promptly puked it all up and crashed on our mattress for the next two hours.
On New Years Eve two of our fellow 20a volunteers showed up and we began preparing for the evening. One of the members of this same host family (who also happens to be a chief in the village and one of our strongest supporters and allies) brought our friends and us to our house. He had already put a few in the tank when he dropped us off and decided that he wanted to stay and drink a Tusker with me and listen to one string band song from the radio on his bus. I'd like to mention that this is one of the nicest guys we've met, always supportive, kind and friendly, and he assured us that he only drinks on New Year's once every Year. So we each drank a beer outside his bus and danced to the song as our friends and Krissy unpacked and started getting some things prepared. At this point we heard our other host papa and neighbor (who owns our house and the land we were on as well as the church that is just across the way), also a very nice man who never drinks and is the pastor of the church hollar out something from his house (maybe 50 yards away). We learned that he had told the Chief who was with us that he shouldn't be drinking and dancing in front of the church because it was disrespectful and as a chief he had to set a good example for the younger generation. We politely stopped dancing and he went on his way. Approximately two hours later just after it had become very dark, we suddenly heard a loud commotion and lots of blood curdling screams coming from our neighbors house area. We were all very worried, and thought someone was injured, I was thinking that I'd have to perform first aid yet again. We rushed out to find out what was happening. A huge group of people were gathered around and we learned that the chief of our first host family had come down and launched a bottle at the head of the pastor and patriarch of our other host family. The only thing I saw clearly in all the confusion was our host mama trying to restrain the pastor as he charged forward with a large axe in his hands. Eventually the attempts at murder were foiled and a heavy calm came over the neighborhood. We went back to our party a little shaken but happy that no one was injured.
We celebrated at the scene of the Christmas day laplap fight. This little satellite community is based around a big hostel/bungalow type thing and is about a half mile away from Ekipe. We went up there and used their generator to make steaks and dance and party until New Year's. The food was great, so was the company, so was the music. After the countdown we ran the half mile to Ekipe in the dark dragging pieces of corrugated tin, banging on bells, screaming and chanting the national party chant of Vanuatu: " Whoah-Ohh-Woah." It was a beautiful resplendent moonlit night, and we shouted our revelries to the stars.
The next day we recovered at the beach and got ready for a baseball tournament/workshop that had remained as the last remnant of my attempt to do something productive around the holidays. The workshop went great though a low turnout due to the fact that most people had just gone to sleep as we were starting it. Unfortunately something I had eaten had given me the worst case of sit-sit wota I had ever had and much of the workshop was run by my baseball partner Seth. I was indisposed searching for toilet paper and holes in the ground. After approximately 40 trips to the shitter and a long day of baseball capped off by a walk off three run triple, we closed the party and went to sleep.
Within two days our friends had left. We got a phone call from our Country Director letting us know that Krissy's Grandpa had died. We were kind of in shock and rushed into Vila to call her family. At first we thought Krissy might go home for the funeral, but we all decided that was not the best thing to do. Apparently he slipped on some ice and broke his hip on the way out of church. This led to some complications a few days later. On the bright side all but one of his children were able to be with him and Grandma in the hospital as he passed. It's very hard to deal with the guilt of not being able to attend the funeral and it really just emphasizes the hardest part about being here: that we are so far away from all of our friends and family. When we came into Vila, Krissy was able to talk to her parents on the phone and that helped her feel better. But unfortunately whatever I had seems to have appeared in Krissy and Jen (our other friend who was with us on New Years). The medical staff thinks it's giardhia, a wonderful little stomach parasite. No one knows why I got it right away and it took three days for the girls.
On top of all this I just found out my mom and step-dad just got robbed. Not sure how much was stolen, or what exactly, but that never seems to be as bad as the feeling of violation.
So I hope this is as low as it gets for us right now, because as bad as it is it could all certainly be worse. Mostly we're just hoping that our community can recover from all the craziness enough to keep momentum moving positively on our projects. And I hope that this insanity is not a sign of things to come for 2008.
P.S. My digital camera broke so no new pictures for awhile. Sorry for the blandness of type on screen.
P.P.S. I now weigh less than I did in 9th grade. I'm down to 168 from 192 when I got here 8 months ago
The Sun Also Rises
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