Vanuatu

Log - February

- thursday, feb 1st -- went to Curry Night; paid $22 to eat what my mom cooks all the time. Dana offended by blog: hmm!? nice buncha aussies working for some "secret" company (even made it in the news!). "yellow fever."

- friday, feb 2nd -- girls night in, now that dana's single. we're trying to decide on a movie but dana doesn't like action and I think I'm going to barf the next time I have to watch a lovey-dovey chick flick. Regardless, I bow in simply because it should be Dana's night. So we watch "The little black book", an overwhelmingly annoying movie about a girl who can help but be needy and cute ALL THE TIME!. Argh. I miss watching movie with my younger brother! :(

- saturday, feb 3rd -- We were suppoed to go glass-bottom-kayaking but I had to back out at the last minute on account of not feeling well (I love how that excuse keeps coming up again and agian and again). Either way, we still met up in the evening to go to a concert featuring "Famous Bands" *and* "Famous String Bands". We were hoping that the former would go first, so that we could quietly leave when the string bands came up. But no such luck. Also, have to say I always thought other volunteers who have been in Vanuatu for a longer time were simply being culturally-insensitive when they talked about getting tired of string bands, but I can understand how anybody could be driven to destroying all musical instruments after listening to string bands for 4 hours straight; did I mention we couldn't understand most of the songs even though they were in Bislama, so truly they all ended up sounding almost hte same. Well, all but Shakura who is trying out some really cool stuff. Will definately have to buy one of their CDs before leaving. Anyway, by the time the pop bands came up, the crowd had been getting drunker and drunker, and being the wimps taht we are, myself and Dana decided that it would be better to go home early-ish (close to 12:30 am) rather than risk getting harrased by drunk teenage boys. So, we left after only hearing 1 of the 6 pop bands who were supposed to play!

- sunday, feb 4th -- So, the Australian volunteers are throwing a tea party thing. awkward and the entire conversation was very "polite." i.e. superficial and meaningless.

- mon, feb 5th -- ?
- tues, feb 6th -- ?

- wed, feb 7th -- finally saw lost in translation. move is somewhat unassuming.

- thurs, feb 8th -- ?

- fri, feb 9th - went to emao. horrible reminders of ship trip from tanna. people were super nice and i ate mroe than i should have before gettingo n the bus. love how people will just sit down and talk etc. rather than making it very formal/ painful etc. it was good! :)

- sat, feb 10th -- was supposed to go kayaking but it was raining cats and dogs the entire week, so didn't end up going out anywhere. later went to a play put on by Vanuatu Amateur Theatre Society. The first one-man act was interesting, esp. with the guy imitating the stuttering part. But the next two were not so fun (boring-ish).

- sun, feb 11th -- met janet @ work because she's going away on maternity leave and need to do a few pre-departure overlap meetings. later, stuck around @ the park until the movie started aroudn 6ish (Billy Elliot, the Musical). it was good. the 20-yr-old guy ketp making eye contact / conversation wtih dana and completely pretended like I didn't exist. wtf?

- mon, feb 12th -- ?
- tues, feb 13th -- ?

- wed, feb 14th -- celebrated valentines day with dana and other ni-van girls by watching "Love Actually" @ Numbawan Cafe

- fri, feb 16th -- paul's mom had operation so spent entire evning with her @ hospital. later, cooked daal for the first time and had dana / paul over for dinner. dana moved into house just down the street from me.

- sat, feb 17th -- cleaned like crazy. kitty is really not taking well to the whole toilet-training thing. than went to visit anna @ 4ish. stayed there till 6:30ish. shelley, fijian girl called aroun 7:30ish and came to visit me; picked me up and we wnet back to tebakoro guest house; horrible feeling to constantly be reminded of break-in night and of the fact taht her bf offered to sleep with me. got dropped back off @ 1:30 am on sunday morning.

- sun, feb 18th -- free rides @ club hippique so went and rode. Really thankful to my parents for giving me the chacne to learn riding. It was fun going out with becs and other ni-van girl. came back home and slept the rest of the day (realized I've become extremely Lazy!!)

- mon, feb 19th -- ?

- tues, feb 20th -- First drumming classes. VERY nice!!! I'm tone deaf and I can barely play drums but enjoying every minute of it. Amazing /nice suprise to find out that Tim, tha Aussie volunteer, is giving me lessons for free! Just have to figure out a way of re-paying the favor!

- wed, feb 21st -- what movie?

- thurs, feb 22nd -- First french class. absolutely overwhelmed by everything the teacher was saying. Had chinese food with dana (new tradition) and came back home and practiced french for a good hour after that.

- fri, feb 23rd -- went to pauningiso with work for a stone-setting ceremnony. hilarious because it was like a field trip in kindergarden. the people kpet nudging each other awake (it was funyn to wake up somebody!!) :P good food. crazy hot that we had to stand only for 10 minutes in the sun but people were *literally* dropping with sweat that they needed a towel to wipe the sweat off. church group was singing and that was the entertainment for the day; amazing way to not only display talent, but also engage youth and make eveyrbody feel important/special on such a community day. after, went to cuso office to check email but got so bogged up with the internet that ended up missing a chruch-youth-group event I was invited to. Resolved that I dont want to have internet access @ home since it takes up soo much time and doesn't give the feeling of wasting time or addiction. So, in those ways, its worse than having a tv @ home!

- sat, feb 24th -- dana got broken into and spent the entire day just being with her. after, were invited to nics party in the evening and just went there around 5ish. dana slept over my place that night.

- sun, feb 25th -- lazed around. was supposed to go over to pango for a chruch ceremony (invited by monica kalwat) but it was raining like craz and was busy sopending the day with dana. after, went to movie (madagascar) @ numbawan cafe and ran into samsun and his friend from santo. felt veryu unsafe walking back home so took the bus instead.

- mon, feb 26th -- catherine invited us over to go to Moso with her, so that dana could get out of vila for a day and I tagged along. Great trip because we took a not-too-long boat ride to a next island and sat around where they cooked kakae for us. AFter, we all went up for a walk tot he turtle conservation point (about 1 hour uphill walk, across, through the bush and then 2 hours along the sea shore. I wimped out and oinly did half the sea shore walk and napped while the rest of them sweated it out. Than, one hour walk back to the campsite). After, found out that when people say "not long way too much", it can often means 30 - 40 minutes of walking to them. Ended up sleeping in the bungalows (VERY nice!). Woke up next morning, sat around on a ____ and attended a village meeting. After, went ot work directly and went to my second drumming classes right after that.

- tues, feb 27th -- second drumming class. Tim gave me drumming sticks to practice with so I figured out a way of *pretending* like I have a drum set and practicing on my legs + pillow. Thanks to this, I didn't sound abosultely horrific on my second day, even though to say that I'm bearable would be a very generous exagerration. After, went over to visit Dana at Whispering Coral, which is on the same road as my house but a B&B which is often used by those PeaceCorps who are visiting from the outer islands. Ran into Sultan, a Muslim African-American guy who's placed on Malekula but (1) I didnt want ot make assumptions about his religion and (2) was too tired to make conversation. So, only said hello and left after that. Now, have to try and run into him so that I can tell him about the mosque in Mele, jummah, and so on.

- wed, feb 28th -- Alliance Francais was playing a documentary on Zidane and myself and dana really really wanted to watch it, we even went. But it was all in French and we realized that 2 hours of french class didn't give us the skill to full understand spoken French. Instead, I went to Numbawan cafe for SinCity. It's an interesting movie, but again, I realized that my attention span has shrinked to a miniscule size. At intermission, I realized I'd much rather get some rest than sit through another part of the movie. So, walked back home even though I was a bit intrigued to find out what happens in the end.

posted by faa-T @ 5:18 PM