Saturday, July 18, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Updates from Vanuatu
It's July. Dennis is now 31. Sandra will soon be 30. And Vanuatu will soon be 29. In less than four months we will be completing our Peace Corps service and will begin our trip back to California.
This year has been busy so far. Visits from family and friends. Visits to other islands. And lots of work at our school and in our community. Our dog had puppies, we got a cat, and now our dog is pregnant again. Sandra's been busy teaching sewing and jewelry classes to women in the village. We've also been attending a 'custom school' that just started in our village where we've learned to do some weaving, carving, and a bit of dancing.
At school we've been working on organizing the new school library. We just received a large shipment of books from a couple who came through on their yacht a few years ago. Those, combined with the books we already had, have made our library start to fill up.
We've also been involved in some other random projects like monitoring measles vaccinations. We took a trip around our island and surveyed all of the families with children between 1 and 5 to make sure that they had been vaccinated by the Measles Eradication Team. The WHO and the Vanuatu Ministry of Health are working towards 100% coverage to eradicate the disease. Our trip turned out to be a great way to see parts of the island that we hadn't visited before and to do some work at the same time.
We've been in Vila for a week now running errands and going to meetings. We head back north in about two hours. This trip, like most others, began with us receiving shopping lists and money from lots of people in our village who don't get the chance to travel to Vila. It took about 5 days to complete all the shopping, but we did it. Shoes, knife files, t-shirts, school supplies, underwear, plastic fuel pump, jewelry making kit and supplies, soccer cleats, candy, stickers, flash lights, electrical tape and more.
We'll be back in the village for about 6 weeks before coming back into town for our close of service conference. After that we'll go back to the village for four weeks and say goodbye. We'll be back in Vila the last time in November before heading home. We'll probably leave Vanuatu around November 7th and then begin our trip home via Australia, South East Asia and India. I think the last few months here will go by pretty quickly.
Thanks for all the emails, letters and care packages. We'll try to put up some more pictures and videos on this site. If you get a chance, send us an email and let us know how things are going at home.
This year has been busy so far. Visits from family and friends. Visits to other islands. And lots of work at our school and in our community. Our dog had puppies, we got a cat, and now our dog is pregnant again. Sandra's been busy teaching sewing and jewelry classes to women in the village. We've also been attending a 'custom school' that just started in our village where we've learned to do some weaving, carving, and a bit of dancing.
At school we've been working on organizing the new school library. We just received a large shipment of books from a couple who came through on their yacht a few years ago. Those, combined with the books we already had, have made our library start to fill up.
We've also been involved in some other random projects like monitoring measles vaccinations. We took a trip around our island and surveyed all of the families with children between 1 and 5 to make sure that they had been vaccinated by the Measles Eradication Team. The WHO and the Vanuatu Ministry of Health are working towards 100% coverage to eradicate the disease. Our trip turned out to be a great way to see parts of the island that we hadn't visited before and to do some work at the same time.
We've been in Vila for a week now running errands and going to meetings. We head back north in about two hours. This trip, like most others, began with us receiving shopping lists and money from lots of people in our village who don't get the chance to travel to Vila. It took about 5 days to complete all the shopping, but we did it. Shoes, knife files, t-shirts, school supplies, underwear, plastic fuel pump, jewelry making kit and supplies, soccer cleats, candy, stickers, flash lights, electrical tape and more.
We'll be back in the village for about 6 weeks before coming back into town for our close of service conference. After that we'll go back to the village for four weeks and say goodbye. We'll be back in Vila the last time in November before heading home. We'll probably leave Vanuatu around November 7th and then begin our trip home via Australia, South East Asia and India. I think the last few months here will go by pretty quickly.
Thanks for all the emails, letters and care packages. We'll try to put up some more pictures and videos on this site. If you get a chance, send us an email and let us know how things are going at home.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Out for a Sunday Hike
We were walking back from a Sunday barbeque in Kerebeta when my brother asked if we could take a photo overlooking the gardens.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
School Uniforms
These are the uniforms that we wear to school on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Only the teachers wear them, we don't have enough money or fabric to have them for the students. The headmaster is standing to the left of me and Noche is at the far right.
Class 6 and 7
So we just finished our second of three school terms. Everyone is now enjoying the two week holiday between terms. We took this class photo on one of the last days of the term in between exams and work. Our class is combined 6th and 7th grades because we don't have enough teachers at the school to have one for each class. We're hoping that will change next year. There are 10 students in class 6 and 10 in class 7. In the background of the photo are two of our three old school buildings. There is a new double classroom building that is almost complete. We're going to move 7th and 8th grade into those classrooms sometime in the next term.
We're spending one week of the break here in Vila and the second week back on the island. We were asked to come to Vila to attend a training workshop so that we can work as trainers of the new group of volunteers that arrives next month. The fact that the new group is almost here marks the arrival of our one year anniversary in Vanuatu. Pretty wild.
The second picture was taken outside of my uncle's house in of Port Vila. We spent yesterday afternoon with him and his family and some others from Vanua Lava who are living here. Most people tend to stick in neighborhoods made up of people and relatives from their home island. So it's great for us since we can be in town but still have some family to go and hang out with and talk about the island.
More later.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Hello All, June 1, 2008
Well, instead of sending an email from Vila two weeks ago, I an sending this update by mail and my dad will post it online for me, three weeks from now (depending on when I can make it to Sola to mail this). I really should have sent this in an email from Vila, bit was distracted by all those things available in the big city: electricity,, indoor plumbing, refrigeration and restaurants.
Since I last wrote in March Sandra and I have spent a lot of time at school and a lot of our free time doing projects around the house. When we were in Santo last, we bought a hand saw and some paint, which have both come in extremely handy. We cut a back door into our house, we built the frame with old lumber carried up from the school on our shoulders. We also did some "remodeling" of our kitchen. We rebuilt our kitchen table and built two stools. The little projects are great because they take our minds off things and both ended up rally improving our daily live. More light in our house and more comfortable place to eat.
At school things have been going well. The second term has started and I have one math class (combined 6th and 7th grades) and Im teaching PE three time a week. Sandra is working with the teachers of classes 1-5 and is also getting ready to do a phonics workshop/training.
The other big news, this is quite possibly the best news, is that our summer is over and the weather has finally started to cool off. When we got back to our island from Vila at the end of May, the weather at night was cool enough to wear a blanket. Once it got as low as 68 deg and everyone was staying bundled up and close to the fire. Mostly it just gets down to 78-80 deg, which is very comfortable. That combined with the drop in humidity has made it a lot easier to be here. We're hoping now that it starts to rain less, but that hasn't been the case. We should be moving into the dry season, but everyone here says it's been raining more and more the last few years. I saw some data from the Meteorological Office in Vila and in the 1970's the average rainfall on our island was 4.2 meters or about 12ft of rain. I thought that was a lot until I saw the figures for the last few years- over 6 meters abut 18ft of rainfall. This is definitely becoming a wetter place. Climate change caused by global warming? Most people think so. It's good for some crops but very bad for others and terrible for the grass airfield.
I think I've said it before, but we've never been so attuned to the weather or so much at it's mercy. Alot of that has to do with the infrastructure on our island. In Vila or Santo, the rain won't close the airport and if lightning strikes a phone tower, it's replaced in a day or two. We heard yesterday that the phone lines in our group of islands have been down for almost two weeks, meaning all communication is being done by 2-way radio.
One of the most interesting things we learned at our All-Volunteer Conference in Vila was how different everyone lives are on the different islands in Vanuatu. There are almost 100 Peace Corps Volunteers in the country, but only 9 that are as far north as we are. Many of the other volunteers have mild weather, access to electricity, refrigeration and are close to other volunteers. While their lives are easier in some respects, they are harder in others. For instance, we can go weeks in our village without spending $20. But others to through that much every day. We also have a lot of very good food (fresh root crops and seafood), whereas others are eating only rice and canned tuna(which we eat too, fairly often).
Aside from all the hardships, I am very glad we live where we do. Our adopted families are wonderful and we are really starting to feel at home. We are slowly picking up the local language but it's quite difficult. I'll explain the language situation again to clear things up. The two official language's in Vanuatu are English and French (thanks to a joint colonial government) That means all government work and all public schools are either English or French or both. The national language of Vanuatu is called Bislama. It's pidgeon language that combines French, English and local languages. Nearly everyone in Vanuatu speaks Bislama, because most people leave school at the 6th grade and are not fluent in English or French. Everyone also has a language local to their island or village. In Vanuatu there are somewhere around 112 local languages.
So at school we teach in English. We speak to our families and others in the village in Bislama and we are trying to learn Vures, which is the language that everyone in the village speaks to each other. Most people have have started to speak to us first in Vures and when they get a blank stare back (quite often) they say it again in Bislama. So by next year we hope to be able to speak in Vures.
A quick story to illustrate how different life is here. Last Friday, Sandra and I came to school late because we don't teach on Fridays. We arrived about 10am to see all the students outside getting ready to work. The headmaster had told all the students that the rest of the day classes were cancelled and that they were all going to bring sand and coral gravel up from the beach. At the school, there is a new building being built, funded by the EU. They fund most all the materials, but the sand and gravel must be supplied by the village. The building is delayed by a few months and the village has been slow about bringing sand and coral up the hill from the water. So instead of class the students all carried bags of sand up the very steep and slippery hill form the waters edge. In the US most parents wouldn't even let their kids walk up and down this hill by themselves. If that wasn't enough, on Tuesday, the building crew was running short on cider blocks so class was cancelled again and all the students and teachers carried cinder blocks up the hill. The smaller ones carried one block on a stick between the two of them. and the very small ones just carried sand. And they all loved it. They were tired but they felt like grownup to be helping with the school.
That's it for now. I should mail this today from Sola. We are taking a break on the road right now, waiting for a truck to take us the last hour.
Today is June 6th.
Thanks everyone,who has sent letter and care packages. We love getting mail.
Dennis
Since I last wrote in March Sandra and I have spent a lot of time at school and a lot of our free time doing projects around the house. When we were in Santo last, we bought a hand saw and some paint, which have both come in extremely handy. We cut a back door into our house, we built the frame with old lumber carried up from the school on our shoulders. We also did some "remodeling" of our kitchen. We rebuilt our kitchen table and built two stools. The little projects are great because they take our minds off things and both ended up rally improving our daily live. More light in our house and more comfortable place to eat.
At school things have been going well. The second term has started and I have one math class (combined 6th and 7th grades) and Im teaching PE three time a week. Sandra is working with the teachers of classes 1-5 and is also getting ready to do a phonics workshop/training.
The other big news, this is quite possibly the best news, is that our summer is over and the weather has finally started to cool off. When we got back to our island from Vila at the end of May, the weather at night was cool enough to wear a blanket. Once it got as low as 68 deg and everyone was staying bundled up and close to the fire. Mostly it just gets down to 78-80 deg, which is very comfortable. That combined with the drop in humidity has made it a lot easier to be here. We're hoping now that it starts to rain less, but that hasn't been the case. We should be moving into the dry season, but everyone here says it's been raining more and more the last few years. I saw some data from the Meteorological Office in Vila and in the 1970's the average rainfall on our island was 4.2 meters or about 12ft of rain. I thought that was a lot until I saw the figures for the last few years- over 6 meters abut 18ft of rainfall. This is definitely becoming a wetter place. Climate change caused by global warming? Most people think so. It's good for some crops but very bad for others and terrible for the grass airfield.
I think I've said it before, but we've never been so attuned to the weather or so much at it's mercy. Alot of that has to do with the infrastructure on our island. In Vila or Santo, the rain won't close the airport and if lightning strikes a phone tower, it's replaced in a day or two. We heard yesterday that the phone lines in our group of islands have been down for almost two weeks, meaning all communication is being done by 2-way radio.
One of the most interesting things we learned at our All-Volunteer Conference in Vila was how different everyone lives are on the different islands in Vanuatu. There are almost 100 Peace Corps Volunteers in the country, but only 9 that are as far north as we are. Many of the other volunteers have mild weather, access to electricity, refrigeration and are close to other volunteers. While their lives are easier in some respects, they are harder in others. For instance, we can go weeks in our village without spending $20. But others to through that much every day. We also have a lot of very good food (fresh root crops and seafood), whereas others are eating only rice and canned tuna(which we eat too, fairly often).
Aside from all the hardships, I am very glad we live where we do. Our adopted families are wonderful and we are really starting to feel at home. We are slowly picking up the local language but it's quite difficult. I'll explain the language situation again to clear things up. The two official language's in Vanuatu are English and French (thanks to a joint colonial government) That means all government work and all public schools are either English or French or both. The national language of Vanuatu is called Bislama. It's pidgeon language that combines French, English and local languages. Nearly everyone in Vanuatu speaks Bislama, because most people leave school at the 6th grade and are not fluent in English or French. Everyone also has a language local to their island or village. In Vanuatu there are somewhere around 112 local languages.
So at school we teach in English. We speak to our families and others in the village in Bislama and we are trying to learn Vures, which is the language that everyone in the village speaks to each other. Most people have have started to speak to us first in Vures and when they get a blank stare back (quite often) they say it again in Bislama. So by next year we hope to be able to speak in Vures.
A quick story to illustrate how different life is here. Last Friday, Sandra and I came to school late because we don't teach on Fridays. We arrived about 10am to see all the students outside getting ready to work. The headmaster had told all the students that the rest of the day classes were cancelled and that they were all going to bring sand and coral gravel up from the beach. At the school, there is a new building being built, funded by the EU. They fund most all the materials, but the sand and gravel must be supplied by the village. The building is delayed by a few months and the village has been slow about bringing sand and coral up the hill from the water. So instead of class the students all carried bags of sand up the very steep and slippery hill form the waters edge. In the US most parents wouldn't even let their kids walk up and down this hill by themselves. If that wasn't enough, on Tuesday, the building crew was running short on cider blocks so class was cancelled again and all the students and teachers carried cinder blocks up the hill. The smaller ones carried one block on a stick between the two of them. and the very small ones just carried sand. And they all loved it. They were tired but they felt like grownup to be helping with the school.
That's it for now. I should mail this today from Sola. We are taking a break on the road right now, waiting for a truck to take us the last hour.
Today is June 6th.
Thanks everyone,who has sent letter and care packages. We love getting mail.
Dennis
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