My Happy Isle in Oceania: July 2006

July 3, 2006

Email From Luganville Arrival

Hello everyone,
So I arrived last night after an eventful 30 hour cargo ship ride to Luganville filled with a satellite falling into the atmosphere and a active, active volcano shooting lava and rivers of lava flowing into the ocean as we passed at night. Quite a trip. I arrived safe and sound and am now going to be receiving mail here at the department of forestry office in Luganville where they will be responsible for holding it and or shuttling it up to me while I am at my site. This address is good for all letters and padded envelopes again where you declare very little value. Anything else should be sent to the headquarters in Vila where they will clear it through customs before forwarding it up to me. I should be back in town around the world cup final and at that time get out some pictures of my house and anything else going on here on this end. Regards to all.

Peace and love,
Eddie

Eddie Ruhland PCV
C/O Department of Forestry
PMB 004
Luganville
Vanuatu, South Pacific

Butmas Village Background

Butmas Village is a small community in the island nation of Vanuatu, home to the families of six local clan lineages. The community is comprised of around 100 villagers, 50 of which are children attending the local primary school. The village is located on the island of Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu’s largest island, and geographically the village is quite central in the interior of the island at a relatively high altitude in relation to the surrounding plain areas. Because it is located above 500 meters in elevation the village attracts much rain and the area is home to a local rainforest that remains free from logging and plays a large role in survival of the people. Living at high altitude also inhibits the growth of many traditional local food crops that the people rely on for sustenance. Thus the population is quite nomadic, moving between gardens at lower elevations and the village above which accounts for the rough population figure given previously. There are 93 individuals that refer to the village at Butmas as their home and another 22 individuals who refer to their garden houses as their permanent homes, though they have houses in the Butmas village and their children attend the school there. Since the village is comprised of families from a number of clans there is in theory more than one chief in the village. However the chief of Butmas clan, chief Lolos, is acknowledged as the traditional village leader as he is the chief of the ground on which the clans have come together to live. The villagers rely mostly on agriculture and gardening for both sustenance and income generation. The major crops are kava, taro, yams, cabbage, banana, corn, pumpkin, sweet potato, and cucumber. Apart from gardening, hunting plays a very important part in their diet. Their main sources of protein are pig, chicken, cows, river prawns and eel fish, with these supplemented by fruit bat and a number of local birds.

My Happy Isle in Oceania

July 3, 2006

Email From Luganville Arrival

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Butmas Village Background