Hello Everyone,
It has been some time since my last email so I will try to get everyone up to date here. After receiving my site assignment I went to my village two weeks ago and met the community, checked out the saw mill and walked around the surrounding area. The name of the community is Butmas or spelled Putmas as well. As I said before it is on the largest island of Vanuatu Espiritu Santo. The village is in the center of the island at almost 2000 ft of elevation almost a two hour truck ride from the capitol where the airport is. The village has almost 100 people and probably half are kids under 17. The village too is very, very rural. The food staple is water taro with island cabbage (spinach like leafy green) and lots of wild pig and cow. Because there are lots of cattle in the coastal plain areas grazing in the dormant coconut plantations some have run wild up into the bush (hence the wild cow). The community has built me a house and I have a water tank and when I get there I plan to build a small Bush Kitchen which is a little shed with a fireplace to do my cooking. While I was originally designated to go to this community with forestry and to work on the portable saw mill there, upon meeting the community and a brief talk with the administration here at peace corps I will probably be more of a community volunteer helping them with whatever they feel is necessary. Some of the families in the community are still very custom and wear nothing more than a loincloth. They mostly live in longer houses that sleep anywhere from 10-20 people. The attached photos are of the inside of the chief's house and a shot upon entering the community as well as the local Nakamal or gathering place for the men to eat and drink kava.
Yesterday we took an excursion to a little island that is uninhabited about a 45 minute boat ride off shore and had a spear fishing competition and a day at the beach barbecuing local food and making due with local materials to cook and eat. The place was incredible with some of the nicest reefs and biggest fish I have seen. I was fortunate enough to spear a 10lb trevally or papio for those of you in Hawaii. I took it back to our training village and cooked it up because it happened to be the night of our last dinner together with all the host families and volunteers.
Another thing I have been partaking in is all-night marathon world cup watching. We got a satellite dish brought to the island and in combination with a TV and generator we have been able to watch just about every game so far. Another experience that is unlike any soccer watching I have ever done.
6/27/06
Yesterday afternoon and evening we had our swearing in ceremony and the 20 of us became official Peace Corps volunteers. The ceremony was amazing and every volunteer was given an island shirt or island dress of the same fabric so we all had special swearing in attire. The village built a stage in front of the main meeting hall and we had a ceremony, followed by the swearing in, then I gave a speech on behalf of the group in Bislama and then there was music going long into the night. Today when we left Lelepa every Mama and papa as well as sister and brother with many more of the village residents too came down to the beach to tell us good-bye. They arranged into a large circle of probably 250 people and we walked around shaking hands with every single person before we got on the boat to leave.
Unfortunately I have to get off the computer but I will send some pictures of my last days on the island hopefully tomorrow and the next day. Miss everyone and keep in touch. Let me know how your doing before I go to the bush and excommunicate for a while.
Eddie
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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.