My Happy Isle in Oceania

Japan-Week 1

2007-12-06T15:15:00.001-10:00

Water Park

2007-09-16T13:05:00.000-10:00

Over the past few weeks I have been battling some illnesses (Mono, Cigutera, the flu) and have started to come around this past week. While sick I made some preparations for when I would feel better (bought a canoe, tied all my fishing set-ups) and have been reading books, books, books aside from working on my vegetable garden. Here is a little pictorial summary of some of the things I have seen and been doing in the village.

This is my little sister Vina trying out my new personal means of transport. The weather has been sunny and hot as we leave the cool season and as a result the kids are in the ocean swimming every chance they get. Since I bought the canoe I have taken it out for the kids to play with and continue to do this as they bombard my house for me to join them in the water, with my canoe daily.

Yesterday I jumped off the canoe and found a few underwater wonders:

Cuttlefish

Giant Clams

The seafood also continues to amaze me. Yesterday being Sunday, the mamas prepare their biggest and best meal of the week. Yesterday between eating dinner and lunch I had fish, clam, crab, octopus, Lobster, Some sort of small opihi like shell, trocha and

Coconut Crab-The largest terrestrial arthropod in the world.

My Peace Corps experience continues to be one of much learning, like when my brother Bratley popped a bubble of chewing gum on his face and spent three days scrubbing his face to try and get the residue off. Something I had never seen before.

Kalotiti Wedding

2007-09-02T14:32:00.000-10:00

A few weeks ago, magaliliu village was busy with a wedding that was the culmination of many months preparation. There were two couples being married because a wedding in the village is such a large ordeal it is easier to marry in groups rather than have the village constantly preparing for weddings year round. This wedding included the chiefs first born son marrying a girl from the outer island of Malekula and the chiefs nephew marrying a girl from the neighboring village. The wedding entailed both custom (bride price of pigs, mats, sugarcane) and western aspects (wedding cake, presents, money, church service) and was a a huge week long celebration. Here are some of the photos:

The Married Couples

In The Church

Flower Girls

Grooms Witnesses

Table Display of Custom Foods

Banannas. Part of the Bride Price

Bride Price

Custom, Pandanus Mats (Bride Price)

Sugar Cane

Welcome to Mangaliiu

2007-07-31T17:28:00.000-10:00

I have now been in the village of Magalilu for three weeks and yesterday moved into the house I will be living in for the next year. Upon arrival, I had been living with my newly designated host family in a small house adjacent to the family house. My new family consists of the father William, mother Leimara, and 5 kids: Jonas 13, Viktor, 12, Jimmy 8, Bratly 6, Olivina 4.
There is definitely lots of Energy at the dinner table and around the house! I was postponed moving into my new house (taking it over from my predecessor) because there was need to smoke the thatch roof by lighting fires for a few days inside the house. Getting a layer of smoke on the thatch protects it from insect infestation, helping the house to last longer. In the meantime, I have been doing the first bit of landscaping (mostly removing invasive species that are taking over the waterfront) and planting of some papaya, bananas and local cabbage. I also have erected a fence for my soon to be vegetable garden.

It is nice to be in a village with fresh daily bread, running water and I even have a flushing toilet (I use the toilet belonging to the tourism project, as it is located next to my house). The commute to Port Vila is $5 round trip and I am able to get into town and take care of ongoing applications and communicate with family on a regular basis.
In the past three weeks, we have celebrated both Children's day and Vanuatu's Independence Day (July 30th). The community united for Childrens day and had a day of events for the children that included a treasure hunt, church service, sports games and a night of watching childrens movies on a generator, TV, DVD Player combination. At the afternoon meal everyone who was considered a youth (anyone who is not married, even 60 year old men that never were married) was treated to a meal and each table had two mamas presiding over it making sure everyone had enough food and juice.
Surprisingly (to me) the Independence celebrations were not planned out like those for Children's Day and a last minute plan came into action the morning of to get fish and food ready and put on an afternoon meal. The country is 27 this year and it is still very visibly in its early years, though working toward a better future.
I have been working with the local tourism committee and attended a tour last week to further my understanding of the project. There is much happening presently with the areas property buffer zones, environmental impact plans and establishing a licensed tourism business. As things move along "slow, slow" here as it goes with the project. Other projects are in the works and currently being passed around the community for input.
I am excited for my Dad to come and visit in just a few days and am hoping we will get a lot more pictures to post up on the blog while he is here. For now, I hope you all enjoy the pictures and are staying healthy and happy wherever you may be.
Love and Peace from the South Pacific.

New Address

2007-07-12T11:37:00.000-10:00

My new address is actually my first address:

Eddie Ruhland PCV
PMB 9097
Port Vila
Vanuatu, South Pacific

It is also listed on my personal information on the right side of the page under personal info:

24

2007-07-04T15:51:00.000-10:00

My 23rd birthday was spent loading my belongings into a truck, travelling to Butmas and drinking a large bucket of Kava, marking my arrival and new habitation in the village. One year later I am transitioning out of the village and spending the fourth of July in a much more tradionally American manner. Melanie's Mother had sent two packages of patriotic decorations and so Melanie went about planning a birthday BBQ over the past week. It was a good time with a bunch of volunteers who happened to be in Santo at a workshop and especially wonderful to spend it with Melanie before she leaves for Japan.

Move to Magalilu

2007-07-02T14:36:00.000-10:00

After a year in Butmas, the time has come for a migration to the ocean and a new community to spend the next 10 months of my Peace Corps assignment with. Magalilu (pronounced Mag-a-lee-loo) village on the island of Efate is currently involved in a community tourism project in collaboration with an ongoing process to declare a local area world heritage site. A volunteer who I will be replacing has assisted the project for the previous two years at the community level. While the previous volunteer had originally planned to stay for a third year, he decided against it in May during our All-Volunteer conference. It was at this time the Peace Corps country director approached me with the idea to spend my last year with Magalilu village and take over the project started by the volunteer who is leaving. With the forestry office in Santo burned down that same week, it solidified our decision to go ahead with the move. I will be moving to the village of Magalilu in the middle of July.

Magalilu village is situated about a 30-minute drive from the country’s capitol of Port Vila on the western edge of Havannah Harbor. It is the sister village to the island of Lelepa (where I did my training) and just about a mile away from Lelepa across the water. The village is rather new as it was settled in 1983 after some of the families on Lelepa moved off the island to the “mainland or big island” and settled at what is now Magalilu. The village sits right on the oceans shore where there is a plethora of reefs and marine life.

The current village project is a cultural tour that will fit hand in hand with the declaration of a world heritage site in the area. World heritage sites are declared and governed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The following excerpt may be helpful in gaining a small understanding of what World Heritage sites are, how areas become designated as such and who makes these decisions:
“To date, UNESCO's 1972 Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage protects 830 properties of "outstanding universal value," including 644 cultural, 162 natural and 24 mixed properties in 139 States Parties.   The Convention encourages international cooperation to safeguard the common heritage of humanity. With 184 States Parties, it is one of the most widely ratified international legal instruments. When they sign the Convention, States Parties commit to preserve sites on the World Heritage List, as well as sites of national and regional importance, notably by providing an appropriate legal and regulatory framework.   The World Heritage Committee is comprised of representatives of 21 countries, elected by the States Parties for up to six years. Each year, the Committee adds new sites to the List.
The sites are proposed by the States Parties. Applications are then reviewed by two advisory bodies: cultural sites by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), and natural sites by the World Conservation Union (UICN). The International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Conservation of Cultural Heritage (ICCROM) provides expert advice on conservation and training in restoration techniques.   The World Heritage Committee is responsible for the implementation of the 1972 Convention. It examines reports on the state of conservation of the inscribed sites and asks States Parties to take measures when necessary. The Committee supervises the disbursement of over $4 million per annum from the World Heritage Fund, aimed at emergency action, training of experts and encouraging technical cooperation. UNESCO's World Heritage Centre is the Secretariat of the World Heritage Committee.”

The area that is up for determination this February in Vanuatu and that I will be working with encompasses the story of legendary local chief Roi Mata who is said to have lived about 400 years ago. During a time of tribal warfare throughout much of the south of Vanuatu he orchestrated a “Peace Feast” at which de declared a system of family Klan lines and united the islands in peace. While his home village was just a half-mile north of Magalilu he died on the island on Lelepa and was buried on the small Island of Eretoka or Hat island just off the front of Magalilu. At his death many of his smaller chiefs and devout followers were buried with chief Roi Mata as a sign of just how much power and rank he had. In the 1970’s a French anthropologist explored the grave and over 45 bodies were found along with much many valued items of the day (shells, pig tusks, etc).

The proposed site would incorporate three areas that form a triangle and include the ocean that is between these three places. The first area is the old village ground of chief Roi Mata (Mangas village), which have been uninhabited since his death. This area consists of boundary wall remnants, a large banyan tree that is said to have been where Chief Roi Mata observed custom dances from and some 500-year-old Tamanu trees along the shoreline. The second area is Fels cave on Lelepa Island that is said to have been where the chief’s body was brought and where he drew his last breath. The cave is a limestone cave that was formed when the island was underwater millions of years ago and contains many illustrations and carvings. These pieces of history have been carbon dated and range from 3000 years at the oldest to 500 years for the most recent. The last area in the project is Eretoka or “Hat Island”. The island to this day remains a Taboo place for the locals and hence is home to some of the most amazing reefs and marine life I have ever seen. This is the island that the chief and his loyal subjects were buried on and the burial ground remains with some taboo stones and relics of the day in the area.

The process to get the area declared a world heritage site is being headed by an Australian couple and they responsible for the necessary publications and doing the associated research and developing the areas management plans. There is also an Australian business volunteer associated with the project handling the business side of things. My role will be to help facilitate at the village level with the community’s responsibilities. The community holds sole rights to give tours of the area and developing a cultural tour for tourists that would bring benefits to the community is intrinsic to the projects success and sustainability. There are many smaller details that have been ignored until now and two of these that I will be most involved with are the gardening that provides the food for the tours and the development of tour infrastructure. The village is in need of gardens that will provide food for the tourists on this tour. One of my responsibilities will be to help introduce intensive vegetable and root crop gardening to the village with the creation through a garden set up to provide food for the tours. Also after a walk through of the area in September by an eco-contractor the authenticity of the site will be evaluated and the community will be given guidelines for what they can and cannot not alter, rebuild and what kind of trail, bridges, walkways, steps, etc can be incorporated into the area. Once this is known I can help facilitate the construction of such infrastructure.
I am excited to be moving villages. The village of Magalilu is currently playing in a local soccer league on Saturdays in the capitol and practicing daily for their weekly matches. As I said the village is located on some of the most incredible reefs and the seafood, snorkeling and fishing that goes along with that is very appealing. Also joining an ongoing project has the benefits that I am at least guaranteed some project to help the village with. Being closer to the capitol will mean luxuries like a water system already intact in the village with running water at my house, a telephone in the village and the avaliability of bread daily.

My last weeks were spent back in Butmas wrapping up some loose ends, spending time with those I have spent the last year with and moving my stuff out of my house. After the work I had put into the house the actual owner is quite excited to be moving into it for the first time. I spent a few last days at the nursery doing some potting and am passing the duties now onto the community.

Melanie and I also spent a few nights with the Pike family who are an Australian family living in a village about 15 miles past me in the bush. I was helping Adam (the father) install some facia and gutters for his rain collection and we spent an afternoon flying their son Hayden's remote control airplane (see photos).

I had a last meal with the village on Sunday (June 30) and hope to visit them next month when my Dad comes to visit. Since moving out Melanie and I (who arrived a week or so ago after finishing her trip through Asia) are in Luganville town and awaiting a boat that departs Friday to take us and cargo (all of my stuff) to Port Vila. Tomorrow I turn 24 and we are going to have a peace corps BBQ and celebration of our independence here at the beach. Once I get to Vila I’ll have another week in town before I can get out to the village, as my predecessor will be wrapping up his time there.

That’s what it is here in Vanuatu
Much Peace and Love to everyone

HALONG BAY

2007-06-05T15:21:00.000-10:00

SAPA

2007-06-03T20:27:00.000-10:00

Sapa was one of the two side trips Melanie and I embarked on out from Hanoi. Sapa is about 500 miles from Hanoi and to get there it entailed an overnight train from Hanoi to a city only 2 km from the Chinese border and then a bus ride another hour up the mountain side. Sapa is central to many of the local minority populations that are present in the area as the city is situated overlooking an emmense river valley that has been cultivated by local people for generations. Living closest to the city of Sapa are the Black H’mong people and they were the most prevelant minority group in the city though also flower H’mong and Red H’mong.people and villages were in the area.

Sapa was probably my favorite part of my entire trip and we spent our two short days there walking to local villages and taking in the amazing scenery. The amount of work that has been put into this valley over it’s inhabited history is enormous and has created the thousands of terraces that cover valley wall to valley floor. Each terrace is irrigated as supplied by an intricate weaving of waterways. For the most part little technology is used in their farming. Buffalo are used to to plow and break up the ground, hoe’s are used to pull weeds, and lots the family’s hands are used to make the terraces and plant the crops. We even saw a wooden rice mill that used one of the waterways to power its up and down movement and husk the harvested rice.
However in contrast to the little technology used in the fields, communication technology is taking off. Our 16 year old H’mong guide was frequently recieveing calls while on our walks from family in even more remote areas than we were. One of my favorite examples we witnessed as a poster at a small store along the road, in the middle of a small village. The poster was Ronaldo juggling a soccer ball and advertising mobile phones that have both video and music playing capabilities.

As Melanie and I were discussing how vast the spread of technology is and if this poster was applicable we looked into the window of a bedroom adjacent to the store and saw a PC with internet connection, ADSL connection at that. This was just another example of how fast things are changing, and a mix of old and new, a few levels above the mix I am witnessing in Vanuatu.

HANOI

2007-06-02T22:37:00.000-10:00

Getting off the plane in Hanoi, Vietnam I didn’t know what to expect. I had no Lonely Planet or guidebook of anykind; I had done no research into the history, current affairs or attractions that pertained to the city, or even the country. I was for the most part ignorant about the country in which I was traveling to. However I was excited. Melanie said we should go to Vietnam, I said okay, and off we went.
Any apprehensions I had increased as Melanie and I got in the taxi to Hanoi and conversation commenced with the driver. He was asking where we were from and when I told the taxi driver I was from America he replied “you look like America, like army”. While at this first worried me, I came to find there was nothing to worry about and the next week and a half proved to be amazing.

Traffic, traffic, traffic, were my first observations of Hanoi. Cars ,the horns constantly blaring to get the motorbikes out of the way, the motorbikes engaged in their own race of passing one another and that too for some reason requires non-stop horn usage. Crossing the street took getting used to. Melanie and I stood on the curb and I would try to wait for a lull in traffic, only to find there was no such thing. Luckily she showed me the proven method to cross the street that she learned last time in Vietnam; walk slowly side by side, her ushering me across the street. There are probably a few hundred motorbikes (mopeds) for every car in Hanoi. Hence the traffic is dense; moving at different speeds, and has no rules. However while the were everywhere anc caused traffic to be out of control, what blew me away was the utilization of these motorbikes. They carried everything and accomplished this while managing the traffic. Just a few examples of everyday mopped cargo that we saw during our trip were: entire families (5 people) on a moped, animal transport (one was carrying 12 piglets), food transport (enormous bundles of fruit, huge bails of rice), and tools (ladders, rebar, display cases).
The layout of Hanoi city seemed unique to me in that each street had a common retail theme. On one street, every shop would sell sunglasses, the next street, every shop shoes, the next, every shop clothes, the next toys, so on and so forth. The fmost comical and strange streets were the street that sold only stuffed animals and toys and the other being the street where every shop sold Mannequins.

Walking around the street in the evenings as Melanie and I did frequently there were all kinds of social activites taking place. badminton and a checkers like game were the most common and mixed between these games would be women set up with a plastic table and chairs selling fresh juices, whisky and cigarettes. Badminton courts are painted everywhere there is enough surface area and commonly use the edge of the sidewalk as a boundary line. The checkers games would be played all around the cities parks and usually each game would attract quite a crowd with people huddled into little groups throughout the park sidewalks.
On our last day in the city we went and visited Uncle Ho at the Ho Chi Minh Museum and Mausoleum. The line had thousands of people waiting to view his body as apparently visitng the mausoleum is a pilgrimage for the Vietnamese.

Vietnam was beautiful, and I have much on my to do list that I wasn’t able to see or do this time. I think it was an amazing time to see Vietnam as the country is changing rapidly and probably will only continue to do so in the future. Everywhere we went development, development, development. Industrially, there are factories and manufacturing plants being built, hotels are being erected for the growing tourism industry, and infrastructure is being laid out to support it all. The amount of change occurring right now in the country was absolutely crazy.
I have returned to Vanuatu, a country whose entire population would take the place of only a couple of Hanoi’s inhabited streets. Here in Vanuatu we are moving into the cool season and I have a lot to look forward to in my last year here. Also many visitors and more travel. First Melanie is coming for one last visit, then I will be moving villages and islands, which will be followed by a visit from my Dad. Through all this I am applying to Med School and hopefully will be traveling back stateside for interviews during the Northern Hemisphere’s winter.

Pho

On The Road

2007-05-23T19:11:00.000-10:00

It has been a wonderful week in Thailand. Melanie and I arrived in Bangkok on Tuesday and spent two nights there in a wonderful old little 6 bedroom inn in the heart of the old part of the city. Melanie drank her first 7-Up out of a questionably sanitary plastic bag, Eddie learned how to look right so not to get hit by oncoming traffic (Thailand drives on the left), and we both got lost trying to get oriented in the city with little help a map. After too much traffic by Tuk tuk and being overwhelmed by such a large city, we finished seeing the more popular sites and booked a sleeper car on the North bound train. 15 hours later we arrived in the city of Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai has been an enjoyable city. It is smaller and more walkable than Bangkok, a little cooler(being situated father north and surrounded by hills) and full of good food and crazy markets. I have especially enjoyed the mangoes and lychee which are currently in season along with the many varieties of what Melanie calls "meat on a Stick".

One of the highlights was a cooking class Melanie and I attended yesterday by one of Thailand's most well-known chefs Sampon. After a walk around one of the markets in the morning, we spent most of the day in front of a wok and with the help of Sampon we both agreed it was the best Thai food we had yet eaten. (The two of Us with Sampon)

The Thai people continue to amaze me. They are some of the most genuinely friendly and smiley people I have ever met. Upon arrival in Bangkok people would come up and start asking Melanie and I where we were going, what we were trying to see and trying to offer us help in finding our way. While at first I was skeptical of ulterior motives during such encounters, it seems for the most part people here are just really friendly and happy to practice a little of their English with a white person. They ask where I am from, where I am trying to go, and recommend which Wat (temple) I should see. The same friendliness and hospitality has continued but not just with people one meets on the street but with the majority of all Thai people I have met so far.

However, to me, the most comical interactions so far have been with Thai's who begin by addressing Melanie rather than myself and addressing her in Thai rather than in English. Many a times she has been mistaken for my Thai girlfriend and she gets quite a few looks from both Thai men and women because of it. Maybe it's just because she is so pretty. She does recieve many compliments from the locals after they switch to speaking english recognizing thather blank stares means she has no idea what they are saying. Thankfully she has been a good sport about it and the idea has become a frequent topic of our joking and playful rambling as we wander the streets.

Tomorrow we are heading to Hanoi Vietnam and then on to Halong Bay. You can check out what looks like an amazing UNESCO World Heritage Site on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha_Long_Bay

Peace and Love,
Eddie

SYDNEY

2007-05-18T16:41:00.000-10:00

I escaped Vanuatu and am traveling through Thailand and hopefully Vietnam in the next
couple of weeks.

However not before I had 4 days of relaxation, ferry's, Starbucks and cool (70 degree) weather in Sydney.

Here are a few photos....They should be self explanatory.

Peace and Love,
Eddie

Pictures from the trip

2007-05-06T17:15:00.000-10:00

Here are just a few last pictures from the Australia, Thailand, Vietnam trip

Bula Fiji

2007-05-05T11:23:00.000-10:00

Last week my counterpart and myself received a last minute invitation phone call to attend a workshop with the GTZ (German Technical Corporation) in Fiji. GTZ (http://www.gtz.de/en/), is the overseas group currently working with Butmas and the grantor's of both the portable sawmill and the materials needed for the agroforestry and tree nursery projects. So with some quick peace corps approval I was off to Suva the capitol of Fiji 24 hours later. When we arrived at the workshop on Monday I realized that it was in no way applicable to my work here in Vanuatu (the workshop involved learning very basic software to analyze business viability and train business advisers) and so spoke with the regional GTZ boss about making the week more worthwhile for not only myself but the corporation that paid my way. Luckily he was quite flexible and I ended up having a week of daily trips to sawmills, nurseries, forestry research stations, eco-businesses and an entrepreneur working in bamboo technology. With this change in plans I also was able to spend my last day on a small island surf resort and got a full day of surfing at Frigates Pass, a world class south pacific reef. This wave was unlike any I had previously surfed in that it was 12 miles out to sea. We took a boat from the island and from the water could not see the mainland while surfing though we were surrounded by quite a bit of wildlife including jumping Marlin, Turtles, Schools of Tuna and the accompanying sea birds (Frigates) following the fish.

Fiji was quite a bit different from Vanuatu and I was impressed by the development in both the urban and rural areas. I believe that the lengthy colonization by the British helped greatly by providing much infrastructure for the country and also the presence of the Indo-Fijian population creates an atmosphere of competition within the country in both schools and business that requires the native Fijians to compete and thus develop/ grow so not to get left behind. Needless to say Fiji is many levels above what I witness here in Vanuatu. (Random Fijian Window Sticker)

Upon returning from Fiji I went and spent three nights with my original training host family on Lelepa island and had a few days of boats, spear fishing and sunshine. It was good to see my host family and again observe the other end of the Vanuatu village spectrum. I also shared my times in Butmas with the villagers of Lelepa through a slide show.

This week is our All-Volunteer conference and hence I have been in Vila for the last three days since coming back from Lelepa Island. Today all 84 or so volunteers head off to a resort where we will be for the next four days sharing stories, knowledge, and attending workshops/seminars and having a little break from island life. Then on Friday I leave Vanuatu for Australia where I will be meeting up with Melanie and heading to South East Asia, which I am looking forward to very much. So Until then.....Peace and Love from the South pacific

Passing-Over Prawns on Easter

2007-04-11T06:01:00.000-10:00

With my village planning a picnic for the upcoming Easter Holiday, it was brought to my attention that one of the villagers, Daniel, had plans to dump “Medicine” into the rivers to gather up prawns for the Easter holiday village picnic. Apparently the week before, Daniel had witnessed a neighboring village dumping a “medicine” into their river then, for a few hundred meters downstream, all the prawns float up to the top and children ran around picking up the prawns. Of course this sounded fishy to me and I began questioning the process and the so called “medicine”. When Daniel realized I was overly interested in this topic of conversation because I was concerned with the idea and practice of it, he countered by saying “Well it was a man US, someone from your country, who showed us how to do this in the first place so it must be something good”. This furthered my probing and questioning and by the end of our conversation I deciphered that American Mormon Missionaries had shown this neighboring village, in Daniels presence, how to use mosquito net treatment poison (heavily subsidized by aid organizations to be free to all in the fight against Malaria) in their rivers to kill all life, including prawns, for an easy harvest. This being shown to these villagers with total disregard for any of the other life in the river, the delicate ecosystems in the river, the unsustainable aspects of this harvesting method not to mention the river in question is the water source for all of the urban area here in Luganville. Thus my week leading up to Easter included many talks on the inter-connectedness of living things, why poisoning a river is a bad idea and making some compromises to stop Daniel from bringing this practice to Butmas, which after the weeks talks he agreed to. By the Monday after Easter (Easter Monday, A holiday celebrated by those in Australia, NZ and here in Vanuatu) the rivers had been spared from poison and in return I followed a group that collected prawns with masks and spears so Daniel could have his prawns at the picnic(see photo above) and I agreed to construct some traps for the village and do some research into the practice of farming prawns to try to introduce some sustainability to their prawn harvesting and river resource.

However saving the rivers was not all that happened last week. I also broke ground on a community tree nursery that when completed should have a capacity of over 2000 seedlings. This nursery is for the trees that will be planted in the 10 hectares of the agro forestry project we are working on. The nursery uses only Bamboo in its construction including the 20 foot long raised beds to try and keep the seedlings isolated from the constantly wet ground in Butmas, thus regulating the moisture of the soil. Currently we have potted 600 Sandalwood Seedlings and are planning on raising over 1500 along with some other trees with future timber value and a number of fruit and nut trees that can be used for food throughout the villagers lives and then timber when the trees are fully mature.

I hope in the next few days to be able to post the previous emails I have sent throughout my first year here and to archive them for anyone interested. Thank you for those who have written back and as always I would love to hear from everyone all the time.

Peace and Love

Cyclone Times

2007-03-28T11:52:00.000-10:00

I have heard Vanuatu is prone to natural disasters and am now learning this first hand. In the last week I have heard from friends and family about the 7.2 earthquake experienced here and then a hurricane just missed us the other night. Earthquakes here in Vanuatu are unlike any I have experienced elsewhere. Here, everything goes quiet (birds, crickets, nature noises) and then the quiet is followed by a rumbling, a warning from the earthquake that is to follow. So happened last week with the 7.2 in our vicinity. While this quake seems to have made big news around the major media, here in Vanuatu it made no mention, most likely because it felt like no more than a small tremor up in the bush.

Yesterday, I arrived in Luganville thinking to myself how strong the wind was, only to check my email and find a message from the peace corps that Becky, a tropical cyclone (called a hurricane north of the equator) should hit the island of Santo within 12 hours. So what does one do when a cyclone is in striking distance? Make like man Vanuatu, go get drunk on Kava so you can sleep through the destruction of the night. So while few preparatory steps played out around town, though to my cameras dismay, the hurricane turned south at about midnight and saved the island of Santo from any notable damage. However, going online to check the cyclone reports I observed that the local meteorological department has extended the cyclone season here in Vanuatu to now extend through 9 months of the year. Also I was informed that throughout recorded history only in the month of September has a cyclone never struck Vanuatu. So we may not be finished with cyclone scares yet.

Besides dodging natural disasters, here in Vanuatu it seems we are also dodging man made disasters. The last month in this country has seen a disturbing rise in the amount of violence which culminated in riots and brawls in the capitol between groups of men from two different islands over allegations of Black Magic poisonings. Property including houses, cars and businesses were burned and people there were speared to death with yes, spears, over an issue that most of us think to be trivial. This being the use of magic to poison someone. These actions in the capitol furthered my previous insight into the fragile nature of Vanuatu and its law enforcement. While it is a blessing that guns are strictly controlled in the country, this was in my view taken overboard when during the riots the police were not able to arm themselves until the prime minister personally declared a state of emergency. With the rioters greatly outnumbering the police and carrying axes, machetes and spears, the night sticks carried by law enforcement weren't much of a deterrent. Closer to home, when 8 inmates at the local prison here on Santo escaped last month, the correctional officers were not allowed to stop them let alone go after them or use any force until making calls to the capitol to receive permission. Of course this took much to long and hence led to the easy escape of these 8 individuals. While there are more examples, even occurring just last month, in no way am I meaning to worry anyone or do I feel like my personal safety is in jeopardy. Rather there are two things I take away from this. The first being the countries innocence because even 30 people, organized and with malicious intent, could probably take over this country for a few days. Secondly is the lack of repercussions for those who misbehave. These repercussions or the lack there of, I find to be a major threat to this country at both the local and domestic levels. As previously mentioned the prison system here is a joke and looked upon for most inmates as a vacation because of the extremely humane treatment which includes food most from the rural areas consider delicacies. Also the previously mentioned lack of being able to physically confine the inmates does not make it such a bad place to be. At least that’s what I hear from the many people I talk to who are out around their respective villages, who should still be in prison though they are not most likely because the government does not have the money to pay for the gas to send the police in a truck to a rural area an collect them. So as long as they don’t show their face in town, they for the most part don't have to worry.

In the village setting this is no different. A member of the community was found guilty at the village court/chief level of crimes against other members of the community and faced a fine because of this. However when it came time to pay the fine, he held a fund-raising kava night to earn the money for this fine, supported by the same community members who he committed the crimes against. So in effect those whom he did wrong to, also served his punishment.

Upon arriving in Vanuatu the chiefly system and the ideals of a socialist village community were given to us volunteers. The chief solves everything through fines and sorry ceremonies where there is never really a winner and a loser because both give and both receive. Once a fine is paid or a ceremony takes place it is taboo to speak of the infraction that occurred and one must go along with the ruling, etc. Everyone works for the benefit of the community one or two days a week, community land is shared and community projects and cooperatives are ideal for the socialist ingrained ni-Vanuatu. However for me this was definitely overly glorified and not only that, unrealistic. Hearing of problems that run between families spanning generations, ground disputes, and property damaging crimes cut deeply and to think one is going to receive a pig, because that is what the chief set the fine at, and forget the past seems to idealistic to be true. And that is what I have found. The wild card in all this custom problem solving is the use of shame as a punishment and while it is used and definitely felt by those standing up in front of the village and admitting their wrong, it just does not seem enough. To properly explain everything I am trying to convey it would turn this into much more of an essay than an update about my time and experiences here so let me suffice with the reason I have shared this is to try and show how fragile Vanuatu is. Again the ni-Vanuatu find themselves stuck in a critical spot between their customs and change and the need to adapt a system that works for both. Luckily they still have enough innocence and a little time to try and prevent following the paths of their closest relatives, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Fiji. Don’t get me wrong, these are some things we may consider backward or disabling, maybe ironic, to be present in a functioning society, but somehow this place gets along pretty well for themselves given the situation they are in.

Shifting to my work here in Vanuatu, things are going ahead “slow, slow” as they say and the village is showing signs of interest and progress in some of the community projects. Currently the three main projects I am trying to help with are water supply to the village, a 10 hectare (roughly 24 acre) sivio-pastoral/ agro forestry system, and sanitation education (with a new project of building effective toilets throughout the community).

The water supply is quite a challenge from every aspect of the project. Trying to spread a 25 meter drop in elevation over three kilometers of pipe, with the pipe traveling through dark bush, is not the easiest task. Adding to this finding the donor money, engineering the spring source catchment area and trying to explain to the community that this is not an overnight project and that their sustained dedication is vital to its completion all factor in as challenges. The project currently running the most reliably is the 10 hectares of the model income generating sivio-pastoral agroforestry system. Basically the goal of the project is to use one piece of land to generate income in three ways (Gardens- specifically Kava for income generation, Timber-the community will plant fast growing good timber species and by making their gardens in the same area will keep the weeds down until the canopy of these trees close. Lastly cattle as cows will be utilized in high density to clean the invasive vines presently in the area before the villagers follow with their gardening. When the gardens are taken out a 10 hectare pasture will be at the community’s use with the cattle grazing under the timber trees). With the help of my local counterpart we have received some help with the funding for this (predominantly barbed wire for the fencing of the area) and are excited as it hopes to be a model for not only Vanuatu but the south pacific as a whole. The other aspect of this project involves a tree nursery under construction just outside my house as we are raising trees to plant into these 10 hectares once the area is cleared and ready. I am hopeful that I can get the community to make arrangements now so that the benefit from the timber trees in the future will be used for scholarships for children in the community.

Lastly is my quest to raise the level of local sanitation practices. There are a few steps in this plan with the first involving the construction of toilets, one for each house in the village and two for the school. Currently there are three toilets in a village of 100+ people. One of these is for my personal use, one is at the church (which I have never seen unlocked in my time here) and the last is at the school. That means half of the community has no toilet and the other half (being all the children under 13) have a toilet but only during school hours. However I am finding that to build toilets, first one must understand why toilets are good. Which, when understood by the villagers I am hoping will stimulate interest in toilet construction. With this said I am working on a prototype VIP style toilet that combines local materials (The structure enclosing the toilet or "out house" will be completely of local material as well as using large bamboo for the vent pipe and structural supports in the cement) with the non-local materials (cement to make a seal able opening) to make a cheaper and thus more practical toilet. With a total of 15 households in the community I think it realistic to be able to achieve the goal of providing an adequate number of toilets for the community.

As far as the near future is concerned I have one more month before my first, vacation in which I am required to take vacation days from the peace corps.This will be when I meet up with Melanie in Australia before traveling with her to south east Asia for a few weeks.

I would love to hear from anyone with travel ideas or experience in the are and even if not, as always would love to hear how everyone is doing and what new is happening back in the good ole US of A. But until then, That’s all folks.

Long Time No Tok Tok

2007-02-21T13:26:00.000-10:00

It has been a few months since I sent out my Holiday letter and timein Vanuatu continues to pass by. At times the pace of a snail, readingbooks in my hammock for days at a time in the down pouring rain, whileat other times things here are starting to pick up a bit. But lately Ihave been coming to terms with much of Vanuatu and what it presents mewith and I am very happy here doing what I am doing. Since the New Year I have been discussing the lack of project-typework available in my community of Butmas due to the restraints of asmall, nomadic, inexperienced population. After the New Year asvillage was empty with the villagers off in their respective landareas, I began looking for some way to share my time between thevillage and some kind of work in the urban areas, become a commuter.However the Peace Corps approached me with a village located in "BigBay" (large bay on the north side of the island, place of firstdiscovery of Vanuatu by DeQuiros) on the same island of Espiritu Santowhere I currently reside. It was last week when I was able to visitthe village and meet with the school committee and project committeeabout the community's interest in my coming. The primary project inthis community that I would be working with has previously been hostto two Peace Corps volunteers and involves a tourism outfit related toa 2500 hectare (6,000+ acres) conservation area. The community hasplaced a taboo from any harvesting of resources in this conservationarea and to generate income off of the area since they will not getmoney from logging they have received a small lodge and sixaccompanying bungalows from overseas aid to attract tourists, giveconservation area tours and generate income for the community.Unfortunately like all other projects in Vanuatu the issue of moneyand how it is shared has presented a problem and caused quite a dividein the community leading to the projects decline over the last twoyears. So my job would be to work with the new management and try toget the place back on its feet again before it goes too far down towhere the damage and lack of maintenance is irreversible. This problem facing the community I am most likely moving to isplaguing Vanuatu. Because traditionally villages and the community areorganized in a chiefly system that has many socialist attributes, manyprojects introduced in Vanuatu are done so in a community based mannerwhere the rewards come back to the community. However with thetraditional system of land ownership these community based projectsoften become community problems. The project I am working on in Butmas(current village) and will be working on in Matantas (new village) areboth prime examples of this. One of two scenarios emerge to form theproblem. The first is evident in Butmas where the land belongs to thechief and his family Klan while the sawmill and the project arecommunity based. So the chiefs family decides that because it is theirland they deserve more of a share of the profits, or all the profitsand they loose support of the community. While under the agreementthey should receive more of the profits rather than going about thisin a manner that follows the by-laws of the project they pocket andmisuse the money. The other family Klans involved in the project thenbecome upset with the land owning family and refuse to support theproject and the project falls down. The second scenario as ishappening in Matantas involves a project or business coming in and itbeing successful, but this project relies on the land to make money(Such as many tourism projects, beaches, and/or other natural touristattractants). When this project takes off and starts to make money 1)the rest of the community or family members want to push their handinto the profits or worse 2) Another member of the community orneighboring area claims the money making land as theirs which haltsthe business/project and ties up the land in years of red-tape courtbattles that leave the village and sometimes families deeplysegregated. This is just the issue a group of New Zealanders came to Santo lastweek to explore and ended up coming through my village to explore andgot me tied up in their project too. The group consisted of the NZdelegate to the UN on climate change, a professor at the University ofVictoria and 4 of his PhD students. This professor is looking intoVanuatu's potential for volunteer Carbon credit sites. If you are notfamiliar with this idea of carbon credits like I wasn't until I metthis group check out the info at Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_credits . So these guys arelooking into voluntary carbon credit markets for businesses such asairlines and those businesses from the US and Australia in non-Kyotoprotocol following countries. Basically they would find large areas ofold-growth, environmentally important forests and find companies tosponsor the preservation of the area. They would pay the loggingroyalties without the area having to be logged, and then use this toappeal to the green consumer of the 21st century. However as is commonthere are many problems associated with money and projects, especiallyhere in Melanesia and hence they are here drying to devise ways to goabout protecting these areas, getting the money into the community,but reducing the possibilities of conflicts. So this is what I ampondering currently. In the next few months I am planning on getting my hands dirty inclay again by working with another volunteer to try and re-introducepottery into a village on the island of Malekula where an attempt tokeep knowledge of traditions alive is underway. The national culturalcenter will be making a documentary on the customs of the area andtagged along with this will hopefully be myself and this othervolunteer going to work with some of the old fellows to play aroundwith clay and construct kilns to see if we can get a product thatwould be a possible income generating source for some of the people inthe area. To prepare for this, in the middle of March I will be goingto the West coast of Santo to the last village in the islands wherethey still make pottery (though the quality has been reduced greatlyfrom what it once was) and study their system of making pots so I havewhatever local knowledge there is even if it is quite limited. So things are starting to speed up here and to go along with it all Ihave started working on medical school applications. We have avolunteer conference in May that will take me off the island and fromthere Melanie and I will be meeting up in SE Asia for a few weeks. Ithink the slow time here is over and it has been almost a year since Ileft. The next year I am sure will fly by and I plan on enjoying everyminute of it (this shouldn't be too hard as you'll see in the nextparagraph).
While there is much more I'll leave it for another time. I hope allis well and look forward to hearing from some of you. If anyone wouldcare to write I will be in and out of internet accessible areas quitefrequently in the next month as I am moving around and doing some ofthese different things.
Peace and Love

Holiday Greetings

2006-12-22T13:18:00.000-10:00

Happy Holidays Olgeta (Everyone),
As the Holiday season approaches and I find myself apart from familyand friends it brings back many memories of previous holidays(Chanukah, Christmas, New Years) spent with many of you and the goodtimes we had. I have been receiving many updates from family andfriends since Thanksgiving, Hanukah and now Christmas about theongoing celebrations and let me tell you I am jealous. Largely I missthe food, Taro can get a little old after a while As for my current times here in Vanuatu, things are finally becomingnormal for me to the point where I am eagerly trying to get projectsstarted to keep me busy. Currently in the village we have receivedfunding to start work on a 10 hectare (250m x 400m) area of land thatwas disturbed by logging activity in the past. Our goal is to usegrazing cattle to clean the area so that the community can then comeand make gardens on the grounds and plant native timber species, witha large percentage of the trees going to a community fund. Inaddition, I have just learned about a water source that lies above thecommunity approximately two miles away. Thus I am looking into thisspring as a possible source for a gravity fed water system for thecommunity, as water in my major goal at present. However working onthese two projects is in no way a full time job as I am finding andone can only work in the garden, read and try to occupy one's time inso many ways before becoming bored, especially when one enjoys beingreally busy as I do. So to occupy my time in a productive manner Ihave started two more endeavours. First there are some communitiespast me in the bush ranging from 3 to 15 miles away that have askedfor some simple help with different projects. In order to be able toservice these outer communities I am in need of transportation.Therefore I am currently looking for ways to acquire a descent qualitybicycle for myself, which would put many of these communities inreach. Secondly a saw millers association in town has been trying torun a timber yard with no capitol to benefit the "small guys" orlocally owned saw millers that can't fill huge orders. This lumberyardis in desperate need of a manager and some capitol, so I may try tospend one week or so a month in town working on this project as well.
For some of you the above mentioned information might be enoughlogistics. As Melanie tells me most of the time my emails are mostlylogistics as I try to recount my activities and what I am doing here.Therefore I thought I would take a few moments to share a few thoughtsand reflect upon what has now been almost 9 months (1/3 of my service)in Vanuatu and 9 months of substantial growth to my global perspectiveof today's world. As you may imagine and I said previously, there is alot of down time here and thus I am sure my head has had too much timeto ponder things big and small, important and extremely insignificant.Also without the daily American lifestyle to keep one busy andconstantly mult-tasking it is amazing to observe where my thoughtstravel to, what memories of the past come back at random times and howmuch my head can get stuck on the most trivial of ideas and ideals.Having this time, I have been fortunate enough to be able to read amultitude of books and have been fortunate to come across quite a fewthat have been powerful, motivating, and guiding. Yet, being able toindulge in reading of books along with the weekly delivery of Newsweekby the peace corps at times has led my brain further into a slurry oftangent thinking. Though Newsweek is usually filled with the sametopics week after week; Iraq, Iraq, Korea, Iraq, Election, Iraq,latest movies which I am not able to watch, Iraq and Iraq. Anyway,with my head constantly running in a hundred directions I decided toattempt to harness a few of the most dominating themes of myexperience here so far and reflect upon them
One of the biggest changes in coming to Vanuatu has been the changeof culture. I have found and believe that it is not until living here,working, and trying to accomplish things rather than visiting that onefully experiences and begins to understand a different perspective onlife and the world held by the local people. Coming from the West Ihave become aware that ingrained in me is a way of thinking that getsme from point A to point B in what I would consider the most "commonsense" fashion (something for the most part I have had to throw outhere). Also, coming from the West I had the perception that if apeople could easily increase their standard of living; it would be anobvious choice to do so and people would jump on any opportunity to doso.
Never did I ever consider that a village would not want such things,or rather, not want to put in the minimum effort required to achievesuch things. I ask myself, why doesn't this community want to changeand why should they change. In response to the question "why shouldthey change", unfortunately or fortunately, the country of Vanuatu(and I imagine everywhere in the world now) is changing and changingfast, due to outside influence and whether they like it or not theirlives will be changing in the not too distant future. The idea ofliving a custom, traditional, uninfluenced organic/ holistic life inthe bush is great in its ideals but unrealistic. So if they don'tchange with the times they are going to get left behind or exploitedor maybe those are the same. I believe that to this point what is keeping them from changing is the lack of pressing need to change andan uneducated population. The community at present has not oneindividual that ever sleeps on an empty stomach, their gardens areplentiful and large with every dietary need available and the amountof ground belonging to each family clan is immense (each family clanthat resides in the Butmas area consists of about 15-30 people andthey own thousands of hectares of mostly undisturbed bush). Topping itoff is an abundance of an intoxicating substance, Kava, which is alsobeyond plentiful in their gardens. So if currently there are nopressing hardships their motivation for change is quite small.On the side, education, one could infer that someone who is educatedor has more of a global perspective and could understand and realizethe possibilities for change and get motivated about it. At the leastthey will have left and spent time outside the village, sampled adifferent style of life and bring some of the modernizations back tothe village, if they think the influences are advantageous to thechanging times. However, a common problem is that anyone with furthereducation beyond that of year 6 (US year 2 or 3) leaves the villageand settles somewhere else (usually urban). So there has been somewhatof a brain drain to the rural communities. The remaining youth arethose who finished school to year six, who left to try furthereducation in town, who didn't agree with the change in lifestyle andcame back to pick up their bush knives, make gardens and start rearingchildren. So the population that is left also are those that are notas keen to change or as prepared. This is evident by the villagersglobal perspective or lack there of. I am continually amazed and havenot yet been accustomed to some of the questions and ideas presentedby my villagers. Their exposure to geography and basic ideas of howpeople live in the rest of the world are either very little orinfluenced largely by a few small things they have seen here or there.Thus sometimes I get questions that I can't even begin to explain theanswers to, within their realm of understanding.
Another major influence that has negatively affected this community'sand others desire to change or motivation to change is that there hasbeen a long history of receiving freebies starting with the jointcolonization by the French and British and continuing through presenttimes. The History of Vanuatu is full of receiving handouts and thishas spread into the peoples attitudes on community development andlargely into politics. There has been so much aid money squanderedhere because of donors overlooking sustainability for a projectsfuture. One strategy in creating sustainable projects is to involvethe community and require some sort of investment from the communitythat makes the village have a sense of ownership over the project.Because this was not done with either the arrival of the forestryproject or with me coming as a peace corps volunteer I have a had ahard time getting the community to get motivated and have had to useultimatums to see if change was something they really want. However Ifeel as though as of recently the community has rallied strongly andis very excited and committed to some of the community developmentprojects.
Another cultural difference / cultural behaviour which has beenchallenging to deal with is the people of Vanuatu's ignorance of anyreligion besides Christianity and their interpretations of followingthe Christian faith. When gallivanting around the rural areas and evencommonly in the urban areas when I meet or am introduced to someoneone of the fi5rst questions they ask in conversation is "yu blongwanem jej?" or of what church are you a member. There is no idea that1) possibly someone is not a member of a church thus not Christian or2) anything other than Christianity persists in the world. If onetries to explain, while the villagers pour over my Newsweek magazineswith pictures of Muslims praying in Mecca or Monks in a monastery,they can't even begin to comprehend, not even an iota of connection ismade that there could be anything besides the Bible, Jesus andChristianity. To add to this Vanautu has got to have one of thesmallest ratios of population to church denominations as everyone fromthe Mormons, seventh day Adventist, Jehovah 's Witness, Catholicism,Presbyterian, Church of Christ, etc are here along with many Christianbased cults with local prophets. My favourite is Neil Thomasministries, an Australian who named his branch of the church afterhimself as was instructed to do so by G-d in a dream. To top it offevery church is in competition with one another, there is nointerdenominational cooperation and in a great majority of villagesthere are dividing arguments and alliances based on the churchdenominations present. When asked why one resides with onedenomination rather than another they often can not give an answer. Ifeel it is more of a competition thing where different people rallybehind opposite churches to fuel existing fires between families orindividuals and there is not really a logical explanation for theirchoice of denomination. That is of course unless one church is moreforgiving if you don't tithe than the other, in which obviously you'llgo to the one that doesn't take as much of ones money.
I assume and am supported by much of the local history that beforethe missionaries the people of Vanuatu lived a very custom life withtheir beliefs of a higher, guiding presence or ideas of creation etcexplained by custom myths and legends that gave the ni-Vanuatu a senseof understanding about their place of existence. As the missionariescame and spread Christianity their previous beliefs were discouraged,many customs such as dances and festivals banned, and Christianitypreached. Along with this is the usual piggy backers of disease,coastal migration and internal warfare. Where I am trying to go withthis is that now, I find the people of Vanuatu to be caught in themiddle between Christianity and their custom beliefs taking just wantthey want from each. Sickness, the weather, natural disasters, areexplained by custom, while they go to church so that their sins can beforgotten from the past week and next week they'll go commit some moresins and then go to church again next week. For every ni-Vanuatu thatI have asked the question "why do you like Christianity" the responsehas been "because I can sin and then be forgiven". So from what I havefound this has left most of the population caught in the middle,taking what they want and as a result not being a spiritually basedpeople or having a resolved understanding of any bigger picture fortheir lives. Granted they have never encountered enough to ask thesequestions for themselves so I am making these deductions about thepeople from my own experiences in living and working with them.The last major challenge I am going to share about living in anotherculture for a prolonged period of time is being able to talk tosomeone about anything from your own culture. As I said I have beenreading a lot on a number of different topics. How nice it would be toread about love, passion, art, religion, economics, systems ofgovernment, war, or history and have someone to talk with aboutdifferent ideas. This has got to be one of the hardest things aboutlife here. And even when I get to town that still doesn't guarantee Iwill be able to share these thoughts with anyone, actually usually Istill am not able to find someone with whom to share these thoughts.One can only convey so much by email to family and friends. Nothaving anyone to talk to week after week about such things has provento be a challenge.
I hope the last few paragraphs didn't seemed depressing or convey theidea that I am not enjoying my time here. I think that after havingsuch a dream of the first three months in training and then a busyfirst few months at site trying to finish my house and everything wasstill so new to me, it was very exciting. Now I am getting down towork and the reasons this country is labelled "developing" arebecoming much more apparent. I imagine similar challenges are faced bythose trying to help throughout the world and if there is one finalthought I have, it is that grass roots development is probably themost practical sustainable development strategy, however slow andtedious and sacrificial it may be.
I love hearing from you all and hope this email has sparked somethoughts you wish to tell me because I would love to hear them. I misseveryone and remember strange small activities here and there or timesI have shared with many of you.
Wishing everyone a happy Chanukah/Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy new year.
Peace and Love to All

Email Update

2006-10-29T13:28:00.000-10:00

Hello all,
Sorry it has been quite a long time since an update has been sent out but at least this one will have pictures! So as far as the last month an a half, my house is finally finished and things are starting to slow down, well at least in terms of getting everything established in the village. Since then I got to travel to a few custom ceremonies in some of the bush villages and keep working with the red tape of bush politics. Below the first two pictures are of one of the feasts and some of the girls in their everyday custom dress. The custom ceremony I attended was about a 4.5 hour walk 2 hours being on the road and the next 2.5 through bush trails. The village was rather small and consisted of a single extended family with 6 or seven houses, a nakamal (meeting house) and gardens in the surrounding vicinity. So over about 24 hours the village filled up with about 150 people sleeping in one of these six houses. The sleeping arrangement consisted of coconut mats spread along the walls of each house with fires set up between each pair of mats for warmth during the night. A custom in the bush is that when a close family member dies a family member gives up a certain food for some extended period of time and then there is usually some kind of ceremony to follow. So this three-day feast was for a woman who had given up eating yams after her father had died and so daily they made huge feasts of not only yams but taro, cassava and for protein killed 2 pigs daily as well as a cow the first day and about 15 chickens daily as well. Kava started the first night and continued on 24 hours a day for the entire three days. On the second night the men took part in a custom dance/singing ceremony that lasted from sun down to sun up that involved carrying a shaker back an forth between one of the houses and the nakamal while singing and dancing the whole time. Definitely an interesting experience.
Then as most of you know Melanie came to visit on October 3rd. She flew in to Luganville and after a couple brief days in town we headed up into the bush to stay in Butmas for a couple weeks. Upon entering the village the family who is like my host family in Butmas had decorated my house in preparation for Melanie's welcome ceremony. We arrived (Melanie in her island dress, basically the same as a Mumu in Hawaii, one of the many culture-curbing introductions of the missionaries) and the chief adopted Melanie into his family and the village also took this to formally welcome me finally and make the ceremony they never had a chance to previously. After a some small eating the village then proceeded to do what would be most culturally acceptable which was to "block" Melanie. This entailed making a small laplap (traditional food prepared by pulverizing taro and then cooking it on heated stones) and presenting it to the chief and then sharing a big meal afterward. This deemed it culturally appropriate for Melanie and myself to be walking around together, talking and her staying at my house as two people who are not married. However during this Melanie was accompanied by my counterpart William and his wife colleen and as in the ni-vanuatu culture there is no dating or mingling between the sexes, they translated the blocking ceremony to Melanie as an engagement. So as you can imagine with me in the house of my adopted family and Melanie in the house of the chief being told she was getting customly engaged when I finally was able to see here again after 2 hours her jaw was hanging as in "what is going on and what didn't you tell me". But luckily she is rather open minded and flexible to everything that was going on.
We stayed in Butmas for two weeks and Melanie helped me brush my garden, weed and plant seeds around my house, and observe the ins and outs of everyday life. What I really enjoyed was her company and an outside, fresh perspective of my life, work and Vanuatu. But I'll leave her thoughts for an email she is planning on sending, which she wrote and then lost on the peace corps computers so now it may be until she gets back to the states before she can get it out.
What I really enjoyed about her visit was having someone to share what I have been working on for the last three months. A big observation I made while Melanie was here is how much the women of the village and community would benefit from having a female to share their ideas and concerns with. While Melanie was not able to speak their language there was a gravitation of women to her and it was obvious that they would be much more open and sharing with a female than they are to me. One day in a walk to a neighboring village where one of the women is from an outside community and had schooled in English she immediately took Melanie aside and wanted to talk with her and in no time brought up issues of birth control and child bearing customs and wanted advice on such things. Hopefully I will be able to have another female volunteer from the area come up and host some workshops targeting the women of the village and the surrounding villages. Lastly I think her visit gave her a first hand experience of what I am going through so it will be easier to relate to her in our written communication in the future months.
After two weeks in the bush we came back down to town as Melanie was ready for cheese, ice cream and the sort. We came down and the second night in town went and spent 24 hours on one of the small islands with all inclusive meals and activities and relaxed near the ocean for the first time during her visit. After too brief of a time the Peace Corps was all over the country's communication because hurricane Xavier was threatening the north of the country. So we jetted out of Santo on quick notice before the travel ban was imposed on the country by Peace Corps headquarters. Thus since Tuesday we have been in the capitol, Port Villa, making good meals at our guest houses kitchen, spending two days and one night on Lelepa island with my training host family and waiting for this weird weather to pass so we can get to the beach. As for my next plans, Melanie heads back to the states on Halloween and then I am on the first boat up to Santo. Currently I am trying to find some resources to engineer a water system at site as well as continuing on with the other endevours I have set out on with the village. Hope all is well back in the states or whereer one might be and look forward to hearing from you all.

Email Update

2006-09-11T12:31:00.000-10:00

Hello All,
Hope all is well back in the states or wherever one might be. I am continuing on with my endeavors and new experiences here in the south pacific. Lately the schools have been on a two week break so the entire village picked up and left. Most of the village went down to their houses in the gardens while some went around the bush to visit family. For the first week of the break I followed some of the villagers down to the gardens and helped work with some of the different families and brushed a small area again for a garden for myself. Unfortunately some pigs ravaged my garden near my house and so rather than replant it with the fear of pigs again I am moving the garden down to areas without wild pigs. Following some of the techniques encouraged by the department of forestry as well as the top agriculturalists in the pacific I am going to try and set up an agro forestry system of root crops, fruit trees, timber species and an improved fallow in a rotation of alleys that are bordered by legumous species of trees for shade, firewood, and soil integrity. Hopefully this garden will serve me as well as being an example plot for mine and the surrounding communities. Another project we are looking into is using cows to eat away invasive species on border areas of the dark bush and re-introducing native species. I am also trying to devise a water project to utilize the existing structures in the village as well as the village topography to bring water to the village. Lastly I will be teaching an hour or so per week in the primary school this term. I believe I will first start talking about forests and very basic needs of a healthy forest and eventually try and get to health and first aid. However without water the health is hard to preach.
While it sounds like this may be a lot in actuality things in Vanuatu move so slow I am trying to find whatever I can to have things to go ahead with, so in no way am I overwhelmed by projects.
This week another volunteer from my training group has come to Santo and so he is following me up to my village this afternoon to go around for a night or two. Also there is a project that starts this week called "Santo 2006" where 164 scientists from something like 50 countries have showed up to try and determine if this island is a "world biodiversity hotspot". It so happens that the series of underground rivers and caves in my area as well as virgin limestone forests are to be studied so the village and scientists have asked me to go along and follow the work through the bush. So I am also excited about this experience.
Besides that all is well here and I enjoy hearing from all of you so don't hesitate to write. Best wishes to all and hope to hear from you soon

Email Update

2006-08-09T12:32:00.000-10:00

Hello All,
So it has been a long time since my last update. I went up to my new Village of Butmas on my 23 rd Birthday the Fourth of July. For the last month I have been working on finishing a house which was given to me to use and getting a feel for the area. I have planted a garden (100 heads of Kava, some taro, island cabbage, sugar cane, tomatoes, eggplant, corn, bell pepper, cucumber, sweet potato, onion, green beans, etc…) and am slowly becoming accustomed to the life in the bush. In the last month I have gone to two soccer tournaments with the guys from the village which entails 15 mile walks through the bush to a village with grass mowed by cows (very hilly and full of holes) with bamboo used as goal posts, and rules that are not fully understood (offsides especially) and each team sleeping in different thatched huts with beds comprised of banana leafs placed on the ground. So unlike any soccer tournament I have ever attended before to say the least. Also unlike any soccer tournament previously attended you can eat three meals a day and be full for roughly $5 for a 4 day tournament with fruit along the road (papayas, bananas, other native fruits and nuts) for travel days through the bush and green coconuts, all supplemented with a little peanut butter of course. Unfortunately here I am down to dial up and as of yet do not have an efficient way to attach photos. So far the village has been extremely supportive and good to me in the move in and set up process and some of the boys are helping me everyday whether it is with gathering materials for the house, working on the house or bringing me food. While most of the main house is finished I have had to build a toilet and am now building a bath house as well as a bush kitchen which is a place to cook on open fire. Lastly I need to put walls on the bedroom so until then I am sleeping in the main room of the house. Hopefully sometime soon I can get some pictures out of the house. Unfortunately my time when I get down to town is very rushed as I usually have about 8 hours here and need to go around town hunting for the things for my house, talk with the guys at forestry, try and check emails, try and make phone calls throughout Vanuatu and to Home but the phone system here is a joke, and then use the Internet on a dial up connection which makes what should be 30min using the Internet as a resource take 3 hours.
Supposedly it is the dry season here and coming from Hilo I never thought rain would ever be an issue again but I think I have moved to a place with even more rain. I am trying to get used to everything being damp, all my clothes are mildewed and anything left close to a wall or floor mildews in 24 hours. I am hoping once I get a place for a fire set up and the weather shifts a little I can dry myself out. They keep telling me it is sunny sometimes though I have not seen a full day or even a half day of sun yet. But rain 9 out of 10 days. Custom in the village is that when a man has his first shave there is a ceremony and small feast. The village and I are looking forward to a feast to celebrate the completion of the house and my first shave in the village. However for the time being they have had a blast shaping my beard and they also chopped off most of my hair.
Other than that life is good here. Diet has never been healthier and I probably walk between 5-7 miles a day on average, many times carrying food or timbers so I feel good and healthy as my body is adapting to the changes in diet and lifestyle.
-Until then much love

Email From Luganville Arrival

2006-07-03T12:15:00.000-10:00

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

Email Update

2006-06-21T12:37:00.000-10:00

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

Email Update

2006-04-21T12:38:00.000-10:00

Again I hope this email finds everyone well,
I figured I would send out one more email while I can before I go out to the bush for a while. And this time with some pictures. So these four pictures are of our flight into the main island and a picture off the wing of the little island that looks like a hat which is very near to where they filmed survivor and the island I will be at is just past this island out of the frame. The next picture off the wing shows a coconut plantation in the very bottom and the extremely dense green of the bush just beyond it. I have never seen anything as green as these mountains here. Next are a view looking back over part of the bay at the capitol and lastly is the open market on the seafront at the center of town. Tomorrow we have an exciting day with a tour of the market in the am to practice our bislama and learn all the names of the local foods and buy necessities such as our bush knifes (machetes) for the village training. Then we go to the head nurses house for a lesson in island cooking and nutrition. From there it is back to the water for a water safety lesson (snorkeling off a catamaran) an then wrapping up the day eating what we prepared earlier. A hard job for us US government employees. Today after too long in an extremely hot classroom I went and played soccer with the husband of the head nurse and he is also the coach of the Vanuatu national Rugby team. The soccer here is probably the most unorganized I have ever seen but very fun. After the game what really struck me was how the different races segregated and even though they may have been intermixed on the field, when the game was done, the white men sat in a circle and drank beer while the ni-vans sat by themselves in their own circle and drank beer. Vanuatu's ex-pat population still has a long way to come. It is a shame that they are the only ones who can bring sustainable industry and the ni-vans can not do that independently.
Well everything so far has been better than expected. I learned more about where I am going to be staying in the training village and I think I am very close to the ocean, like my family's house is15 feet from the beach. Which leads me to the fact that I still can't believe we are all here getting paid to do this. I have met many more of the volunteers here both at the peace corps office and at the nakamals (kava bars) and they are so extremely nice and helpful as well. Anyhow, I'm off for the night and for the next few weeks. If you want to send an email that will reach me before then you can address is to this gmail account and cc: it to
volunteer@vu.peacecorps.gov\u003c/a\> and use my name in the subject line. If you do this someone here will print it out and bring it to the training village for me and I will receive it. Other than that everyone take care and I'm out, peace

Halo Long Vanuatu

2006-04-18T12:39:00.000-10:00

Hello,
So I am in my first week of peace corps volunteer training. There are 23 of us and I am the youngest in the group. 15 guys, 8 girls, two volunteers in their 30's, a couple in their 50's. Everyone is so interesting and comes from such a diverse background. We arrived in Vanuatu on Saturday after a really long flight from LA to New Zealand and then New Zealand to Port Villa. While Vila has almost 30,000 people it is very, very small as compared to any city in Hawaii with 30,000 people. There is a huge waterfront market five days a week with awesome fruits, veggies, and prepared foods too. The bay vila is situated on is amazing with crystal clear water and lush vegetation up to the waters edge. It pretty much ridiculous. Something out of a magazine. At that the city has almost everything you can think of, Grocery stores with everything from local foods to ramen, french wine, Australian cheese, in other words it is in no way third world inside the grocery store bedsides the prices. Items that they know niVanatu (the local people) dont eat are extremely expensive. There is a hardware store, car dealerships, the like. However this week this all changes. Starting Sunday we load up in a few boats and go to a small island with one community off the coast of the main island of efate. Here we will all live with separate host familys in little bamboo huts with no sort of technology. We will collect rainwater and drink coconuts, eat from the gardens and the sea, go to class which is held at the beach under a banyan tree. I feel this is the selection period where usually 10% of volunteers will drop out. After 5 weeks of language, culture, training we have a week where we travel individually to our prospective sites and spend a week in what will become our new home. And this I mean literally. We look at the hut the community has constructed for us and talk with them about what else needs to be done before arrival. We familiarize ourselves with the community, the geography, and the schedule of cargo ships that come in and out for various transport and mail purposes. After this week it is back to the training village for 3 weeks and in these weeks I will receive my formal forestry training as well as the cross cutting health, and agricultural trainings.
All in all so far everything I have experienced and what I see for the future this whole process is like the most ultimate camp ever. We are trained so well in every aspect of everything. This weekend we learn to cook the local foods and we build an imu and roast a pig. There is a coral reef conservation group here that gives us all an in-service into reef management because part of our jobs is to snorkel and observe the fish and reefs here, this weekend we also get taken out on a catamaran for "ocean safety" and familiarity with the local marine life. I have been playing soccer nightly with the locals and they are extremely good soccer players and so friendly there is not a word to describe how friendly people here are.
Not surprisingly another volunteer brought a surf board though I did not. However he happens to be one of the "inland" surfing type and actually brought a board that is too big for him and perfect for me. He is also perfectly happy to share that board. While we have not tried to surf yet we checked out the local spot and hope to head there this afternoon.
While we start language training tomorrow many of us have started looking into it ourselves and the language is extremely comical. The favorites around the training area are Bra which translates to "basket blong titi" and Seagull which translates to "Pidgin blong salt water". While it is very English influenced in actuality it has allot of french and is definitely a real language, unlike Hawaiian pidgin.
While I have so much to say and speak of my head has too many ideas going through it all at once and thus I will tell more in my next emails before I head out to the bush next week. Hope all is well and in good health. I'll try to get some pictures together for the next email and also I am gettign new insight into the mail situation.
Until then

Departure To Vanuatu

2006-04-14T12:40:00.000-10:00

Hello All,
Hope this finds everyone happy and in good health. I am currently in Los Angeles attending my second day of orientation before I leave to Vanuatu tonight with a stop over in Auckland New Zealand on the way. I am one of 23 volunteers on the trip and the demographics of the group are quite interesting. Although quite surprising to everyone else I am the youngest one in the group however eight of us have just recently finished school within the last year. There are two married couples in the group with one being in their mid twenties and the other retired in their mid 50's. Three of us have been assigned to forestry and the other tasks include health care awareness and nutrition, small business advisers and sustainable developers. Also some volunteers are very different than what I imagined was the "typical" peace corps volunteer. We have one guy who has been a buyer for Saks 5th ave for 5 years, grocery clerks, small business owners, just to name a few. As I have just met everyone yesterday we are still all becoming acquainted. I learned some new facts about the peace corps and as part of our "mission" is to educate fellow Americans about the peace corps I thought I would fill you all in on a few peace corps stats: Average volunteer age is 28, median 25. minority percent=16, countries served in its history 138, countries currently served=73, active current volunteers=7,800, total volunteers to date 184,000. And how did the peace corps start? supposedly in October 1960 JFK and president Hoover showed up at the university of Michigan at 2am on the campaign trail. While the press was asleep there were 10,000 students outside the door when Kennedy arrived and he was told he had to "say something". Hoover who had proposed an idea previously of a peace corps, nudged Kennedy and said "why don't you share that peace corps idea". This is what Kennedy did and 6 months later legislation was passed enacting the peace corps.
Though we are just embarking on our journey I have started to realize how much one is going to need to learn to successfully integrate into a new culture much different than their own. Patience and flexibility as the peace corps emphasises will be very key. Going in with a group of another 22 Americans also adds some complexity I think to the issue.
We are arriving in Vanuatu Saturday the 15th and will be in the capitol for about 7 days. from there we head to a small little village on the island of Lelepa in the town of Natapao (an island off the coast about an hour from the capitol, see map) where we will spend the next 9 weeks with intensive language classes and living with a host family.
As far as communication goes from this point I will let everyone know when I get there. My address is at the end of this email and this is where I can receive letters and packages. According to some of the peace corps literature from the country desk if packages are sent they should contain items of little monetary value as they are mostly all searched and if the inspectors like what they see, it becomes theirs. Supposedly padded envelopes are better and not opened and searched as frequently. Also, it is good to number your letters and envelopes so that it is possible to keep track of how many letters are received and get a feel for the accuracy of the postal system. Also, I will always be at some time able to check this email address so this is still the best way of communication. Take care all and hope to hear from you and keep in contact from Vanuatu in the very near future.
love and peace,
Eddie