Long Time No Tok Tok

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