Wowo i herem olsem hom- feels like home

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Hey everyone! I finally have more than a few minutes and internet that actually works so I can update everyone a little more on what's been going on with me here in the pacific. I'm in Port Vila for about 3 more days, got here last Sunday for early service training. Coming in to Port Vila felt like driving in to New York City, which is really odd because my first impression of Vila was completely different. When we first arrived it seemed like a deserted town, but now it seems like a playground. I am actually ready to go back to my quiet little village on the ocean and get away from the traffic and shopping and noise haha. Wowo really has been starting to feel like home.

I had been at my site for about 3 1/2 months and partly can't believe it's almost April, but at times it feels like it's been longer. It is definately true that days go by really slow but weeks and months seem to go quickly when you look back. I think part of the reason is because I never really know the date. I usually know the day of the week, but never really know the date unless there's a reason to. I've been pretty good at keeping track of all the US holidays but that's mostly thanks to being on Malekula with the parties to celebrate any US holiday big or small.

The end of January and Februaru definatley went by more quickly then December/beginning of January. It was really difficult during Christmas time and New Years to be by myself and adjusting to the culture and my site and not knowing anyone. When I first got to my site I was loving it because there were so many things I liked especially compared to the training village. I love my house, have a manicured lawn with coral pathways. It was quiet at night and fairly quiet early motning at least no blaring loud music coming in at 5 am. I could hear the waves crashing at night putting me to sleep. Everyone was really nice and all the food tasted amazing, but after a while all the initial excitement wore off just like they warned us in training. After 3 weeks or so I was running out of things to do and starting to get sick of all my little hobbies that I thought would keep me busy for a while. I learned the basic notes on guitar, but was getting sick of playing the same few songs I had music for, I was running out of things to sew after sewing curtains and some purses, I was getting tired of eating every meal with my family and not being able to cook on my own. At first I went swimming and snorkeling a lot, but that slowly got old too. I started going to the provincial center in Lakatoro one day every week to get away from my site a little, and that helped because every time I went I had a bunch of mail and packages. It brightened my days so much to get mail so thank you to all of you who have taken the time to do so.

Somewhere around the end of January things started looking up. I had gotten a stove and my spices came on the ship, was cooking some meals at my house, I started working a little at the RTC and was feeling that I had more of a purpose being there and to my days. Laura, the volunteer closest to me a 2 hour walk away, came back from New Zealand so I now had a neighbor. In February we had a Valentines day party with the Malekula people, ate some amazing food and drinks. We paddled a canoe over to Norsup island, which was beautiful and great swimming beach. I was feeling a lot happier and things were going better at my site, starting to feel more comfortable and at home there. I went back to my site for a few weeks and then went to another island Ambrym for a Camp GLOW (girls leading our world) workshop. Flights to Ambrym from Malekula are only on Tuesday so although the workshop was only 3 days I got to stay an extra 5 days with 2 volunteers from my group- Lindsay and Amy, and Kristen who is almost finished with service. The workshop was very productive and although there were only 4 girls campers, they got to take a lot of information with them. I learned a lot from the different sessions about the culture and some of the challenges like promoting womens' rights. Amy and I did a session on domestic violence and had 1 activity where we'd read a statement and if you agree with the statement you go to one side of the room "I oraet" and if you disagree then you go to "no stret" One statement was about a boyfriend/husband hitting you and everyone went to "no stret" of course. But the next one was that he hit you then apologizes and everyone without hesitating went to "I oraet." I was very surprised at how comfortable the girls were to agree with this. When they explained why its ok, some said well he apologized, he said sorry, and another woman said very proudly that if her husband hit her it was ok because the bible says to obey your husband. So this is the kind of thinking that is very common and it's very frustrating to address that it's not ok and so hard to change this way of thinking while being a foreigner and culturally sensitive. This was a real eye opener to what goes on here. Up until this point I was pleasantly surprised for the most part with how men and women treat each other in my village. The rest of the time in Ambrym was extremely unproductive, but exactly what I needed- to laugh a lot and eat way too much.
After Ambrym, I went back to my site and when I first got back little things were starting to annoy me. For example, as white people we are laughed at constantly and sometimes that can take a toll on you. I'm also babied all the time like if my foot's in the sun they're like ahhh get it out. Then there's this one kid who just comes to my house and stares at me, I can be reading or talking on the phone and he just sits there and I dont want to be rude and tell him to leave. He always asks how much all of my stuff costs and who bought it and it's really annoying sometimes. At first all of these little things didn't bother me because I was being patient and it all made sense- of course I'm different and people are going to stare at me, but after a whiloe it got old. They've seen all the things in my house a million times now and continue to ask about how much they cost, I got really tired of people apologizing that things weren't good enough for me, I'd been there for 3 months. I am still struggling with having patience for a lot of things, but there are so many things I've just learned to accept because they are not going to change so it is useless to get frustrated. So I was and still am working on accepting more and having more patience. I am also trying to do yoga and pilates every morning and night which helps a lot ot destress. The few weeks before I left for Vila I was feeling very happy at my site and it was starting to feel more and more like home.

I have been pretty busy with the RTC working on organizing the office, teaching , and working on the record keeping. It's amazing how much longer everything takes to hand write, but I have the time so really can't complain about that. It's nice to be busy with teaching, really challenging sometimes but keeps me busy. For the 3 classes- business, home care, human rights, I'm team teaching so there's someone else working with me on the lessons and for business I teach half the class. We have 20 students now, so It's really challenging to have 18 boys and 2 girls and the girls don't want to participate. One home care class I was teaching health and a little sex ed to the girls and they did not ask any questions and I knew they had questions but didnt ask them. I have business class and its all 20 students, and people are more willing to participate. There are a handful of students who are really interested and ask a lot of questions which is great. Another thing thats hard is that every student who comes to the RTC is at different levels. So you have ages 13 to 24 and some who didn't go to school at all, some who finished at class 4, 6, 8, then some at 10, 12, 13 so it's all different levels of maturity and levels of understanding. Bob (our 1st student) has ADD bigtime and cannot sit still for more than 5 minutes so he's always making commotion, laughing, changing seats. Then there's a 13 year old boy who just isn't interested and won't take anything else seriously and tattles on everyone like a 5 year old. And there's students who are just really slow at understanding basic things I give them to do and slow at copying from the board. The 5 or 6 students who understand everything usually finish way before everyone and then have to wait. So I'm still struggling with teaching all these different levels at one time. One thing i can say about the students here is that they love to take notes and copy things off the chalkboard- well taking notes for them is nothing more than copying from the board. They have been trained in school to memorize and copy word for word whenever anyone write on the board. Sometimes this is a good thing, but most of the time it just means they're not trying to understand it just memorize. I'm surprised sometimes because even the laziest student who in the US would sit back and do nothing, here will copy off the board. I try to use that to my advantage. We did one activity in business class one time where students had to make a venn diagram type picture and then fill it in with information. I swear everyone took more time making sure the circles were perfectly drawn than actually doing the exercise. Some students refused to freely draw the circles even though I told them it doesn't matter the shape of the outline, that's not the point of the exercise. But they would erase and redraw until there circles were perfectly shaped and wait to use the one compass or a cup. I'm like reallyyyy?? Sometimes I think a lot of them shoudl be training to be architects with how careful they draw lines with rulers and shapes, it's so interesting which things they will choose to put effort into.

That is pretty much the update of what's been going on in Wowo, i feel very happy there now and I am ready to leave the big city and go back to my home here. 😊

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Photos

all the mamas
Christmas lunch on the water

Chloe (rip)
My kitten, cutest ever, who got killed by a bush knife. They told me an old woman didn't see it when she was cutting the grass. Rest in peace chloe

Camp GLOW
Group photo of camp and committee

My village
here's one pic of my village- this building is the church

class in session
Human rights class

Comments

[Seamus]

Great Photos
Hey, great blog. Makes me homesick for Malekula. I've got a few months before I can make it back, but thanks for tellin' the stories till I can get back to make some of my own. If you need anything from the states, drop a line and it'll be there in a few months. Always happy to help the Peace Corps.

[Yves]

Howdy
Hi Marie, I wanted to send you a few words and tell you that I am still a regular reader of your blog. Sorry about the kitten, it did look very nice. It must have been hard for you, as I know being pcv can be very lonely. It also happened to one of my PCV friends, but her cat was eaten (it was in Africa), I'm not kidding. Anyway, the pictures are beautiful and such a visual trip ! Here in Monterey things are sleepy as usual. Yuwei Shi is going to be the Dean of the new combined school, which everyone is pretty excited about. The economy still sucks, thank you very much, so your timing was unbelievably good. You'll essentially come back right when thejob market bounced back. Good move ... . Hope all is well. Cheers, Yves ps: of yes and my wife is pregnant. We're going to have a baby in the fall. SO EXCITED