asanvari

---

as i typed this blog, my heart seemed to be beating hard. i kept reading about sher's experiences and feeling like i was right there along with her. what a difference it makes to go and see and experience just what sher and justin are seeing and doing everyday. i could practically taste the food, feel the rush of the ocean, and hear the feminine bislama chatter through her words. a blog from me soon, promise. - b


12 june 2009

i am reluctant to write this blog as i am still feeling puny and jaded from the experiences i am about to relate. as planned, we spent the past week in south maewo in the village called asanvari. for the trip down, we rode a cargo ship, similar to the one we took to south pentecost to see land diving. this one was quite a bit more top heavy though and i was sea sick the whole trip down. i threw up my lunch, then water, then bile. the nausea stayed with me for the next few days and progressed into head and body aches as i was not eating or drinking enough. once we set foot on shore, i holed myself up in the tourist bungalow (more on the asanvari yacht club later) and wallowed in my misery for the next few days, leaving only to use the bathroom. the people of asanvari were rather concerned and boiled water with pomello leaves for me to bathe with. they said this would help my body recover; though i simply thought it was a nice gesture and found no harm in indulging their attempts to cure me with citrus scented water. ginger root boiled into tea before meals helped combat the nausea so that i could eat instant noodles three times a day by the third day. the zca went ahead with his meetings at the school and justin did this social thing, while i lay in bed counting down the days until our upcoming trip to new zealand with my family and dreaming of baked potato soup and white cheese dip.

by friday (we got there on tuesday), i convinced myself that i would feel especially miserable and guilty if i didn't pull myself together and go ahead with the phonics workshops as planned. i ran both workshops back to back for the primary as well as 2 kindy teachers. they were excited to use the new ideas and material and i atleast didn't feel like the trip was a total failure. that evening they held a closing ceremony with a big "kakae" (meal) where there was pork (!) and we were each presented with an island basket and the zca was also given a live chicken. i ate and then practically crawled back to bed, exhausted from my first day out and about all week.

while i was moping about feeling weak, justin had plenty to do and learn. asanvari is rather secluded from the rest of maewo as the truck road does not extend that far south. the only way to and from that cluster of villages is by boat, ship, or, yes indeed, yacht. the beautiful bay was found by a few "yachtees" who spent some money building the "asanvari yacht club," a building complete with three beds, real mattresses (not just hte run of the mill foam pads that are slept on here), flush toilet, hot & cold water shower, indoor sink, and gas stove and oven. since it was built, the building has not been maintained very well. the hydropower set up that heated the water is broken and justin found a bbq grill rusting out back, but the potential hints of luxuries are there and familiar. the people of asanvari are fairly used to a few tourists dropping in from time to time by yacht, staying a few days and then continuing on. the bay is a fantastic site for snorkeling (or just peering down through the clear blue waters into the coral meters and meters below) and there is even a significant waterfall close by. towards the end of our stay, a couple from australia stopped in for a few days and we got to see the village in tourist mode. they fired up the gas stove top and cooked fresh tuna and rice formed into a decorative mound by the base of a plastic oil jug. classy classy.

another interesting tidbit about asanvari is that the poeple there are actually mostly from north pentecost. pentecost is known for being over populated and this group of people apparently migrated by canoe to the island north in search of more land. on his tour of the village, justing reported seeing a mass grave that is probably the final resting place of the native maewo people defending their land. although the people currently are kept rather separate from the rest of maewo, there doesn't appear to be any hostility between north/central and south maewo peoples. it is a very different local language as well as custom culture. the south end of maewo is known for its "eye blong solwata" or the eye of the ocean. here in our village there is a sand drawing and custom stories about it , but the people living in the closest proximity to "the eye" actually do not know the stories and drawing because they are not native to maewo.

we also had the chance to meet two other ovlunteers from the "gap" program who are stationed on maewo. one is from the uk and another from australia. their contract is only for 6 months and fulfills their cultures' tradition to take a trip during the "gap" between high school & college or college & real job. the two we met in asanvari are teaching 4th and 5th grade. they seem to have a different tone towards their experiences then a peace corps volunteer, probably as their service is shorter and they don't receive any language or culture trianing before coming. we had some good chats comparing the logistics of our respective volunteer programs as well as variant english dialects; over tea mind you. though they are having a more limited experience with the culture in my opinion, i found myself a bit jealous that they have less than a month to go before they are back home, and had still been home at christmas time. let's hope that is just due to my feeling under the weather and that i snap out of this wanting to get out of here funk.

for the trip back, we initially planned to take the same ship (cringe) but lucked out that the zca was called to attend a meeting a few days before the ship would reach us and had to arrange transportation by a small motor boat. sunday morning we had a breakfast of bread and sugar in our tea (i'm telling ya, they pulled out all the stops for the tourists) and settled in to wait for the boat driver to show up. the women there wanted me to come check out their little tourist shop set up for the yachtees to come buy things out of; which i hadn't had a chance to see since i had been out of commission the past few days. i poked through their stock of island baskets and mats, chatting with the woman there about the different styles of weaves. each island tends to have its' own style and when women marry and move to another island the styles get mixed and melded all around. i picked a few unique ones out that i wanted to buy. the woman looked at the price tag on the one that read 1,050 ($10) and kept exclaiming how ridiculously expensive that was. a few other women filtered in and they all got to discussing, in language of course, the price of the basket. they would glance at me, holding the supposedly outlandishly priced basket, check the tag, and switch into bislama for me, saying, "sori, eh? basket ia hemi sassem big wan!" or "hey, sorry. she way overpriced that basket." i tried my best to appear frugal yet at the same time explain that a tourist would easily pay that price and that it was okay. the women wouldn't hear it. some wanted to go find the woman who had woven it and ask her to lower the price for me, others tried to interest me in other baskets that they had woven and were selling for a more reasonable price. this poor woman would never hear the end of it. finally, i convinced them it was okay for me to pay the asked price, just this once, and they wound up giving me another basket to go along with the two i had bought (plus the one i was given the night before). to justin, they gave a large sea shell and a pigs' tusk that was almost in a full circle. no hard feelings possible here.

we finally found the boat man and lugged our stuff to the beach to go home. people flocked to shake our hands and ask us when we'd visit again. we may not have been served the sculpted rice, but we sure were genuinely sent off. i enjoyed the trip back considerably more than the one down. we even drove our small boat through the infamous "hole blong moon" cave along the shore of central maewo, shouting our wild animal calls off the echoing walls and enjoying the shelves of coral just inches from the waters surface. the boat man even gave us one of the tuna he had caught during the trip. still, it ended well, but it was good to be home!

---

Comments

[Grandma]

blog
Hi Justine and Sheridan, Just a short note to let you know that I love your blogs. We are all doing fine and the farm work is still going strong. I also was wondering if you got the package that I sent and also what you would like the best for me to send. I enjoy packing those packages. Grandma Brull