Blogs from Ambrym, Vanuatu, Oceania - page 2

Early December of last year a small black and white pup was born. His mother was unable to give her babes milk so he ate popo (paw paw/ papaya). After one month of life I carried him, an hrs walk, to my village and named him Jack. It was here where Jack began to thrive. All his siblings eventually died from lack of a proper diet, but Jack's new mom spoiled him with lots of love and tin meat (and other sorts of human food). It took no time before he grew strong and at 4 mos he started to join the other dogs in the hunt for wild pig. Jack was the envy of all the dogs and he knew he was special. When I yelled out "JACK!" all the dogs knew it meant feeding ... read more

Black Magic I know it has been a long time since I’ve written my sister to update my blog. Life here has been a bit mad. Still waiting on a new house and to build a school. So there are days when I am just “kranky” (crazy) but there are also days when I’m very happy-often both occur in the same day. There has been a lot of things happening, earthquakes, tsunami (warnings), very active volcanoes, a cyclone. Yes, Mother Nature has been very busy this past month! Try sitting through a cyclone in a house made of nothing but coconut palm leaves! But this is all normal for this chain of islands and we all remained safe. There have been other disasters unrelated to Mother Nature, unfortunately. Black Magic occurs on islands with volcanoes, and ... read more

New Year’s in Vanuatu So now I’m getting it! New Years was spent sober dancing to repetitive string band music with the children. Yes, that was certainly a first. The next morning, we ate bread, again, and ok the end… but no! So a few days after New years it’s pouring down rain and all the youth decide to go on this big wokabout (walkabout-walk) to sing to various villages. Well I know they love to sing and so I guess this is a tradition, how nice. But 10 hours they were gone, walking and singing the whole time, and in a mad downpour! Hmmm I just don’t get what drove them. Then they came back and I learned more about their tradition. It seems as they go and sing at each village, the people poured ... read more

Krismas long Wes Ambrym This wasn’t my first Christmas abroad but it certainly was the first that lacked every aspect of Christmas I am familiar with. It lacked that commercialized build up that strikes just after Thanksgiving. The never ending holiday parties, baking cookies, Christmas music and cards in the mail. And most of all, all that shopping; for food and gifts, Christmas pressies and that special holiday outfit. For the most part, I’m really not complaining, I don’t like all that commercialization anyways but it’s the holiday spirit that I missed the most. I am in a (very) Christian country so don’t get me wrong, they celebrate here, in fact they have quite the holiday spirit but still it couldn’t feel less like Christmas to me. For one, it’s summer so no hopes of a ... read more

Of Volcanoes First some observations on the physical qualities of sailors. Looking around at the Ambrym festival I noticed that most sailors appear in pretty good shape. Very few are really overweight. Many are quite svelte. But deep down, they are really out of shape. I'm no different actually. On this trip I've lost some weight, despite all the good eating. Being on the boat you are constantly moving and burning calories. But you aren't really working any major muscle groups or get any cardiovascular exercise. So combine this amount of inactivity for the last 4 months with the fact that I haven't had shoes on since March (remember the Achilles). I decided the smartest thing for me to do was to strap on a 20+ kg backpack and go for a two-day trip up to ... read more