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Published: October 10th 2008
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Boat ride to Lelepa
Little boat ride from Mangaliliu to Lelepa for a wedding Hello Friends! I have been in my training village Mangaliliu for almost 2 weeks now, and today we are taking a little field trip into Port Vila so I have some time to send an update. Everything is going really well, almost too well. We are really lucky to have Managaliliu as our training village. Let me backtrack a little to when we first arrived a few weeks ago on Sunday...
Our group received another warm welcome from the entire village. When we first arrived, they first had us walk down the main road and some boys popped out of the woods dressed in costume and sung as we followed them into the village. All of the mamas were lined up and we shook all us they're hands down the line and one of them gave us a lei to wear. The village chief gave us each a huge hug (he's known for his hugs) and gave a speech about how happy they were to host us and told us how we were now part of the community. The chief is the coolest chief ever. He's always smiling and making jokes, and he's a really great story teller. After we got to meet our host mamas and papas and they took us to our houses to sette in. Most of us have out own houses separate from the family house. My house is pretty sweet, it's pretty big and right across from the family's house.
My host family is really great, I love them. My papa sells kava at the local nakamal and both my mama and papa are all about turning me into a kava drinking champ. One of the 1st things my mama asked me was if I drink kava, and she was happy because she likes to drink it in the house. She also just found out that us trainees are not supposed to drink kava during the week so now we have secret kava sometimes. On Friday I had 2 big shells- 200 with some volunteers and when I told my mama I had 2 she's like ok tomorrow you have 250 and next week you have 300. So it looks like I'm going to be a good kava drinker by the end of training. The taste is still bad but it's not so unbearable.
I have 2 host brothers 12 and 14, and 1 sister who's 8. I have spent a lot of time with them playing cards, teaching them games, and swimming and snorkeling. They don't speak English because they went to a French speaking school so it also helps me to practice my Bislama by spending time with them. My Bislama is coming a long pretty well. I understand most things and can communicate with my family pretty well. It's a pretty easy language to learn, and it helps that since day 1 my parents have only spoke Bislama with me.
Another great thing about Mangaliliu is that we are right on the water and it's a great snorkeling spot which is great because I just invested in some gear. We also have drinkable water here that comes from a spring and my family has a generator so I have a light in my house that goes on after dark. So I feel kind of spoiled having all these things, which might not be the case when we go to our sites. But there are also a lot of challenges, for me these have been mostly at night. The 2nd night I was here, I saw 2 rats scurrying around in my house and 1 centipede underneath my mosquito net. So I didn't sleep at all that night. I told my papa the next day and he was all over the rat problem, he just put some poisen in my door and the next day I found some dead rats. Most nights I sleep well, but I still hear a lot of pests like geckos and hermit crabs and cockroaches which keep me up sometimes.
One other thing that's great is that I'm in mango heaven in Mangaliliu. Pretty much every fruit grows here so it's great. We have a lot of our training sessions under the mango tree and we've all learned to block our heads if you hear a rustling. A few of us have already suffered a beating from the mangos. I love the food here, and for lunch we have a feast every day because each mama makes a different dish.
I am running out of internet time so that's it for now. If you want to email me you can send an email to pcvols@vu.peacecorps.gov with my name as the subject. It's great to receive letters and emails, it's like Christmas, so keep them coming =)
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Lorraine Meehan
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An Eye Opener
It's wonderful learning about such an interesting place that I would never know about if it wasn't for Marie Barberet and the Peace Corp! I will keep up and look forward to hearing more. Lorraine Meehan