kindy & coconut crab

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sher snuck one in on me. we leave for new zealand TOMORROW!! sooo excited! one more blog before i sign off of my duties for a while... - b

29 may 2009

i write the date and wonder, "could it be that only one year ago we were rushing around tending to last minute wedding details and in the company of all our family and friends?!!" and then i marvel at our rather adventurous first year of marriage. wouldn't have it any other way! but enough nostalgia, i've got to buckle down and write this blog so it can be sent with a volunteer who is soon leaving for ambae and going to carry our mail to a more efficient post office.

we've just come back from a three day trip to naone, the village next to the infamous "big water" waterfall. justin and i accompanied the ZCA (zone curriculum advisor) on his trip to update and observe the primary school there. i ran phonics workshops in the afternoon. and justin played mr. congeniality and storied with all who would hear him. we are officially "on tour" with the ZCA, as we will follow him as he makes his rounds all around the island and i'll present my workshops. it is a very fornutate set up because as i am a female, my tagging along with him would be "tabu," but with justin going along too that neutralizes the potentially awkward situation. plus we get the exceptional opportunity to visit other villages on the island.

the school that we are stationed at, gambule, is the largest school on the island. because of that, they get the most trained, government paid teachers; and because of that, many parents skip over the smaller schools and send their kids to gambule. for some, that means instead of walking twenty minutes north, they walk 3 hours south just to get to school every day. naone is one such "smaller school" that should have more students but loses students to gambule. the days that we were there, the total number of students was about 15. because total enrollment is so low, the government only pays for one trained teacher and the other two are untrained members of the community. there are eight kids in year 1 & 2, two in year 5, and five in year 6. the teachers who come from the community are often paid very little or sometimes nothing at all. that being said, i am impressed by their sincere interest and effort as teachers.

i ran workshops on two afternoons; one focusing on letter sounds and common mistakes made when bislama influences english learners (such as distinguishing between the sounds 'k' and 'g,' which in bislama are melded into one orally). the second workshop was on activities to do in the classroom to introduce letters and sight words. the third afternoon i brought all the materials i had created for the activities, along with colored pencils, black markers, cardboard and scrap paper to help the teachers create them for their own rooms.

in the midst of all this, the kindergarten ("kindy") classroom down the road also had a workshop running. the kindys here are kept separate from the public school system and therefore have practically no budget to work with. although this may seem futile to some of our western-minded readers, i think it is actually an asset that the kindys are self-sustaining. they make brilliant toys from local materials like coconuts, bamboo, and shells. the actual school building is constructed like a local house by the community, so there is either strong community support from day one or no kindy at all. the teachers at the kindy are from the commuinty as well, most usually they have not had schooling past grade 5. kindys are always in the local vernacular and i think that in combination with the familiarity of the local house and toys give sthe teachers great confidence in their work. at this point in my experiences in vanuatu, i am far more impressed with the "untrained" kindy teachers than most of the trained primary and secondary school teachers. the kindys' set up and style melds wonderfully with the culture here and the community can truly own it. with the foreign system used at the primary & secondary level, not to mention foreign language and dependence on imported materials like chalk, paper, etc, there is often a gap of the unknown forced between the local ocmmmunity and school community.

as the stay progressed, the kindy teachers were asking around for someone to design a logo for the sign at their school. enter justin with his graphic design skills at their service. the kindy was named after a small bird on the island and before justin designed and painted the sing, they had to find an "old fala" to come tell him the custom story behind the name. he used their leftover paint to work on the sign and write the school motto. when it had dried, the kindy teachers and workshop leaders covered the new sign with newspaper so no one could see it until the opening ceremony. the next few evenings the village was a buzz with anticipation to see the sign.

we conveniently ended our workshops at the primary school at the same time as the kindy workshops so that we should share a truck on the way back (the journey there was a three hour walk with our backpacks stuffed with clothes, sheets, and workshop materials). the closing ceremonies for our workshops and the opening of the kindy was combined into one. it was scheduled for 2 in the afternoon, so at 5 in the evening it actually started. there was a blessing by the anglican prienst who scattered blessed water with a nasasa leaf over the new building, sandbox, swing set, and sign. then speeches by the priest, chief, and ZCA. then we who had ran the workshops were presented with "salu-salu," or leis made from local flowers. we also unexpectedly received an enormous bundle of food wrapped in leaves and beautifully decorated with flowers on top. at the time, i would have bet money it was laplap, but when we opened it up at home, we found it mostly full of rice (a rather expensive food here), a whole baked chicken, and a little laplap. impressive!

before we loaded into the turck to head home, we had a little shopping to do. because naone is farther north and close to big water as well as big sea (a bay directly east of the village we hope to see soon), we ate exponentially more seafood there. every meal had at least one type of fish and we also ate fresh water prawns, soft shell crab, and a mollusk type shell fish that did not look at all appetizing and had a rather peculiar texture, but in all honesty, "tasted like chicken." naone also had access to coconut crabs, huge, blue crabs about the size of human head if not bigger when full grown. the crabs get their name because they can crack coconuts with their pinchers and eat them. we had asked around the village earlier and heard where we could buy them. they sell the crab live for 450 vatu per kilo. the one we bought was rather small, according to them, so we walked away with the whole thing paying only 450 (about $4.50).

after paying a small boy who had found the crab, i went to grab it almost lost a finger to the crabs' strong pincher. scared, i got another guy to carry the crab to the truck for me. justin was still chatting with some guys, so i walked over to sit with the ladies at the side of the road. we were just hanging out and commenting how it would be dark by the time we got back when i heard a rustle of leaves running by (familiar) and a curious chirping sound (not so familiar). i looked in time to see a naole with a head akin to that of a chinese dragon disappearing into the bush. the women i was sitting with wanted to run away, explaining that this naole is one that can hit women and carries a branch and leaves from a tree that can make you scratch. but i love to see the different masks that vary from village to village, so i insisted on following it back into the nakamol (the custom kava bar where the naole get in and out of costume). one of the women was a teacher i had been working with that week and i told her i wanted to take his picture. this is practically a guaranteed golden ticket to get someone to show you something on maewo. she passed word to another guy who enthusiastically led me to the nakamol, sending a kid running ahead of us to tell the naole to come back out. they positioned me in where they thought would be the best back drop for the picture and told me to wait. so here i stand in the middle of an empty lot, camera poised and ready for a masked man dressed in leaves to come run and chirp at me. he did come out and i took a short video of his dance and chirp. this naole was different in costume and demeanor than those we commonly see around our village. i found out later that this one was the "woman one" and the "man one" is "mo gud." the next half hour passed with people gathered around as i drained my camera battery replaying the 30 second clip over and over. i think people especially appreciate looking at the naole through the camera screen because in real life they are too busy running from them to look closely at it.

dark was settling in as we loaded up in the truck. luggage, food bundle, and other gifts people gave us of taro and snake beans. we jostled home in the dark to drop our bags and head to my host families' house to share the enormous parcel of cooked food that couldn't be kept long enough for us to eat it all. we also made plans with them for the next evening, as i wasn't about to venture in to the world of killing and cooking a coconut crab by myself. my family was happy to help us eat the crab, since they rarely make it to our village; and when they do, they are pretty expensive.

that night, we followed the advice of the locals and stored the coconut crab, which was already tied up with vine, in an old flour sack. the first few hours of sleep passed before the crab (i'm guessing they're nocturnal?) started stirring around in its' sack in the kitchen. i had wild visions of the crab gnawing it's way through our mosquito net and chomping on my toes when i finally woke justin up to take the crab out on the porch for the rest of the night.

the next afternoon, crab cooking commenced. my host papa killed the crab by jabbing a bush knife down behind its' head. then he and justin set to grinding kava while my host mami set to breaking the still wriggling crab legs from it's body. she split the shell and boiled the whole thing with coconut milk and curry. we supplemented with rice and taro for a full meal. the great thing about coconut crab is they are large enough to have quite a bit of meat. seven of us ate from one crab.

the next stop on our tour with the ZCA is asanvani, the village on the southern most tip of maewo. we are anxious to see the "eye blong solwata," that people story endlessly about, and can't wait to relay our adventures back to you all in blog form. until then, take care!

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Photos

Workshop
The three teachers of Naone and I doing our workshop thing.

Justin Painting
Justin busting out the graphic design skills for the kindy sign.

Big Water
We did get a chance between workshop sessions to sneak another peek and this fantastic site!

Surprise food bundle!
Inside: tons of rice, laplap, and a WHOLE CHICKEN!

Naole
The "women's" naole at Naone.

Coconut Crab
My host "tati" and our coconut crab - yum!