Another collection of news briefs...

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can't chat. watching the cats. go state! enjoy - b

22 January 2010

Regular readers may notice that my blogs so far this year are shorter. My excuses for this are not a lack of time, but the incessant heat; which renders all action to a standstill, and which plussed with the heat of the computer running while I type is almost intolerable. Justin empathizes with the plight of my blogging. He says I should pull a Thoreau, who, in writing Walden chalked up his second year in saying that nothing happened the second year that didn’t happen the first and left it at that. Although I appreciate that attempt to alleviate what has become a bit of a burden given this heat, I will tarry on. I also believe that this year will bring some new, different, and altogether worth sharing experiences so I shall blog on.

This blog will be another collection of news briefs, because most news at this time is very brief and because I can’t force myself to endure this heat long enough to tie together a cohesive and detailed report on one topic.

There’s no one at the school
Though the gears are slowly beginning to be dusted off and greased for the school year to get started again, the school grounds are still surprisingly desolate. None of the teachers are back. They are awaiting news via radio broadcast as to their teaching assignments. Some of the teachers who put in for a transfer, of which there was quite a significant number from Gambule, will wait until they hear the news of their placement before moving away from home again. The headmaster of the primary school and principal of the secondary school are both supposed to still be here in the summer months, but both of ours at Gambule have found reasons, or excuses, to be elsewhere.

Another interesting school-related tidbit that sounds nice in principle but could create a rather disastrous school year is free public education through grade 6. Vanuatu is planning to implement this starting in 2010 because of an international grant. It is a great goal and I’m all about getting kids in school BUT there has been little to no planning for the logistics of how that would work. Gambule School is one of two primary schools on the northern part of the island. (The other, for those who remember from previous blogs, is much smaller in the village of Naone; where the Big Water waterfall is). The school is not set up to handle every school aged child in the area that it draws its student population from. Last year, there were around 30 students in every grade, with a total of about 300 students in the whole school. According to the statistics at the health center on Maewo, if all the kids in the school’s area took advantage of free education, there would be around 700 students at the school. There are not enough teachers, classrooms, staff houses, office space, auxiliary staff, toilets, and water to accommodate that number of students at this school; not to mention desks, chalkboards, exercise books, and all the rest.

How this issue will be resolved, I’m not sure. Will the school have to put a cap on enrollment? Will they apply for more government paid teachers? How will all this even begin to pan out before the year is over, given the pace of “island time?” Or, maybe, sadly, it won’t be an issue. Maybe there won’t be enough interest for parents to take advantage of free education. Only time (lots of it) will tell.
While we live in this limbo of not being sure who and where the teachers are, whether or not there will be a secondary school, and the like, Justin and I are the go-to school groundskeepers. With no other authority or leader here, people are coming to ask permission to pick mangoes, collect crabs, go fishing, and use the water on school grounds. Some who can’t find us report themselves the next time they see us. Of course it’s okay with us. I’d much rather see the never ending oodles of mangoes go into someone’s’ belly than rot on the ground.

Cooking Workshops
My attempt at productivity these summer months is having weekly cooking workshops for the mamas (and some papas) to come learn new recipes. We started off last week with mango jam. There are massive amounts of mangoes just going to waste because people are tired of eating them. Something about seeing them rotting on the ground just got to me and I kicked into jam making mode; which eventually paved the way to start the cooking workshops. It was a great first workshop as food preservation is a new concept here and perfect timing to preserve some of these mangoes. We made 12 small jars of jam and sold them, mostly to the workshop participants who wanted to taste test their hard work. We’ll use the money to pay for ingredients for future workshops.

This second workshop could be interesting. The northern half of Vanuatu seems to be experiencing a great flour depression. Eggs have been hard to come by too. I had hoped to bake banana bread and coconut cookies, but with no flour and no eggs, neither of those recipes will work out. We’ve been waiting almost a month for the cargo ships, which are relied on to supply foodstuffs to the island, to get back up and running after the holiday break and hopefully by the end of next week a cargo ship will come by from Vila. We are especially hopeful as that ship is also carrying our grocery goods from when we came through Vila in December. I am especially looking forward to the toilet paper, something we are running dangerously low on.

The toilet is fulup
A recent concern of ours that I thought might interest readers back home is that our toilet is really full. For those who don’t know, we have a long drop toilet (well, it’s not so long of a drop now) with a cement seat. We are noticing the level of solid waste down there is rather close to the level of the ground and are worried it may continue up into the seat and then…? The smell isn’t that great either. For now, I’ve dumped a gallon bucket full of ashes down to alleviate the smell and hopefully get things to condense a bit down there.

Rough waters
Waves have been crashing into the beach a lot stronger than usual. We are usually graced with calm seas, especially and almost always close to shore. The past few days have had us gawking at the white caps breaking about 200 meters out, and then calmer seas outside of that. The seasons are changing or a cyclone is brewing somewhere or something.

Sitting on the beach, we can also look out towards Ambae. If you remember the volcano we climbed last August, now we can see it smoking. The two other active volcanoes, one on Gaua and one on Ambrym, have also been pretty active lately. I noticed the other day the water seemed red. Immediately my mind went to lava seeping out from Ambae. I mentioned this to a fellow PCV, and she introduced a calmer idea: the coral is flowering. True or not, that is the one I’m choosing to focus on.

I have started recording rain fall this year. With a week to go yet in this month, so far, for those interested, we’ve got 6.23 inches.

String Band Video
Justin has become a necessary (though not so willing) component in the quest of the local string band to make a music video. About 9 local guys have a band and are pooling resources and trying to pull some strings to get a promotional video made. Justin’s role is helping one of the teachers edit and compose the video on his laptop. He was skeptical of how the audio track would turn out and was trying to convince the band they needed to record their music in a studio, then come and shoot the video portion on the island. They didn’t like his advice and wanted to get started on it right away.

After a five hour sound check and recording session under a sweltering copper roof with every child in the village crammed inside to check it out, they gathered around to hear the finished product and realized he was right. The audio track picked up the sound of every chicken and child in the area, not to mention had a fuzzy and static ring to it. Justin isn’t sure what they’re next step would be, he left to cool off with a nice long swim and let them figure it out.

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Photos

Green Growing Stuff
The plants here thrive in the tropical sun.

Staying cool
Justin at a small pool under a waterfall. The water is shockingly cold and we force ourselves to stay there as long as possible.

Mango Goods
Our stash of mango products; including jam, chutney, and BBQ sauce.

Time to taste test!
The kids always seem to come around at just the right time.

Comments

[roderick mera]

nice blog!!
I have been following your blog for sometime ... sori, mi no bin mekem wan koment long hem. mi stap luk ol samting yufala i mekem, i stap mekem mi home sik mo