Blogs from Vanuatu, Oceania - page 7

Alright, where to begin. My flight from Tanna to Port Villa was supposed to fly out at 10am. When we got to the airport we were told there was a delay. Apparently, the workers had decided to go on strike 30 minutes before our check-in and were refusing to refuel or load the baggage. The president of Air Vanuatu had to fly down settle things. About 4 hours later we were taking off. We arrived in Port Villa and the police escorted us all aside to get statements for their investigation...Whatever that means. A few hours later we were on our plane to go from Port Villa to Nadi, Fiji. As we were taxiing on the runway to turn around and take off it felt like all the tires on one side of the plane exploded. ... read more

A great deal has happened since my last blog entry. My apologies to any dedicated readers that I never did finish up with the stories from April in Haiti. Truth be told, I was rather reluctant to put those stories in print. Publishing stories of my time working for Medicos Del Mundo would be against the spirit (if not the letter) of the agreements made during my hiring. April is a ways behind us, however, and Project MARC’s Vanuatu 2010 season has just begun. I landed in Port Vila with one of our volunteers from Australia and met up with another the following morning. Frank Zolnai is both an Alvei and MARC alum and Kez is a fellow Aussie that he roped into the deal after she heard the stories of expeditions past. With all the ... read more

nothing like a tuesday, late morning blog. =) enjoy -- b 12 June 2010 Vernacular Children’s Books Another venture related to project work at the school, I’ve started working with two of the teachers on translating some children’s books into the local vernacular. The two teachers are untrained ones from the village, and they are native speakers of the language. I have been pleasantly surprised by their interest in this project. The process has been an interesting one to orchestrate. The local language is predominately an oral one. Though an alphabet was developed a few years ago by a volunteer linguist from France, that alphabet is rarely needed and used. A select few church songs, stories, and a dictionary are the only samples of written language we could find. With these as a starting point, the ... read more

whats up readers. i'm officially in the summer spirit. finished up my geo class this morning, just got dq with my parents, and leave for colorado tomorrow morning. it's girls just wanna have fun time and i hope durango is ready for us. and i hope you're enjoying the little things/feelings that only summer can give you. this may be the last blog for awhile, but we'll see. enjoy, take care - b 22 April 2010 Island Justice Update The situation involving the killing of the two men still remains fairly unresolved, though nowhere near as intense as it was about a month ago. The chiefs and leaders of Maewo have been busy making peace in their own village, on Ambae, and even to the chief’s council in Vila. Justin has been counting the number of ... read more

hello readers. the next few blogs are ones sher has saved on here for me to post-- watch the dates as so not to get to confused. i hope you are having a fabulous summer. i'm still holding down the fort in pitt, working, and enjoying a little sunshine when i can. take care - b 27 March 2010 After our mini vacation with Jamie, we found out that two members of Peace Corps staff would be coming to do some site development on Maewo. Peace Corps Vanuatu is already prepping sites for the next round of volunteers slated to arrive in Vanuatu this September. Maewo, as part of the PENAMA Province (also including Pentecost and Ambae) is targeted as an area for increasing the number of health volunteers. One of the sites to be developed ... read more