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Published: November 15th 2008
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Hello again! I have a lot to write because I just came back from my site on Malekula, Wowo village, last Sunday night. Wowo is in Northwest Malekula, if you look on a map Malekula is the island shaped like a sitting dog and Wowo is on the top of the dog's head. I have a lot to write about, but unfortunately don't have much time.
Overall I love my site. Another trainee, Karen is going to Malekula as well, but she is staying in the provincial center, Norsup. We traveled together on the way there and back. On Sunday we were met by 3 volunteers that live in the Northwest. I stayed the night at one of the volunteer's house who has an extra room because the road to my village wasn't good. We also didn't get our baggage right away because they put it on the next plane, which never landed so I would have had to stay the night anyway. So that night tried some Malekula kava which I was told was the worst tasting kava in all of Vanuatu, but it's all pretty bad. And of course, just my luck, on Malekula every time you drink kava, the first shell has to be a 150 which is a pretty big amount and doesn't help that it is the worst tasting. Luckily my village doesn't drink too much kava so I'll have a little break from it. The next day I got my baggage and took a truck (about a 2 hour ride) to my village. The roads are a little bumpy and when it rains some spots are unpassable because of flooding, but it's not too bad of a ride. My village is pretty small- 27 people, but it's close to a bunch of other villages. When I first got there there were some people waiting for me so I met some of them and met my host papa who showed me my house. I absolutely love my house, it's made of custom materials with a cement floor. It's pretty big and has a small kitchen attached. There were 4 volunteers before me-the last one there was in 2006- so my house has curtains and a big bed 😊 My village is right on the ocean, and I can hear the waves crashing from my house and they put me to sleep. I felt like I was staying in a hotel. I don't have electricity, but there's a solar panel at the RTC and a generator I can use there, and I have a water pump right outside my house. The whole village is really neat and clean and full of flowers and plants. The RTC in my village has a furniture making/carpentry class so there's this cool little peace corps sign in front of it too, and it's nice because if I want to buy some furniture it's convenient and can support my students at the same time. I ended up spending only 4 days at my site, but it was a good amount of time to meet the community and walk around to other villages. I didn't get to meet all of my host family because 3 of my 4 brothers go away to school in Lokatoro and Port Vila so I'll meet them when I go back in December. My host mama is really nice and she's also the home care teacher at the RTC. She teaches the students how to make all this good stuff like banana bread and bread over the fire so I'm lucky to learn all of that. Everyone is really welcoming in my community and the RTC staff is motivated and excited to start working, which was very reassuring. There is one small boy in my village who is extremely afraid of me because he's new to the village and never seen a white man before. So every time he sees me he screams and cries... so hopefully that will pass after a while.
I am also really lucky food wise because Malekula is fulup fruit especially bananas. It's also pineapple season just starting and the pineapples are amazing tasting and a nice change after mango season even though I am a big fan of mangoes. One of Malekula's main crops is copra so there are coconut trees and coconut plantations everywhere. The laplap on Malekula is better than anywhere else because it has something called Sur Sur (not sure of the spelling) but it's baked with a coconut fondue like dip in the middle and chicken or some kind of meat baked on top with coconut milk. After it's cooked you dip the laplap in the fondue and it's amazing.
So I spent my days hanging out with my host family, helping them cook, learning about the RTC, walking to the other villages. Then I took a truck back on Friday to Lokatoro (the main town) riding in the back. The truck had a flat tire half of the way, but the driver just kept stopping on the way and filling it up with air with a hand pump until another truck came and replaced the tire.
Forgot to mention, that before I went to Malekula I had heard this was known as the party island amont the volunteers (wasn't sure what to think of that but I soon found out.)The other volunteers had planned a Mexican theme party for me and Karen on that Friday, with margaritas and tacos 😊 One guy Dan who is a talented cook and bartender made a homemade margarita mix syrup, which was nothing like my homemade strawberry margaritas, but I have to admit equally as tasty. There's electricity in the town so the volunteers there have a blender ,go figure, and ice. You can pretty much find anything in the town, it's just a little expensive. One store just started carrying tequila, but for $47.50. I was pretty surprised at how expensive this was, but the other volunteers were just like yeah that sounds about right. Anyway, I ended up spending about half my funds on this tequila to contribute to the margaritas. Frozen margaritas and a Mexican theme party was about the last thing I ever expected to be doing in Peace Corps, but hey I'll take it 😊
My site is really the best of both worlds because I have my small peaceful village, but also have other volunteers in the town, stores, and theme parties. The next night we had kava, then a small feast that the volunteers had arranged for us with a pig that his papa killed/prepared for us. I'm not a big fan of meat, but this pig was very tasty.
I'm so happy with my site and anyone who wants to visit me is welcome to 😊
That's all I have time to write for now. Please keep in touch 😊
PS Bislama is ruining my English, sorry if it's mixed in
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Lorraine
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Mmmmmmm!
Seems like heaven!