Traveling around Malampa Province

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Hello friends, hope all is well.
I'm using the internet at the tourism office now. I was supposed to leave today for my work for the tourism office but not surprisingly there was a problem with the funding so i am leaving tomorrow and they put me in a guesthouse for the night with electricity and everything so i cant complain. I'm going to be making a tourism audit for Malampa Province, and at the same time there will be a tourism promotion video being filmed which they said i might need to pop in and pretend im a tourist for.
Tomorrow we're starting in Southwest Bay ,Malekula where there is some sort of festival, taking a truck halfway and then taking the cameraman's yacht the rest of the way. Then we're coming back up north for another festival in Walarano where there are supposed to be a lot of tourists. From there we go to see some custom dances and a cave then go back to the south to take the yacht over to Paama and then Ambrym the "black magic island" where there will be a magic festival. So I am really excited to check out all these different places because I haven't seen too much custom since I've been here. Custom is not very strong in my village. And it's a really good chance to check out bungalows and different places to go for when I have visitors! 😊

Not much else is new or exciting... Vanuatu celebrated Independence Day on 30 July, On Malekula the main event was a boxing match in town in Lakatoro. The main event lasted about 10 minutes, finished in 2 rounds. The same day i threw my back out from a rough truck ride and then a dog jumping on me so I was bent over the whole time and in pain. But luckily kava is readily available and happens to be a muscle relaxer so took advantage of that and had myself a few shells of natural medicine. I surpassed my 250 shell mark to 350 which im proud of.
Now the back is almost at 100% luckily nothing serious is wrong.

The rTC starts another school break on Thursday for 2 weeks. Even though for Independence Day- 1 day- they took about 2 weeks off too. We start back again the end of August and go through to the end of November when there will be about 2 = 3 month spell for Christmas.

My dog, Rocky, is still alive and doing great, he's a very happy guy, probably because i dont throw rocks at him and feed him. Everyone else in the village loves him too, which is good, because at least in front of me they dont abuse him. I give the task of feeding him to little kids in my village because i trust them to remember more than the adults, then bring them back a present from town, so everybody wins.
My little kids in Kindy/Pre-k are adorable, and are behaving better. I was having problems with them fighting with each other and the older girl would smack her brother whenever he did something wrong because thats what they learn at home. So now I'm punishing them every time they fight by making them weed grass around my house, which works pretty well except for one girl who seems to like to do it so I have to think of something else for her.

Last thing, I am coming home for Christmas 😊 I'll be home for about 5 weeks, I"m sooo excited, i need to get away and I want to see everyone especially at Christmas and New Year's. It's very depressing here around Dec and Jan, Last new years i went to bed at 8:00 no exagerration... and its extremelyyy hot that time of year. So its the perfect time to get away 😊 I can't even imagine being in the US , right now it seems like a playground with so much to do!
k thats it for now, its getting dark and raining and I have to walk back to my guesthouse.
Will write again after my trip.
I send my love
-Marie

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Comments

[Ashley]

I'm sooo excited to hear you are coming home for Christmas!! Can't wait to see you Marie! Miss you so much!