Christmas in the Tropics

The ship did come. It wound up arriving sometime in the early afternoon and I went down to the shore to wait for my stuff to be unloaded. They unload the ship via small boats while the ship is anchored a little ways away from the shore (in order to protect the reef). Anyway, I waited and waited (typical Vanuatu) and by the time it got dark around 6:30 my stuff had not arrived yet and also i hadn't eaten. Nonetheless I waited some more and then finally heard the news that the ship decided it was going to drop all the stuff of at one beach which is by another village. Therefore, my stuff did not come to where I was waiitng along with everyone else from my village. So one of the people who owns a boat in my village decided to go over to the other beach and start to transport anything for our village to our beach. This was about 9 pm. Maybe by 10 or 11:00 two of my 14 items that were put on the ship arrived. By 11:30 I just walked back up the cliff and went to sleep. The next morning I heard that the ship had worked throughout the night. Down by the water, 9 of my items had safely arrived so I moved them all on top of the cliff with the help of my brothers. It was exciting to get my stuff and unpack and see all the crap I thought I'd need. At least I got a bunch of books. This stuff on the ship was all my stuff that i had packed up on Ambae and stored in Vila until now. Lots of useless stuff, but that's okay. Anyway, the next day I went to check at the other beach to see if the rest of my stuff was there. I only found one box which meant that the other 4 things were missing. They're still missing. I've heard rumors that people have seen them but I've gone back to check and found nothing. Oh well. My gas for my cooking stove is among the missing so more over the fire cooking for me. I'm not sure where all this stuff is. It most likley got dropped off at another island by mistake which means I don't think I'll be seeing it again.

Anyway, lots of people who are from Futuna but are living in Vila came to Futuna on the ship so I've met lots of new people lately. Futuna is a fairly small island with not too many work opportunities, other than teacher, so if you want to work, you have to go to Vila or Tanna. It's probably best that way anyway, since I think if all the people of Futuna came to live on the island it'd be a little crowded. We had a few events surrounding the Christmas celebration. A new church in a neighboring village hosted its opening. An American missionary came to talk because he'd organized the donation of lots of money to help build the church. It was interesting to get another American's perspective on Futuna, but it also made me realize that now I have a lot more in common with the people I've made connections to here as opposed to some random American. I think when I first got here I thought the most important thing was to be able to talk to another American, but now that's not necessarily true.

After the church opening, the next main event was Christmas which included a church service in the new church and then a sort of talent show/ dance off type thing which included quite the variety of dances including Pacific style and Christian gospel of sorts. I'm not sure if I mentioned how the whole island of Futuna celebrates Christmas in just one village. Everyone from around the island goes to the one village where it is decorated to the max (mostly with various flowers) while the rest of the island remains completely unaffected by Christmas. On Futuna one of the main symbols of Christmastime in my opinion is watermelon. Watermelon season is in full boom and I think I eat watermelon almost every day. It's quite nice.

Anyway I think throughout this week there have been various programs involving singing and Bible study at the Christmas village, but the next time I'll head over there is for New Years Eve. Apparently we stay up all night singing or something. They like to sing here.

That's about all the news here. It's hot, which is nothing new. There has been intermittent rain which is also nothing new.

Anyway I hope everyone has a Happy New Year!