A few more photos

I've posted some photos for you to see:

Me, my sister, and this kid from Australia who came with his family to visit Futuna
One of my classes at school
Peace Corps or Beach Corps?
Me hard at work
Lunch

But of course the plane would get a flat tire

Yesterday I came to Vila. I left Futuna for the last time (unless I go back to visit some day). The airport agents sent a message that we had to get to the airport early because the plane would come at 8 am. I left my village at 6 in the morning and waited at the airport for a long time. The agent finally got there and said he sent a message that the plane would come at 10, so I guess that got mixed up somewhere. Anyway, 10 o'clock came and went and there was no sign of a plane. But eventually around 12:30 it arrived. When it landed, one of the tires popped perhaps on a sharp stone. Then the plane had a flat tire. They said that we may have to go on it like that, but i did not think that was a good idea. They said "you don't need a wheel to fly a plane" but I reminded them that we would have to land again. Well luckily they called the airline and they sent another plane to Futuna with 2 mechanics and 2 spare tires. They changed both the broken tire and the other back tire because they said it looked like it was going to pop at any time. I'm not sure why they didn't check that when they left the capital, but at least they got it fixed. And then instead of going on the plane whose tires had broke, which would've stopped at 2 other destinations before mine, I got to fly directly to the capital on the mechanics' plane.

Now I'm in the capital until the 7th finishing up all my Peace Corps work. The above photos show the flat tire and them fixing it.

Mi kilem ded wan rat

Can you guess the meaning of that phrase written in Bislama? Try to read it phonetically. “Me killem dead one rat.” “I killed a rat”

Lately the rats have taken up residence in my house again. I’m not sure why they like it because I don’t have any food here. I guess they just want the shelter. A couple months ago a Mama rat and a bunch of her babies decided to make a nest inside one of my boxes of stuff. When I finally discovered them, I wasn’t sure what to do. The Mama ran away but the babies were so small they couldn’t run. But then I couldn’t make myself kill them. I just threw them outside and luckily they didn’t come back.

Then last week I awoke all of a sudden to the tell tale noise of a rat running across the floor. I got out of bed and shined my flashlight on it and it would run to another part of my house. It kept running circles around my house as I chased it so basically i was laying flashlight tag with a rat. I positioned myself by the door with the door open and got the rat to go outside. As I was about to go back to sleep, I heard it come inside again. I spent another 30 minutes chasing it and eventually it left and I went back to sleep.

Then a few nights later I heard the rat again. We played some more flashlight tag and it went outside. Even when the rat is frozen, I’m still not sure what to do and I’m scared to kill it. I was back in bed when i heard a crinkling noise right by my bed. It sounded like a rat walking over one of the bags that I store stuff in. I kicked the bag to get the rat to run away, but there was no sign of the rat. When I heard the noise again, I realized it was inside the bag. At this point I felt like I had no choice. I started hitting the bag with the blunt edge of my machete. Eventually I got the rat. It was still wriggling around but I didn’t want to chop it in half because I didn’t want rat guts in my bag. I just stood on it for awhile. Then I emptied all my stuff from the bag, took it outisde, and dumped the rat in the grass. After that I went back to sleep thinking pleasant thoughts of dead rats.

Reading Promotion Week

This week at school we are having Reading Promotion Week. The basic idea was that they were going to cancel all other subjects and just focus on reading. However, it didn’t turn out that way at all. I guess like everything in Vanuatu, it didn’t turn out as planned. My main job in this program was to read aloud to all the classes. They want the students to hear fluent English being read. This was actually really enjoyable as the kids would get really excited to hear me read. But for the rest of the day, there seemed to be very little reading involved. There were 10 minutes of silent reading in the morning, but other than that the teachers liked to focus on this section they call “experience with a topic”. Basically they’re supposed to do some hands on activity related to what they are reading. The teachers I think interpreted this time as, let’s let the kids run wild, time. Yesterday one of the classes decided they’d take this time which is supposed to be an hour long and do a traditional bunia or bake. The bunia includes various root crops and any meat available (chicken or bat preferable). Well, needless to say, this activity which began at 9 in the morning went until 2 pm. And the whole time, the students were definitely not speaking English. I wonder if it even related to what they were reading. Anyway, next Monday they’ll do their presentations of what they have learned during the week so it should be quite interesting.

Also next week will be my last week teaching my classes. In 2 weeks from today, I’ll be leaving Futuna and heading to the capital. It still hasn’t really hit me yet that I’m leaving and a lot of these people I may never see again. I think I’m most sad about my 3 year old sister. Like all of the other people I can keep in touch with through letters or email, but my sister who is like my best friend here probably won’t even remember me when she gets older. The good thing about leaving is that I’m trying my hardest to appreciate all these organic root crops that I’m eating. Like whenever we’re having manioc for the umpteenth time that week I just tell myself, that maybe, just maybe, I’ll be thinking about manioc when I go home but I won’t be able to eat it.

Plate Tectonics

Is that the right word to mean all the movements under the earth’s surface? The South Pacific has been a hotbed for underground activity lately. Last week there were the tsunamis and then yesterday we had a massive earthwuake in Vanuatu. It actually occurred on another island far from here and we didn’t even feel it, but after someone heard the news on the radio a few hours later, everyone was in tsunami warning mode. Luckily nothing major happened.

Last weekend I finally got the chance to climb to the top of Futuna. Futuna is shaped like a birthday cake and the very top is just a large plateau at over 600 meters. I’ve been meaning to go up it for awhile now, but when a friend came to visit, I finally went. On the 2 hour hike up, we stopped in a garden to dig up some taro roots. At the top, we cooked them over a fire along with some wild bush crabs. On the top it was really cold and al the flora was different. There was this fern type stuff growing on the outside of all the trees. Also, the rest of the island is very rocky, but up top there were no rocks, just dirt on the ground.

Also when my friend was here, we kept going to the beach which I don’t do often enough. It’s only like a 10 minute walk, and I’ll probably miss it when i’m freezing in New England next month. Anyway, he’d go spear fishing and then we’d cook the fish on the fire along with some bananas and eat them with fresh coconuts. It seemed like we were playing “stranded on a desert island” or something, because we were the only ones at the beach and we were gathering all our own food.

The other day someone built a fire near the telephone line and it broke, but then someone glued it back together. It’s sort of working now, but I think the wires got crossed, because sometimes you can hear other people’s conversations when you pick up the phone.

I’m getting close to leaving and now everyone’s been asking to buy all my stuff. I’ll make a big yard sale soon. When I go home, I plan on just bringing one bag mostly with souvenirs. I’m going to sell most of my clothes and all the other junk I’ve accumulated here. I certainly don’t need to bring 3 buckets home with me!