Swearing In

I have officially sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I will be staying in Port Vila until I leave for Malekula on Monday. I will be living and working at a school training both students and teachers. This is a forward progression on every level: professional, experiential, mental, familial, and spiritual. Getting to the island requires a great deal of preparation, since I have many supplies to take with me. Only so much can be transported on a plane. The rest will have to be shipped on a boat. I am quite excited to be living on Malekula. Reading about it, I see that there is an abundance of ceremonial dance, body paint, sculpture, and exquisite landscapes. The above pictures are of my swearing in ceremony, some ancestral statues on Malekula, and a kastom dance. I will witness all of it with eyes of integrity and enthusiasm.

Leaving Tanoliu

I have left Tanoliu, my training village and am currently staying in Port Vila, the capital and largest city in Vanuatu, to continue my training. My host family and I honored our final night together by cooking banana pie over an open fire. They are displayed in the above photograph. My site placement is on the island of Malekula at a school in the northwest. I will have a house right near the beach, which feels like a tremendous improvement from a tiny room on the Lower East Side of New York City. I have also been placed with two of closest friends in the Peace Corps. I look forward to this new creative and professional venture. There will certainly be beautiful stories to come.

Kava

I have arrived on the island of Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu for my host volunteer visit. Here I have viewed classrooms and hiked through forests and waterfalls. The more time I spend here, the more ambivalent I become. Like every other place in the world, Vanuatu is full on contradictions. People have approached me offering food, kind words, and a willingness to speak to me in English, even though I am now mostly comfortable with Bislama (as long as people speak it slowly). However, the treatment of animals here has appalled me. Dogs and cats are attacked with stones and even large bush knives. The other volunteers have told me this is something I will need to become accustomed to, something that will not change anytime soon. I also have been enjoying an herbal drink with narcotic effects known as kava. Kava is consumed mostly at small establishments called nakamals. It is served in coconut shells, has an earthy taste, and causes the mouth to go numb, the legs to wobble, the nerves to relax, and sometimes nausea if one drinks too much. Since it can also make sensitive to bright light and loud noises, nakamals are usually dark and quiet spaces. They say the more you drink it, the stronger the effect and the more vile the taste. There are also many different varieties. Some varieties I can drink two or three shells and feel nothing but tranquil. Others I will drink one shell and suddenly feel nauseous. Driving under the influence of kava is just as destructive as alcohol, and has become a problem in Vanuatu. Kava reflects the contradictions here, as it relaxes people, yet contributes to the chaos in the country, as well as to sexism. Women in many areas of Vanuatu are forbidden from drinking it, and sometimes even looking at it. However, it is also a force that unites Ni-Vanuatus and expatriates like me.

Exciting Events

Tonight, I am attending a cocktail party with officials from the government of Vanuatu and USAID. This is quite exciting since I will be able to network with other world travelers and others invested in community empowerment. I'm very excited about meeting and learning from them. This coming Saturday through next Thursday I will be staying with a current Peace Corps Volunteer on the island of Espiritu Santo. There, I will observe classrooms and learn more about the culture and education here. My host family has told me not to go to outside at night to avoid “black magic.” I told them I wouldn't, but I'm not too concerned about it.

My First Earthquake

Last Saturday I felt the Earth move for the first time. I was outside getting ready for a gender and development workshop and witnessed the Earth shake beneath me. It was an innocuous earthquake with no damages. Vanuatu is subject to several earthquakes every year, as well as volcanic eruptions, cyclones, and tsunamis. Peace Corps Volunteers who had been living in Vanuatu for a year were unaroused by it, unlike me who was shaking and waiting to see if any buildings would collapse. This was my first earthquake, but certainly not my last. But at least I now have some idea of what to expect.

Teaching Go Fish In Vanuatu

I have arrived in Tanoliu, my training village on the island of Efate, and have begun training in education, Ni-Vanuatu culture, the Bislama language, health, nutrition, and other relevant topics to my stay in Vanuatu. My host family are a father and mother with four children.  I have been given a new name (a kastom name): Kalfao, which means "new man." I have found the people here to be quite hospitable and convivial, but also somewhat gossipy. I recall coming to class one day and a friend from the Peace Corps asking me, "Paz, when did you wake up?"

"I don't know, 6:30," I responded. "Why?"

"Because my host parents told me you slept in today," she said.

Coming from New York City, where nobody knows or cares what your business is, this comes as a bit of culture shock. Wherever I walk, people shout out "Kalfao! Yu go wea?" (Kalfao! Where are you going?). Half the time, I won't even know the other person's name! This has required adjustment.

However, I have been able to have an impact on others. Last week, I taught my host sisters and brothers, as well as other children in the community, how to play go fish. I did not speak Bislama nearly as well as I do now, and the fact that I was able to teach them is proof of how much communication is nonverbal. I simply dealt the cards and showed them what to do. The children loved the game and must have played it five or six times that day. This gives me immense hope that, as I assimilate more and more into Ni-Vanuatu society, I will be able to truly have an impact on my community.

Let The Staging Begin

I have arrived in Los Angeles to begin a process called staging, in which I will meet my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers and be provided tools and resources to begin my service. Tomorrow, I will fly to Vanuatu via New Zealand, arriving in Vanuatu on Sunday around 9:00am (hopefully). I write this blog post from my hotel room near the main airport in Los Angeles awaiting the other Volunteer who will be sharing my room. My mind and body are racing with enthusiasm, somewhat similar to the night before I left for Turkey last year. However, with this event comes an additional thrill: Never before has my vocation required me to travel and provided a hotel for me. This is, essentially, my first business trip! Traveling for business has always struck me as among the most adult activities. Everything I have done up to this point--moving to New York for college in 2004, reading with first-graders in Harlem in 2005, studying abroad in India in 2006, working with incarcerated youth on Riker's Island in 2008, working in a summer youth program for low-income kids in 2008, painting a mural with Harlem teenagers in 2009, working with emotionally-disturbed youth this year--has brought me to this point. This is proof of the law of karma. Giving to others results in future gifts we rarely anticipate.