The Stick-Flick Approach

And so the final term of the school year has arrived. Last year, at our annual end of the year meeting in Vila, at the time when Silas died and came back to life, the government offered its first allocation of money towards kindergarten education. This money, we were told, was to up grade 35 kindies in each province. I didn’t mention this before, because, to cut a long long story short the money was never actually given to us. Well this term, the money finally came through, and we have been told we have to spend it before the kindies close for the year in 7 weeks time. We have 7 weeks to upgrade 35 kindies. Silas is talking to some rural  teachers about some, so I decided to take charge of upgrading three in the town, one out in Tutuba on a small island near by, and two kindergartens that are attached to primary schools. Joan and I will do the workshops, and help the teachers of the kindies make toys, paint them, build outdoor equipment and plan their programmes. Tomorrow Joan and I will board the little boat sent for us from Tutuba Island, and stay a week in a grass hut. Tutuba has no electricity, but it does have an old well built in the Second World War by soldiers which is still used, making water access easier than on some islands.

 

Before we go tomorrow, we decided to go out to Mango Station kindy to talk to the teacher. A political party closed the kindy, because they paid the school fees for the children before elections and one of the teachers ran away with all the money. I woke up early and strolled along the dusty back streets of the town. It was a public holiday today, and at 6am everybody and there uncle’s brother were out on the lawn, sitting under trees, chatting and gossiping. Mothers sit above the children, making partings in the children’s hair, peering into them, picking out the lice. They crunch them in their teeth then flick them off into the trees. Everybody waves at me as I wonder past, children from every house shout out… Miss Bridget, Miss Bridget… Where are you going? I can safely say I know every small child in the town. I picked up Joan on the way and we got a bus up to Mango kindy. The teacher said she had three children who were still coming to the new makeshift kindy she was having on her porch. We praised her and praised her and told her to keep going until the last child stopped coming. Mango station has a large poor illiterate population. Most of the people who live there come from ‘The Banks’ islands, far to the north, and very isolated. They have settled here on the edge of Luganville, and generally live of the land and do not go to school. School is one of only ways to really rise out of such poverty, to give you the ability to find out things for your self, to work out how to build a business, to think critically enough to change your own circumstances. If your mum and dad are illiterate, and unable to problem solve, the school is your only chance of learning these skills. Because of this we are desperate to get the kindy open again. With out kindy, these children will have little chance of getting accepted into school. We told her we will be back later in the year, we will gatecrash church, to talk to the parents and try to get some support.

 

We always seem to leave on these trips so early. All the woman in Vanuatu get up at about 4.30am and do the washing. I have never seen this happen at home. Anyway, I was up at 5am and down loading the toolbox on the truck ready for our trip. The truck was covered completely in rust, and rust holes, and I wasn’t one hundred percent sure it wasn’t just about to disintegrate into the road. Joan and I jumped up and sat on the toolbox, piled our bags around us and bumped along out to million dollar point. When we got there we sat around and waited for the boat, which I predicted to be at least a couple of hours late. Much to our surprise it arrived right on time, and when they saw we were also on time, we all laughed and laughed at such an occurrence.

 

When you arrive on the island, you feel you have encountered a little version of paradise. There is a little village of grass huts, circling a clearing which faces out to a white sandy beach. The water is a crystal clear and shimmers blue. Coconut, papaya, mango and banana trees grow all around; the island is a lush brilliant green. I have visited this island before, to talk to the community about the prospects of setting up a kindy. Last time, when I arrived the whole community had gathered to greet me and I was expected to give a speech, which I did, impromptu. I was planning the speech in my head for this arrival, but when I arrived at the huts there was nobody there. I am never sure what is going to happen. I sat on the soft grass listening to the birds, wondering why everything seems so vibrant in that place. The leaves quiver, and seemed to have a fine layer of shimmering air lining them, giving the feeling on an emanating energy. I was listening to the silence, when I heard a squealing in the distance. What are they doing to that pig? I thought. It was high pitched, ear piercing, the type of noise that reaches into your insides and makes them curdle. The type of noise that makes the tiny strands of hair on the back of your neck stand on end, and tingle. I looked over at the little huts down the path and a man was standing, holding a small boy by one foot, whipping him with a broom make from fine sticks. He was lifting his muscular arm high into the air, and with the full force of his body pelting the broom against the boys ribs. With every slashing noise, the scream rose in pitch and intensity.

 

Joan and I settled our things into our little hut. It was made with flattened bamboo for the walls, and thick layers of long flax leaves for the roof. Joan takes the bed on the left, and I am instructed to take the bed on the right. I first notice that I must share my bed with several very large, hairy black spiders; I brush them off onto the floor. I then notice someone has cut out a picture of a white woman from an 80’s magazine (a blond middle aged women), modelling as a mother. It has been glued onto the bamboo above my bed, probably put there specially to make me feel at home.

 I sat on my bed and pondered about what ‘the natural environment’ actually includes. When I see these little villages, made from the forest, from the land on which they stand, where the people survive from nature, I have began to feel differently about what I think ‘the environment’ is. In New Zealand the environment is something separate from people, trees and stuff, something which we must protect, from ourselves, we try to leave it alone, as though we are not part of it. We fence it off and conserve it, put signs up telling people not to use it. Bees and their hives, they are part of the environment, but people and there homes, us… no we are not nature. We are something else. We are men, we are technology, not nature. In these villages, people and their homes are part of nature in the same way that bees and beehives, and birds and nests are. I remembered that we in the west  are also not separate from nature, we also are nature ourselves. We are all entwined into nature’s vast interwoven network of intelligent design.

 

 

The first day of the workshop goes well. We are starting from scratch, so we move through all the different areas of a child’s development and talk about what teachers can do to help the child with each one. Four teachers come, the two from the kindy we are setting up, one from an island over, and another mama, thinking of starting a kindy of her own next year.

 

After the workshop everybody thought it a good idea to go for a walk. We walked together following the tiny muddy path through the jungle. The bunch of large, round, chocolate skinned women wore bright frilly dresses, covered in flowers. Crisp lipstick red, canary yellow, lively blues and pinks. I walked in amongst them, small and white, trying to fit in but sticking out like a white chocolate chip on a dark chocolate muffin. I’m not sure if the speed could have been called walking, it was more accurately to be called a steady group sway. The bunch swayed to the left and the right, gossiping about each group of huts as we ever so slowly came upon them and moved on down the path.  Five extended families live on Tutuba, all in their own group of huts along the road. The men in all five families are actually related, the women taken as wives from other islands. Men play volley ball, or sit about in groups to the sides of the path. We sway past them, with out acknowledging them, like oil might drift past water, feeling the others presence, but made from different matter and so quite unable to integrate.

 

The kitchen is in a little grass hut with a mud floor. It has a circle of stones in one corner, where the fire is lit to cook the food. We eat large amounts of freshly caught fish, lap lap and rice. Selina, one of the teachers, told us that her family, was buying a wife for one of her husbands brothers. She explained that on Tutuba, when one family wants to buy a wife, they must pay not only for her, but must also buy her accessories. One price for the woman, another for her box of belongings. Selina then explained that this meant that she never would have any reason to return home for any reason. I asked if she could go back to say hello, have a small chat and a coffee, and Selina said that she would belong to the husband so it would be up to him. Plenty of good husbands do give permission, she added.

 

On the first night finding the toilet was quite difficult. I had found it alright in the day, but in the pitch dark, the path through the jungle wasn’t clear and I ended up standing lost in the overgrowth, shining my torch in all directions. All the vines looked like snakes. The toilet was a wooden box with a hole in it, in a hut in the bush. When I finally stumbled across it, and went inside the little hut,  I had to go out again to find a stick that would be suitable to flick all the cockroaches off the seat. I tried to count them, but there were too many. The covered the whole box, in a thick layer, all crawling on top of each other, large and black with hairy legs. I wondered what they liked about that particular spot, and made a mental note to ask other volunteers if they had had this problem. As I poked them, one ran up my leg and I jumped about and flicked it off, busting to go by this point. After ten minutes I had flicked them all off, I then tried to squat over the toilet, with out actually touching it, while shining the torch on the seat to see if any had come back, so I could jump away before they crawled on my bottom. I decided it was my least fun toilet experience so far.

 

The second night, I was just lying there, talking to the spider on the wall, when I felt a sharp stomach pain, followed by the burning feeing my bowel was going to explode. Oh no, I thought, food poisoning. I jumped up, fumbled around for my torch and headed glumly back through the jungle, looking for the toilet. I didn’t want to use the toilet ever again, and it occurred to me to go in the jungle, but I wasn’t exactly sure where people’s huts and gardens were, and I didn’t want them to wake up and wonder why I had pooed on their lawn. When I found the toilet, I didn’t have time for the ‘stick-flick’ approach I had taken the night before, so I kicked the seat as hard as I thought was possible with out knocking the whole box away from the hole in the ground. About half of the cockroaches ran onto the ground, leaving their fun toilet seat party, some decided to explore my leg. I jumped around… then decided there was no time left, I would have to share the seat with the remaining cockroaches and sat down on top of them, just in time. I then decided that the night before had been a relatively good toilet experience after all.

 

On the third day of the workshop we talked about custom, culture, tradition and native language on Tutuba. Tutuba has just 200 people, Only 200 hundred people who speak the local Tutuban language, and share traditions and customs unique to only them. The children have not been told any of their custom stories and songs, and even the teachers couldn’t remember any. The first thing we did was talk about ways to preserve custom stories and language. We translated some songs into the Tutuban language, and just made some up as well. The teachers then decided to go and ask the elders to tell all the custom stories they know, and they would write them down and make big books for the children. We talked about the importance of talking to children in Tutuban language as well as Bislama. We talked about how custom, tradition and culture provides the child with a sense of identity and self esteem. Losing these things, the death of your culture and language can cause a child to grow into an adult with out roots, an adult who lives with an indescribable sense of being lost.

 

Living with the Selina and her family was a little girl called Wildy. Wildy sat quietly on the edge of every meeting, every meal, meekly in the corner, behind turned backs, unnoticed and rarely spoken too. She looked around eight or so, and when I inquired how old she was, Selina said she didn’t know. I asked Wildy herself, but she didn’t know either. Wildy’s mother died three years ago, and as only men were left in the family, she was sort of edged out and forgotten about. Selina had agreed to take her in, but not completely. Wildy had to run all the errands, help out, and keep out of trouble. I asked Selina if she was sending her to school, but Selina said they had already paid her school fees last year, and bought her a school shirt. This year only Selina’s own children were going to school. I liked Wildy a lot, and found myself wishing I could rescue her and take her home with me. During one of the workshops I made her a puzzle, a little harder than I thought the kindergarten children could do, but she didn’t have a clue what to do with it. I guess she had never been given a puzzle before. It baffled her completely for a while before she hid it behind a table when she thought I wasn’t looking.  

Instalment 27; Fatfat Tumas

At Thursday study group we learnt about obesity. Obesity in Bislama is ‘fatfat tumas’ (fat fat too much). Most people in Vanuatu are obese, most women anyway. Obesity is becoming one of the biggest health risks, next to malaria. This is mainly because the consistently available food here is taro, sweet potato and island yam. I would estimate 80 percent of the diet is made up of these stodgy carbs. Meat is much rarer, quite expensive and usually kept for special occasions. There are scrawny chickens and valuable plump pigs, but you don’t want to go eating your own wealth away do you? There are loads of fruits and vegetables, but the availability of these things largely depend on good weather. Different vegetables come and go in the markets, and there are times when little is available, especially if there has been cyclones and storms destroying trees. So people eat stodge, and a lot of stodge at that. Children get very unbalanced diets, as they eat the stodge combined with imported cheap junk food (chemical snacks) and raspberry cordial. It was quite difficult explaining what obesity was. This was because everybody is obese, so Agnus and Alice thought that size of people was quite normal, rather than a heath risk. What would be the point of everyone being scrawny and thin? It would be terribly unattractive for a start. No, it is much better for women to be very large and fat and beautiful. For the first time in my life I suddenly wished I was a bit plumper. Much to the teachers dismay I have actually lost 6kg since arriving. To much walking, not enough delishous fried and fatty western food.

Instalment 25; Did anyone see where my island went?

Today I had an epiphany. Maybe I didn’t, I’m not really sure what an epiphany is. I had a moment of pure joy and sadness, a change in perception. Agnus and Alice came to my house for study group. Agnus has never had a chance to study before, never read anything really about the world, never watched TV, or DVDS. The article they had to read was on ‘Global warming’. It was an introductory exercise, to show the student how to take notes. They were to read the article and make notes on it, then hand the notes in. Agnus couldn’t really understand the English in the article, and so I read it out to her and translated it into Bislama. Have you heard of ‘Global Warming’? I asked. No. I explained that the world was heating up, the polar caps melting and the seas rising. Agnus looked at me as if I was a mad woman. I read the article. Agnus listened to the article with such intensity. As I got through it her eyes started to glass. I watched her face and it touched my heart. It was the face of an old woman who lives in a hut with out electricity and running water, who has never driven a vehicle or flown in a plane, finding out for the first time that the earth was polluted, the fish were dying and the seas were rising. In a far away, unimaginable land, with unfathomable machines and technology, her brothers and sisters were killing our home.

 

It went on say, just to rub salt in her wound, that Vanuatu was the first place on record, where people have already had to evacuate because of an island that disappeared under the rising sea. Agnus jumped, “that wasn’t rising sea!” she exclaimed, “that island sunk”. I tried to explain that it just seemed like it sunk, but in fact the sea was rising. Agnus recalled how long ago weather used to be reliable, people used to know when to plant crops, there used to be fewer cyclones. “This is because of the global warming”, she said. I agreed. Agnus has an amazing brain, just a small amount of information, which she never before has had the opportunity to have, creates whirlwinds of connections and realizations inside her. When I got to the end I tried to explain why we cant all just use wind power, what people are trying to do, I talked about money and oil companies. Agnus sat quiet for a moment, and then tears started streaming from her eyes. It made me cry to, and I cried for the world as though I too had never known it had any problems. I could feel the magnitude of it all from a fresh perspective. As Agnus and Alice left, Agnus said:  “I am crying because I am sad for the world, and I am crying because I am happy I am learning, I am learning magnificent things, things that will change my life. It was always my dream to learn. It was always my dream to learn such things. I really am the luckiest person I know, thank you, thank you, thank you God”.

 

Agnus is 61. She is the oldest person around and I assume that the end of her life will not be too far away. The life expectancy in Vanuatu is 63, and so 61 is very old indeed. She has the body of an old woman, who has struggled through many hardships, walked many thousands of miles and slept many nights on woven mats on the floor. There are times, if you watch the way that her body moves, you can see she is slowly wearing out, you can almost feel the stiffness and pain in her muscles.  Her life has been lived without good medical care, or hot water, it has been a life lived in the blistering sun. Yet, I have never heard a single complaint leave Agnuss lips, she is the most grateful and thankful person I have ever met.

Instalment 24; The Alfie Executive and Associates

A week in Magerette’s kindy, out by the beach. First up on Monday morning was ‘morning story’. It was the same storian I heard on the other side of town last week; the one about the man that smoked marijuana and slit the various throats. As it had traveled mouth to mouth across town, it had changed slightly but not much. There were now two birds, and the blood collected in a dish. It ended differently also, Magerette announced to the four year olds that the man had escaped and was still looking for a child to drink his or her blood, so they should watch out. The children were suitably terrified. Not quite the same themes for morning story we have in New Zealand. At snack time, the children with scabies sit away from the children with out, in their own circle. I choose to sit with the scabieless group, but didn’t feel too bad because Magerette has scabies so she sat with the other group anyway. Scabies is an infestation of mites, which live and lay eggs under the skin. It’s very infectious, and the excruciating itch causes pussy welts, bleeding and scaring, which cover the children’s legs and hands. I did try to explain that the children should be taken into town to see if there is any cream for them at the hospital. I tried to explain that it is not just the eating together, but also the touching and skin contact that is causing it to spread. Magerette said the families of the children have had scabies for three years, so they didn’t really mind too much. Luckily, on the brighter side of things, every child on the island has head lice already, so we don’t need to worry about that spreading. Magerette told me a white man had moved into her village, but she was very concerned he was into black magic. I asked her why she thought that. She said one reason was that he built his house right on the beach and not in the village with everyone else. Secondly, he ate a suspicious amount of green vegetables, which he grew in his garden. Hmmm…. Sure signs if you ask me.

 

To escape having to get a permit to sell cakes in the park, we have decided to sell them at the stadium on Saturday instead (Well, not all of us). Ninety percent of the teachers are SDA and so can’t leave the house on Saturday, nor can they bake on a different day if the produce will be sold on a Saturday. These are only two of the many annoying rules of the SDA, and I’m usually very respectful of other peoples beliefs and don’t make comments like that. Anyway, the four of us that are not SDA baked cakes and sold them at the football, along with glasses of cordial and lap lap. Lucy is the president of the Luganville association.  Lucy’s husband left her for another woman seven years ago. Although she had never seen him since this time she still lives in her house with her children, waiting for him. He is still her husband, and him running away for seven years hasn’t been a good enough reason for her to move onto someone else. “ I am a married woman” she often exclaims. When I first heard that she hadn’t seen him in seven years, I wanted to suggest he wasn’t coming back, but didn’t. This afternoon at football, the husband turned up in his truck. He had been on a different island and he was back. Back to stay. “Thank goodness!” “It must have been all those prayers!” “Sometimes God is slow isn’t he, must be really busy”. Everybody sighed happily, at the wonderful ending to the story. “What a good man he is!” Everybody exclaimed. “It must have been black magic that has finally worn off!” They chattered. I told her she should tell him to go back to where he came from; it was a very ‘whitegirl’ thing to say, and nobody had a clue why I would say it, so they all just waved their hand at me as if I was a little silly.

 

When we were alone after the football, Margerette told me a great secret, that under no circumstances am I allowed to tell anyone. I promised I wouldn’t, but telling you lot doesn’t count because you won’t tell. Apparently, the ‘Alfie executive and associates’, a very important sounding lot, came to their village one day, and told them that if they pay a small fee, well, actually quite a large fee, they can “speedum up power blong god’ (speed up the response time of God after they have made a prayer). Every one was delighted at such a useful thing, and joined up immediately. It is top secret though. All she can tell me is that it works, because right after that the new phone tower started going up. Also old aunt Magey’s son came back, and everyone had been praying for that for a long time. I had a feeling Margerette was suspecting them to be involved in the sudden and surprising return of Lucy’s husband that afternoon. That was several prayers made a decade ago, suddenly processed. God must be going through old files, The Alfie executive and his associates are surely involved.  I asked if the ‘Alfie executive and associates’ were white men or not. They are from Santo, apparently. One was very short and one was very tall. She told me I was especially not to tell the Santo police, because the police will be jealous of the ‘Alfie executive and associates’ power. I promised I wouldn’t.

Instalment 23; Ludicrous Things…

It’s Jans job to develop women’s businesses in the villages. Jan is with ‘Australian Volunteers International’ (AVI). Women often must pay the school fees if they want their children to go to school, and so try to sell baskets, vegetables, woven flax bags, mats and cooked local food. Jan tried to get them a permit to sell their food and baskets in Unity Park, the main park in the middle of town, but the permits are extremely expensive. Even after paying the permit, you must also pay 100 vatu per tray of food you sell, meaning that you cannot get ahead even with good sales. If you have a government job, you not only do not have to turn up at work, but give no money in tax (not even one percent of your income). There is a 25 percent tax on anything imported, making absolutely all products here very expensive. You pay more for a meal or a box of laundry power than you do in central London. The very poor people pay high taxes in the form of permits to sell their produce. It maddens her.. it is injustice that she lives in amongst but can not do anything about. It is one of those tiny flies; buzzing a centimeter from her eyeball (no amount of swatting makes any difference). Jan said that most women actually lose money when they try to sell things because they don’t have the mathematics skills to work out that their expenditure is higher than their income.  Anyway, if you see her I would advise not bringing up the topic,  it would be a similar mistake to opening a can of worms (best to not have a can opener).

 

Emma just came in, dripping head to toe in sweat, with five island woven bags hooked over her shoulders. She dumped the Daily post on the coffee table and said, “That is officially the worst daily post ever”. “Can’t be the worst ever” I said, (typing my instalment into the laptop). “It is! It’s worse than all the others,” she said. Apparently, in the world today there was no news what so ever. There was one story about some high school students getting a detention for not going back to their dorms. In the paper it said that the students watched the football, then the game finished late so they rushed back to their dorm, only to get a detention. The paper interviewed the students only. Emma said she was at the football and the students left at 2.30pm but did not get back to their dorm until 7pm.  This left them plenty of time to wander the streets at dusk and give each other specific eyebrow raises. The news was incorrect, but then again, the news is often incorrect. There must be a guy in most newspaper offices, whose job it is to decide if news is important enough to print or not. I don’t think the daily post office here has that guy.

 

Twenty teachers are about to start study at the University of the South Pacific, although I won’t be surprised if there is a high drop out rate in March when the fees are due. It is not a regular program, but a program designed for teachers in the South Pacific who have not completed secondary school themselves. It is called ‘the certificate in early childhood’ and is made up of three courses. Each course is six months part time. Filling in the forms, gathering the applications, receiving the acceptance letters, enrolling and collecting the books has been a frightening and complicated process for most teachers. Being a kindergarten teacher is one of the least respected and lowest paid jobs in Vanuatu, and as a result, most of the women don’t have the confidence to talk to ‘big men’ (respected people) in society. Even the enrollment officer at the ‘correspondence office’ is too important to approach.  They know me now, they know I am their advocate; they wait outside for me and follow me in. I spend lots of time in the meetings trying to explain that they have a right to ask for things, they have a right to make rules for the children, to tell parents things about the development of their child. I tell them they must be confident, approach people, for they have as much right as any ‘big man’ to be alive. A lot of my job is just standing up for them. It does not take much, the enrolment officer told one teacher she had to repeat course one even though she sat it two years ago and passed. “No”, I said. “She passed, “she can move on to course two”. He was not going to argue with a white ‘missus’, that is all it took to convince him. Everybody likes to hold each other back. I heard today that another teacher has sat ‘course one’ three times and passed each time, she has been too shy to demand to move to course two. She has enrolled in course one again, so I’m glad I found out in time. If she had moved on, she would have finished by now. It would be funny if you didn’t know how painstaking it is for her to save up for the fee each time. I am trying to help them get a permit to sell cakes in Unity Park, so they can get money for their course fees (I know Jan says it’s not really worth it, but we may as well give it a go). I could have asked the council my self, but I will not be here forever, and they must build the confidence to do it themselves. I gave the president lots of advice on what to say, and went in with her, I literally held onto the edge of her shirtsleeve, and she seemed confident enough. A funny little man waddled out of the office and said ‘can I help you’, she cowered, and couldn’t find the voice to ask.

 

Between Jan, Emma and I, the word ‘ludicrous’ is spoken at least 30 times a day. I have decided I quite like the word ‘ludicrous’, just saying it loudly makes you feel immediately better about the situation.

 

“LUD- I-CROUS!!!”

 

See?

 

I heard another good storian from a teacher in the street today. A 14-year-old smoked marijuana (just the one time). He then went to slit the throat of a chicken and drank the blood. After this, he slit the throat of a dog and drank the blood. He then caught a small child, and just as he was about to slit the child’s throat, a group of men caught him and saved the child’s life (her eyes lit up at the last words). She then told me she would be telling the kindergarten children this storian first thing in the morning! I find it quite funny, because nobody has ever thought of not believing what they hear in a storian. It is as good as true if it’s told in the street. I nod and say ‘terrible’, then dutifully pass the story on the next friend I pass. There was an article in the paper a while ago about a man that smoked marijuana and then stripped naked and climbed a tree, it suggested the marijuana had turned him into a monkey.

Instalment 21; No room for Dinosaurs:

 

If Santo was famous, it would be famous for its sunsets. I often hear people say; “Santo is famous for its sunsets” to which I reply “is Santo famous? Oh, I didn’t know- it feels rather neglected and undiscovered”. Santo also has the largest ‘divable’ sunken ship in the world (which is actually more likely to one day make Santo famous) but putting that aside we can safely say the sunsets here are so glorious that you will be unlikely to find their equal in any other location in the world. Although each individual sunset is magnificent; it isn’t the magnificence of any particular sunset on which the residents of Santo lay claims of fame. It is the individuality of each sunset, night after night, that causes one to look up in surprise and get caught in awe just for a moment at the particular unusual mix of bright splendid colours which are swirling through the sky. It can be said that every night, even after very many nights have past, one will never become indifferent to them, one will never forget to stop what they are doing, turn around, look up at the sky and marvel at the intense and unique firmament.  For a small moment it becomes effortless to imagine the heavens above. Each night the colours change dramatically from deep violets to mauves to rich crimsons to shimmering silver and scarlet, each shade so vivid and dazzling that all other colours seem like fakes, mere copies of the true intense colours of the Santo sky.

 

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Nothing works very well in Vanuatu. The main reason for this is that most people don’t turn up at work, especially government officials. Silas (who had the appendicitis) has recovered but now must take his three month holiday back to back with his sick leave so will be away until May. I turned up at the ministry of education with an armful of work for us to do, and plans for our year.. to find this out. I am suspicious that I will be expected to do his job until he gets back. A big crime ring was broken, and one of Luganville’s most notorious thieves was caught. He turned out to be the president of the football association. Did he lose his job and go to jail? No.. nothing happened to him at all. Just about all the stolen goods in Luganville were found in his home but the evidence was ‘inadmissible in court’. It does mean that Sarah is now working for a man that has been caught for three ‘break ins’ to her own apartment. Her laptop and camera were recovered in his house. Frustrating. There is one jail in Luganville and one in Vila. The prisoners are let out some weekends and over Christmas. Crime goes up during this time, and the prisoners just return after Christmas when they are ready. There was once a ‘mass walk out’ from the Luganville jail last year because the warden forgot to lock the gate. The prisoners walked out, got some food and returned right after dinner of their own accord. 80 percent of the people in prison are in for rape, half of them child rape.

 

The cell phone coverage on Santo has been down for two months. We are not quite sure what the problem is, but rumor on the street says a tower is down and we must wait for someone to come from Vila to fix it. We have waited and waited and after sometime made a unanimous decision not to hold our breaths. The coverage isn’t completely down however, and there does seem to be random spots (if one is lucky enough to find one), where the phones will work. Since discovering this, there has been a search on for ‘cell-phone spots’. I found one on my balcony. To access the spot one must stand right in the corner and lean ever so slightly over the edge. One tiny spot, that if I stand directly on it, without swaying left or right I can make a call. It is important not to get to excited during the call and take a step away from the spot, in which case you will be cut off immediately. Sarah also uses my cell-phone spot as she doesn’t seem to have one, but I’m not convinced she spent as much time as I did searching. To search for a cell-phone spot one must attempt to make a call from every part of the house. This takes quite a while and mainly involves a ‘step, call, step, call’ type motion. Who said anyone needed TV to fill your time anyway? We are not able to use the coverage bars on the phone as an indication of the location of a spot, as they seems to always be full. Before finding my own spot, I used to walk outside and halfway down the hill. I think the telephone company may have decided not enough people have phones on Santo to bother fixing the problem but only time will tell. Last year I went into a kindergarten and the three teachers who have phones had them hung from pieces of string from the ceiling, all three in the same place. I looked at them, felt slightly confused and decided not to ask (I am becoming immune to strange events). After a bit one teacher became concerned that my phone wasn’t hanging there and I gave it over, to be strung up with the others. It is only lately that I remembered the event, and in a moment of clarity (perhaps my first since arriving here), I said out loud ‘oh- that must have been their spot’.

 

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I mentioned dinosaurs. The president of the pre-school association quickly told me “not to mention dinosaurs in the kindergartens because they never existed”. I wasn’t quite sure to what to say, so I just stared blankly in her direction. “Have you ever seen one?” she asked. Um… “no” I said. “But, they have found bones”. “Animal bones” she said. “they stick all the animal bones together in any shape they like”. “But they are big big bones” I said. “Elephants and all sorts” she said. I decided I should be a little careful with how I continued the conversation. “Why don’t you believe in dinosaurs” I asked. “Well, When the big boat was here, Noah put all the animals in it, but he didn’t make enough room for the dinosaurs.. did he?”. Hmmmmm. She had me there. My mind raced, so much I wanted to say, so many levels to approach my answer. If I had told her I didn’t think the boat was real, I might have lost my job. I stared for a minute longer, then said… “ but, at the time Noah made the big boat, that was a time when people were on the earth already. So, that was much much later than the time when dinosaurs were on the earth. So Noah didn’t need to make room for them did he?” She stared at me blankly for what felt like quite a long time. I knew that in the SDA church, they are told, and told and told.. but not required, able or allowed to think critically about the information. “Just wan tingting blong yu”. She replied (That’s just  something that you think). “Yes” I replied. “Blong me, nomo” (Only my idea).

Instalment 19; More Rasperry Cordial

 

Filling in the forms for study has been quite an adventure. I trapes out to the school and lye on the floor with the forms. We look at the first question: Name? The teachers go off to ask their husband what name would be best to use, the family name, the custom name, there are many to choose from. Thirty minutes will pass by. Next question: ‘Date of Birth’; Most people don’t quite know their date of birth, but put the month and year. This takes about 20 minutes to think about. Question three: ‘Address’; Nobody has an actual address. You only have an address for mail if you pay for a P.O box number. Some settle on using the church but must go to find out what the address is. I lye down and wait patiently, it wouldn’t be done to try and rush things, and its best to forget about anything else that you might have had to go and do.  If worst comes to worst we put my address. ‘Educational background’; Most don’t have any records of an education, as they left school at the end of primary school, you must get in the top 30 percent of the class in the exams at the end of primary school to graduate to high school. Do you have a copy of your birth certificate? “I was born before we had birth certificates in Vanuatu”. You will be starting to get a picture of what fun it is to fill out these forms.  I went to three schools today, equipped with my forms, which I stuck in my island basket, it slings over my shoulder and has the Vanuatu flag weaved on it in different coloured flax (very flash). The days are getting very very hot, and in this area schools must be walked to. I would say in total I walked for about four hours. The first time I went to the Kindy in ‘Pepsi’ I went with George and he powered along, today I did the walk along the dusty track at snail speed. I walked past little grass huts and people standing outside, they look fascinated and as if they are wondering what on earth a strange white girl is doing walking along their track. I always pick a flower and put it in my hair, the flowers are huge and come in every colour, sometimes I change the flower after a bit if I find a better or brighter one, by the time I get home I usually have a pretty big magnificent flower in my hair, which probably looks a bit silly, but there are no prospective boyfriends around to see.

 

At Pepsi Kindy I was given a delicious glass of warm raspberry cordial (extra syrupy), a bowl of rice with baked beans on top, and a quarter of a giant cucumber. The children sat beside me on the muddy wooden floor and shoveled the food in their mouths from their rusty metal bowls with their fingers, I got the honorary spoon. We all randomly waved our hands in front of our faces and across our ears to ward off the cluster of flies that had gathered around us. They come so close to your face I am often worried I will accidentally eat one.  I could tell from the children’s expressions and eating styles that the baked beans were a treat. After lunch I did a walk up to Matafunga Kindy and got a half of a juicy pineapple and a big chunk of papaya, which a little boy scurried up a tree for. Everybody loves to feed me, lucky I am walking so much.

Instalment 18; Emotional Survival

Instalment 17; Invoking spirit

I went to watch some custom dancing. A tribe from south Santo had come into town and built a fire up next to the education office. They were painted head to toe in white stripes and reminded me very much of zebras. The chief wore a large head dress of orange flowers. Everybody wore only tuffs of ferns around their waist, and for the first time I saw scores of women, unclothed, bare breasted and looking extremely beautiful. The men built up the bonfire, they then danced around it stamping their feet and chanting, the women chanted a different song near by, and as the two songs meet they created an invigorating sound. The men built up speed then all at once they jumped on the fire, the flames lapping around their bodies and a thousand sparks would fly off and into the air, this (one teacher told me) was the fire talking back to the men. As the chanting went on the air got thicker with energy, I could feel that a spirit had indeed been invoked, I found the chanting and dancing became intoxicating. I felt truly moved by the ceremony, and surprised at my own feelings. I can not explain it, but there is some very powerful truth in what they believe in, in earth spirit worship, something which we like to pretend is ‘primitive’ but only because we do not understand.

 

The teacher I was with, who was from this area, told me that this was a very sacred dance, and usually to watch it costs one pig. I wanted to ask her more about the purpose of the dance, what was happening, but I felt strangely frightened to find out. The men would rush at the fire chanting at it, challenging it, and all by it self the fire would flame up back at them, letting off sparks, it was communicating with them. Or perhaps the soul of the universe had found a way to express itself, using the fire as a tool.

Instalment 16; Is it me Who is Odd?:

 

I have been doing literacy workshops every afternoon. The mornings I spend walking from school to school in the sweltering heat delivering messages and convincing teachers to sign up for the certificate in early childhood through the university of the south pacific. I tell them if they enroll through the correspondence program, I will hold study groups and we will all do the work together in a class. I tell them I will help them with the assignments and translate their work from Bislama to English. So far I have four teachers. One of the 30 or so teachers has completed this certificate and so can call them selves ‘trained’. The problem is that the teachers don’t get paid, so if they train the school may fire them as they may have more ground to demand money for their work. I tell them teachers must work for their children’s future and the future of their country. Better teaching will help their children become tomorrows leaders, their country will have a brighter future. People like this sort of talk here and I’m becoming better at it. I get asked to make an impromptu speech at least once a meeting and I usually add something like that in.  Delivering messages is quite time consuming. As nobody has a phone and there are no postmen all messages must be delivered by hand or mouth. If you have a note or letter for someone you can ‘pass’ it. Passing a letter is just giving it to someone going in that direction, who will pass it to someone else until it finds the person. You must make sure the name is written clearly on. You can pass letters to remote parts of the island by standing on the road and flagging down a taxi going that way. They will pass it to the next taxi and so on until it reaches the village… at some point, usually well after it was needed. This is a reasonably good system but all the same, often people don’t get messages.

 

Anyway that’s my mornings. This week’s afternoon workshops are in Kamewa school. The school is right on the beach, the kindergarten just about in the sand. The walls and roof of the kindy are made completely with rusty corrugated iron, inside it is empty with a smooth concrete floor. I walk across the school field at lunch time through hundreds of laughing, topless, shoeless children in faded grey school shorts. They usually run after me for a bit shouting ‘hello missus’ and then return to the football. The school field is nicely mowed and lined in tall palm and pine trees. When I arrive at the kindy usually all the teachers (from five of the surrounding schools) are asleep on the concrete floor. The first day I was surprised to see the large women in flowery dresses scattered around, I lay down in the middle of them all and gazed out the window at the blue sea. I could actually see the heat like a clear mist. I woke up ten minutes later and the women were all sitting up looking at me, as though it was me who was odd. I am coming to terms with the fact that it is indeed me that is odd. I then say the welcome prayer, and somebody else says the closing prayer, I think this is because the closing prayer has to be really really long, and I can never think of enough things to thank god for, as much as I do try.