Eight months

Thursday, January 27th

Dear blog,
It's hot in beautiful Pentecost. We are listening to the BBC on the high-frequecy radio and Alex is pumping iron. Our friends Jess and Michael spent most of the day hanging out with us - looking at pictures, joking around and being too hot.
We still have lice. The Peace Corps nurse sent us special shampoo and a fine-toothed comb a couple weeks ago. We haven't got it yet. We have a friend that lives north of us on Pentecost island near the post office. He has our shampoo and comb. We could walk the 12-hour roundtrip or pay the $50usd for a boat ride. But we haven't. Instead we just scratch our heads, complain about the lice and take turns pulling louse out of each other's hair. Lucas has gotten pretty good finding and destroying eggs in his own hair.
Lucas leaves for Port Vila in about two weeks for a week-long training while Alex will stay on Pentecost for six more weeks until her training and a break in vila. We are saving money to go see the active volcano on Tanna island in the south of Vanuatu. We hope it's worth it as a week being apart will be the longest we've been separated since we married (and Alex thinks about ice on an daily basis).
We haven't been swimming in the ocean because the ocean has been rough for weeks and there's a high chance of these little biting sea bugs. No relief from the heat.
People keep talking about how soon we are leaving, but we have 8 more months. At least one person mentions it everyday. We are going to apply for another season in Antarctica, we'll see what happens. If we get the jobs and accept them, we will return to the states in March of 2012. We plan to move to the Washington D.C. area, find good jobs and pay off our student loans. And have a baby, of course.

Sincerely,
Alex & Lucas