February 22

So here's the thing, this is what I've been thinking - In America you have to work, and for the most part you have to work hard - there's no way around it - most everyone needs to have a job, except the very rich and very poor. You have to buy land and you have to buy food and health insurance and a car to get to your job that you have to go to. And houses are expensive, like way expensive, like 30 years expensive, and there's clothes and new shoes and there's plenty that you just want to buy so you buy those things too. Which is fine and it creates this kick-ass economy that affords us things like huge hospitals and cars and power tools and full-on entertainment and social programs and such, and it works out pretty well. We have to work hard, but there's lots of rewards that come from doing so. And for the most part everyone is satisfied with the system, everyone except those that it doesn't work for, like those who can't pay for everything we have to pay for, and those that really struggle everyday meeting the our culture's working demands. And the homeless, of course.

As you can guess, it's different here. Everyone has family and a home and every single person gets enough to eat. (Very different than America, huh?) It's a place where necessities don't have to be paid for. Which means you don't have to make money, which means their economy is always going to be weak compared to societies where everyone is sort of forced to help increase the gross domestic product. The price they have to pay for this is that they don't get huge hospitals (you get mild pain-killers for any medical issues and a massage after a stroke and such shortcomings that are much more real than just the size of the hospital) and they don't get endless entertainment and a natural right to 18 years of school (like myself, Alex has 19), Expensive clothes and power tools and newspapers and flour and an endless list of luxuries we take for granted are rare here. And there are expectations that you shouldn't "want" as we "want" in America. Which is no good at all - if your the type who wants to go above and beyond and succeed and buy a new sparkling truck - you would probably get run out of this community - really. You'd get ran out of the community because there is an expectation of sharing, and you really can't save up for a truck and share well at the same time.

And being one that wants but isn't given the opportunity is no better (or worse) than being the guy that doesn't want but must live as if he does. It's seems more of a question of who loses out in the end than anything else.

February 21

It's Sunday night, I wrote four letters and an email (to be sent out in two months when we have internet access), so I'm feeling as if I accomplished something today. Played Uno with some kids too. And read a few articles.

At least three times in the past week Alex has commented on how good the laplap she was eating tasted. I don't know what that means, surely it's some kind of milestone.

Alex and I's 'to-do' list is fairly substantial, we've talked to lots of Peace Corps Volunteers here who comment they don't have much to do, but that doesn't seem to be our experience at all. Not sure what that means either. Tomorrow I have to hand copy a bunch of information to disperse (there's no copy machines here; well, there is - it's me and a pen & paper).


Alex pictured with lots of taro that's been peeled and is ready to be turned into laplap.

February 17

I stayed inside and spent most of the day reading about water solutions. It's interesting, kind of. Alex and I have been told the community has a good source, which makes solutions a whole lot simpler. But it's still complicated. And the village doesn't have the resources, organization or expertise to ensure all maintenance requirements of a even a simple gravity-fed system will be looked after well. They had system installed some time ago, and it's now essentially defunct. The information I read today suggested the expected life for a water system should be ~20 years, but due to lack of resources (replacement parts, local technical knowledge or otherwise) the average life-span of a water system in rural Vanuatu is about 5-10 years. This suggest the last system was relatively fine, the local community just forgot to plan for it's replacement, so I guess that's a big part of our work as well.

The simplest solution would be for everyone just to get their own water tanks and set-up rainwater catchment systems wanwan (that's bislama for individually or each, pronounced one one). The problem with this solution is that there's (we've been told) a fairly long dry season, meaning that everyone would need really big tanks, which are sas (that's bislama for expensive).

The baby parrot sat beside me and screamed the entire day.

People giving us food in exchange for charging their cell phones with our solar panel seems to be a pretty good system that's developing organically, today we got oranges, kumula (sweet potato) and snake beans (which are really good, they look kind of like a bean but their about 12 to 18 inches long and about as fat as a half dollar coin).

February 16

dear blog
I'm laying in bed and listening to the bislama rap CD. Alex is out in the living room, reading about pilates. We had bell peppers with a sweet chili sauce and bread with tomatoes and basil for dinner. I think we've eating for bell peppers for at least the last six or seven meals, not that I'm complaining, mitufala likim kapsikam bitim fulap narafala aelan kakae.

When we were in Vila last week I downloaded a bunch of reading material off the internet and onto our computer for our reading entertainment. One of the articles I downloaded was about how farmers in africa use chile peppers to keep the elephants from trampling their crops. Among other things, the farmers crush the peppers, mix them with engine grease, and smear them on their fences, When elephants touch this substance, it greatly irritates their skin.

Reading the article re-emphasized to me how relatively remote alex and I are, as we have neither fences nor engine grease.

We're on a fairly small island, a full [24 hour] day's boat ride from the capital city of a country with a population of ~200,000. Yesterday I explained how banks make money by charging interest on loans to a fairly influential community leader, he had no idea. We can rarely buy flour locally. There's no refrigeration or freezer in the area. As far as I'm aware, Alex and I have the only operating propane stove.

There are generators, and a television and a DVD player. I've seen Finding Nemo 2, The Karate Kid, a movie about the life and times of Mike Tyson and a Billy Graham Christmas sing-along. There's also a truck in a village an hour's walk from our home, so, technically we could get engine grease. And technically speaking, there is a barbed wire fence keeping the cows in the coconut plantation. And there's at least one chainsaw, so we could cut some timber and make some fairly substantial fences to keep the elephants out.

February 12

Alex woke up this morning unable to speak, we haven't been able to reach the Peace Corps nurse yet as our cell phones couldn't find any reception today. We think it's strep throat and Alex started antibiotics. God bless the medical kit and guide. She's still has a slight fever but is able to comment as I write.

I think I might hate the baby parrot, it cried for hours today and refused to eat, twice. And I had to yell at Lady Gaga for trying to eat it.

Alex typing now: The aforementioned baby parrot worries us so much. He likes to climb down from the safety of his perch and hang out on the floor where the cat will eat him. Lucas went to go check if he's still there, we have a plan B: to put him in a box with newspapers for the night if he keeps putting his life at risk.

Lucas typing bak bakegen (back again)
The parrot is still in its perch.

I planted a banana and some pumpkins this morning, then washed clothes, combed lice out of the damn parrot and then storied on with some guys from the village. A month or so back some of the guys from the village were asking Alex and I if it was true that men lived in space, we told them about the international space station. When we went into Vila we downloaded some pictures of the space station, I showed the guys the pictures today and they seemed pretty fascinated. Also showed them some pictures of strip mining and the southern lights.

We had some rockin curried lentils for dinner.

February 11

I put the baby parrot in a bowl of water and poured more water on it's head. I thought it was nice to give the bird a bath, but Alex just thinks it was mean.

This is Alex writing now--the bird screamed, jumped out of the bowl, and tried to hide. Later, we ended up brushing the bird with an old toothbrush to get his/ her lice off. We've named the bird multiple times today: We've decided on Siviru (see-vee-roo-- the language name for parrot) BIll Sisi--Sivi for short

He's not as cool as a bat, but he's growing on us. He sings in his sleep which is really sweet, but we worry that he'll get eaten by the cat if he keeps singing at night.

We've finished moving out of the other house. It's a big pain to move every thing you own by foot. What didn't seem too heavy at first, gets really heavy after a while. We've been puttering in the new house and making it homey--This house will be the longest place we will have lived together since we've met.

Back to the island

it's 7:20 on a Tuesday night, Alex and I are both laying in bed, IN OUR NEW HOUSE!!! It was finished when we returned from Vila. It's a gorgeous house, like probably the prettiest house Alex and I will ever live in, and you know we're going to live in pretty houses nomo. And the view is fantastic too, we've been taking pictures of the sunset every night. We have two bush kitchens, which I can't be bothered to explain, and I don't fully understand, if I'm honest.

We're listening to a CD that a Peace Corps Volunteer created. It's American hip-hop music but in bislama, it's really funny, lots of references to peculiarities of the Ni-van culture.

So our flying fox flew away while we were in Vila, Alex thinks it was murdered by a child, though she doesn't know which one yet. My host father gave us a baby parrot today as a reconciliation gift. I tried to give it the same name as the flying fox, but Alex thinks that's a dumb idea. He's cute too, but really don't you think a gigantic bat is way cooler than a baby parrot? And the parrot has lice too.

Alex has been in bed all day, she's got a fever of 101F. Wish her good thoughts.