It is a Friday, November 19th. it's about 10:30 am. I just finished working briefly in our garden. It started raining. We are glad to see the rain as it's been dry. Though I suspect the watermelons I planted last week aren't so excited about the torrential downpour.
I drank kava last night at the nakamal in my host father's village. Try to picture it - the village is right on the sand beach, the nakamal is maybe 15 feet from the ocean's edge at a typical high tide. The ocean is very calm almost always. The nakamal and most of the houses in the village look a lot like our house, they are made of bamboo that has been split, flattened and woven together. The nakamal and most houses do not have a floor built into them, just the sand they were built on top of. The men grind the kava by hand. kava is the root of a plant, it's pretty tough, tougher than root crops for sure. The men grind the kava using cylinder-shaped pieces of coral that they gather from the reef in front of their village. So, picture lots of men, all sitting around on the ground with kava roots in one hand and a big chunk of coral in the other hand, probably not too different from a long time ago. The women cook the meal, all locally grown root crops. They build a big fire and heat up bunch of stones, then they put some stones in a shallow hole. They cover the stones with a bunch of leaves that look very much like banana leaves. They put the root crops on top of the leaves, then another layer of leaves and then more hot rocks on top. ;Again, I imagine this to be quite similar to how they cooked a long time ago. Everyone is speaking the local language, a language that about 14,000 people can understand. There may be a few kerosine lights, perhaps a flashlight. It is very dark inside the nakamal.
I imagine the whole scene to be very similar to many, many years ago. Only the sound of cell phones ringing and a cluster of young men in a corner checking text messages seems out of place, and a loud reminder that they days of before are certainly 'of before'.
the bislama for 'a long time ago' is 'bifo bifo'. The literal translation being 'before before'.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Soap and Mangoes
it's thursday, early afternoon, it feels like it's been a long time since I last blogged, which is true, more than a couple of weeks. The sun is strong, we are hot today.
We are in the prime of mango season. We have four mango trees near our house, the closest is 20-30 feet from the back our house. Everyday men, women, boys and girls pass by our house in search of mangos. We are sometimes woken in the middle of the night by someone with a flashlight searching for mangoes in the middle of the night. There are always small groups of people, typically children, at the mango trees as soon as day breaks, hoping to scavenge all the mangoes that have fallen over the course of the night. Sometimes a mango will fall to the ground already partially eaten, a flying fox got to it first. We don't eat those mangoes, we leave them on the ground and the chickens enjoy them. We toss rotten mangoes into the bush, they are enjoyed by bugs and lizards and crabs. We are told that pigs are fed the spoiled mangoes and that the rat (they are mostly just fat mice, but they call them rats here) population increases dramatically during a good mango season, and we believe it, having seen two rats near our house this past week (one inside). Groups of men come and climb the mango trees and harvest basketfuls. Old men come and sit by the biggest mango tree after a long days work in the garden, they wait for a mango to fall down then they pick it up and head home. We see waves of children, before school, during lunch break, when kindergarten is finished and again at the end of the school day.
In other news, We led a soap-making workshop two days ago, it was everyone's (including ours) first time making soap. There were about 50 people attending the workshop, it seems to have worked but we have to let the soap sit for a month before we can try it out. this is the best way we could think of to get people to start washing their hands.
Here's the recipe we used:
3 liters coconut oil
225 grams caustic soda
1 liter water
Put the caustic soda in the water and wait for it to cool down. Add to oil and mix until it turns into soap. Pour into molds and let it sit for a month. Taste it to make sure it's good. They can make their own coconut oil here, so it's pretty cheap. We'll just have to wait and see if it catches on.
October 30
Alex and I have no plans to celebrate Halloween, except for possibly cooking with a pumpkin. What are your Halloween plans?
Alex saw a big fish while snorkeling today. I saw lots of little fish, one with an exceptionally long nose.
I learned a new Bislama word the other day; 'Leg blong dakdak' which would translate to 'leg belonging to a duck'; We were talking about snorkeling, can you guess what a 'leg blong duck' is?
The bislama word for snorkeling is 'mekem diva' = make diver.
Leg blong duck is the flippers you wear on your feet to swim faster.
Alex saw a big fish while snorkeling today. I saw lots of little fish, one with an exceptionally long nose.
I learned a new Bislama word the other day; 'Leg blong dakdak' which would translate to 'leg belonging to a duck'; We were talking about snorkeling, can you guess what a 'leg blong duck' is?
The bislama word for snorkeling is 'mekem diva' = make diver.
Leg blong duck is the flippers you wear on your feet to swim faster.
October 29
I went to a 'fifty-day dead' last night. when someone dies their life is celebrated every tenth day for one hundred days. So the guy's life we were celebrating last night died fifty days ago. In the morning those closest to the dead (that's how they refer to the recently deceased in bislama) would mourn. They cry loudly and for a surprisingly long time. In the early afternoon, most who knew the dead start coming to the nakamal (the community meeting building), the men prepare and drink kava and the women prepare and bake food for everyone. The small children typically hang out with their mom or with their friends, a few 15-16 year old teen-age boys were preparing the kava last night. they are too young to drink kava, but not to young to work it.
So, ten days ago the mourners cried in the morning, in the afternoon I went to this nakamal and sat and drank kava and storied-on with the men. And again ten days from now and so on. The hundredth day will be a bigger ordeal with more kava and probably meat to bake. After the hundred days, the mourning is finished, there is no more sadness for the deceased. An impressively efficient system.
(It should be noted that Alex questions wether or not it really works, but I get the impression the mourning really is finished after a hundred days of sort of forced mourning.)
As is the tradition here, the person preparing the kava chooses who to offer the kava to, and, as is tradition, an offer to drink kava is rarely, if ever, refused. It is not common for 15-18 year olds to prepare the kava, but it happens sometimes, like last night. The young men preparing the kava and choosing who should drink seemed to favor their school teachers, the teachers got pretty drunk, one was puking, another was having difficulty speaking.
So, ten days ago the mourners cried in the morning, in the afternoon I went to this nakamal and sat and drank kava and storied-on with the men. And again ten days from now and so on. The hundredth day will be a bigger ordeal with more kava and probably meat to bake. After the hundred days, the mourning is finished, there is no more sadness for the deceased. An impressively efficient system.
(It should be noted that Alex questions wether or not it really works, but I get the impression the mourning really is finished after a hundred days of sort of forced mourning.)
As is the tradition here, the person preparing the kava chooses who to offer the kava to, and, as is tradition, an offer to drink kava is rarely, if ever, refused. It is not common for 15-18 year olds to prepare the kava, but it happens sometimes, like last night. The young men preparing the kava and choosing who should drink seemed to favor their school teachers, the teachers got pretty drunk, one was puking, another was having difficulty speaking.
October 25
The sunset is gorgeous tonight, the water looks erie and dark, it makes the sunset even prettier. We spent the day around the house, mostly weeding the garden, trying to catch up from our two months away from site. Alex did a load of laundry this morning too. The garden is doing well, better than we expected and certainly better than we deserve. We planted some seeds in the nursery two days ago, watermelon, spinach and beans. Wish us luck, especially with the spinach as we haven't seen it grown here.
We will miss fresh coconut cream when we leave this place.
We will miss fresh coconut cream when we leave this place.
Back to the island
Okay,
We made it back to the island, about 10 days ago, on a thursday. Upon our return, our cat, Lady Gaga, was missing, we gave her a few days to return home and then found a new one, it's name is Flopsy, it's a boy, we didn't name him, he is very loving.
it's saturday afternoon, well it's 11am, but it might as well be the afternoon. it's quiet, and wet and cold outside. We haven't left the house today and no one has come to visit. Alex is in the bedroom reading a book by Bill Bryson. I am sitting in our sitting room, on a mat with the laptop computer (iBook G4).
Part of me wants to be social, to go out and visit with neighbors and such things, maybe I feel a bit guilty staying inside all day, like I'm not being a good peace corps volunteer if I spend too much time alone. another part of me is content with not leaving the house, content to find busy work and clean up our place and such things.
In reality, I won't do anything with our communities today, unless they make the effort and come here - to our house. I already know this. There are plenty of tasks around the house and we do well enough entertaining each other.
I hypothesize the social needs of single volunteers drive them to be more active in their communities. And thus more real and connected with their community- a more human experience, I'm a bit jealous on days like today, when I wish I had greater desires to be 'in' the community.
We had two new Peace Corps volunteers, Kyle and Ebs, come visit us as part of their orientation training, they were here for 5 days, we talked a lot about our projects and our community and experiences with Peace Corps, and we tried to make lots of nice meals for them as they have had little control over their diet for many weeks now. A very nice visit.
We made it back to the island, about 10 days ago, on a thursday. Upon our return, our cat, Lady Gaga, was missing, we gave her a few days to return home and then found a new one, it's name is Flopsy, it's a boy, we didn't name him, he is very loving.
it's saturday afternoon, well it's 11am, but it might as well be the afternoon. it's quiet, and wet and cold outside. We haven't left the house today and no one has come to visit. Alex is in the bedroom reading a book by Bill Bryson. I am sitting in our sitting room, on a mat with the laptop computer (iBook G4).
Part of me wants to be social, to go out and visit with neighbors and such things, maybe I feel a bit guilty staying inside all day, like I'm not being a good peace corps volunteer if I spend too much time alone. another part of me is content with not leaving the house, content to find busy work and clean up our place and such things.
In reality, I won't do anything with our communities today, unless they make the effort and come here - to our house. I already know this. There are plenty of tasks around the house and we do well enough entertaining each other.
I hypothesize the social needs of single volunteers drive them to be more active in their communities. And thus more real and connected with their community- a more human experience, I'm a bit jealous on days like today, when I wish I had greater desires to be 'in' the community.
We had two new Peace Corps volunteers, Kyle and Ebs, come visit us as part of their orientation training, they were here for 5 days, we talked a lot about our projects and our community and experiences with Peace Corps, and we tried to make lots of nice meals for them as they have had little control over their diet for many weeks now. A very nice visit.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
10/10/10
hey everyone
Alex and I are heading back to the island tomorrow on the cargo ship. it's been okay in Port Vila but we are anxious to get back to the island. We hear our cat on the island is missing, so wish us the best of luck finding her. We plan to be on the island until March. We will be blogging regularly on the island (no internet) and will get the blogs posted when we get back to Port Vila in March. We'll take lots of pictures too!
We wrote an article for the Peace Corps Vanuatu volunteer newsletter about our project and the work we have been doing for the last year:
"PHAST is a water and sanitation workshop that was developed by the World Health Organization and the World Bank/UNDP (field tested by Peace Corps!) as a tool to promote hygiene and sanitation at the village level.
Here's our PHAST story...Arriving at site, our community had made it clear that they would appreciate our attention being given to water supply issues. Our health surveys indicated hygiene and sanitation should be addressed. We did not see much value in education and we both agreed that environmental improvements alone wasn't sustainable. We needed a way to energize our community, to get them excited about water and sanitation. Well, maybe not excited - but at least get them talking about water and sanitation.
Our friend and fellow PCV, Billy Delancey, was having a similar experience at his site. He called our community health program APCD Sara Lightner for guidance and she suggested investigating PHAST. Billy did the legwork, he met with World Vision, the only folks we are aware of that were currently carrying out PHAST workshops in Vanuatu. Billy familiarized himself with PHAST and introduced it to the community health volunteers during a PST II presentation. We were intrigued by PHAST's participatory methods and wanted to try the workshop in our community.
We had one major problem though, we needed pictures - lots of pictures. The backbone of the PHAST workshop is the pictures, country-specific pictures. The workshop is unique in that there is no reading, writing or 'talking at' the participants. We, as facilitators, simply give the participants piles of pictures and ask them to be sorted in particular ways - use these pictures to create a story about your community, do you consider these hygiene and sanitation practices to be good or bad?, use these pictures to create a story about how this poo gets to this persons mouth, put these sanitation practices in order from worst to best. Things like that. The picture sorting gives the community the opportunity for meaningful dialogue concerning their hygiene and sanitation. World Vision, an NGO working in Vanuatu, had the pictures, but their pictures were not, at that time, available for use by other organizations. We considered stealing the pictures, but that idea was quickly shot down by Sara. We had only one choice - we had to create another set of PHAST pictures. We called fellow PCV and our artist friend Amy Orr and she graciously agreed to meet us in Port Vila a few days early (before an IST) to create a toolkit. We sat down and created about 80 pictures.
We took the pictures back to our communities and tested them during 3 different week-long PHAST workshops. Most of the pictures worked great, but some - like the man openly defecating then digging a hole afterwards to bury his poo and the pig tied to the coconut tree failed miserably. Our communities pointed out to us that in Vanuatu, one digs the hole first, that way you don't have to move the poo into the hole; and one would not typically tie a pig to a coconut tree as that means that someone has to walk through pig poo to collect coconuts.
Throughout the course of these three workshops we fell in love with the PHAST methodology and became a bit evangelical of its merits. We did a PHAST presentation at the PEACE program's in-service training. Several PEACE volunteers expressed interest in the workshop. We decided to go forward with the project. We met with Amy a second time, this time on her island, and 'fixed' about 30 pictures that were not saying what we had intended them to say. With the improved pictures from our preliminary testing, we put together 5 additional PHAST toolkits and sent them out with Peace Corps volunteers to each of the provinces for additional testing.
After the pictures are tested throughout the country and adjusted as necessary, we are hoping to laminate a number of toolkits and make them available to PCVs and anyone else that wants to PHAST. If you think doing a PHAST is for you and you want to be a part of testing the pictures, please call the folks with the pictures in your province and they can send the pictures your way!
SHEFA- Lauren
PENAMA- Billy
MALAMPA- Steph
SANMA/TORBA- Kerry
TAFEA- Arthur
If you want to stori with us about the PHAST:
Alex Amorin
Lucas Obringer"
Alex and I are heading back to the island tomorrow on the cargo ship. it's been okay in Port Vila but we are anxious to get back to the island. We hear our cat on the island is missing, so wish us the best of luck finding her. We plan to be on the island until March. We will be blogging regularly on the island (no internet) and will get the blogs posted when we get back to Port Vila in March. We'll take lots of pictures too!
We wrote an article for the Peace Corps Vanuatu volunteer newsletter about our project and the work we have been doing for the last year:
"PHAST is a water and sanitation workshop that was developed by the World Health Organization and the World Bank/UNDP (field tested by Peace Corps!) as a tool to promote hygiene and sanitation at the village level.
Here's our PHAST story...Arriving at site, our community had made it clear that they would appreciate our attention being given to water supply issues. Our health surveys indicated hygiene and sanitation should be addressed. We did not see much value in education and we both agreed that environmental improvements alone wasn't sustainable. We needed a way to energize our community, to get them excited about water and sanitation. Well, maybe not excited - but at least get them talking about water and sanitation.
Our friend and fellow PCV, Billy Delancey, was having a similar experience at his site. He called our community health program APCD Sara Lightner for guidance and she suggested investigating PHAST. Billy did the legwork, he met with World Vision, the only folks we are aware of that were currently carrying out PHAST workshops in Vanuatu. Billy familiarized himself with PHAST and introduced it to the community health volunteers during a PST II presentation. We were intrigued by PHAST's participatory methods and wanted to try the workshop in our community.
We had one major problem though, we needed pictures - lots of pictures. The backbone of the PHAST workshop is the pictures, country-specific pictures. The workshop is unique in that there is no reading, writing or 'talking at' the participants. We, as facilitators, simply give the participants piles of pictures and ask them to be sorted in particular ways - use these pictures to create a story about your community, do you consider these hygiene and sanitation practices to be good or bad?, use these pictures to create a story about how this poo gets to this persons mouth, put these sanitation practices in order from worst to best. Things like that. The picture sorting gives the community the opportunity for meaningful dialogue concerning their hygiene and sanitation. World Vision, an NGO working in Vanuatu, had the pictures, but their pictures were not, at that time, available for use by other organizations. We considered stealing the pictures, but that idea was quickly shot down by Sara. We had only one choice - we had to create another set of PHAST pictures. We called fellow PCV and our artist friend Amy Orr and she graciously agreed to meet us in Port Vila a few days early (before an IST) to create a toolkit. We sat down and created about 80 pictures.
We took the pictures back to our communities and tested them during 3 different week-long PHAST workshops. Most of the pictures worked great, but some - like the man openly defecating then digging a hole afterwards to bury his poo and the pig tied to the coconut tree failed miserably. Our communities pointed out to us that in Vanuatu, one digs the hole first, that way you don't have to move the poo into the hole; and one would not typically tie a pig to a coconut tree as that means that someone has to walk through pig poo to collect coconuts.
Throughout the course of these three workshops we fell in love with the PHAST methodology and became a bit evangelical of its merits. We did a PHAST presentation at the PEACE program's in-service training. Several PEACE volunteers expressed interest in the workshop. We decided to go forward with the project. We met with Amy a second time, this time on her island, and 'fixed' about 30 pictures that were not saying what we had intended them to say. With the improved pictures from our preliminary testing, we put together 5 additional PHAST toolkits and sent them out with Peace Corps volunteers to each of the provinces for additional testing.
After the pictures are tested throughout the country and adjusted as necessary, we are hoping to laminate a number of toolkits and make them available to PCVs and anyone else that wants to PHAST. If you think doing a PHAST is for you and you want to be a part of testing the pictures, please call the folks with the pictures in your province and they can send the pictures your way!
SHEFA- Lauren
PENAMA- Billy
MALAMPA- Steph
SANMA/TORBA- Kerry
TAFEA- Arthur
If you want to stori with us about the PHAST:
Alex Amorin
Lucas Obringer"
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