it's 6:24am on a Tuesday. I am still in bed, Alex has been out of bed for a while. For reasons not understood by myself, Alex is now a morning person, preferring to start her days before 6am. There was a chainsaw going in the distance, but it has ended now that it has started to rain.
I have mentioned before that our friends here are mostly subsistence farmers; there are plenty of stores and it's not uncommon to be served rice and canned meat by our neighbors, but the bulk of everyone's diet is locally grown foods, mostly root crops. Taro and Kava are the only two crops that are grown locally to sell outside of the district. As I have mentioned in a previous blog entry, when we did health surveys it was common for families to report that they had eaten taro for each of their three meals the previous day. Yes, taro for breakfast, taro for lunch and then taro for dinner, most days. Kava is just as heavily consumed, I am not sure how several of our male friends would function without kava. Kava is consumed at most every community gathering and all significant events that take place in our district and most nights as friends gather to hang out. (kava is a narcotic)
The kava and taro don't sell for much, but they always sell. The average farmer here could make about $1000usd a year selling kava and taro to Port Vila, if they wished. This isn't a lot of money, but there aren't many expenses on the island, mostly rice and canned meat when the mood strikes and fundraisers which people are pretty much obligated to participate. There are more, of course. Some folks are very happy with their subsistent life while others wish they could live a more western lifestyle with a fancy house and gadgets and a high-paying job.
Some development groups have suggested that those that wish for more western lives could obtain it with 'high-value cash crops', basically foods and plants that you grow to sell but you would not really grow for eating. Vanilla beans would be a classic example, as would sandalwood trees and black pepper. There's a lot more too, and probably a few that could make a meal. Some big businessman in Port Vila are pushing tamarind now. The cacao tree was pushed at some point. Islanders were told (via the radio) that everyone must plant cacao trees and they would all get rich. There is little market for the average islander for cacao now, all those trees that people invested in and planted are still growing but they are not being harvested.
Cuba was growing a lot of high-value cash crops just before their big crash in the 90's. Among others, they had plantations full of sugarcane. They were growing sugarcane, selling it outside of the country and using the profits to import food to eat. When they lost the ability to export the sugarcane and other high-value cash crops (due to the fall of the Soviet Union and the loss of more than 50 percent of Cuba's oil imports and 85 percent of its trade economy), people went hungry and the average Cuban lost 30 pounds. You can't eat most high-value cash crops.
We don't grow many high-value cash crops in our district, you can still find stands of Vanilla beans from the days when the radio told everyone that was the road to richness and some stands of lumber trees that are now being harvested for local use. The radio now says that we can't compete with the Asian islands to our north in vanilla bean production and tamarind is our new road to richness.
What would happen if the radio was right this time? What if our farmers could make a significant profit with plantations full of tamarind? They could grow and export tamarind and import whatever they wanted to eat instead of eating taro for every meal. With the leftover money they could build a cement house and buy gadgets, like television and MP3 players (and water tanks and solar panels). Doesn't sound so bad? Those that were not interested in a more modern life could continue to plant and eat taro everyday.
There are potential issues that we can learn from Cuba (especially with the talk of peak oil), and there is at least one more necessary consideration. As land becomes profitable, it is coveted and thus flows into the hands of those people with the money and/or the power to obtain the land. This has been the case throughout our history. If, through the proper mix of high-value cash crops our farmers were able to make enough profit to afford a more western life, it is likely their land would be bought or taken by people who see land as a financial investment and only look at land production in terms of profitability. Of course, profits from the sale of their land could be used to build cement houses and buy gadgets, water tanks and solar panels. There's a good chance some could find work on the tamarind plantations. With more money in the rural communities, as the argument goes, other businesses would have an opportunity to grow and thrive.
We were at a big Christmas party yesterday, Anglican priests from all over North Pentecost gathered in our district for two days of drinking kava and eating. A huge picnic shelter was built with a giant table. There was a significant spread of food, all kinds of fruits and vegetables and meats and lots of rice. Beef, chicken and pig, every tropical fruit that is in season, root crops, vegetables and lots of watermelon. Do you know what food was most popular? Which food was finished first and was stacked in high piles on most everyone's plate?
Taro, of course.
Friday, March 11, 2011
babies
It is 6:44pm on a Monday. The sun has set. It's quiet. There is a cricket sounding bug making all types of noise in the bush and some gentle waves crashing. We just finished dinner. Coconut curry with ripe bananas and green beans over rice. It's pretty tasty. We cook it whenever we have ripe cooking bananas.
There's a family staying the night at the dispensary. The wife is about to give birth to her second child. They walked the hour from their village to the dispensary this morning. She expects she'll give birth tonight, we'll see.
Post Script - She gave birth two days later, a small boy. The boy didn't have a name yet when the family left the dispensary to back to their village, a few days after his birth.
There's a family staying the night at the dispensary. The wife is about to give birth to her second child. They walked the hour from their village to the dispensary this morning. She expects she'll give birth tonight, we'll see.
Post Script - She gave birth two days later, a small boy. The boy didn't have a name yet when the family left the dispensary to back to their village, a few days after his birth.
Local Paintball
There's a flower that's currently flowering all over our district. It's a pretty flower and it has these little inedible purple berries, maybe the size of a small kernel of corn.
The stem of a papaya leaf is naturally hallow, maybe about the diameter of a big drinking straw. Papaya leaf stems are always available in these parts.
While the flowers are in bloom, kids are using the hallow stems to spit the berries at their friends. Alex and I call it 'local paintball.'
The stem of a papaya leaf is naturally hallow, maybe about the diameter of a big drinking straw. Papaya leaf stems are always available in these parts.
While the flowers are in bloom, kids are using the hallow stems to spit the berries at their friends. Alex and I call it 'local paintball.'
mud and canoes
I used to go canoeing...a lot. And I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much that I still want to write about it and compare it to my life in Vanuatu. So here goes...
When canoeing a river that is at or above your ability levels, it is easy to tell how comfortable you were on the river. At the end of the day, if your forearms are sore, it indicates, simply, that you had a death grip on your paddle all day. The sorer your forearms, the greater the intensity of your death grip. Thus very sore forearms are an indication that you spent most of the day being frightened by the river.
As I have mentioned before in this blog, Pentecost is a hilly island, to get most places involves walking up and down hills. To get to any place besides a few nearby villages requires walking up and down steep hills. Along with the hills, the soil seems to have a high clay content and it rains a lot here, like a lot. Steep hillsides of wet clay are virtually impossible to navigate for myself, Alex or anyone that hasn't grown up walking up and down them.
Yesterday I joined a group of men who are beginning construction on a new village meeting place (a village of one family, men from nearby villages (several of which are also villages of one family) are assisting with the construction project). Yesterday's work was to collect long, thin bamboo trunks for roof construction. It was probably a 20 minute walk to the village and then maybe another 40 or 50 minutes to where we harvested the bamboo. The return walk took a bit longer as we were carrying bamboo. Both of these walks had very steep parts and, of course, it was raining yesterday.
At the end of the day my leg muscles ached, very sore. A clear indicator I spent the entire day thinking I was about to fall down.
When canoeing a river that is at or above your ability levels, it is easy to tell how comfortable you were on the river. At the end of the day, if your forearms are sore, it indicates, simply, that you had a death grip on your paddle all day. The sorer your forearms, the greater the intensity of your death grip. Thus very sore forearms are an indication that you spent most of the day being frightened by the river.
As I have mentioned before in this blog, Pentecost is a hilly island, to get most places involves walking up and down hills. To get to any place besides a few nearby villages requires walking up and down steep hills. Along with the hills, the soil seems to have a high clay content and it rains a lot here, like a lot. Steep hillsides of wet clay are virtually impossible to navigate for myself, Alex or anyone that hasn't grown up walking up and down them.
Yesterday I joined a group of men who are beginning construction on a new village meeting place (a village of one family, men from nearby villages (several of which are also villages of one family) are assisting with the construction project). Yesterday's work was to collect long, thin bamboo trunks for roof construction. It was probably a 20 minute walk to the village and then maybe another 40 or 50 minutes to where we harvested the bamboo. The return walk took a bit longer as we were carrying bamboo. Both of these walks had very steep parts and, of course, it was raining yesterday.
At the end of the day my leg muscles ached, very sore. A clear indicator I spent the entire day thinking I was about to fall down.
December 12
it's lychee season on Pentecost, we ate some a few days ago. It's not as popular as one might expect. In fact, we completely missed lychee season last year. It seems that some foods are designated as "kids foods" in these parts. Kid's foods aren't cultivated much, are not available to purchase at the local markets and are not used as part of the local 'kastom' economy (in that they are not given as gifts to friends with the expectation that the favor will be returned). Along with lychee some other 'kid's foods' include guava, tamarind, passionfruit and ice cream beans. I am sure there are more, but since they're kid's foods I am less likely to have encountered them.
Post Script – We later learned that there was no lychee season last year as there was heavy rains when the flowers were blooming, spoiling most all the blooms.
Post Script – We later learned that there was no lychee season last year as there was heavy rains when the flowers were blooming, spoiling most all the blooms.
December 11
Those of us who know Alex really well know that she is prone to night terrors, talking in her sleep, and such things as conversations with awake and confused friends while she is dead asleep. On occasion, folks here still comment on the time Alex stood up screaming bloody murder at about 3am in the school classroom we were sharing with about twenty mommas.
Alex had two such moments last night that deserve recognition. First - she was talking/dreaming in bislama, reprimanding a group a boys (this is the first time that I am aware of that Alex talked in her sleep in bislama!); and Second - later in the night she some how managed to fall out of our bed, pulling down the mosquito net with her.
It's 7:39 pm, it's dark, the sun set a while ago, there is a boat full of older teenagers passing by our house, they are heading home from a soccer tournament up north, the small boat is packed full, really full. The teenagers are being loud and rowdy, they are singing church songs at the top of their lungs. Oh, Vanuatu.
Alex had two such moments last night that deserve recognition. First - she was talking/dreaming in bislama, reprimanding a group a boys (this is the first time that I am aware of that Alex talked in her sleep in bislama!); and Second - later in the night she some how managed to fall out of our bed, pulling down the mosquito net with her.
It's 7:39 pm, it's dark, the sun set a while ago, there is a boat full of older teenagers passing by our house, they are heading home from a soccer tournament up north, the small boat is packed full, really full. The teenagers are being loud and rowdy, they are singing church songs at the top of their lungs. Oh, Vanuatu.
December 10th
It's December 10th in Vanuatu.
All is well. We cleaned the house, washed laundry and organized our bookshelf today. We have gotten word that a grant that one of our villages applied for has been approved. The grant was for cement and supplies to build a water tank, but it looks like they are going to get sent a plastic tank instead. It's about half the volume they were hoping for, but still pretty exciting if your us.
Planted three pineapples today too.
All is well. We cleaned the house, washed laundry and organized our bookshelf today. We have gotten word that a grant that one of our villages applied for has been approved. The grant was for cement and supplies to build a water tank, but it looks like they are going to get sent a plastic tank instead. It's about half the volume they were hoping for, but still pretty exciting if your us.
Planted three pineapples today too.
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