living the Vila life

Alex and I are chilling in Port Vila, not really chilling as much as Alex is going to class everyday for hours and hours and I'm, we'll I'm pretty much chilling, let's be honest. Yesterday I spent hours surfing the internet and downloading lots of magazine-type articles for our reading entertainment for the next two months. Today I'm going shopping.

More questions from emails:

What language do the people speak on your island? Is it similar to Bislama?
The people in our village speak Raga, I've read there are about 6,500 Raga speakers worldwide.  Alex and I know the words of common foods and greetings and our bat's species, but that's about it, I can say "my name is lucas" - only because my host papa insisted on teaching me.  Alex knows a few random words too.  The language is nothing like Bislama, bislama is most similar to english, Raga developed independently of English (except that they now use the english or bislama words when new things come into their life, instead of making-up a new word), though bislama does borrow some words from most of the local languages presumably, Vanuatu and vatu (the currency) are both Raga words.

Do they eat fish on the island or other seafood?
We get fish occasionally, I'm guessing between 5 and 10 times in the last two months. Both of our host fathers fish from time to time, though they don't typically catch too much. I'm guessing the reefs by our village were over-fished a long time ago and just aren't recovering. They also eat crabs and these snail-looking things that are pretty good.

do you need anything?  any comfort items or not comfort items?
Yes, we actually have a whole list of things we can't find in-country that we would purchase, given the opportunity to do so...chamomile tea, lavender oil, artificial butter flavoring, MSG-free bullion cubes, Dr. Bronner's soap, mineral salts deodorant and an Encyclopedia on CD (we have a mac). We also always love a good book.

Got invited on a paddling trip down the grand canyon in April and they have extra room, any interest??  I wish, (this might be the first time in the history of man that someone has turned down a trip down the grand canyon).