Santo: Utter Paradise :0)

Well, I can’t show you photos but Santo has been too awesome not to blog about before I leave for Malekula. The first few days were spent with the other Gappers chilling out at the markets with the local kids, enjoying the plumbing, eating ice cream, steak and chips, and having a few drinks with the Ex-pats.
I can’t stress to you enough how fantastic fresh veggies, dairy, chocolate and juicy steak tastes after a month of rice and bread (although your stomach isn’t happy for a few days). The first thing I ate was a golden gay time and biting through the peanut encrusted chocolate shell to the soft, gooey caramel and vanilla ice cream truly was a golden and gay moment of my life. I’m gonna love the taste of those ice creams forever!
Our new hotel (we stayed in a hostel while the other Gappers were here), the Unity Park Motel, has the best showers and toilets in town, hot water, air conditioning, a huge kitchen, a TV, pagoda, garden, balcony and its roomy and beautiful!
Luganville is huge, quiet and full of the remnants of WWII. Houses are made with old steal from bunkers, there’s rusty boats, cars, planes and junk everywhere, and random propellers, anchors and engines decorating the tourist resort and cafes.
The vegetation here is unbelievable! Flowers and vivid, twisted, variegated leaves everywhere. The trees are like nothing you’d ever see at home and, Mum, there are frangipani trees everywhere! And they’re massive!
Bec, Hugh and I (team Adelaide) are the only Gappers left in Santo (the others have all left for Pentecost). So we went on a tour today! Like, what else would a tourist do? :0)
Keneth, our guide, took us to Lonnoc Beach and Matevula Blue Hole in his new, shiny bus. He was very proud of it and kept telling us how comfy it was, making sure we dusted off the sand and shining it while he waited for us to swim. It was quite cute.
When I met him though he was not so cute. He had his finger shoved up one nostril and, after a good dig, he held out his hand for a shake. Repulsed I looked at the hand and then thought, ‘Eh! It’s Vanuatu!’ – I shook the man’s hand.
The ride to the beach was 1 ½ hours through unbelievable scenery. When you do see my photos you’ll think I look like a dork because I was just so overwhelmed trying to take everything in. We drove over stunningly clear blue and green streams, past champagne beaches and huge canopies of forest that had vines draping like mats over the edge. I can’t describe it – I’ll just muddle up my words.
Lonnoc beach was crystal clear blue, with fine white sand and visibility for up to 50m (on a clearer day than ours apparently). It was so incredibly beautiful and the water was warm! No waves, just calm blue ocean. It was so relaxing, so incredibly touristy and looking around at Elephant Island and the coconut trees I really felt like I was in paradise.
The Matevula Blue Hole was beyond words. It was soooo amazing! Picture the bluest blue you’ve ever seen and now imagine that water ten times bluer! And it was clear. I couldn’t get over the fact that swimming around I could look down and see my feet as blue as blue can be. Keneth said it’s 65m deep!!!! Wow!!! It was so hard swimming in it though because you literally just sink and really have to work to keep yourself afloat. There were mangroves growing over and into the water and… ah… it was surreal
However… once I’d gone for a few dips and decided to swim over to the other side I noticed something moving in the water… fish… and not just one! I whole school of black and yellow fish! Pretty, sure, but not when you have a chronic phobia of the little buggers. And they weren’t just little buggers. A little further down there were silver and white fish the size of my arm. I dread to think what other monstrous fish were swimming even further down (gulp!)
I was so scared that swimming to the other side of the shore I strained my arm muscles and my chest seized up. I am so completely and utterly pathetic! I’m so determined to get over my fear of fish while I’m here. It is the most stupid phobia of all time! It didn’t help that as I was desperately splashing to the other side Bec and Hugh were yelling “swim, Jess, swim!!!” “Faster! It’s right behind you!” “Look out! Here comes a big one!” Hugh says he regrets nothing… monsters… :0) It was funny once I got my breath back though.
The next day (today coincidently) Hugh and I went on a WWII tour, again with Keneth. Bec wasn’t too interested so she stayed behind. But it was pretty cool!
We started off by going to Million Dollar Point – or as Hugh called it, ‘Tetnus City’. There is WWII crap everywhere! (excuse the French, but it’s the only fitting word). There is so much junk that all the coral’s dead, and even the rocks, trees and shells are covered in glass and metal. There was a tree growing over a big rusty vehicle. It was pretty disgusting, but at the same time interesting. The Americans just dumped it all there apparently because the Ni-Vans refused to pay them good money for the scrap. It was really windy and too rough to go snorkeling but apparently when you do you can see old cars and stuff under the water. I was pretty annoyed at the weather… although Kenneth said there were really big fish…
Then we went to a wreck of an old B29 plane which crashed coming in to land. It must have been some crash because there was stuff spread out everywhere! You could pick out the wing and the tail and stuff but it literally exploded into a hundred pieces.
After the plane we moved forward through time to the 1980s and went to an old Tuna Fishing Building Thingy (where the Taiwan used to store the Tuna) which was soooo massive! It had to be abandoned after Independence and the Taiwan Fishing companies just pack everything up and left – without paying the fisherman. The fisherman took out their wrath by burning the place down.
It was massive! It was as big as a plane hanger and we were allowed to just walk through it. Most of the machinery was left behind and while it’s not good now it was so cool to look at. As we were walking we heard a creaking sound, looked up, and saw part of the roof was ready to fall down on us. Real safe Kenneth! :0)
There was also an old rusty fishing boat out in the harbor. It was the highlight of the WWII trip… and it wasn’t even WWII… oh well!
After that we had lunch in a bay where all the rich tourist come in their fancy sailing boats. It was really really pretty!
Then we saw an old bunker… nothing to get excited about, just a metal thing sticking out of vegetation in the middle of nowhere. Before heading back we also stopped off at the biggest WWII runway in Santo. And it was really big! You couldn’t even see the end of it from where we were. But it’s no good now because the clouds are always so low planes can’t see where they’re coming in to land.
I was a little naughty and picked up a few souvenirs for Tom East, Dad and James (whoever wants them really). An old metal plate from one of the WWII packing crates I think. It’s got writing on it – Philadelphia marine corp shipping company or something, an old brandy bottle, an old spoon with coral on it (junk) and… James, you’re really gonna want this, an old gear from that crashed B29 plane. It’s heavy so if you don’t want let me know, okay! :0)
Anyway! We leave for Malekula tomorrow and after the internet café I’m gonna go to the Western food place and get a banana split… mmmm… :0) My last true western binge before heading out of civilization.
Miss you all and I post back some photos for Sarah to put up on the blog! :0)
Jess :0) xox

A Day in the Life of a Paamese Teacher (21st August)

Warning: This blog is full of satire, I’m really having a wonderful time and wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world! :0) The home sickness is slowly abating and as I look out my window (or thatch, who needs a window?) and see the children playing, the sea gently lapping against the black sand beach, and hear the neighbours playing their guitar, I am so glad I took a GAP year! For those of you who don’t know me too well my humour is comprised of nothing but pessimistic irony or exceedingly corny jokes, and this humour has nothing to do with how I’m feeling emotionally. In fact, it gives me a more optimistic view as I look at every annoyance for its comedy. :0) So don’t any of you dare start to worry about me or pity me! I wouldn’t wish to be anywhere else in the world… I just sometimes wishe you guys were here to share the experience with me. You won’t believe half the stories I tell you when I get home. :0)
12am (Vanuatu Time): Wake up to the sound of wild dogs killing chickens.
1am: Wake up to the sound of wild cats yodelling.
2am: Wake up needing to pee, running to the toilet because you can still hear those wild dogs in the distance.
3am: Wake up to the sound of a rat running around underneath your bed.
4am: Wake up to the sound of the rat now running up the wall behind your head.
5am: Wake up, as you have several times already, to stretch or roll over because your bed is way too small for you and made of wooden slats (very bad for the back). You do have a mattress, but it’s less than an inch thick.
6am: Wake up to the sound of roosters, who have now finished their cock-a-doodle-doodling for the morning, trying to make baby chickens with the hens. :0) Ah, the circle of life!
6.30am: Get out of bed, shuffle off to the outdoor dunny, wipe the rat droppings off the kitchen bench, squash a few giant spiders, chase out the chickens (those that weren’t eaten the night before), wash the dishes from last night’s dinner (of course, you have to make a trip up the hill to the tap), make several more trips up and down that hill with several water carrying devices, boil water for ten minutes, purify the rest of the water for half an hour, and begin to cook breakfast.
7.00am: Breakfast! Now you have two choices for breakfast (most days). Usually the students will bring you a loaf of bread, if they didn’t run out of flour the day before. :0) So you can cut yourself a slice. Alternatively, you can take some rice and cook it with sugar and a little vanilla essence (if it hasn’t run out yet) or coconut oil (if that hasn’t run out yet). This is followed by a vitamin tablet, you hope that’s enough to prevent scurvy. Bon Apetite!
7.15am: Wash the dishes, brush your teeth in the outside wash room, brush your mangled mop you dare to call hair, pull on some clean clothes, grab your books and stumble up another hill (Vanuatu is all hills) to the Vaum Junior Secondary School to get ready for your first lesson.
7.30am: Teaching! Yay! :0) There is just a little sarcasm to that ‘yay! :0)’ If you’ve ever had the privilege of teaching year 8s, it doesn’t matter what country you’re in, then you’ll understand my satire. They are a bunch of destructive, lazy monsters! All my visions of a country full of eager-to-learn-angels have been dashed. The year 7s are such a relief, unfortunately, most of my classes are with the year 8s. Most Ni-Van teachers try to steer clear of them. They’ve already made the rest of the faculty cry this year. Fun for me! I see it as a challenge!
8.30am: Either teach another lesson, or plan another lesson. Lesson planning was fun for the first few lessons… now I usually lesson plan for that lesson an hour of so before I’m meant to start teaching. Not that that’s usually a problem anyway. It’s not like the school has any resources for me to prepare for a lesson. On the contrary, the only resources the school does have are half an encyclopaedia set from the early 1980s, and National Geographics from the 1970s. Makes my life interesting.
9.30am: Recess! Yay! 15min of escaping to my grass hut. And now I’m awake enough to run around finding the dishes and bits of roof that blew away the night before. I’m not sure if our hut is even going to have a roof when we leave. :0) Then I can nibble a piece of bread before it’s back to school.
9.45am: Yet another lesson… or lesson planning… It’s in this time slot that you usually have double lessons. That means 2 hours of bored Ni-Van kids who want to do nothing but throw paper, rock on their chairs, hit each other… and that’s if they’re not wagging! :0)
10.45am: Next lesson begins
11.45am: Yes! Lunch! (Wipes forehead in relief). Trudge back to the hut, trudge up the hill to the tap, get water, trudge back down to the house and start to boil some more – you guessed it! – rice! This time I can boil it with a little stock (if that hasn’t run out), curry powder (if that hasn’t run out), herbs (if they haven’t run out) or spice (you guessed it, if THAT hasn’t run out). I spend the next hour or so either escaping to another world by reading a novel (only read 7, unless you count the Lonely Planet Guide which I’ve devoured several times, in which case I’ve read 8), or writing letters home.
1.30pm: Sigh… You guessed it! Back up the hill to the classroom. Don’t get me wrong, not all the kids are bent on making my life a misery, most of them are adorable little angels. It’s just that those few that are rotten manage to make such a vivid impression. Don’t worry, I’m not regretting coming here, in fact I lie awake some nights thinking of how I can get my own back through homework or notes… :0) call me malicious, but I love setting tests! :0)
2.30pm: Yes there is another lesson, but I don’t have a lesson for any class in this slot of the day so I always get to finish early! Yay! :0) Now I can limp back to the hut, take my portable shower (thank you Sophia!) which has been warming in the sun and have a wash. First I have to reattach the shower roof which blew away the night before and nail our piece of fabric into place so no peeping Tom’s can get a good look. Then it’s washing time, making sure I’m careful not to get a splinter from the broken floor, or bang my head on the too low roof. And… what’s that slimy feeling on my skin? Oh, wait… that’s cleanliness! :0) That’s what it feels like not to be covered in volcanic ash. :0)
3.00pm: Free time. Sigh, the bliss! I either have a nap, read a book, write my novel, write more letters home or plan what travel I’d like to do during and after my placement. I usually do this on a rug outside our little hut, on the grass, mere steps from the gently sighing sea. I can look out over the biggest backyard ever – the Pacific Ocean! It’s beautiful! Some days I’ll entertain the neighbour’s kids by reading to them, talking with them or playing uno. I also sometimes play card games with the students… the nice students. Not only are the kids adorable and remind me why I’m here, but the parents are so grateful you’ve distracted their kids for a few hours that they’re likely to send some unrisen cake to your door the next morning. Oh, yes! :0) Cake!!! :0) I’m salivating just thinking about it!
4.00pm: Now is the time when the kids start arriving with homework questions, and not just students from your own class, students from every class and every grade. The other teachers aren’t too nice about giving homework help. After about the 20th student asking the same question I can understand why... still, I love sitting down with them one on one. :0)
5.00pm: Start to cook dinner. Guess what’s for dinner? Rice! Rice, rice, RICE!!! :0) And just as before, unless they’ve run out, you have a choice of flavouring it with either garlic, spice, herbs, curry or stock. Yummy! … :0( I won’t start listing the many things I’ve craved since I got here, because it’ll slowly drive me mad!
5.30pm: eat a picnic dinner watching the sun set over the ocean. Swat the mozzies, shoo away the chickens and sigh at the beauty. Then lie down and watch the first star twinkle into existence. Don’t sigh at how stunning it is though, because now it’s gotten darker you’re likely to swallow a beetle.
6.00pm: don our black hoodies and sneak up to the school kitchen to see what left overs we can nick. Driven by our need for fresh food we’ll search every nook and every cranny. Some days we’re rewarded with yams, a little limp cabbage, or if we’re particularly lucky, sugar or noodles. One day we were lucky enough to find a warm loaf of bread. I can’t stress to you our delight at being able to eat risen dough that hadn’t been left to sit on a hot shelf for a couple of days. :0)
6.30pm: take your laptops, ipods and camera batteries up to the staff room and charge them. While you’re sitting here guarding your precious electronics from the rats you might like to either read, count how many rats you can spot in the bookshelves, lesson plan, write even more letters, type up your blog or type some more of your novel.8.55pm: Quickly run down to the house before the power cuts out (if it hasn’t already), go the loo, and get into bed while you can still see what you’re doing. If you’re lucky the power could last for up to another 3 hours. Or not so lucky… power till 10pm is fantastic, if the power’s on till midnight you tend to be kept awake by the light. If the power stays on you can, you guessed it, read for a little longer or just stare at the photos of your family and friends thinking ‘I wish you could be here with me, just for a day, so you can see for yourself how wonderful and how terrible life in the South Pacific can be’. It’s such an unbelievable adventure! :0) After day dreaming about all the notes, homeworks and tests you’re going to set to get back at you’re year 8 class you begin to nod. Now it’s off to sleep, where you’ll have vivid, weird, intriguing, sometimes terrifying dreams, because of the lariam (malaria medication). Don’t forget to check your bed for beetles, spiders and rat droppings, and say your prayers (you definitely need them some days) before nodding off to sleep. And guess what. You get to do it all again tomorrow!

Ambrym: The Land of Magic (20th August)

Well from the 12th to the 15th August Bec and I escaped from our little speck of land to the neighbouring island of Ambrym, dubbed the ‘land of magic’. And it was an experience I will never forget! Not only did it show me some of the most beautiful, stunning and unbelievable things I’ve ever seen in my entire life, but it left me the most physically exhausted I’ve ever been. But let me start from the top! :0)
On the 12th of August we clambered over volcanic boulders and waded through the ocean along a black sand beach for an hour to reach the Tavie airfield and take a plane to Ulei airport. Our runway is a grass strip of land and the ‘airport’ is a concrete building with concrete benches out in the open. Our plane was delayed 3 hours and, unlike a national or international airport in Aus where you can grab a coffee or browse the shops, here there’s nothing to do but sit in the sun and get a glazed expression on your face.
Either that, or jump up in down in terror when you see the children playing on the airfield or running out to greet the plane, propellers still whirring furiously. Ah, Vanuatu! (That’s actually a song here. If only I knew the words, but they’re in Bislama)
On the plane over here I was lucky enough to be sitting next to Jessie Tarson, the Principle of one of the primary schools on South East Ambrym, and so he organised for two girls to walk us to our accommodation in Toak. The new bungalows with a flush toilet and shower I’d been so looking forward to turned out to be so new they were still under construction. So we slept in the Guest House, which turned out to be an authentic Vanuatu experience – much better than plumbing.
We slept on a mattress on the floor (which is actually more comfortable than our beds in Paama), ate island food prepared for us by the village ladies, squatted over a hole when nature called, and tried to take a shower with a bucket and a large audience of Ni-Van women. All things you have to do when you go to Vanuatu. :0)
Our luck continued when we met one of the better tour guides of the South East – Jeppy, who does most of the tours for white Western women looking for a little adventure! He organised everything for us. Accommodation, food, transport, tour guides, the Rom Dances… we would have been lost without him… literally :0) (ha ha)
The 13th of August constitutes the longest day in my entire being! We got up at 4.30am and it was so dark and I was dead! I’d had really bad nightmares and didn’t sleep well all night – courtesy of the lariam tablets. So I was tired from the get-go. But still, I packed my bags, got dressed, and lay on my bed waiting for Jeppy to arrive. We ended up getting our truck at 5.30am because Jeppy slept in.
The lady who owns the Guest House stayed up late making a banana cake for us and then stayed up even later to keep the rats away. It was so touching, and so delicious! It was a real cake and actually risen. Bec and I couldn’t thank her enough. We used the ‘toilet’, shaped like a keyhole, and then headed off.
It was an ordinary truck ride, but I can believe I’m starting to call those rides ordinary or normal. In Australia if someone saw a couple of teenage girls bumping around in the back of a ute they’d call the cops. We did nearly have our heads taken off by a low lying branch, but I found it amusing not frightening. I’m turning native!
The fantastic thing about the early morning is the bats. They fly across the sky like flocks of birds and they’re so big! It was amazing! (and the word for today is ‘amazing’!) Jeppy pointed out kava trees, coconut trees, the water tanks, etc, and also told us about the magic on Ambrym. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see any, but apparently it can get pretty nasty so maybe that’s a good thing.
When we got to Endu village we dumped our bags and headed on up toward the volcano. Wow! I can’t believe how far we walked and for how long! We started walking just after 6am and got back to the village at 7pm. That’s 13 hours of non-stop walking!
Anyway, getting back to the actual walk…
We had to pay 1000vt to Peter because he ‘owns’ the path up to the volcano, or at least he claims to. Land ownership here is a bit iffy. It’s like they saw the British plant their flag and thought that was how they should claim land too.
Manu, his son, and Terry (the volcano guide) also came up with Bec, Jeppy and I. The walk was so beautiful, through rain forest, cane fields, up a dry creek bed, over a giant hill (what I’d call a mountain), along the ash highway, up and down the ash plains and then to the volcano itself.
It was so hard physically! I am so sore and I could have died thinking how much further we still had to go. Jeppy said Bec and I are the first people to climb the volcano and come back all in one day. Most people spend the night on the ash highway. As I continued walking I could understand why.
We saw a ground snake (huge! But motionless), countless giant spiders, cow bones, pig tracks and rats!
There was a dog that came with us and he caught a rat and killed it. Then Manu got a stick and started flicking the dead rat around like it was a ball or an acorn. It was so disgusting! The dog treated it like a chew toy between throws and I regret to say that I abandoned a limping Bec, walking as fast as I could away from Manu, and that Bec was almost hit by the flying carcass. Now that I think back on it it’s quite amusing! I’m sure Bec doesn’t think so :0)
The dog also broke its leg somehow. It was so sad! But it managed to hobble the whole way and I commend it! We slipped and slid the whole way up and down with fit legs… well, with unbroken bones, I doubt you could call them fit by the end of the day. :0)
There was one part, coming down the other side of the ‘hill’ or mountain as we’d call it in Australia, when Bec and I almost slid off the edge of a cliff. It was so scary (yet somehow thrilling) holding onto a tree root watching my legs dangling over the edge. A lot of the ‘paths’ were like that – narrow and crumbly with sheer drops on either side. It was exciting!
I was so reminded of Swiss Family Robinson or Predator clambering through all those vines and vegetation with Peter hacking away with a machete. At times I felt like Jane from Tarzan, an innocent little white girl at the mercy of the awesome and terrible jungle! :0)
The vines seemed to have a life of their own. They would wrap themselves around your feet and sometimes around your neck too – very full on.
The dry creek bed was so beautiful! It was all volcanic rock swept smooth and covered in moss. It was gorgeous! There were little pools of still water here and there filled with yabbies, and everything seemed so alive.
The ash plains were the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen! They were big, black, smooth, clear, flat ‘roads’ where the magma had flowed decades before but they were bigger than highways. The formations of some of the rocks were surreal.
Bec couldn’t make it all the way to the top of the volcano and stopped at the end of the ash highway with Peter and the dog. We stopped for a little while for lunch as well. Those little breaks were fantastic and after our lunch of dry noodles we feeling so content.
Then Jeppy, Manu, Terry and I kept on going. Apparently Bec is very, very slow walking but I’m very fast – poor Bec and her short legs. :0(
Anyway! The ash plains. I can’t begin to describe them! Everything became so surreal after the ash highway, I wish Bec could have seen them. I kept thinking of Dad too and how much he’d love it here! I wrote him a really long letter. Seeing everything made me believe it might have been worth carrying Bec the rest of the way just so she could believe my stories about how everything looked.
The formations were unlike anything I’ve ever seen or imagined. Like solid waves, and with misty clouds speeding across the surface I felt like I could have just gotten out of a spaceship.
It looked like I was standing in a Van Gogh painting, or Jurassic Park. The colours were so vivid lime green, red or orange and there were beautiful pink flowers dotting the landscape. It was so prehistoric, and I loved every minute. It seemed too fantastic to even be believable in a fantasy story, but it’s a real part of our world.
Towards the top my asthma started kicking in and I could feel a strain in both leg muscles right up to the bum, but I’m so glad I got to the top. It gave me such a satisfied feeling. It was wonderful! There was cloud everywhere so we couldn’t see the magma or very far around the rim, but the cloud sped across the surface and over the edge. It was lovely enough just seeing that.
I just sat close to the edge (you can’t sit on the edge because its too windy and crumbly) taking it all in. On the way back to Bec and the others we got lost so many times, because everything looks the same and there’s so much of it.
It was an experience slipping and sliding over all that volcanic rock and soil. I got grazed hands, of course! :0)
On the way back to Endu I was sooo tired! Bec and I played a memory game (ABC travel) on the ash highway, and I was actually really good which surprised me. My body must have been desperate for any distraction from the pain of my swollen muscles.
Then we climbed up the hill and back down again… Aaaah! I was literally ready to give up sometimes. It was that hard, and I was that sore. My toes are so swollen it felt like the nails are about to pop off.
But we got down to the beach and followed that home. It was so nice letting the water from the sea swell around my feet.
Bec and I both walked bare footed the rest of the way back and while the bottoms of my feet are cut from the sharp stones on the beach and I sliced open my toe, it was better than leaving those sandshoes on around my swelling feet.
It was dark by the time we got to the beach so I got out my torch and the guys lit torches with fire and banana leaves. They worked so well! A lot better than my battery torch.
I also gave them all pencils from Australia, which they ‘appreciated’ I think is the right word. Manu loved it but the older men weren’t sure what to do with them. It was such a relief to get to the Guest House. Coming down that hill there were moments I literally felt I could not go on, it was so bad! My legs were shaking and I had dizzy spells and everything.
I was also limping pretty badly by the time we got back.
Walter, the owner of the Guest House, was so nice and friendly. We had a wash, a cold wash, which was fantastic! It was so refreshing and I just stood in the bucket of water for a couple of minutes after I’d finished washing. Then we ate the food he’d prepared for us: kumala with coconut, egg, island cabbage, bread, a couple of cream biscuits and coffee. Way better than anything we’d eat on Paama. The chief ate with us, which was lovely, the company was appreciated. The toilet here was even worse than the hole in Toak and I saw the biggest huntsman ever, 1.5 times the size of my hand (2 or 3 times the size of Bec’s).
But I loved every minute of that day! Bec is a slower walker and I don’t think she had a lot of fun because it was so incredibly hard. I’m sure she’ll think back on it in a couple of days and love it too.
That night I kept waking up saying ‘owe!’ because my legs, feet (especially toes) and shoulders were so tender. It hurt without pressure on it so rolling over was a big no-no.
At 6.30am I woke up, unable to sleep because it hurt to lie down (actually, it hurt to do anything) so I just got up and packed my bags to leave. Despite being ready so early Jeppy was late (again) and then breakfast was late so we ended up leaving at 8.00, maybe 8.30am for the waterfall.
This time we were guided by Solomon and accompanied, of course by Jeppy, but also by John, Walter’s son. The walk itself was very striking. We’d walked part of it back from the volcano, but that was in the dark. During the day we could see the ocean, giant volcanic boulders, lots of spray, unbelievable trees and all the cow pats we’d stepped in last night.
Most of the walk was along the beach, over lots of boulders and stones, but we also clambered up and down countless ‘hills’ covered in vegetation.
I kept on stubbing my toes on stones, or falling over and peeling back the nail. One toe was full of black dried blood, I had blood blisters on the bottom of my feet, and after one particularly nasty fall there was some worry as to whether or not I’d broken my toe. But after a week I could bend it again, so I don’t think it was broken.
The actual waterfall was stunning! I was literally stunned, just standing there saying ‘wow’, ‘oh my gosh’, ‘beautiful’ or nothing at all. Just taking it all in. I felt like a mullet.
The first part of my trip to the waterfall was really quite painful because a twisted thigh muscle meant I was limping all the way. But, thank God, the pain left as I was walking up the hills and I was able to see one of His most beautiful creations!
We had a lovely swim. The water may have been cold but I found that so refreshing on my swollen muscles. It was like a cold spa! There were yabbies, but the only ones we saw were the ones John and Solomon dug up for us.
Bec and I washed our hair with shampoo (wow) and then soaped up. We got dirty again on the way back but it felt soooo good! Then we had ‘lunch’: the cream biscuits I’d bought that morning from the Endu Shopping Centre. But don’t get excited. It was a building smaller than our kastom house.
Anyway. Back to the waterfall. After lunch we hiked a little further to see where the waterfall fell over 200m into the ocean. It just dropped off a cliff and it was so gorgeous I can’t even begin to describe it. The way it rolled over those boulders and vivid green moss, splashing in clear white spray into that aqua blue ocean hundreds of feet below us. I was stoked.
The walk back was so tiring and painful! We played memory games with Jeppy, and Solomon and Jeppy helped to teach us a little Bislama. Back on the beach, after all those hills, we were met by Peter. He’d cooked taro and crab and I was so grateful for the taro. They ate the crabs whole, sucking the flesh out from under the shell. I don’t think I could have stomached it with those beedy little eyes looking at me.
Then we all walked back the final distance together. I’d started limping again because of the pain in my toes, but that last bit is always easier.
Back at the Guest House we were given paw paw while we waited to see the Rom Dance. After changing it was so nice just to lie down for a bit. We were both sooo sore and tired! My feet have never hurt that much in my entire life.
Limping up to the Rom Dance was interesting. We were laughed at, but I’m sure if I’d seen someone trying to walk as pitifully as me I would have laughed too. I think the villagers understood how tired and sore we were. They all thought we were a bit crazy for climbing the volcano in just one day. I take that as a compliment coming from a people as fit and buff as they are – maybe they just thought we were crazy for ‘albinos’, as the kids call us.
Before the Rom Dance we saw lots of fantastic carvings, mostly made from black palm, all in a ring around this big clearing. As we sat waiting on bamboo benches we had our first glimpse of the costumes through the trees and they were unreal! Giant, bushy things that made them look like Grug the monster, or something out of Sesame Street.
I admit I thought they’d be a little more colourful but it was still fantastic! They’d tied fruit to their legs that made rattling noises, put flowers in their hair and they sung too.
The chief and one or two others also wore nambas (penis sheaths) and nothing else. They’d coloured their skin in yellow with a plant too so it was all very striking… seeing their bum cheeks wobble and their testicles flying free had made me believe God truly is a practical joker.
After that amazing dance we had a closer look at the carvings and I bought a few small souvenirs for my cousins. Then we had another long lie down waiting for the truck. We also had some more coffee and chocolate biscuits provided by Walter (he was ‘da bomb’ on this trip).
The truck ride back was, again, ‘normal’. We did change trucks half way there because ours was making a nice healthy thumping noise, but that low lying branch from the other morning was gone.
After a very short rest we went to the kava bar (a ring of benches outside). Oh! Eeeew! Yuk! Bluh! Never again! I had 5 big shells (or 10 ordinary ones), which is as much as a fully grown Ni-Van man (who drinks Kava every night) drinks to get intoxicated. But Jeppy didn’t tell me. He just suggested I drink 5 shells, because that’s what he’d usually drink in a night. Not only does it taste like you’ve licked up dirt, but the after effects are awful!
It numbs your tongue and body so you don’t taste it after the third shell. The actual feeling it gives you at first is pretty awesome. You’re so light and relaxed, like foam floating on top of the sea (how poetic).
We talked to Jeppy about what the money looks like in Australia and why certain pictures are on the Vanuatu coins and notes. It was an interesting discussion.
Afterwards I stumbled back to the Guest House where the ladies had prepared a big farewell feast to share with us. The food was lovely but as I was eating I was thinking ‘something doesn’t feel right’.
10 minutes later I was on the floor. 20 minutes after that I was throwing up worse that I ever remember throwing up before. I felt so bad, I felt so rude, but the women were so lovely, massaging my head, patting my back, holding my hair out of the way. They also helped me into bed and gave me a spew bucket - I needed that several times during the night.
Another aspect of kava is that it ‘expands your mind’, letting you ‘ponder’ as the natives put it. So despite the fact that I was dead tried, that I was so exhausted I’d barely been able to walk to the kava bar in the first place, I couldn’t sleep. I was so utterly sick, and I’m never drinking kava again!The next morning, sunburnt, sore, tired and sick we waited for our plane. I never thought I’d look forward to going back to Paama, to the land of rats, with our charming privy, broken down wash room, and leaking kastom house. But it felt good to be ‘home’. I don’t think I’ll ever feel the same way about Paama again, and that’s a good thing. :0)

Paama - Land of Rats!

Hi Everyone! Sorry it’s taken so long for me to get another blog published but not only is the Principle never here to give me the password, but the internet connection is so slow I can barely download an email before it crashes. So you might not get a reply to your emails for another month or so (or ever), until Sarah sends me back a USB stick with your emails and either I send her back the replies on the stick, or I post you all some snail mail. Also, the internet is soooo slow that I can't upload photos so I'l snail mail them back on the USB and Sarah can update them for me. Sorry! So here is what I wrote on the 5th August about Paama:


Well I’m finally here and you would not believe how hard it was to begin with! Not just living conditions and having to adjust, but just being away from all of you! :0( Our first two days in Paama were 2 days of full on cleaning. So at first we were both feeling very home and plumbing sick.
This place was a freaking mess! The volcano is belching at the moment so there was ash everywhere! You can hear it if you’re quiet as little booms in the distance, it’s quite exciting! Apparently if you’re on the other side of the island you can see the magma flow at night. It’s something worth taking a look at sometime soon. I’ve heard from the locals that it happens every year, but that it’s particularly bad this year because some important person didn’t walk up the summit and blow his conch. In any case, it should continue spitting ash clouds at us for another 2 months.
As well as the dust there was dust, dust and more dust! Also huge huntsman spiders everywhere, spider webs, cockroaches, spiders, spiders and more spiders. Everything needed disinfecting and, while it feels a lot cleaner now, it still feels like we should get out the hoover and give it a good going over. The toilet… Aaaaaah!!!! I don’t want to talk about it!!! So frustrating! I didn’t even realise it had a concrete floor because of how much dirt there was in there, then there were spiders everywhere, webs all across the walls and door and urine all over the seat and on the floor.
You wake up to horny roosters crowing from 3am and onwards, and the chickens like to make babies outside our window. They also try to come inside the house, and we’ve had to chase them out a few times. You might have noticed my title ‘Land of Rats’! The other Gappers left us a rat count and they saw 107 rats. We hope to beat that as we’ve already seen 11 (that’s at least one a day). They’ve already managed to get into our bread, bananas and noodles, leave droppings all over our kitchen bench and I went to the toilet one day I saw one sitting on the wall. I also just saw one run into the staff room, sniff around, and run out again. We’ve been keeping the disinfectant handy. They seem to all really enjoy my company, as I’ve had the privilege of seeing most of the little buggers and Bec’s only spotted three. Sigh, it’s been an experience! Next time someone tells me they’re gonna go live in a slum or live rural I’m either gonna think they’re crazy or have a huge amount of respect for them.
Anyway! Let me start from the top! We got a little island hopper from Pt Vila through Epi to Paama. It was sooooo bad!!! Bec and I were both ready to throw up by the time we got on the ground. Still, Tony (the Peace Corp guy) met us at Epi and he is an awesome guy! Really friendly and really helpful. He tried to give us a cat, but she ran away. He also made sure we had food our first night, pots and pans, is trying to get a door for our wash room and is ready to look out for us.
Now, the locals. They’re friendly enough but most of them just laugh at us and they all stare. It’s so bad when you look up and there’s a group of them staring through your window pointing and laughing. We both know it’s all innocent but we’ve both gotten teary thinking how rude some of the people appear to us. It’s also hard with the men, not only because of the differences in stature, but because you’ll be trying to have a conversation and they’ll be making eye contact with your chest or your legs. I’ve also had a student try to stroke my leg in class, which makes the whole teaching thing a lot harder!
We haven’t gotten to know many of the children yet. One little girl, Melissa, is our two-year-old neighbour and she loves coming round and hanging out with us. She’s really curious and can be a little bit annoying, but it’s so much easier having a local to pamper and talk to (she is extremely fluent in Bislama and even knows a little English. Amazing for a two year old!). Although, it was a shock when I turned around and she’d taken off her pants and was standing there looking at me going ‘wee wee!’ I never expected I’d have to take a little girl to the toilet, wipe her bum, clean up after her and… ah, I’m never being a mum!
I’ve been teaching for over a week now. I started off by teaching Yr 7 Science and Yr 7 Religious Education and it’s been… interesting. A couple of days after we got here the English teacher cornered us and said, ‘Right! Who’s taking my year 7 class!’ So after that we just went and saw the other teachers, organising who would be teaching what. It was all so laid back and casual. The teachers didn’t really seem to care what lessons we took, so long as it gave them more free time.
We’re teaching year 7, year 8, year 9 and year 10! Which is really scary! Exams here are really important! 5000 year 10 students will try and get into year 11 and 12 but only 1000 of them will make it. More of them will drop out over the next couple of years because of school fees or other reasons. The school system here is pretty messed up!
Anyway, lessons! We met the English teacher (Mr Henry), the Science teacher (Miss Diana), the RE and social science teacher (Mrs Anna), and the French teacher (Mrs Lewani). We’ve also briefly met Mr Bob the Agriculture teacher, and Mr George the maths teacher. As I said earlier I’m teaching year 7 Science and year 7 RE. Seeing as Bec took year 7 English and the English teacher wasn’t too keen on letting his other English classes go, I accepted the fact that I wouldn’t be teaching English over here. And so I agreed to take Year 8 Social Science. Now all of a sudden there’s a family feud between Mr Henry’s home island and Paama and so he’s had to leave. So suddenly I’m also teaching year 8 English, which is what I really wanted in the first place, but now I’m super busy!
The year 9s and 10s also now don’t have an English teacher, which is really bad seeing as it’s the two most important years. So Bec and I are taking year 10 English together and I’ve offered to help the year 9s after school if they need it. The maths teacher, Mr George, isn’t actually a maths teacher at all and only got a job because he has connections. So Bec and I are also going to take the year 10 maths class between us because it is so super important for them to learn everything before the exams. I can’t believe how screwed up the school system is here. I only have 3 copies of ‘the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’ to teach 35 year 8 students, and the book I had to teach them prior to that, ‘The Island of the Blue Dolphins’, was published in a long and a short version so half the students don’t have books and the other half basically have two different books. It’s been very hard!
To make things worse the primary school headmaster, Mr Jerry, has cornered me trying to get me to teach at the primary school too, and he’s already told the year 6s that I’d be taking their class on Monday. He told them this before he even asked me, so I don’t think I’ll be teaching at the primary school at all while I’m here. Not only do I not have the time, but I’d like to be asked first and not taken for granted.
Bec’s teaching Year 7 French and Year 7 English, and she’s also taking year 10 maths and English with me. She’s also really keen to teach at the Primary School.
Bec’s been fantastic so far! From what she’s been saying the kids are really enjoying her lessons, understand her and generally look up to her. She’s so confident and calm in front of them. She is finding lesson planning boring and tedious though, and it’s been tyring her out a lot. I’m almost the opposite. I’m fine with the lesson and year planning, and I love writing tests (I’m so evil), but when it comes to standing in front of the class I was a bit queasy. I still stand up and do it, and once I start I find I lose the nerves, and communication has gotten a lot better over the last few weeks. Still… planning for four different lessons plus now the year 10 lessons has left me black-rimmed around the eyes.
All classes have to be taught in English, and you’re not allowed to talk to the students in Bislama while you’re on the school grounds. That makes learning difficult, not only for the students, but also for me as I was really keen to learn how to speak more Bislama. It would be a really good way to mingle and integrate myself with the local community. Right now when I visit the village I feel like a trespasser or something, and so I’ve been a bit of a hermit, cooping myself up in the staff room and our kastom house, or going for walks and playing uno with the year 7 girls.
I’ve been structuring my lessons like I would if I were teaching in an Australian classroom. They have a syllabus, but most of them are a decade or so old. In fact, most of the resources here are pretty ancient. Their encyclopaedias are from the early 1980s and when I went to check out their national geographic collection I found most of them were from the 1970s. It sure has been challenging. There are very few resources here and so most of the work is discussion and writing notes on the board. I get very tired arms! I’ve made a note to myself never to arm wrestle with a teacher.
Actually, I get very tired full stop. I’m usually up between 6 and 6.30am because everyone else here is up, the roosters are crowing, and my ‘bed’ is giving me a sore back and bruises everywhere. Whenever I try and sleep-in there’s always a teacher or a student knocking on our door (and Bec’s a heavy sleeper). So I haven’t been able to sleep-in, despite my efforts. I’m usually in bed by 10pm, though, which is an improvement. When the power goes out around 9pm there’s not much you can do around here except light a candle and finish your journal entry for the day.
Anyway, back to school! The year 7 students are alright, but there are always the rebellious boys! Still, the girls are lovely and there are some really intelligent boys who finish the work really fast and are so polite and eager to answer questions. The first couple of lessons everyone was really shy but they’re starting to get a lot noisier now. I’ve even managed to get students to read out loud, answer questions and put their hands up when they need help. It doesn’t sound that fantastic, but it’s a big thing here. The kids are so completely shy and interacting with me and other classmates is a big challenge for them.
The Year 8 students started off a lot more confident and I think I prefer them as a class for that. They are a bit more of a handful but I feel like they understand me more and they also seem to have their minds set on what paths they want to take. When asked to write about themselves the year 7s answers were almost identical, whereas the year 8s had a lot more diversity – and I like that! The year 8 students are between 11 and 15 years old, and the year 7 students are between 12 and 14 years old… age doesn’t seem to determine year level here.
Still, the boys are horrid and make me feel like screaming sometimes. It’s so hard when the girls want to learn but the boys are so disruptive that they’re making it hard for anyone to learn. I’ve had boys wagging class, not doing the work, mucking around, yelling, and teasing the girls. I wish I’d had more training with this type of thing. There’s a gang that hangs out right next to our house attacking things with knives, burning things and generally being destructive. It’s quite annoying and at times scary because they look through your windows as they walk past in their giant mobs. They’ve been reported to the Principle and given warnings so it should get better in a few days. I mean, you get louts in classes no matter where you are it’s just so hard when school is such a privilege here.
I find it really cute whenever the students call me ‘Miss Jessica’ and I always get this tingling feeling inside me when I hear it. Some of the students have also said they want to grow up to be ‘a GAP teacher’ or ‘a teacher like Miss Jessica’. Teachers are really well respected here, and the villagers, council members, students and other teachers all treat me like an equal or as a leader. I’m quite stoked, actually, and find myself feeling really comfortable in my role here. As soon as I teach a few more lessons I’ll have settled in quite nicely. I think Bec feels the same, although she’s missing the other Gappers a lot more than me.
The boredom is only just starting to set in, and it’s affecting Bec a lot faster than it is me – this morning I walked in and found Bec lying on her bed with a glazed expression on her face. She sits planning get aways a lot of the time… But then again, she didn’t work at Big W for 6 months, so I think I’m used to being bored. I’ve already finished reading four books (in only a few days), and I’m half way through two more plus the huge big sci-fi I started reading in Aus (it really is a reality dysfunction reading it!) Then I’m going through David’s novel and my own as well. So in a couple of days I think I’ll be fed up of books, which has never happened to me before!
Bec and I have already planned to go to Ambrym next weekend (because there’s a public holiday) and we’ve booked our flights. It’s the magical centre of Vanuatu and you can see Lopevi from the shore near our hotel, so we’re really looking forward to it! Should be a big blog about it when we get back! :0) (And when I can send the USB stick back home…)
Weather here has been really wet and windy. I sometimes wonder if the roof is gonna blow off, and it has lifted a few times. It’s really hard to sleep when your mosquito net is tangling itself around you. This house isn’t exactly weather proof and I’m glad we’re gonna be leaving just as cyclone season is setting in. It’s been really muggy! Especially at night, and I hate that! But I guess I shouldn’t complain. It’s probably freezing in Australia and I hear everyone’s getting colds. We’ve also had a tsunami warning because there have been earthquakes along the fault line near Pentecost. I would say, ‘don’t worry’, but in the year 2000 three villages in Paama were flattened by a tsunami from the same fault line and we’ve been feeling the tremors from smaller earthquakes (from this distance) for the last few days. Still, I’m gonna say ‘don’t worry’ anyway because God led me here and he won’t let anything happen that wasn’t meant to happen.
Health wise I’ve been surviving – the food hasn’t made me too sick yet! :0) The lariam gave me trouble for the first month and when it started making me jumpy, giving me a rash, nausea and making me see spots I was worried I’d have to get it changed. But it’s gotten better and the last dose I had didn’t give me any side effects. I’ve had an infected tear duct in my right eye, which has been killing me the last couple of days. It was a huge fright when I woke up one morning and my eye was swollen half shut. That’s the biggest problem I’ve had here so far, but it’s almost fully cleared up now and the swelling has gone down to a slight pink tinge on my eyelid. I’m complaining of a sore back and dry skin too, but that was to be expected anyway. Bec and I are gonna try and get compensation for a chiropractor when we get home though (our insurance might cover things like that)… :0) I must sound pretty American right now, next thing you know I’ll be suing God for making the volcano spit ash.
Well, I’ll sign off for now. Sorry it took me so long to put another post up but there’s nothing I can do about the internet connection here. Trying my hardest, and I miss you all terribly!
Love always,
Jess xox