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