Thursday 21st Feb
Just over a week in Vanuatu, having some big lessons in patience, cultural adjustment, graciousness and stunning beauty. We are all having so many impressions, its hard to list them all.
Sunday 17th February aa
Sunday is the big Commisioning for Onesua Presbyterian College where we are staying and many of the PCV head office guys I am supported by are there to launch the high school year. AllThey emphasise excellence and faithful bible study. We get a mention, a welcome and prayer. The kids pass out in the heat. Local kids come to the rescue and play with Gracie in the shade while Davie sleeps in Paula’s arms. I stare at the palm trees and bright sunlight, trying to take in where I am. I have real trouble recognising Ni-Vans I have recently met, many of the young people look the same to us, though in reality there is huge variety of shapes sizes and styles. We don’t understand Bislama but it is very evangelical. Later we have a swim at a local rocky beach. The kids slip over and get grazes. I treat them with hydrogen peroxide, iodine and antibiotic cream, so they heal without incident. Coral scratches can be merciless in this climate.
Sunday afternoon, after the above swim, the two Ebule caretakers, who are also local chiefs, myself and a Ni Van volunteer mechanic tutor called Kenny, went over and walked over the Ebule campus, and into various classrooms to get an overall impression of what the Ebule Rural Training Centre has to offer now, after much theft, vandalism and neglect. I am impressed how fast the jungle can reclaim things, with huge leaf vines growing over the trees, and paw paw volunteering to grow anywhere. Still there are many larger tools left in the mechanic shop, furniture in the classroom and leftover cooking gear . The saddest thing however, is the boys dorm, where most damage has been done, all toilets and showers smashed and broken, most fittings gone. The reasons for this senseless stuff go back to the previous manager of 2006 who apparently was a heavy kava drinker and user of school funds, and over the vacation, stole a lot of the tools and mattresses. The result was in 2007 the boys became angry disaffected despite volunteer effort to prop the place up. So the boys ended up doing the same but worse toward the end of the year as the place had become unmanageable. AusAid built a lot of new classrooms and labs, and these buildings are still very solid.
It was sad and creepy to spend time in the old office, looking at photos of the place in better times-only two to three years ago it was still being hailed as a ground-breaking institution. Many people still think of it that way.
My co-manager does not show up in Vila as expected so I will have to start without her. No one knows where she is, I half suspect she has realized the job is not for her?? Which is a shame for Ebule as she and her carpenter husband would have a lot to offer.
Monday 18th
Two students turn up so we start cleaning up the girls dorm for them. Isaac and his cousin Tony are likeable but loose young guys from the place I visited last April, they know some of the people I met at Navota farm on Santo.
The mechanic tutor Kenny cooks for them. To keep them well fed all I have to supply is rice, tinned tuna, oil, sugar, salt and dry crackers. The rest they can easily get from the bush, especially now that the place has been left to itself. I the afternoon another boy from South Santo, Austin, turns up with little gear and no mosquito net. I loan him one of ours noting that I have trouble communicating with him. One more student comes, Alex from Pentecost who is a relative of our friend Richard Leona, he is likeable and a strong English speaker. He will prove to be a good translator for me, even though he doesn’t know what translate means. Our first female student, Lolo from Nguna Island, arrives wishing to study Electrics. Phillip the Peace Corps guy is a superb electronics man, but has become busy helping Onesua College with its various power and water problems. I take Lolo up to Jonathon, the Onesua Headmasters house to stay a few nights - they are from the same island and happy to help her out.
Tuesday 19th
I discover that Austin (see above) is a Francophone. I say Bonjour, je parle un peur de Francé. He spends the rest of the day trying hard to communicate to me in French, and I discover that I can recall very few words outside my stock phrases. We gather in a class room and open all the storm shutters, having a session talking about where we came from and why we are here. Wishing to acknowledge the sad state of the school, I do a wee bible study on Nehemiah and the broken down walls. I wish to ask them to help me rebuild them but of course they as yet have no stake in the place to want to do that. Neither do I really but it is not hard to see the potential of the place. Many of them love the location away from the city. After a big lunch cook up on the open fire, we have a swim and another session, drinking coconuts and being honest about wanting maybe to go home. They tell me they didn’t come to work (as labourers). The sad things is I know that there are Aid and Development groups who have plenty of resources to pour into such a place, but are not willing to touch Ebule because they know what transpired here. During the day the American Peace Corps worker, Phillip Utter comes and gasps as he discovers what pipes have been ripped up and stolen, and his hard work of last October/November all smashed. He also explains that Onesua have their own looming crisis over water as there are so many water leaks in the system-like our continuously flowing Cistern and that the big pumps they are using are breaking down. I am starting to feel alarmed.
Later that night I hear laughing and student hijinks going on
During the day Davie and Gracie attend and preschool at College, singing all our favourite songs like the wheels on the bus. Davie is chronically shy. They are starting to play well with the kids next door who love our duplo. Also the neighbour gives us a large pandanas mat for the lino floor, much appreciated and so glad to live next to gracious people.
We discover that Onesua has a Co-op shop and sells bread milk and eggs, and many other items at reasonable prices. This is a wonderful discovery. Next we want to find affordable cheese -10 cheese slices costs $6. ON the whole we are spoilt for food. We can have paw paw feasts with fresh lime squeezed over it, giant avocado and mangoes 5kg for $10 in a nice coconut frond basket. Bananas are similar, however you have to eat them quickly in this heat.
I enjoy another swim with the class today at a beach resort just down the road with a beach restaurant-one is supposed to buy a drink before using their beach, but the owner waved it for us as he is the school caretaker, chief Rosse.
If the issues involved weren’t so sad, I would find this days events very funny and interesting, but at least I enjoy the students company. My hardest issue is whether I can legitimately promise the students a certificate for this year if they stay and work. I decide in faith to offer them that I will see to it that they do get one, allowing them to go on in studies else where, if they commit themselves to the year.
Wednesday 20th
Have decided to go to Vila and see about our cargo which should be ready now. All the Ebule students have urged me to go and give them a lift so they can see the Fiji, Vanuatu soccer game.So in the morning I decide I should take Paula and the kids and all go! Island time has great flexibility for leadership.
However note that if abused the students can react! Philip Utter comes over before we leave to tell me Thursday is a national Holiday, in honour of Walter Lini the founding Prime Minister. No one else thought to tell me which is interesting. Also he tells me that last nights laughing was in fact students complaining and reacting to the breakdown of the water system and that they are going to be sent home for a week! While its gets repaired. I am feeling a bit unsettled about these things, especially after the wonderful commissioning service on Sunday. The term had already been going three weeks before.
We head off with our five students, this time going on round the island to complete the round Island trip. It is sunny and warm and fascinating. Old plantations on the flat land and beef farms, with villages and long stretches of encroaching jungle, tempting glimpses of the sea. At one place we stop to admire some WW II memorabilia. I make a mental note to come back and buy and coke bottle. Elsewhere I have seen large buildings and Oil tanks rotting in the bush, a monster drag line steam crane and spent .5in machine gun bullets. In some ways time has stood still here.
Then we hit a lava flow hill and another and finally a really steep one that I have to crawl over in low gear. Paula is at her limit for steep terrain, but then it stops and become just a bone jarring bumpy ride and I wonder when the road will either disintegrate completely or get repaired.
After a two hour journey we descent a steep rutted hill which we are gratified to see even the Ni Vans are sweating to walk up. And then suddenly we are at the Cascades Resort with beautiful limestone waterfalls and the road is perfect from there to
Vila. On the way in I spot all the hardware stores I want to visit.
I get the computer email connection working at the Telecom IT division and Paula shops for a mop and jandles. We are excited that our cargo will arrive about 3pm on a truck to the PCV compound. While waiting I catch up again with Rob Meier and tell him about the latest developments. He has done a good job of preparing us for out there, but is a little discouraged by some of my news, as are Meto and Pastor Kasikau. These men are working very hard to keep things going, I wish there were more people to help them. Later I have to be honest with Meto that the Ebule school might not get off the ground as hoped, but that I will try my best to keep a core of students. I know I can’t manage 20 students in a place that has no water or power and only open fires for cooking, especially if I have no teachers.
Later we find our cargo is held up by customs for closer inspection in the “yellow” line. It will be free by Friday at the earliest. We went for drive and got a little lost. It gets late so we decide to stay in Vila at the Coconut Palms to enjoy the holiday. We are all coming out in heat rash, particularly Gracie.
Thursday 21st, National Holiday.
A deliteful swim in the pool and an English big breakfast later, we are all feeling about normal again after yesterdays disappointment.
Heading back to the PCV compound we decide to pick up all the rest of the items Rob has set aside for us for Ebule. The previous day the new VSA team turn up and are being introduced. I meet Rob Wait and wife Katie who take over from Rob Meier in two weeks. Rob is very generous in his help and donation of tools, many also sent by St Marks parish in Christchurch. We are so lucky to have a house with a “sleepout” where I can store things. We load up the faqithful Isuzu with all sorts: a broken Kipor generator, a new steel bender, material, inverters, Barbara’s teaching books and drawings for human health and parts for the Ute.
There is a pharmacy downtown who recommend pine ta sol for heat rash, so we buy and big bottle. Gracie can be beside herself at times in the afternoons with discomfort. We had all noticed it on Monday last, I put it down to fungal infections, but fungal cream did nothing for it. After our obligatory visit to the market, we head off on the good road about midday, having bought the basket of Mangoes, drinking coconuts, beans, cucumbers and bananas. We also bought our first bottle of home make coconut oil for cooking. I wonder why they don’t sell this in super markets in New Zealand, poly saturated oils being the best for frying because they are so stable!
Only having sunny warm days here, we drive back home looking forward to a swim. At Eton beach we meet Dora again whose daughter is at Onesua studying Accounting and Economics. The kids are delighting and amazing us with their growing confidence in the water, Davie can swim for about 7 feet and gracie copies him but goes about 1. It will still be a while before they can actually get their heads up to breathe. Dora looks after Davie and Grace, going hermit crab hunting, while I take Paula for her first snorkel on coral. It is so different with no rocks, only various corals or sand, amazing shapes and neon fish darting around. For all the problems we are finding there are some wonderful compensations.
On the problems, I am being reminded by various people I meet that the key at Ebule is to talk to the local chiefs and find out as best I can what is a sustainable Island way to build and run a school, starting with the story from their perspective of what happened at Ebule. What happened is not unusual, but we need to re-examine what sort of school they would take ownership in and try to maintain. I have heard a lot about a Kiwi Manager Tony Martin who was here for 5 years. He ran the school well and had an incredibly well equipped machine shop going. Then it all ran on into disrepair and got plundered. Maybe they need a much smaller place that specializes in appropriate technology, starting with welded D14 rod fire grates to hold pots above the open fires for cooking. Vanuatu has lots of water, fortunately, though plumbing knowledge is not so good. Maybe this is an important area.
Sunburn creeps up on us, Paula looses her precious goggles, but a local finds them floating and brings them over to us. We drive home, feed the chickens and move the goats. Down to three goats now. College is quiet with all the students gone home, our neighbours have put brought our washing in, turned off the gas and locked the door which somehow we neglected to do. While sharing some Pawpaw with Winnie, her kids bring us their best couch, having noted that we don’t have one!!!!
The power goes off early so I fire up inverter off the truck battery so I can start writing this up. Yesterday was the first day we could properly send emails.
Friday 22nd
It was a hot night, 31 Celsius, 80% humidity. It was also bug night, I killed two spiders the size of large coffee mugs and two fast moving flying cockroaches, they still take about 10 minutes to pacify with Mortein. I am fascinated by the spiders eyes which shine like headlights in my headlamp light. We are glad we bought lots of headlamps. Paula does not even want to look at the spiders I am killing late at night.
The rash is going but Gracie is going to need another haircut as her scalp torments her.
I have to ring up and find if our cargo is released.
The cargo is released so I much go to Vila and be there to supervise getting it off the truck at the PMC compound (Paton Memorial Church where the church headquarters are, just above Vila town centre). On my drive in to Vila, I pick up a hitch hiker who gives me a bilama leason. He has a small chilli bin of fish to sell at the market, having caught it by line off his “white wood” dugout canoe.
The seeing our container arrive is a very exciting, and though it takes a long time to unacrew, it seems undamaged and untampered with. Graham Roff and I seem to have made it solidly enough. I lift out every item and it goes into the carport. Later Philip Warilli the head joiner at the town workshop, helps me reload the Ute with everything I can manage, and cover it all because it is starting to rain. By the time I am heading back, it is dark and raining buckets, with flashes of lightening. I think about the river crossings…a wise man can change his mind, a fool seldom will. So I turn back to town and stay the night with elder Johnnie.
Saturday 23rd
Though the drive out is drizzly and wet, I made it in under two hours! Paula and the kids are fine, having got the message I was staying in town. Strangely someone tries to get in during the night when Paula has two teenage girls for company sleeping in the living room, he was shaking the front door and ran away when the girls shine a light at him. Later our niegbour speculates that it was a boy friend not a burglar. Still we feel its important to put most things away. The basin and copper pipes can stay out.