23 July 2010
Hi Yufullas,
Well, yet another great week for us. Our social calendar has been pretty full – a Jewish Sabbath Dinner with Karen and Yegor on Monday night. Yegor is a Peace Corps Volunteer based at a little village called Labo in South West Bay. His site is very remote – no electricity, no running water and a total population in his village of about 150 people. Yegor is a young man in his twenties and by the sound of it has achieved some great outcomes for his village. Every week all the men in the village spend about three days working on whatever project the Chief decides. As a village they have got together and have a vision of creating a tourism business based around some bungalows that they are going to build. In August they have a major Cultural Festival – we are determined to be there!
Tuesday Maryann did an assessment of a small kindy at Lambubu Village. It was quite heart wrenching to see this passionate and energetic kindy teacher working her magic with the children in a custom house that had holes in the roof and walls. All the work that the children and the teacher had done would be destroyed in a decent rain and if it rained hard the kindy would have to close for the day. Maryann has done an assessment report that hopefully will motivate that kindy to get in behind their teacher and build a new kindy house.
Tuesday afternoon – we were back in Lakatoro at the Stadium for the opening of the Primary School Games. There are about 20 schools competing and as always the children take it very seriously.
On Wednesday, we went into watch some relays and I was very impressed at the speed of some of the athletes. They are naturals as they run everywhere!
That night we went back down to Karen’s again and were treated to some Russian Hamburgers (cooked by Yegor) which of course had to be preceded by Vodka and Pomplemouse juice. So we have had to come to Malekula to experience a Jewish Sabbath Supper and Russian hamburgers.
Thursday we were back at the Stadium again – partly to watch the Primary School Games and partly to prepare the Education Office Stall for the Independence Celebrations which start next week and run for 10 days. Local people have built stalls all around the stadium ground and for 150 vatu (about NZ$2.50) you can buy a meal. You can even buy icecream! In the end we left a little earlier than we had initially intended – it just got too hot for us white folk. It was great though, watching the volley ball and hand ball games.
Next week we are off to Walla Orano for a view days and will be going over to Walla Island for one night – we have ordered laplap for dinner so looking forward to that.

Cheers

Vic

This week started off with a disappointment but ended up being a very interesting week. We were supposed to go to Sunesup this week to help with a Kindy Workshop and we were both looking forward to going. The transport, a Toyota Ute, had been booked and we were supposed to leave at about 2pm. Unfortunately by the time the transport got to us it was too full and there was no room for us. Very disappointing in view of the fact that we were probably the only passengers who had actually booked! But booking doesn’t count.
The upside of all this was that it meant we were able to meet up with Diane, the Country Head for VSA, who had come over from Santos. Diane was the person who had made all our arrangements and ensured that our housing was really tops.
The next morning we were invited to a Baptism and Wedding – this is what the pictures are about. The Baptism was down at the beach at 8am and the weather and the sea were just perfect. It really was quite a moving ceremony as the Bride and Groom were taken into the sea and baptized by the Pastor. What made it special for us was that the Groom was Moli, the Carpenter from just down the road, who had made all our furniture. The Pastor was Moli’s father. After the Baptism we made our way to Moli’s house where the wedding took place. There was lots of singing by the Bride’s family and then by the Groom’s family before the wedding actually started. Out the back of the house was an area where the Bride’s family had put their “brides price” gifts – a huge number of yams and bananas. After the wedding the bride went up to another house and was dressed in custom dress for the custom wedding, before being led back down by the bride’s family again to much singing as they walked to be given to her husband. The hundreds of guests were fed laplap, rice, fish, bullock, greens and pomplemouse. We had to leave about 4o’clock and it was still going strong when we left – a terrific experience and one we felt very privileged to have been invited to.
Thursday was a celebration of Kindy Day in Lakatoro. The children, teachers and parents from Kindys all around the central area gathered in the stadium for speech-making and displays by the children. Everyone marched in behind the Police Truck with its flashing red light and each kindy held up the banners they had made. Maryann was a VIP – she sat up on the stage with the “big fella men” and got to make a speech. I was very proud of her – she spoke so clearly and her voice was strong and confident – she was clearly the best speech maker on the day!
So our life continues to be enriched week by week and we just never know what it going to happen next. We were warned before we came that boredom would be something that we would have to deal with and we are still waiting.
Hope you are all as happy in your worlds
Cheers
Vic and Maryann

Hi Everyone,
The last six days I have been in NZ. Certainly we get frustrated from time to time with the pace of things here but my trip to NZ has put that all into perspective. The trip was for a workshop with Outward Bound and they arranged for their Travel Agent to make all the bookings – the result was pretty awful ….. I was supposed to have electronic tickets according to the itinerary I received. The airlines were told physical tickets and so I ended up paying myself for the Ak – Wgtn leg. The Travel Agent handled my complaints poorly (in my view of course) so by the time I arrived at Vila for the 10.30am flight to be told that the flight left at 7.30am I was pretty bloody annoyed. Got it out of system today though with a 3 page letter of complaint – boy that felt good!
The weather here seems to be getting a little cooler – down to about 20 at night and maybe around 28 during the day – very nice. Our garden is growing well and we are looking forward to tomatoes, lettuce, kumara and melons. Otherwise we seem to be in a comfortable routine – vodka and pomplemousse at night, watch band of brothers, have tea, watch burn notice and then play cards. Maryann is having a purple patch at cards and I’m having to get used to being thrashed – must be luck surely!
Off to Sunesup next week so it may be a couple of weeks before our next up date.
Cheers
Vic and Maryann

Hello Yufullas,
We’ve had a pretty quiet week which has been great for catching up after the workshop and after the visitors. Took about three days just to catch up on the washing – sure do miss the washing machine thingy. It takes about an hour to do two sheets and a couple of towels – my mum has earned a bit of historical respect now I know what she was having to do back in the 1950s!
I’m off to NZ on Sunday just for a few days to attend a Facilitators Workshop with Outward Bound. I arrive on Sunday, travel to Anikiwa on Monday, get back Tuesday night and then fly back to Port Vila on Wednesday. No time for shopping and very limited time to catch up with family.
In mid July the plan is that we head down to Sunesup for a week to help with a Kindy Teachers’ workshop. This was the place we were supposed to go to a few weeks ago but couldn’t get there because the river was too high. Apparently it is now low enough to get across so we should be going on the 12 July – or at least around then some time. We’ll see.
We’ve now been here just over 3 months and it’s certainly gone quickly. The only thing bugging us at the moment is that we’re still not fluent in Bislama – I think we should be better than we are. Anyhow we have a plan – we play cards with Karen most weekends and so we are going to ask her to speak with us only in Bislama. We think that will be good for our Bislama but probably not great for our cards. Worth a try we think.
We love getting …. So big thanks to you mailers.
Back again next week

Cheers
Vic & Maryann