blitz and lasagna go south - tanna

After leaving Mystery Island, Alison and I were off to Tanna for a week to hang with Tanna Boy Dave and have a volcanic adventure. We arrived on Tanna on a sunny day (this is an important detail for later in this post). Dave met us at the airport and we went back to his house at Loukatai Centre School, right outside the provincial center of Lenakel. After putting our bags down we decided to take proper advantage of the beautiful day and go read on the beach. We walked maybe 10 minutes through the bush and then arrived at the beach. The shoreline is coral/stone but really cool because fresh springs flow out into the ocean at the shoreline so right at the entrance of the ocean is cool, fresh water but as you go out, past the coral/stone barrier, the fresh water is mixed with salt water and you're in some rough ocean. There was plenty of space to swim along the shore so we relaxed in the water for awhile before settling into reading.

Eventually we got to feeling like we would really like to enjoy a cold beer on this beautiful day so we walked along the beach for maybe 15/20 minutes, turned down a road and found ourselves back on the main road. We went to a small store where the items are served to you though a louvered window and sat down to enjoy our Tuskers. After our refreshment break we continued on to Dave's.

Now, Tanna is unique compared to other islands in the sense that the men are known to be less than welcoming to kind to women. Of course, most of this stems from the actual stories of hurt I've heard and does not need to be taken as a blanket statement to say that all man Tanna hate women. Our first night on Tanna proved this to me.

I didn't think we would be going to any nakamals or really drinking too much kava on Tanna because custom is so strong and women are barred from doing many of the custom activities, like drinking kava or being part of circumcision ceremonies. This is why when Dave asked us if we wanted to go to a nakamal I was surprised and skeptical at first. However, he assured us that it was alright and we would not be bothered at the nakamal. So, we left the house and walked a short distance to the nakamal - which was really a big clearing on the side of the road with one table and lots of places to sit down. When we walked over there were maybe six men around cooking up what I found out to be something called Tanna Soup (really just a pot full of everything) and finishing the preparation of the kava which, on Tanna, is also chewed, as it is on Aneityum.

Dave's counterpart who he had brought to one of the training in December was there and offered to buy mine and Alison's first shells as a welcome to Tanna. He did and we all drank our shells together. He also brought a papaya over and cut it up for us as well as a big bowl of Tanna Soup (which was surprisingly delicious) to use as wasemaot. Dave's host papa was also there and shared some nice storian with us before going back to join the other men. Overall, we were much more comfortable and treated much more kindly that we ever imagined. We only had two shells there before heading over to Dave's host family's house for dinner and storian. Dave's mama is really sweet and had cooked up some simboro for us. She was excited to ask about our lives on Malekula and Ambae and more than happy to talk about how much she loves Dave. He is a pretty great volunteer, and friend, so I understand. He's been teaching a reading class at night for the Mamas so they can expand their abilities and be strong role models to their children who are also learning how to read. Dave loves the Mamas and they love him. After some more storian we left for home to rest up for a big day of painting!

We woke up on Sunday to Dave making pancakes and another beautiful day. We thought about going to church, decided against it, and then got right to our project - painting a map of Tanna. Lots of volunteers do some sort of map project while in Vanuatu. Some people go all out - as I'm in the middle of doing - and paint a whole world map. Others simply do a map of Vanuatu or of their individual island. Since Dave is the last volunteer at his site he already had a world map and map of Vanuatu done so we decided to add a map of Tanna. We started this task thinking it would be easy enough but time consuming. We were amazed to realize how easy it actually was and with three people were done in only about an hour. Dave still has to label the villages but the map is done! Later that night we had an epic feast of some Chaia DC inspired Za'atar spiced carrots and vegetable curry with garlic naan!

The next day we trekked into town to hopefully find a truck to the volcano. Once we got into town it started drizzling and continued to drizzle, sometimes heavier, for hours. We found a truck to take us but did not want to waste our time going all the way over there if we weren't going to be able to see anything. After some deliberation we decided to hold off on the volcano until the weather was clear. This was a good decision on our part because less than 5 minutes later we all got texts from Peace Corps saying that we were on "STANDFAST" and not allowed to travel. Alright then. Soaked, we headed back to Dave's and made stuffed cheeseburgers and went to sleep, dreaming of sunshine.

The next morning, and the morning after that, we woke up to rain that lasted throughout the entire day. Throughout these two days we watched a lot of media, read, made delicious foods, and went on a couple of drenched wokabaots - one to go visit Kirk, another volunteer on Tanna who lives about a 20 minute walk from Dave, who had just gotten back from two weeks in New Zealand with his mom! It was nice because we got a lot of time to catch up with friends but it was a bummer that we weren't getting to the volcano. The next issue to deal with was the fact that Alison had a flight to the USA on Saturday, we weren't supposed to leave Tanna until Friday, and there was a tropical depression/possible cyclone potentially headed our way. We made a quick decision Wednesday morning to change our flights to that day and luckily we were both able to secure seats on the flight to Vila that afternoon.

We ran over to Dave's family's house to say our thanks and goodbyes and quickly packed up before leaving for the airport. Our ride to the airport was dry at first but soon enough it just started to pour down on us - in the back of a truck! It started to absolutely dump on us so shortly after the rain began we had accepted the fact that we were going to be showing up at the airport, and in vila, totally soaking wet. At the airport we got checked in and sat down to play cards to kill time and 20 minutes before we were supposed to board the flight was canceled. Well, great. We went over to the check in desk and were greeted by 50 other white people complaining about the flight being canceled and asking what Air Vanuatu was going to do about it. It was a technical problem, not even weather related! Obviously we held similar feelings to these others but were a little less vocal at first. Eventually, once many whitemen had cleared out back to their hotels, we went up to the desk to ask what they wanted to do with us. To our pleasant surprise they sent us to the Evergreen Resort, gave us money for dinner and told us they would contact us with our new flight times.

Pleased, we got to the resort, got into our room and immediately covered the room with all the wet clothes in our backpacks. We went out to have dinner (an incredible dinner by the way!) and they told us that we had been put on a flight for Friday afternoon. Friday afternoon was even later than the original tickets we held! This was also going to be cutting it way too close for Alison so we asked them to put us on the waiting list for Thursday morning and we would be at the airport waiting. The next morning, after a free continental breakfast, we went down to the airport to wait. The airport was a zoo and we waited patiently for awhile before we could talk to anyone. We told them we were on the waitlist and would be waiting until the plane doors shut before giving up. We waited around a little longer and one plane came and left, without us on it. Another plane came and loaded up fast but by some crazy miracle we were shuttled on to the plane, taking the very last two seats. Well rested, semi frustrated and still a little wet we boarded the plane with backpacks full of stinking clothes and were Vila bound!

I have no been in Vila for two weeks and am happy to say I'm finally going back to Malekula tomorrow! I was here to work on some training materials for the new group, print our volunteer newsletter that I'm the editor of, do some last minute shopping before and meet the new group of volunteers! We greeted them at the airport yesterday and man do they look clean! I'm going to visit them tonight and help with a session on how to drink kava and then tomorrow I'm off to the island nice and early! It's been a crazy month of traveling and I've definitely had a blast but I'm ready to get back into the gentle flow of village life. I'm not sure when I'll be back with internet but will be in touch when I can. Ale!