16 October 2014
Today is my nine month anniversary of arriving in Vanuatu and I am sitting on my friend Mike’s floor with Kelsey, Maureen and Amanda watching Fantastic Mr. Fox and chewing and spitting out rice into an empty two liter wine bottle in an attempt to make homemade saki. I definitely didn’t think this would be part of my Peace Corps service but since Mike is king of homemade alcohol I’m sure this won’t be the last time.
This weekend all of the volunteers on Malekula, except Jon and Jasmine, ventured to Mike’s school, Rensarie College, in Southeast Malekula. Not that we need a reason to get together but we decided to do so at Mike’s because last night there was a fundraiser to help sponsor a school trip to Fiji where a group studying economic empowerment will travel throughout Fiji visiting different production and distribution facilities including the Fine Fare factory which makes the majority of deliciously processed cookies consumed in Vanuatu. For the fundraiser the group made Bunya (boon-ya) which is kind of like laplap in the sense that it’s cooked in an earth oven but instead of turning root crops into a mushy paste they are just cut into large chunks and cooked whole with vegetables and various meats.
They were selling the Bunya in shares for 1000vatu ($10) each so the group of us, 5 total, bought two shares. I had never had bunya before so had no idea what to expect but what we received was a beautiful smorgasbord of yam, manioc (cassava), kumala (sweet potato), banana, chicken, pork, beef, assorted vegetables cooked with coconut milk and other simple flavors. Each share was huge and the five of us came nowhere close to finishing all of it. Food in Vanuatu is great because it’s all fresh and most of the time is cooked without using oil. Although over salting is sometimes an issue, most of the time I don’t feel guilty for overeating because it’s not all that bad for me. Overeating is a problem I usually only have when there is a laplap sorsor involved and my host brothers and sisters like to make fun of me when I overeat because I usually literally can’t move so I just take a little nap on the floor of my family’s kitchen.
Anyway, we enjoyed as much of the bunya as possible and then decided to watch a scary movie in celebration of the Halloween we weren’t going to have. Shutter Island is a lot scarier when you’re on an actual island when watching…
When we got up this morning we were all still pretty full from the bunya so just had some breakfast crackers and drank tea before getting started on this rice chewing adventure. We also took a trip to the school’s computer lab because, since Rensarie is a “college” (in Vanuatu, this is more like a boarding high school in the US), they have a computer lab with really good internet. We got to indulge in the internet for a bit and I even got to seen the faces of some of you out there who answered my facetime!
Oh ya, Saturday night, while we were waiting for it to be kava time, we played Chinese Checkers. I haven’t played Chinese Checkers in a while but have distinct memories of playing as a kid and having pretty much nothing in regards to a strategy. It’s crazy how playing the same games as an adult (do I dare call myself an adult??) you can quickly come up with a strategy that you know wouldn’t have been able to form in your brain as a kid. High five to healthy brain development and problem solving skills!
Well, we’ve now filled almost two bottles with saliva rice mush and I can say I don’t think I’ll be craving rice for at least…a few days. Its nice getting together in our group because although we talk regularly, there are so many things going on its nice to be able to chat face to face. We also all share the common understanding that our get togethers should be in no way hard work or strenuous, we all just need the chance once in a while to shut off and step away from our lives in our individual villages. This weekend has been exactly that, full of good food, friends, a little kava and so far three great movies.
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