Pete in Vanuatu - Atchin

On the morning of December 23 Pete and I left Matanvat to go stay in another village on Malekula called Atchin. Atchin is a village on mainland Malekula as well as a small island of its own so it offers a different kind of island life experience. One of the teachers from my school, Mr. John, is from Atchin so since it's school break he is living there with his wife and four boys. Mr. John and his wife, Mami Solo (her name is Melissa but since she is from the Solomon Islands everyone calls her Mami Solo) are so kind and great to be around. I went and visited them once before but they have been telling me for months that if Pete and I wanted to see Atchin, we had a place to stay with them. And that we did! They have a cute little one room house with a veranda that they set up for us for the night.

When we arrived in Atchin it was only about 7am so Mami Solo set us up with some bread and tea for breakfast and then encouraged us to spel for a bit before we went on our small island adventure. Our small spel ended up turning into a nap until about 9:30 when everyone was ready to head over to the small island. Oh wait, surprise! We're going to a wedding. Okay..let's go. We all piled into a fiberglass boat with lots of other Ni-Vanuatu heading over for the wedding and a short ride later we were on the small island.

Jaysen on the ride over to Atchin

I haven't been to too many weddings in Vanuatu yet but this one was very different from the rest. It was almost like being in the US and attending a beach wedding. There was a uniformed wedding party, choreographed entrances, vows and even lip-syncers!  Apparently the wedding was planned by a man from Atchin who spent awhile working at a resort in the Solomon Islands where he learned the ins and outs of western weddings. Now he's back living on Malekula planning fancy weddings.

Mr. John with Aru to his left, Jerry on his head, Jaysen to
his right (another boy who is not is son) and oldest son
Robert not pictured

After the ceremony we went on a walk around the island with Mr. John and his family. It only took us about 30 minutes to walk all the way around and Mr. John was telling us about different historical/cultural elements of the island, like the various nasaras used as community meeting places by different tribes. The photo below is of one of these nasaras. It's hard to make out much but you can tell where the nasaras are by certain rock formations. There is also one big nasara where the tribes could all come together as a community. Although these custom traditions aren't as strong as they were in times past these are still sacred places for the community and places to be used for special events.

During our walk we also checked out the tanks that supply water to everyone on the small island. A solar powered pump pumps water from an underground source up into the middle of the island where it's stored in six tanks that then feed water to all parts of the village using gravity nomo. Here's Aru and this other cute kid posing in front of the water tanks. Oh and also there's cute kid Pete posing below using his newly acquired Vanuatu style.

Pete on the ride back from Atchin

After our wokabaot we headed back to the beach to find a boat to take us back over to the mainland. It was pretty hot and we were all looking forward to swimming. Who wouldn't want to go swimming with water as beautifully turquoise as this!?

 After swimming we took a little time to relax and then had dinner.





After dinner we were all stori-ing and Mr. John told us that he just bought a new keyboard to use at church so of course I mentioned that Pete can play the piano. A few minutes later Mr. John came outside with his new fancy keyboard and Pete gave us a show. The keyboard can record what you play so of course we recorded Pete's song. Now the musical stylings of Peter Jones are going to be blasting in northern Malekula for generations to come!



After dinner it was time for bed as we were getting geared up for yet another early morning truck ride, this time to the airport and off to Santo! Before leaving I wanted to get a photo with Pete and the family so here they are!

Unknown male on the left, Mr. John with Jerry in his lap, Aru, Mami Solo, Robert
and Pete (Jaysen, still sleeping, not pictured)

At 6:30am we were airport bound but as our flight wasn't until 10:30 we had a little time to hang out before going to the airport. We had the truck drop us off at Mami Jacqueline's (or Mami Jak) house in Tautu which is right down the street from the airport. I'm not sure if I've written about Mami Jak before but she is basically Mami blong every peace corps. She was my friend Sara's host Mama but always looks out for all of us when we're in town. I have been telling Mami Jak that Pete was coming to Makekula for months now so it was great to finally introduce them. We just hung out, had tea and bread and storied until it was time to walk to the airport for check in. Of course while we were walking it started raining so by the time we got to the airport that has very minimal covered space we were soaked and forced to go hang out near this really intense woman named Flow who was traveling by herself and had an infection on her leg...I felt bad for her and chatted with her for awhile but Pete had enough when she started talking about taking ayahuasca and seeing through her third eye. Eventually our plane came and we were Santo bound and ready for friends, cold beer and CHRISTMAS!