aelan taem: moso

Today is Wednesday February 5th and today I am going learn how to kill a chicken. Since arriving in Sunai on the tiny island of Moso, the first of my two training villages, only a week ago today, I have already learned more than I ever dreamed possible.

To list a few: I was thrown into a brand new language, Bislama, and already feel like I can communicate with relative success, learned how to cook local foods like laplap (shaved banana mixed with coconut milk, wrapped in banana leaf and cooked in an earth oven), samboro (similar to laplap but wrapped in island cabbage leaves which is similar to giant spinach) and of course some fried bananas, learned how to wash my clothes by hand and take a bucket shower, shucked my first clams and de-scaled my first fish (yeah pretty sad it took me leaving the vineyard to learn how to shuck clams and take scales off fish), learned a few songs in Bislama, put on a dance show with a few other volunteers during which the Ni-vans simply watched and laughed and cheered, learned how to weave fish out of coconut leaves and drank kava with the local chief.

Kirk, Dane, Kelsey and me taking our first shell of kava in Sunai

Most days we have language classes in Sunai but once in awhile we wokabaot or take a small boat over to Tassariki where another group of volunteers is living. The walk takes about 45 minutes and is a beautiful trail along the water past more varieties of plants than I've ever seen in one place. When we go to Tassariki it's usually for the entire day so our host families get together and make us bagged lunches--mostly fruits but sometimes rice, a sandwich or someting with tin tuna (which I've decided I'm allergic to so that I can stop awkwardly having to force it into my stomach). 

Mike and David on the boat back from Tassariki

It has been a full and intense week so far but it has been great. The people I’m sharing this experience with are funny and unique in all different ways and I have an incredibly supportive and helpful host family. It’s nice because my friend Kelsey is living with a host family that is also part of my family (like many of the families in the village) so we pretty much do everything together. It helps with filling in the Bislama gaps and makes learning things a lot more fun and less stressful when you get to share the experience. Like I said, today were learning how to kill a chicken. More updates to come on that…