Holiday Adventures

On december 22^nd Jenni Warren came flying in to Ambae from Vila and Lindsay and I went to meet her at the airport. This was a bit of a fiasco as some people wanted to walk, others wanted to pay for a truck, and some people want to take a truck, but not pay for one, so what finally ended up happening was that it was too late to walk by the truck road that follows the coast of Ambae so I had to recruit a couple kids from the village to show us the bush road that went over the top of one of the small hills to get to the airport. Because we walk a lot slower than the little kids ran, it took us about twice as long as the kids told us it would take to get there, so when we showed up, Jenni had already found a truck and was on her way to Lolowai, the place where we all wait for boats to go to Maewo. Jenni called us up on the phone though and asked the driver to wait, so we caught up to Jenni and ended up being picked up by her rather than us picking her up from the airport. Definitely set the tone for the rest of the adventure. That afternoon two more volunteers from Ambae, Kara and Megan, joined us, and we took the boat back to lindsays village in south Maewo, called  Baitora. Down there they made a little kastom food for us. The minute I showed up, being the only male volunteer, I was taken away from all the women to go make Kava with the men. After all the kava was done and ready I got to go back and join the girls and drink kava and eat dinner with them. Lindsays house in Baitora is tiny, so I was given a mat to sleep on in the house with some of the young men in the village. The next morning we got up early, ate a hearty breakfast of crackers and peanut butter and then went down to the beach where we got into the biggest outrigger canoe on Maewo and proceeded to paddle our way down towards where the truck road starts in central Maewo. The canoe was huge, holding all 5 of us along with 5 of lindsays family who would take the canoe back. We got to my house and were greeted with a dinner of bread and peanut butter because my dad wanted to show off our oven to all the other volunteers. Nik hiked over and met us that night at my house, and again, we all ground shells of kava and drank. The next day we got up and debated what road to take to get to Naviso, the truck road is longer but easier supposedly so that is what we decided on. The hike there consisted of 3 hours north to Beterrara, afterwards 2 hours to reach the summit of Maewo, and then another 2 hours to hike down the otherside and get into Naviso. That night when we arrived in Naviso, we were all exhuasted but told that they had prepared a little ceremony for us. So they sat us down in front of the entire village, hung flowers from out neck and watched us eat pineapple while they sang to us in the local language. Following this they were very insistant on us all going and bathing before dinner, but we declined being too tired and said we’d bathe the next day. So we managed to pass up bathing, but Kava we werent allowed to say no to. So we ground and drank our shells of kava and then went to bed, worn out. The next day we just lounged around the village dispensary until lunch time where we were given a feast of local food, and then after lunch we went down to the bathing areas. Against custom, but to show respect to us, they allowed the female volunteers to swim with Nik and I in the men’s area. So we all went down to the river and swam. It was beautiful swimming in a river that empties straight out into the ocean. That evening we drank Kava again and it was pretty potent. None of us could walk well and two of the girls had to be carried back to the house we were sleeping at. The next morning feeling very lazy from all the kava drinking we strapped our backpacks on and started the hike back to my place. The hike took us 3 hours to get down to the point of crossing, after an hour to hike to the top, then two hours to hike down to Narovorovo, and then an hour to hike back to my village once we made it to the west side. The next morning we’d planned to hike to Big Wota, a huge set of waterfalls, but everyone was too tired so we just took a boat instead, which turned out to be a good choice as approaching the falls from a boat, was breath taking. The water falls were incredible, even though there had been a big rain that washed a lot of mud into them making the water dirty so you couldn’t see the bottom. None of us cliff jumped because of the mud, but all of the Maewo volunteers swore we’d jump when we came back sometime. The next day saw us on our way to Ambae in a boat again and we all went to St. Patricks College, where a volunteer was posted and slept there. While new years was uneventful, it was pleasant, having 3 hours of electricity a day when the generator came on, and running water with indoor plumbing. There ended up being 12 volunteers all at the school so needless to say, anytime we caught a truck anywhere or walked around we were quite the spectacle, probably being the largest group of white men most people on ambae had ever seen haha. After new years we all headed back to our sites, sick from all the candy and alcohol, but happy to have enjoyed a “whiteman” style new years.