Crazy Crossing (5/31/11)

 I was on Ambae for a gender and development workshop the past week. It was busy and a nice change of pace, but Sunday came around and I was ready to get back to the island and my pace of life. The day started off with a fantastic downpour that continued while me and the Ni-Van participants climbed into the truck to return to Lolowai before climbing in one of the small boats to travel back to Maewo. The truck ride back was wet and uneventful. Once we arrived in Lolowai we quickly threw all of our stuff onto the boat hoping to keep it from getting as wet as we already were from the rain. After a short wait of about an hour for the driver of the boat to come back from the store, that is about a minute walk away from the shore, we all climbed in ready to go home. The boat started up and I looked over the luggage one last time making sure we had everything. Naturally we'd forgotten something, but the something we'd forgotten was a foam mattress about as big as me. How this girl forgot her mattress I do not know, but that mean that we had to add a little extra time to the trip to go pick up her bed. So setting out at 9:30am, I was anticipating getting to Maewo at about 11am because of the extra little trip to get the mattress. We pulled up to the beach by the school and me and one of the other boys hopped out and ran to grab the mattress and brought it back soaking wet thanks to the rain. By the time we got back to the boat the rain had gotten more intense. It was coming down so thick you couldn't see Maewo or Pentecost at all in the distance like usual. It was nothing but grey spreading out before us. The driver cranked up the engine and we started heading towards Maewo. By this point my skin was starting to get wrinkled like I'd been sitting in a bath too long because of how wet we were from the rain. Undaunted by the downpour we bravely drove straight into the rain cloud on our way to Maewo. About halfway across we managed to catch a fairly large Wahoo (king fish is what they called it in bislama I think). Once we'd dragged the fish into the boat and toss the hook back out, we could no longer see any of the islands. We kept driving on looking for Maewo through the haze of the rain. After about an hour of driving we were approaching 11am and close to the time i'd expected to be home and we still hadn't seen any sign of Maewo. We were running a bit slower than normal because the water was pretty rough and we couldn't run as fast through the large swells so I just reasoned to myself that it would probably take longer than normal due to the rough water. After another hour went by I started getting nervous. We'd now been in the little wooden speedboat for two and a half hours without seeing any sign of Maewo, and for the past two hours we hadn't been able to see Ambae as well. One of the Ni-Vans joked around that Maewo didnt want us to come back so it moved. This apparently upset one of the girls who's first time it was away from Maewo, and she said we weren't going to make it back because we were lost. I asked if anyone had a compass hoping the boat driver might have kept one with him, but of course none of us had a compass. Another half an hour went by with all of us brooding in silence as we approached our 3^rd hour of driving around in the crossing that should have taken us all of 45 minutes. Finally, the barest outline of land broke through the rain. “That's Maewo!” called out our driver. I was still dubious about his proclamation as we'd been driving in circles so thoroughly I was unsure if the driver even could tell up from down let alone east from west. Sure enough, as it became more clear, it turned out to be Lolowai. We'd driven around for 3 and a half hours only to come out turned around and right back where we first entered the cloud. As luck would have it, the same time we saw the island, our gasoline ran out. The driver had a small reserve tank, so I held an umbrella and funnel while the driver and one of the other men poured gasoline into the tank as the boat swayed in the ocean swells. About a quarter of the gasoline missed the funnel and went all over my hand and the deck of the boat as the boat rocked too hard repeatedly. Fueled back up and with an island in sight we were all starting to feel a little better when the driver told us we had to go back to Lolowai to get more gasoline if we wanted to cross to Maewo. So after refueling and getting back into the boat it was now 2pm and we were just leaving Lolowai, again. As we came out to the middle the rain cloud still sad over Maewo. The driver killed the engine not wanting to try to run it again until it cleared. So we all gloomily stared at the rain as we floated for another hour waiting for it to clear. Finally becoming worried about it getting dark before the rain cleared we angled far south almost aiming for Pentecost which you could barely see south of Maewo now. Luckily it worked, allowing us to find the southern end of Maewo through the rain, by watching Pentecost. Finally, they unloaded me and all of my bags at the beach by my village. Looking at my watch it was now almost half past five, in the distance I could see slight color of sunset on some of the clouds past the storm that was finally clearing up. Worn out, I grabbed my bags and hiked back up the hill to my house in the light rain.

Building Toilets (5/20/11)

 So with my parent's visit on its way I’ve been trying to push my dad to help me get building a bathroom to house the flush toilet that he purchased years ago, in the hopes that before my parents get here we will have the toilet built so that they don't have to use my long drop toilet. Getting anything done in this culture is a process and getting anything done quickly tends to be impossible. That being said I decided the best way to start the toilet being built isn't to ask for lots of help from the community. The best way is to just start doing enough work on your own that when other people see you they feel bad for not helping and then pitch in. I gave my dad the money to purchase the cement and told him that the next day we'd go and collect sand that would be used to mix with the cement to make bricks for the septic tank. Now, most of Maewo's beaches are black stone so finding sanding sections can be difficult. Luckily (I had thought) there was a section of sand fairly close to the school that had been created during the last hurricane. Apparently though getting sand from a location so close was out of the question. So my dad told me the best place to get sand was about a half hour walk south of my village. Unsure how we were going to get the sand back to my house he said, “easy we'll just row the community's boat down, fill it up and then row it back.” Great with a boat we could load up tons and make the trip no problem. So we set out bright and early in the morning and got down to where the sand was we were planning to dig up. While on our way the boat took on a little water, which worried me but my dad said it wasn't a big deal and he'd cut a good plug to fill the drainage hole of the boat. So while he cut the plug my sisters and filled up 20 bags of sand. Each bag weighed about 80lbs so they were a little too heavy for my sisters to lift by themselves so I got the privilege of carrying all of the bags into the water to drop into the boat. Finally, all of this done, my dad and I hopped in the boat and began paddling back towards our village. Apparently the drainage of the boat wasn't the place where water was coming into the boat, there was a small crack near the back, and now with an extra 1600lbs in the boat it was taking on water really quickly. Seeing this my dad let me know that we had to paddle fast to make it back before the boat sank. So we paddled and got back to my village with the boat about half full of water. The water was rough and we couldn't bring the boat onto the beach cause the break was too rough, so while my sisters help the boat in place just outside of the break, I lifted the now wet bags of sand out of the boat onto my dad's back for him to carry one at a time back to shore. After getting wet the bags were heavy to the point that I could barely lift them over the side of the boat for my dad to take. They had to weigh close to 100 or more pounds now. Finally all of the bags unloaded and the boat about 3/4ths full of water now we attempted to carry the boat up onto shore, but it was too heavy with all the water it had taken on. So my little brother hopped in and started bailing until the boat was light enough that we could finally drag the boat up onto the beach. All of this work finally being done, I was worn out and not looking forward to dragging the bags of sand up the hill to my house. I picked up one of the bags to start the hike and my dad told me to stop. He said that since the bags were wet, we'd empty them onto a big canvas so they could dry and then we'd fill them up again and carry it up to the house. By this point I was positive all we succeeded in doing was moving some sand down the beach, not even any closer to getting it up to my house than before we started if he'd been willing to use the sand by the school. Two days later, my dad says he still needs to rest because he's so sore from carrying the bags of sand off the boat. Haha, if you read this mom and dad, I’m sorry but I don't think the toilet will be done before you get here!

Her Boyfriend Lives in a hut. (5/7/11)

 The other night I got a late night phone call from Stephanie which was a little surprising, because of the time difference. The first thing she said after hello was, “I have a good story to tell you!” The story she told me turned out to be a fantastic one of her going out with her friends. It involved girls too drunk to walk. Drunk girls going barefoot and carrying their friends around. A handful of other drunker arguments, with the gem of them all being the comment one of her friends made. Apparently, on of the very drunk girls was complaining about the boy she had been on a date with not being at her house after they'd gone out to the bars and Stephanie's friend shut the girl up by saying this, “You can't complain! Stephanie's boyfriend lives a thousand miles away in a hut! And he doesn't have internet access! And she isn't complaining!” I found this amusing for a number of reasons. One of the main ones being that mentioning I lived in a hut was very important to describing the situation of our relationship, as well as the fact that there was no internet access in my hut obviously made the circumstances that much more dire. I have to cede to her the point of me living 1000 miles away, while it is a bit of an underestimate it certainly does help you grasp the long distance part of the relation. Haha. Needless to say it was one of the best phone call's I’d received in a while, as well as helping remind me how lucky I am to have her! I can't say I know any other girls that would bother dating a guy who lives a thousand miles away in a hut without internet access... =)

Fishing 4/28/11

Today I had my first “successful” day of spear fishing. I managed to catch 2 fish and one of them was reasonably big and I was super excited and incredibly worn out. I got up very early in the morning, before the sun was up, at 5:30am I was down at the water putting my fins on to dive. One of my dads in the village Francis was with me and one of the boys got conscripted to follow us with a canoe to hold the fish. Francis is a champion diver. He'll dive down going to depths of close to 50 feet and he regularly goes under for over a minute to wait for the fish. After watching him shoot 3 fish with his spear gun I decided that the only way I was going to get a fish with my sling was to be patient. I dove down and slowly worked my way along the bottom until I came to a large hole in the reef where I know the fish tend to hide and I waited for what felt like minutes but was probably more like 20 seconds, and finally my lungs burning a fish was dumb enough to come close enough I could shoot it with my ghetto fabulous Hawaiian sling. Having shot the fish I shot up to the surface, waited a few minutes to catch my breath and then dove down to retrieve the fish. Coming up to the surface I realized the fish i'd just shot was only about as big as my hand. After another hour of swimming around and only having shot at 3 more fish while watching Francis put the reef in serious danger of extinction with his spear gun, I decided that the only way I was going to get a big fish was to dive deep, and wait as long as I could. So I swam to the edge of the reef and went over the side, swimming fast down to about 30 feet before I had to come back up because I felt like my head was going to explode. I realized that diving quick works when you go to about 20 feet or less but to go deeper you have to equalize the pressure in your ears otherwise there's no way you can do it. So I gathered a big breath and went again. Taking my time I dove diagonally down. 10 feet, 20 feet, 30 feet, and then evened out. My ears were good having taken my time and I was still feeling pretty good about the breath i'd taken so I tried to go a little deeper and then came my golden opportunity. There was a fish about as long as my forearm and as wide as my head hiding in side of the reef. I pulled the elastic back and fired and pinned him to the rock. Again my lungs were burning so I swam to the surface, planning to retrieve the fish on the next dive. Being so excited about the fish, and worried about it swimming off with my wire still stuck in it, I hit the surface gulped down some air and dove down hard. As soon as I got down to the fish I felt like my ears were going to explode and I was already out of breath again because I was rushing, so I grabbed my wire and shot back up to the surface. I threw the fish in the canoe with a huge grin and then hung on to the side resting for a few minutes because I was light headed and my ears were killing me. I ended up not diving after anymore fish and when we got back to the shore and pulled the canoe up, in the 4 hours we went diving I managed to shoot one tiny fish and one meal worthy fish. Francis had shot 6 parrot fish that were as big around as my thigh. He proceeded to tell me because it was low tide there weren't as many fish so he he was disappointed with how many he caught. Here I was grinning like an idiot over my single “big” fish that was about half the size of all the ones he caught and I thought I’d done a good job! 

Rats and Cats (4/18/2011)

So, as is a problem in most of the houses that the locals live in, rats are everywhere. The first and only thing people tell you is that if you don't like rats get a cat. As many of you know I am not a cat person at all, but seeing as I dislike rats even more I figured I’d sleep with the lesser of two evils. Luckily for me when I first moved in my host family's cat was pregnant and I was promised one of the litter. Turns out only one survived and I named her Gizmo. She's grown up rapidly and I feed her regularly and even pet her occasionally, making me the most loving cat owner on my side of Maewo. She's now coming to the age where she is catching rats on her own, so this had me very excited as it should have spelled an end to my rats. Unfortunately, my cat realized that more rats hang out in my kitchen house than in my sleeping house and therefore she rarely comes into my sleeping house. This didn't bother me too much as I’d already taken a large number of precautions to avoid having issues with the rats. I kept my clothes on hangars so they wouldn't chew them, or urinate in them, or nest in them. I left no little areas for them to hide out in clothes. I keep all of my food in the kitchen or in tightly sealed metal containers in my house. I even make sure than I keep all empty boxes or anything they could turn into a home closed up and packed tightly away. So when I did see and hear rats in my house it never bothered me too much because they weren't sleeping in my house and the most destructive thing they'd done was steal an almost finished bar of soap. Then, during Stephanie's visit, out of the blue they decided the spines of my hardback books would make a great snack, and would wake us up in the middle of the night to loud chewing sounds as they shredded the spines of my brand new hardback books that Stephanie had brought me. This was unforgivable. The first thing I did when I found a hardware store was purchase a wicked looking mouse trap. If the cat wasn't prepared to take out the rats in my house then I’d have to take matters into my own hands, because living with me is OK, but eating my books is not! So upon returning to Maewo the first night back I placed a cracker in the trap and set it in an easily rat accessible spot and waited. The first night nothing, the second night, nothing and on the third night the cracker was missing but the trap still un-sprung. Starting to become agitated with the situation I placed another cracker on the trap, but this time I wedged it in tight so they'd have to either eat only half or actually carry the trap off in order to get the cracker out. I figured this way they'd be forced to play with the mechanism that would set the trap off. That night the trap went off at about 11pm, causing me to hop out from under my mosquito net and pick up my bush knife, excited about the prospect of gutting the little bastards who'd been eating my books. I stepped into the room I’d set the trap in and shined my light only to find my cat hiding in the corner with a panicked look in her eyes as the trap was snapped shut on her paw, the cracker missing. So not only was this cat not catching the rats in my house but she was sabotaging all of my best efforts to catch them myself. After this happened I’ve begun to question which of the two is truly the greater of the evils. In comparison: they both live in your house, they both eat your food, one is invited the other isn't, one will bite you and scratch you, the other eats your books. The more I think about it the more unsure I am as to whether I’m getting a good deal out of having the cat at all if her entire purpose was to eliminate rats and she refuses to catch the ones in my house.