Mi mo man blong mi lanem bislama

We've finished the first part of our ICT (in-country training). We've had a week of briefings from a range of people; Ni-vanuatans and ex-pats, and then this week three mornings of Bislama lessons.

The briefings last week were really excellent. Its fascinating to see how such a small country works (or doesn't work). At the moment the government relies for about a third of its budget on outside aid/ donors. Currently the country is unable to create an economy big enough to sustain the needs of a population spread over 83 islands covering over 400 miles of sea. The infrastructure costs are massive and GDP is tiny as 80% of the population live by subsistence farming and use the 'kastom ekonomi' where pigs, yams and woven mats take the place of cash. There's not a lot of income for the government to tax.

We had briefings from officials from the economic planning department, the department of health, the clerk to the Malvatamaouri (council of chiefs), the Ausaid project officer (all Ni-van) and the Australian embassy. They were all excellent and we learnt (and probably have already forgotten) a huge amount about Vanuatu. The only glitch came in one of the briefings with a fairly senior official when he punctuated a description of the budget planning process with a massive burp. John and I had to studiously avoid looking at each other...

The Bislama lessons were very funny, Bislama (from the beche de mer (sea -cucumber) industry) is mostly english vocab reduced to its most basic phonetics, but then arranged around Melanesian grammar. It sounds easy, its not. well not so far. Some of its obvious "nem blong me Hannah" some of it isnt "kakae ia emi gud tumas" (this food is good). While I'm being childish the best word we've learnt so far is titti- basket. (bra)

Brief leg

Vicky you’ll like this. The other day when I arrived at the VSO office I was taking my shoes off on the mat and Frank, the other volunteer who arrived with us, looked at my shoes and then looked at my feet. Then he looked at me and said “Hannah you have a brief leg?” By which I took him to mean, ‘my what delicate pretty feet you have’ rather than ‘your legs are a bit stumpy.’

Frank is from Uganda, as are three of the other volunteers here, as well as 2 philippinos, 1 kenyan and 3 other brits. I think Vanuatu must be one of VSO’s highest ‘south to south’ volunteer destinations. Its great; lovely to meet people with very different experiences and makes VSO feel far less imperialist than Peace Corps (whose american volunteers have to go through a swearing in ceremony at the end of their induction). In this example you might wonder at the logic of sending a Ugandan doctor to Vanuatu but I think VSO would argue that a big part of VSO is about sharing experiences, as well as skills, across cultures, developing international understanding etc. I would agree with that and also the African doctors have sadly, got extensive and expert knowledge about treating and preventing HIV/ AIDs. HIV is not a big problem in Vanuatu …yet. It is however thought to be a potential nightmare because of the combination of unprotected sex, with lots of partners, from a very young age (teenage pregnancy isn’t really the problem here, its pre-teenage pregnancy that’s the real worry.) HIV/AIDs rates in nearby(ish) Papua New Guinea (where they actually test for HIV) are very high. Frank also reckons that the severe lack of skills makes his placement necessary - 8000 children start primary school every year in Vanuatu but only 150 graduate secondary school...There arent a great deal of Ni-vanautan doctors around.

Tufela drink kava

We have had our first taste of it and believe me for those of you back in the UK you are missing ...nothing. Imagine a bowl full of liquid that looks like china clay and tastes like ten day old washing up liquid and you are part of the way - you go into a dimly lit nakamal (bar) and buy your bowl of kava and then rather than sitting down and drinking it all together, you go off on your own into the bushes, neck the kava as quickly as you can without tasting or smelling it (you then appear to have to spit copiously) and quickly eat something to take the taste away. You then go back to your friends - the more you drink the quieter you become until you are surrounded by tables of people just sitting and staring.
Apart from the kava we have also started learning bislama. This saturday we decided to do some food shopping in the big open air market in the middle of Vila. The only two problems we had were that we didn't recognise what anything was and once we had decided to buy something we didn't know what to do with it.

We are working on the pictures and will hopefully have some up later in the week.

(For those of you who were giving us a hard time about our destination you will be pleased to know that it rained all day on sunday!)

Blong Vanuatu!

We're here! We arrived safely on friday night and it really does feel like a really long way from home. It took ages. We flew in over Efate which is the island we will be living on, the island looked beautiful, its almost completely covered with dark green trees and hills with a few houses close to the coast. It didnt take long to go through the passport control as we are Vanuatu residents(!) and there werent many of us on the little plane from sydney.
Our first couple of days have been very positive, our VSO person met us from the airport, and after a couple of nights in a hostel we have moved into our flat. We havent got internet at the flat so this is just a quick one until we find somewhere cheap to email from. This week we have ICT (in-country training) where we are learning all about Vanuatu and living on the "pacific ring of fire" and the VSO programme here: lots about the focus on capacity building!Lots of love.