Saki em I bin Kakae Joshua, Nem Blong me Kalmanu

What can I say about Vanuatu? It really is a remarkably beautiful country. The stars at night are amazing, the sun setting over the sea is to die for. An artist living in Vanuatu would be like a kid on a sugar high, too many things to draw. Vanuatu of course is a developing country so a lot of things we take for granted in the United States are not available here. We are also having Pre-Service Training (PST) in a village in Vanuatu, so a lot of the things we could have in the bigger towns are not even available. Some volunteers have electricity though generators and some do not. I have been in the village for a little over a week now and the generator in my house was turned on once for about an hour.

I thought that me being from Nigeria and having lived there for a good portion of my life would have prepared me a bit for the environment here, boy was I wrong. Vanuatu has many similarities to Nigeria. Both are tropical, so a lot of flora are similar, however the flora are used in different ways. For example, there is yam, but there is no pounded yam. When I heard that I was about to get back on a plane to the United States. I think I will bring pounded yam to Vanuatu. By the time I leave, it will be a staple here. Another big difference for me is the village life. 


I have actually never lived in a village before. In Nigeria, I lived in fairly big towns , so for example, I have never had to use an outhouse before, except for some isolated incidents. Here in my village, outhouses or smol haos is the name of the game. They are certainly much better than I thought. When I used to think of small houses I thought of flies and maggot infested pits of disease. Fortunately they are not like that at all. They are basically toilets located outside of the house, only difference is that you have to pour water into them to flush. They might actually be more hygienic than having toilets in the house, which now that I think about it is very nasty.


There is so much to say about Vanuatu and when I have good access to the internet, I will expound at length on my thoughts. I will explain the title of this post in my next post. This is my version of a cliff hanger...(dramatic music plays)

California Love

Now let me welcome everybody to the wild wild west, a place that's untouchable like Elliot Ness....2Pac ft. Dr. Dre.

I'm in California right now, and it is nice. The Peace Corps put us up in a Sheraton hotel which is pretty cool. Pool, Fitness Center and all the amenities you can think of. I have met some people in my current group and they are pretty cool. We had some nice discussions by the poolside. The peace corps does have a wide range of people apply. I met someone who was a sheep farmer in Vermont which is pretty cool. I have also met a couple of people who have completed their masters and people who like me just finished their bachelors.

So far, everybody seems nice. Today seems kinda like my first night in college. In college that first night, there was a large group of people outside the freshmen dorms just hanging out just getting to know each other, which is similar to what went on tonight.

As of now, it does not seem like I am committing two years of my life to the peace corps, it feels like I am going on a vacation or something similar. At times it hits me that two years is a really long time. For example, my sister will be finishing up her first semester in high school when I get back and I'm like wow!!! This little girl is going to be in high school when I get back? Thats crazy!!!  I talked to some people today about this and they feel the same way about this that I do, it still doesn't feel real to them.

We have orientation tomorrow and then we fly out. I will try to get another post in tomorrow before we leave.  until then, this is my stream of thought.

Oh! Cali??

This blog post is dedicated to the memory of Biggie and his song "going back to cali". if you haven't heard it, youtube it or something. its a good song.

I decided on something the other day. I want to put as the title of each post on here the name of a song relevant to the post.

As you can infer from the title, today, I am going to California. We meet up as a group today, have orientation tomorrow, then leave tomorrow evening for Vanuatu. I believe we lose a day during the trip because of time differences. That's cool because technically I will finally be a day older. That has the makings of a riddle. Twin brothers born 2 minutes apart, yet one is a day older..how is that possible?

I'm saying my last goodbyes to my family and friends. My area always changes whenever I go back to school and come back for the holidays, and I am very curious what two years will do to it.

Preparations

Preparing for my departure to Vanuatu is very similar in a way to my first trip off to college. What do I take, what do I not take? I am trying not to buy a lot of things, but the temptation is certainly there to just go all out and buy that radio with a solar charger that also powers laptops and connects it to the internet through radio waves. It does not help that I do not have an exact idea of conditions where I am going.

There are packing lists online of course, but its difficult to know what to pay attention to and what to disregard. Will I really need a paring knife? Or will its absence make my first couple of weeks absolute hell? Do I really need a waterproof duffel bag? I'm sure it will be convenient if I am caught out in the rain, but should I spend the extra dollars? I'm thinking I could be like MacGuyver and take some plastic sheets and attach them to a duffel bag and shazam! waterproof duffel bag ala Josh Inc.

Anyways, I am going to go get some things today, hopefully they will be on sale because of the labor day weekend. Fingers crossed.

By the way, this blogging thing is actually kinda cool.