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)