What is Pentecost? and what am I going to do to Roosters?

What is Pentecost?
(a) A church denomination (b) The name of an Island (c) A type of food (d) How should I know?

If you chose (b) then give yourself a pat on the back. Pentecost is an island in Vanuatu. In case you don't know, Vanuatu is comprised of about 81 islands and Pentecost is one of the larger ones. I went to Pentecost for my "wokabout" which is basically a site visit. The purpose of this is to go to another island and stay with a volunteer for a couple of days to get an experience of what life on another Island is like. In an ideal world, you should stay with a Volunteer who is going to work in a field that you will be working in.

In my case, I lucked out and was placed with one of the coolest volunteers in the peace corps. He is also an IT teacher at a secondary school, something that I will be also. I got the opportunity to teach a couple of IT classes to some class 9,10 and 11 students which was a cool and eye opening experience for me.




Pentecost is an interesting island. It is very beautiful but extremely hilly. Everywhere you go on this Island, you have to climb a hill. I think I lost a couple of pounds just in the five days that I stayed there. I returned to my training village and my host family were shocked at the way I looked. Of course I managed to gain it all back due to the cooking of my host mama. Pentecost, being so hilly, has a lot of waterfalls. My host and I took a trip to one a day before I left. We hiked through bush, crossed a couple of rivers, climbed a small hill and came face to face with a beautiful waterfall which was totally worth the very real danger we had getting there. Then on our way back, we discovered a very shorter and infinitely easier path to the main road. Go figure.

Pentecost is known for two things and they are: water taro, which is a root crop that right now to me tastes like papier marche, but I am sure that I will grow to love it. They are also known for their kava, my thoughts, theories and general opinion about kava will have to be an entire post because it deserves it. But in brief, kava is the national/cultural drink of Vanuatu. It is used in custom ceremonies and any other type of event. It might be considered similar to the use of kolanuts in certain societies.

On a totally different tangent, a fellow volunteer made up a song about roosters. The song is so bad that I cannot put it here online, but let me just say that if roosters could understand English and one hears this song, it would immediately run to the witness protection program. Imagine having a nice dream. Your every fantasy is about to be fulfilled and then just when you are about to become emperor of the world, you hear a shrill noise and wake up, and its 4 in the morning. Do you know the cause of this? Roosters. They are one of the most annoying and vindictive creatures on God's green earth. They do not even have the decency to wait until around 6 or 7 to start their noise making.

Anyways, at this point in our lives, almost all of us trainees are understandably bitter towards Roosters, some have even taken to throwing stones at them every opportunity they get. Of course the stones inevitably miss and they glare at you as if to say "you will pay for that at 4 next morning" and we pay..dearly.

Enough of my rambling, until next time. Bae God I stap wetem yufala kasem taem we yumi toktok bakagan. A prize to anybody who can tell me what that phrase means.