Not Afraid

Vanuatu is a pretty lucky place. There are practically no dangerous animals here. So, in Vanuatu, you will not be scared of getting bitten by a snake, unless you are swimming in the Ocean and you encounter a water snake, which are very venomous. Generally though, Vanuatu is pretty safe as far as flora and fauna go.

However, with the good comes the bad. There are what are called giant centipedes here in Vanuatu and they are demonic. When most people hear the word centipede, they think of funny looking creatures with a ton of legs. They do not get a feeling of fear and impending doom. Well, those fuzzy, pathetic looking creatures drank some monster juice mixed with some amphetamine or something because the ones I have seen have been big, red and fast as blazes. They have little horn looking things on their head and just scare you to death when you first see them because they come out of nowhere and in the blink of an eye, they are gone.

Also, they bite, and their bite hurts! And they are mean, sometimes it seems like they have a vendetta against the human race. We probably destroyed their centipede god or something when we cut down rain forests.

For people who find it difficult to wake up, nothing wakes you up faster and better than a centipede biting you. You go from deep sleep to extremely wide awake in less than a second. I know this from experience. Last week, I was sleeping, looking forward to going to town the next day, having a nice dream. All of a sudden, my dream changed and i just felt a sense of impending doom. I felt like something was going to happen that I could not prevent. All this was while I was dreaming, so it was really weird. All of a sudden, I felt a sharp pain in my leg. I was still dreaming though, so I thought, what a strange dream. Then the pain got worse and I woke up..but I was still groggy and started thinking, what is this pain? Then my brain started working really fast and I thought..I'm in Vanuatu..there's only one thing that can cause a pain like that at this time of the night. CENTIPEDE!!! Immediately I thought that, I went from sleepy to wide awake in a quarter of a second. In a Hollywood movie worthy move, I leapt out of bed, while at the same time tossing my covers as far away from me as possible. Now, all this took place at three am in the morning. I looked at my bite, sat down for a couple minutes just dealing with the pain and preparing myself to look for the centipede because after that bite, I had to kill it. There was no way i was going to sleep again until that monster was dead. While sitting down the centipede came out from one side of my bed, sped under the table and back under my bed. I just looked at it thinking, "enjoy your last couple of minutes, cause its over for you". I took my time, went to the restroom, stretched a bit, maybe drank a cup of water. Then I went for my bush knife(cutlass) and went to war.

By the time I was done with that centipede, It was a pulpy mess. It sounds excessive, but you either have to turn a centipede into a bloody smear, or pour boiling water on it. Just cutting them up does not kill them. Its crazy.

I have only been bitten once by a giant centipede. I have a friend who has been bitten so many times that he has declared war on them. His house is infested with them and every night he lays in bed, under his mosquito net, quivering in fear.

I have not slept at my house since that night because I have been in town for a conference. I'm going back tomorrow, so we will see if there will be any more centipede encounters. Maybe that first bite was the vanguard of an invasion of centipedes. I'm not afraid though..I have my bush knife.

I'm on a Boat

A couple of months ago, a couple of friends and I took a trip to another Island in Vanuatu called Espiritu Santo to celebrate with some friends over there. To get there, we had two options. We could fly and it would take us fifteen minutes, or we could take a ship and it would take us anywhere from three hours to eight, depending on the ship. In the spirit of trying new things, we decided to take a ship. So we went to the wharf and asked for a ship and the only ship available was one that took copra (a coconut product that Vanuatu exports) to Santo. We decided to jump on this ship and off we went after a couple of hours.

We were about an hour into our trip and were passing a small island called Atchin, when we suddenly saw a speedboat coming after us and the men on the speedboat were signaling for us to stop. I think the crew of the ship recognized the men on the speedboat and did not want to stop, but eventually the speedboat caught up to us and they practically threw a man abroad. From the attitude of the crew of both the ship and the speedboat, nobody was happy about the man coming abroad, but it seemed like they had to let him on. The man came abroad the ship ad immediately went to a cabin and started talking to a woman who was sitting by herself inside. I had noticed that the woman earlier and she looked sad.Now she was pointedly ignoring the man who seemed to be begging her. Eventually a crew member told us the story.

It turns out that the woman is/was the girlfriend of the guy. Let us call him Mr. X and let us call the woman Miss. Y.  So, Miss Y comes from Santo and Mr. X comes from Malekula, from an area called Atchin. Miss. Y and Mr. X had been seeing each other for a while (in Vanuatu, this is called frending. If you ever come to Vanuatu and someone asks if he/she can frend you, it doesn't mean what you think it does). Miss. Y came to Atchin to visit Mr. X and found out that Mr. X had been seeing other women of the alphabetical persuasion. However, I guess that her love for Mr. X could climb any mountain and cross any sea, because she forgave Mr. X and stayed with him. Until one day, Mr. X becomes angry at Miss. Y and, I guess forgetting how strong her love was for him, decided to throw an axe at her. I am not sure if he missed or not, but seeing that Miss. Y was still around, either he missed, or the axe was blunt, however it is sharp enough to destroy the love that Miss. Y had for Mr. X because Miss Y. decided that enough was enough and she left him to go back to Santo and her family. Mr. Y realized his mistake too late and decided that he cannot live without Miss. Y and so finds out the ship that Miss. Y is taking to Santo and decides to come after Miss. Y and beg her to take him back.

Nobody was happy with the man, and I believe that even if she decides to take him back, he will have to deal with her family and make a sorry ceremony or something. However, this was a very interesting beginning to a memorable trip, the details of which will be continued in the next post titled..Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls

My Home

The title of this blog post is a song by the most popular reggae artist in Vanuatu called Naio. For the next year and a half, my home is Vanuatu and I want to tell you all a bit about Vanuatu.

Vanuatu is a very interesting country. It is made up of about 81 Islands. It is divided into seven provinces and there are about three major islands in each province. The province that I am located in is called Malampa province and the three major Islands in this province are Malekula, Ambrym and Paama Islands.

Most of Vanuatu is still very rural. Rural meaning that a lot of places do not have running water, centralized electricity is a distant dream and paved/sealed roads are the ravings of a mad man. Some places are more developed than others though. The capital of Vanuatu is called Port Vila and it is located on the Island of Efate. As such, Efate Island is a bit more urban than other places. However, as urban as Efate is, centralized electricity and water is still limited to the capital of Port Vila and its immediate suburbs. It is expected in the future that Efate will become even more developed because a road that goes around the entire Island will soon be entirely sealed/paved/tarred, so more businesses will be able to expand to outside of Port Vila.

Another place that is pretty developed is the town of Luganville, which is located on the Island of Santo in the north of Vanuatu. Santo is the biggest Island in Vanuatu and was a major operations center for the US military during World War II. The military built the town of Luganville for their bases and this has helped in the development of Luganville because after WWII the infrastructure for a town was already present.

Outside of these two places, the rest of Vanuatu is pretty much rural. Two other places deserving of mention in terms of development are the Island of Tanna and the Island of Malekula. Tanna is a major tourist destination because of the world famous volcano - Mount Yasur which is located there. I believe that this has helped a bit in the development of Tanna and the provincial center (the capital of a province) for the Tafea province is located on Tanna which helps also. 

Malekula is the same way, expect that it is not really a major tourist destination, however the provincial center for the Malampa province is located there.

The four Islands are the only places in Vanuatu that have centralized electricity and some sort of centralized water system and these only extend a small radius. The rest of Vanuatu is made up of small villages of about 300 people, with some much bigger villages and some much smaller villages.

Coming from the States and even from Nigeria, it is very difficult to imagine a place like Vanuatu. The amenities we take for granted  are not present here. The interesting thing is that the absence of these amenities are not the exception, but rather the rule here.

So this is my home for now.