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.

Happy New Year

So today in Vanuatu is the 31st of December. Its crazy to me that 2009 is over and I am going to see 2010 in another country. This time last year, I was in a plane on the way to Nigeria after being stuck at the airport for about three days. I look back on this year and it was really so eventful in so many ways for me. I graduated College, went back to my country of origin after an 8 year absence, joined the peace corps, turned 21, ran away from a potential tsunami and so many other things. Just reflecting on my life so far, in many ways I have being blessed.

So Merry belated christmas and a happy new year 2010.

Bae mi Kros

In my everlasting quest to bring you my faithful readers, my unfiltered experience in Vanuatu, I am starting a couple of categories.
This one, Bae mi Kross is about things that have happened in Vanuatu that pissed me off.
Have you ever had experiences that just make you grind your teeth? Well, I've had a couple here in Vanuatu.

The question --yu blo Africa? is starting to really irritate me. Yu blo Africa means, are you from Africa?
Now, I very happy to answer people's questions and if people ask me, I tell them I am a Nigerian who immigrated to the United States at 12 years of age and we talk about Nigeria and I tell them all about it and we have a jolly good time. However, imagine having to answer this question literally hundreds of times, and I am not exaggerating. The first question when a lot of people talk to me is yu blo Africa? I have talked to over a hundred people in Vanuatu already and have had to answer this question that many times.

Imagine, you're sitting in a bus minding your own business, chilling. Then the man beside you looks at you, you smile at him and he looks away. Then he looks at you again. Again, you smile. Again he looks at you, then he says hello, you say hello, then he asks..yu blo Africa? I wanna yell. I mean, at least let us have a freaking conversation first before you ask me where I am from you know? Hello, how are you doing, nice weather we are having, this bus driver is a horrible driver isn't he? After good will has been established, then you can ask me, yu blo Africa? And I will smile and explain exactly where I am from.

Not everybody I meet does this, but a good number of people do it. It is starting to really irritate me.

Malekula

So, it has been a little bit more than a month since I last updated my blog. My sincere apologies...when you're living the island life, chilling on the beach, drinking coconut juice and plotting the extermination of mosquitoes, updating a blog is the last thing on your mind.

What has happened in the past month? Well, I am officially a peace corps volunteer. We had our swearing in on the 5th of November and the president of Vanuatu came to the ceremony ad gave a speech which was cool. I got to shake a president's hand, which funny enough has been on my list of things to do for a while now. Funny how things work out.

I am based at a secondary school on Malekula Island. There I will be teaching computer studies when school starts back up next January. I live in the singles quarters of the school and have two rooms to myself. One serve as a bedroom and the other will serve as a small living room. There a communal bathroom and a communal kitchen. So far I lucked out and I have a fridge, a pretty decent gas stove and a shower. Among the other peace corp volunteers I am living in the lap of luxury. In fact sometime in the future I am going to make an MTV cribs - Malekula version, then y'all will see how I'm really living.

The lab I am going to work in has solar panels so the computers can be used anytime which is actually really great.  Most places in Vanuatu do not have electricity, so most schools have to use generators for electricity. As anybody who has ever used generators know, it eats up a lot of gas or diesel and they are expensive in Vanuatu, about 3 dollars per liter. Because of this, schools only turn on the generator three hours in the morning and sometimes three hours in the afternoon. This makes a  computer lab not all that useful because people can only use the computers briefly and students do not get nearly enough time on the computer to become really comfortable and productive on them. However, my situation will be different because of the 24 hour power supplied to the computer lab. So here's hoping that I am a good teacher.

I think I have rambled on enough. Asta luego.

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.