April Showers

Brenda and Kerry came yay! Brenda brought goodies from Vila… apples and honey (which I asked for), and carrots, Mars bars, and Snickers (which were all a surprise). She brought stuff for cooking a fancy lunch too – vermicelli, rice paper, and sweet chili sauce, and we made these little veggie rolls.

Brenda stayed in a guesthouse and Kerry and I went over for dinner each night, which was fabulous. I ate way too much every night. She went back to Vila on Monday, then Kerry was here till Saturday. It rained every single day. Ugh. At least my tank is fulap again.

Kerry’s new dog, Nmumu (Motlap for ‘fish’) jumped in the water and tried to follow the boat here. They pulled him up and threw him back to shore, and he just swam right back out. So I also had a little doggie visitor for a week, which was fun. He was socialized by the vicious next-door dogs who were evil to him for a couple nights, then managed to teach him how to be a guard dog the rest of the week. He ate more than his share of tin tuna and fattened up, and may be disappointed to return to Mota Lava and get only table scraps bakegen. He followed us everywhere and slept a lot in my office. He only almost got hit by trucks three times – one time literally sitting in the middle of the road and taking no notice as a fast moving truck tire came within an inch of him (man bush!!) and is apparently afraid of wheelbarrows, much to the entertainment of the youngfala working the construction site between my house and my work.

I’m starting to get texts on a fairly regular basis asking me when I’m coming to town next… But… I’m not really. It’ll be July at the earliest. It’s weird because that’s part of why I was so scared to come to the Banks… I thought I would want to go to Vila all the time. But now that I’m here I have no real desire to go. Too many people, too many trucks, too much noise, too smelly.

Then I get, “but don’t you get hungry? Don’t you want good Vila food?” yeah… but… not enough to want to go in. Honestly I’m happy with my peanut butter and ramen noodles. I’ve also had an influx of bananas lately, and we’ve started our gardens: I’ve been weeding and burning all weekend, and the English VSO has been working on her fence (she did her planting last weekend and already has beans).

This week I learned it’s weird having American visitors because you realize how many American social skills you’ve lost. Or maybe that’s just me.  When I finally come in to Vila, I’M gonna be the man bush. Not to mention going home next year.

My birthday is in a couple days… I have a meeting at the secondary school and the principal said he’d bring the cake haha. I was a little worried about being depressed this week because I went from my 22nd birthday in a country where birthdays are more important than Christmas (but second to Carnaval) to my 23rd birthday in a country where most people don’t know how old they are, let alone what their birthday is. But it turns out they make an exception for foreigners and it should be an exciting couple of days. Monday is kava with a couple people, then Tuesday I’m probably going to go to my host fam’s for dinner after my meeting.

It’s still really hot. I was hoping that with the end of cyclone season I would see the end of my heat rash, but nope. 4.5 months and going strong. I have little blister-zits all over my body. The good thing is with the season changing it’s only bad during the day now because it gets cool at night. The other lovely thing contributing to the decline of my skin condition: http://www.positiveearth.org/bungalows/TORBA/fire_ants.htm

Things I’ve done in the past two weeks that I would NEVER have done at home:
- eaten a whole grapefruit (2x size of American grapefruit) for dinner
- eaten a whole avocado (again, 2x size) for dinner (and will do it again tonight)
- eaten bananas for both breakfast and lunch in the same day
- walked home from work carrying books in one hand and a large fresh fish for dinner in the other
- started a fire with the previous night’s coals (all my G.Scouts are cringing right now, I know it)
- considered waking up at 6:20 “sleeping in”

On April 1, there was ICE CREAM in THE BANKS. Not even making this up. I couldn’t make this up. First I thought it was a cruel April Fools joke… then I went to the store, and there it was. Strawberry ice cream. I don’t even LIKE strawberry. It was delicious. (Although if you want a good April Fools joke, ask my mom what I did to her hahaha)

Quote of the week: “Well, I’m certainly not concerned about your protein intake…” –Nurse Brenda, after seeing how much peanut butter I eat on a daily basis.