The First Year

A year has passed. I thought I’d write a little summary of the roller coaster, and for those of you just joining us, here’s what you may have missed:

September
- 9th – Leave home, sobbing through the Detroit airport. What the heck am I doing?
- 10th – Staging in Los Angeles. Key-phrase of the day: “Now is the time to reevaluate your commitment.” Yeah that phrase goes over real well with the most commitment-phobic girl in the world. It’s like they’re trying to convince us that we’re not good enough before we even get there. They’re doing a pretty darn good job, but somehow all of us still make it onto the plane that night.
- Upon arrival in tropical paradise we are bombarded with training. It’s like staff training for summer camp. Only eight weeks. (I know all you camp kids just shuddered.)

October
- I visit Laura on Tanna for my Host Volunteer Visit (basically a job shadow). Her library is awesome and I’m inspired. Arthur has to do a site visit (which ends up being Jake’s site) and takes us along for the ride since Peace Corps is paying for the truck. We get to see the volcano on the way and run around like little kids on the ash plains. Pretty awesome.
- The last week, we finally finish up training. Site announcements are made the 29th. I’m told I’m being sent to the Banks… the one place I didn’t want to go. I’m terrified, and sure they’ve made a mistake. In order to convince myself to not back out now, I think about how bada** it is that I’m going to The Banks and I will survive. Plus family and friends do internet research and discover that there is a brand new cell phone tower up there. So I’ll live.

November
- We swear in on the 4th. We are no longer PCTs, but PCVs. The real deal, yo. I celebrate by spraining my wrist, and the x-ray process delays my trip north by 11 hours, or one full shopping day in Santo.
- I arrive in the Banks on the 10th. The Sola airport is closed, so I have to fly to ML first, then take a truck across the island, then take a boat to my own island. Kerry meets me at the airport and I instantly feel better because Kerry is, well, Kerry. A bouncing bubble of smiley joy that’s (thank goodness) pretty contagious. The truck ride across the island is surreal. I’m in the bed of (what may have once been a decent) truck with about twenty people, standing up because there’s no space to sit down, with children standing on my feet, hanging on for dear life while whizzing past landscape that looks like a scene out of Jurassic Park. The boat trip is also surreal. Trying not to cry (and also trying not to puke) I think about how much this sucks and how much I want to give up and go home… but if I were to go home right now I’d have to take the boat BACK to Mota Lava, and clearly I’m not going through THAT again.

December
- Life sucks. I’m lonely. I’m shy. People don’t talk to me. There’s no work to do because it’s school break. I read novels all day at my desk. I hide in my room at night. I want to go home. But… It’s pineapple season. And really, you’ve never tasted a pineapple until you’ve tasted a South Pacific pineapple. Gotta at least make it through the season.
- Vacation to Mota Lava for a wedding, Christmas, and New Years. The boat trips are not as bad this time. Maybe I don’t want to go home after all.

January
- …is mostly spent in Vila: two weeks of training and lots of time with the PCMOs trying to figure out why I’ve had diarrhea for four months. The first two hurricanes of the season come through. The second one is a direct hit on the Banks… glad I’m in Vila.

February
- School starts. Work for the year is delegated. I have things to do! Sort of.
- After four months I still live with my host family and finally reach my breaking point. I want to go home. Instead, I inform the office that I’ll be moving into my house in a week whether it’s finished or not. They stretch me to ten days. I move. Life is suddenly 20 times better.
- Koki, a new education JICA volunteer arrives.

March
- I attend a literacy workshop given by Vila people, and in doing so, get to meet most of the teachers in the province. I learn things like who knows what they’re doing, who doesn’t, who’s hilarious anyway, and who to be friends with from the local school.
- I start observing at the local school so that I can learn about how school actually works here, and can attempt to do my job well. Also, I just need to get the heck out of the office.
- The tsunami happens.
- Torba Province gets internet!!! (Which is a good thing because the cell phone network is down for almost the entire month).
- Lucy, a new health VSO volunteer arrives and Marian (the previous) leaves.

April
- Work is progressing. Life is good. Brenda comes to do my site visit. I learn that I won’t get a replacement. I’m upset. (I realize now that I never wrote about that… but it’s a fact.)
- My birthday happens, lots of cake. Easter happens, lots of beef. People start telling me I’m getting fat. Lucy brings Neko and Numbus back from Santo!
- Yasuko, a new health JICA volunteer arrives.

May
- I give my first IT training in the office. It’s mediocre. I need to find my footing.
- My house is upgraded – I now have a solar panel that runs a lightbulb in each room!
- Term 1 ends and Kerry comes for the second week of the 2-week holiday (even though I still have to work).

June
- Eba, the previous health JICA volunteer leaves.
- Some people tick off some other people and, long story short, we don’t have internet anymore.
- I have strep throat for the second time in a year. Depressing.
- Also depressing: It’s camp season. This would be my sixth summer. And I’m not there.

July
- The 8th – we get internet in my office!!
- I head to Vila after 5 long months at site. Cheeseburgers… ice cream… cold pop… milkshakes… I get in the loop about all the latest camp gossip (thank goodness for instant messenger). My family comes! The next two weeks are spent gallivanting around Efate and Tanna.
- I’m back at site in time for Independence Day the 30th. I dance in a Mother Hubbard competition. My name will go down in history. It feels SO good to be back at site. It really does feel like going home.
- An unknown date – we no longer have internet in my office…

August
- I drink too much kava during Independence celebrations, thanks to a visiting Vila Vol. (Just kidding Kalli!) I have strep throat. Again. #3 in a year, and #2 in two months. It makes me want to go home. Mom says, “Keep track of it, you might have to get your tonsils out when you come home.” I retract my previous statement. Not going home now!!
- Then I catch a cold. I start taking my own glass to kava rather than drinking from the same shells as everyone else (Vanuatu is a really sanitary country… er…)
- I’m healthy for about three days before my skin explodes with a horrific rash. At this point I think I’m living on antibiotics. I believe I’ve taken more antibiotics during the past year than I have in my entire life up till Peace Corps. Mom can you confirm that?
- Neko is really sick and has lost a lot of his gross motor control and most of his balance. Nicole says he’s eaten poison fish and makes him a batch of custom medicine. Hopefully it’s working, she’s my cat-sitter when I’m in Vila.
- My house is upgraded even further – I now have running water! (For about 3 hours per day, about 4 days per week). Ironically, this COULD be the cause of the rash, as water blong pipe originates at a creek which many people regularly bathe in.

September
- And one year from the beginning, here I am back in Vila for mid-service training. Really? Mid-service? Well not really, because of you think about it, “service” starts at swearing in. So the middle of my service is really November. But mid-service IS the name of this training, and I HAVE been in-country for a year now. So that’s pretty cool. I spent September 9, 2010 on a plane from Detroit to Los Angeles, and I’ll spend September 9, 2011 on planes from Vila to Santo then to the Banks. That’s pretty cool, too.