Tata Kerry!

Last weekend I took a long weekend and went to Motalava for all of Kerry’s farewell festivities. Friday afternoon was her farewell kakae (feast) at her school. They combined it with the 8th grade recognition ceremony (the school is grades 1-8). There was lots of salusalu-ing and speech making, and they even gave me a small gift! Then lots of food, then the dance party!!! Woohoo!!

Saturday we went to the garden with her family and pulled manioc and then came back and peeled and boiled it (yummmmm!). We managed to sleep for like three hours in the afternoon because we were so tired from dancing the previous night haha we’re old ladies.

Sunday we went on an adventure to the Reef Islands. The kastom legend is that the islands were created when the Ureparapara volcano erupted a long, long time ago. The top of the volcano blew off and landed a few miles away in the ocean, creating new islands. (I’m skeptical. Lucy believes it. Kerry’s on the fence.) No one lives on the islands… people used to, but then there was a big hurricane that wiped out all the food so they moved. Even now, there are no fruit trees except coconut. It’s literally a group of “deserted islands.” Survivor should have done the Vanuatu season there instead of Efate! (Did you know that? They taped Survivor on a beach about 20 minutes from Port Vila. LAME.)

So anyway we took Kerry’s village’s boat, which her bubu (grandpa, great uncle, someone of that generation) is in charge of. We went with her host parents, an aunt and uncle, two bubu, and her teenage brother. When we entered the basis, which is like the doorway to the reef, we killed the engine for the men to go diver – fishing with spearguns. They caught over 30 yellow fish, and 7 or 8 big black fish. They realized we women were kind of bored so they dropped us off on a sandbar while they fished some more, and then came to pick us back up.

We went to another part of the island to set up camp. I was on fire duty (duh) with Kerry’s mama, while Kerry and her aunt cleaned fish. The men took the boat back out to catch fish for later. We roasted a bunch of fish, along with four ears of corn. Bubu went to find green coconuts.

Kerry and I each ate two yellow fish, split a big black fish, and drank like five coconuts between us. It was ridiculous. (Then that night we had fish again for dinner. That’s our protein and “good fat” content for like the whole month!) After we ate we walked around the island, which only took about an hour. It probably could have taken less time, but the tide was in and since we were barefoot we had to keep a sharp lookout for stingrays coming in on the tide.

Monday the education boat was supposed to come get us, but our driver forgot and loaned out our engine. So poor Nicole ran all over town trying to find a boat that would come get us, because the office had planned a lunch for Kerry. We waited on the beach for five and a half hours (which may be a record for us) and finally the Health boat came. We got to Sola at two and had the lunch at one of Sola’s “restaurants.”

I followed the trip to take her back home. It was officially my quickest trip to Motalava… I was on land for 30 seconds! On the way back we only used one engine and threw out two fishing lines, but there was nothing. I think we caught all the fish on Sunday at Reef Island!! It was really fun though just hanging out in the boat fishing as the sun set behind Vanualava. The water was rough but not TOO rough, and it was cooling down so I got goose bumps, which is a rare occurrence in this country. As I clocked in my third hour of boat travel for that day (7 for the weekend, 9 for the week, 15 for the month), Robert, the education boat driver, started calling me “Captain.”

About twenty minutes out from Sola we pulled in the lines and fired up both engines full blast… the boat went airborne and Amos (the second driver) started giggling like a little boy. That was my clue to hang on tight.

So at the end of this coming week, I will officially be the only Peace Corps Volunteer in Torba province. Kinda weird. And sad. But it motivates me to work that much harder to make up for it!

I tried to post pictures with this blog and the internet is way too slow, so here is the link to the facebook album: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100317272435500.2530335.20919298&type=1&l=111723e775