Well, I’m officially ruined for diving. My host papa has been taking me spearfishing in the reef right below my house. Fun fact- I am really bad at spearfishing. The technique of diving while holding a big unwieldy speargun is something I’m going to have to practice a lot. I never even got close enough to a fish to attempt firing the harpoon. I was just stuck near the surface trying to figure out how to hold the darn thing. I’ll figure it out. I was also very distracted by the reef itself. I’ve been swimming on it every week or so now, and I’m still in awe.
Another fun fact- this is one of the most pristine reefs in the world. Pentecost isn’t overrun by tourists and it’s far away from everything (that’s what happens when you’re over 1,000 miles from nearest major landmass), leaving the reefs to grow in ways they don’t always have the chance to elsewhere. I’ve been diving and snorkeling in lots of places and I’ve never seen corals like this. They are colorful and come in so many weird and wonderful shapes. Hundreds of colorful fish in all sorts of shapes and sizes call this place home. Every time I go snorkeling here, I see another species I don’t recognize. I’ve been spending a lot of time researching fish, by the way. I feel like my parent’s birding tendencies have rubbed off on me, except instead of looking at beak shape and feather coloring, I’m looking for dorsal shape and scale patterns. I’ve positively identified over forty species of fish (also thirteen birds, four lizards, eight species of coral, and a giant clam). I’ve also been spending a lot of time painting the fish that I see. By the time I get home I’m going to have many pages of fish in my sketchbooks.
I’ve also been drawing and painting birds and geckos. My years as a park ranger have turned me into a half-decent naturalist. I enjoy taking notes about the world around me to match with my art. I’m trying to pay attention to some of the science in the world around me. I even got some of my students to do it. My free science classes spent a period finding flowers on campus and drawing them, paying attention to the number of petals and the shape of the flower itself. They seemed really into it, even the kids who don’t always pay attention. I’m planning to do an actual lesson on the basics of nature journaling at some point soon.
The other classes are a bit harder. All of the teachers, including me, are really struggling right now. We’re closing in on the end of term 3 (of 4) and not a single one thinks we can finish the material in time. We’ll run into end of year exams before we even know it. It’s not a pleasant feeling, knowing that no matter how hard I try the kids won’t be ready. We have some really bright students here, but there simply isn’t enough time to teach the material. The classes I took over were behind before I even got here, and we’re still behind now. The curriculum simply doesn’t account for real life. Students get sick or suspended. Around breaks, students often leave early or return late because they come from different islands and the ships they can use to come and go are far from reliable. Even if all the kids learned at the same rate and understood everything, there’s not enough time in the year to finish teaching them what they are supposed to learn. We keep reminding ourselves that we can only do the best we can with the time we have. That’s as good as it’s going to get. Still, I hope I’m helping.
In other news, I had a new geologic experience. I woke up one morning and heard a low rumble. I thought it was a truck idling up the hill the from house. That is, until later that morning, another volunteer on the island texted me asking if I could hear the volcano. Turns out, he was hearing the same rumbling from his house some fifteen miles away. He was told it was the Ambae volcano. Manaro Voui is an active shield volcano on the nearby island of Ambae, far enough away that we weren’t worried about the potential of immediate danger from an explosion, but apparently plenty close enough to be heard from the entirety of this island. I cannot adequately describe the low rumble that persisted for that entire day; a background noise that would have been deafening if I’d been closer. It was an incredible feeling.
The rumble only lasted for the day, but the funny thing is- the volcano is more active than ever. A few weeks later, we got an alert saying there had been a minor explosion. I heard nothing. I saw nothing. From my house, there wasn’t so much as a smoke cloud. There was smoke and ash apparently though; it grounded all flights on and off the island for a week. Unfortunate timing for the new volunteer who came for a brief visit halfway thorough her training and was stuck on the island for nearly a week longer than planned.
The new volunteer is here now. She’ll spend the next two years working at the clinic down the road. She’s only about a 45-minute walk away and between us is a very convenient beach and reef. We’ve been snorkeling a few times and it’s really fun to have a swim buddy! She’s also been taking notes on fish and drawing them. You could say our relationship is going swimmingly. (I spend too much time with kids).
In addition to my new American friend, I’ve also been making friends with some of the mamas in my community. Just this past weekend, my landlady Margaret, one of the clinic nurses Lucie, the new volunteer, and I had a girl’s night. We sat and chatted on the porch of the volunteer’s house, ate biscuits and chips, and drank kava. Kava is a drink made from the ground up root of a local plant that has mild sedative and psychoactive properties. It has been used for recreational and ceremonial purposes by people across Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia for thousands of years. It tastes kind of like green tea and dirt, and usually within about 30 seconds of drinking it, your tongue goes numb. It’s entertaining and can be fun in a social setting. Our girl’s night was the perfect occasion for a few shells (traditionally kava is served in half coconut shells and even now a cup of it is still referred to that way) and a quintessentially Vanuatu experience, as was the ride home. I sat in the back of a pickup truck, slightly buzzed on kava, staring at the stars and the sea and the palm trees, and chatting in Bislama with Margaret. There were few lights to be seen, except those from the villages we drove through and the small cargo boat at anchor in the cove. Clouds hovered over the mountain to our east, threatening to dust us with rain drops. The night was everything I love about living on Pentecost.
As always, there are challenges and there are joys. All we can do is focus on the joys and do the best we can with the challenges. Cheers to the reef and the magnificent southern stars!
Mountain Tales 