Woman Ambae:
A Tale of Peace Corps in the South Pacific

These past few weeks 9 out of 10 of my conversations have been regarding the following:

1. The death of Osama Bin Laden. I mentioned in my last entry the role volunteers here play as a part-time diplomat, this couldn’t be more true as of late and I can’t help but laugh at the ironic timing of this given my last bit of rambling. Being an American, it is widely assumed that I’m a walking one stop source for any and all information regarding the United States Government. And upon the death of Bin Laden I could not step outside of my house without a “Bin Laden?” followed by an inquisitive tilt of the head. Much to everyone’s disappointment I’m as ill informed at the next bush dweller. Yes, he is dead; fill you in on the rest just as soon as I receive a telepathic press release from the government and/or finally get that high speed internet connection up and running in my bush kitchen.

2. The arrival of the U.S. navy in Santo (a neighboring and fairly urbanized island). Again, being an American it is assumed that, naturally, I would know the whereabouts of my government’s navy at any given moment. Alas, upon repeatedly failing to deliver any useful knowledge regarding the massive influx of uniformed white men in Luganville I’ve been given many a detailed rendition of their faculty. I may be mistaken but I don’t think the Northern islands have seen this much American military presence since WWII. And it seems that not much has changed out here in the Pacific, banana trees are still used as hiding spots from overhead jets, and submarines are still likened to very big fish.

I’ve kept myself occupied recently with various odd projects as well as the larger ones I detailed earlier. Rural development is a tricky and multifaceted business, and effectiveness requires a unique combination of flexibility and creativity. While formal workshops and trainings are certainly important, and I’m definitely not one to knock a decent flow chart or well itemized work agenda, I can say without a doubt the greatest strides and most noticeable impact I’ve made so far has been solely in informal interactions with individuals. Whether I’m discussing the HIV/AIDS epidemic while cooking over an open bush fire, encouraging increased waste and water management while collecting coconuts in the bush, advising a village elder on the value of a nutritionally balanced diet and exercise in preventing diabetes or teaching the dispensary staff how to monitor patient vitals during our afternoon down time, these spontaneous instances, prompted by my community by the interest of my presence among them, will be my legacy here, and will never be something I can put on a resume as professional development work or claim on my quarterly reports to the State Department.

Events as of late:

I'm asked constantly about American food, so I decided to put on a nutrition workshop based on the premise of sharing some with the village. I purchased noodles and pre-made spaghetti sauce in Vila and had them shipped to my island, and received the necessary spices and parmesan cheese from the motherland itself. I also brought back a smokeless cooking stove from Vila, a healthier alternative to cooking over a smokey fire and just as easy. I was able to gather all the village women in my mama's kitchen and cook spaghetti with them over said stove in a sort of sneaky demonstration, after which the whole community came together to eat. I went around to individual families beforehand and asked them to talk with the rest of the village about what they were going to bring to the meal, in attempt to have them work together to plan a balanced meal. We ended up with a delicious spread of spaghetti, yams, taro, bananas, grapefruit, island cabbage and more. The spaghetti was met with some initial skepticism, but after the village elders dug in and confirmed it's tastiness, the pots were soon empty and requests for future spaghetti feeds made.



Some of the mamas cooking with me over the stove, and some of the village girls snacking on dry noodles



Cooking the meat for the sauce with May (purchased this meat at the provincial center and hiked back up the the village with it... no sauce would have been complete without it!)



Some of the elders and the original taste testers, on their second plate and too busy to be bothered with photos (seriously, they were in deep concentration). Affirmation of their enjoyment I think.

I've also taken to baking with my neighbors, and although scraping together all of the necessary supplies is a challenge the spoils are worth it. This was my first endeavor- chocolate, heart-shaped cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles.



The official baking party... I swear they were as excited about it as I was...

In an effort to teach some of my younger students about germs and disease transmission, I created the Quatui Centre School glitter challenge. I sprinkled glitter all over the classroom to represent germs, which inevitably found its way to all of the students' hands. I followed this with a hand washing demonstration and relay race. This was a big hit, every student here has been told to wash their hands because of germs before, but my guess is very few have actually ever been shown how it works.











Years 4, 5 and 6 showing off their glittery hands, I don't think the school will ever be able to get all of the glitter out of that room.

Lastly, I also gave a lesson on the skeletal and muscular systems and had been asking around the village for some animal bones to use as visual aids. Not long after the leg of a freshly slaughtered cow, or buluk in the language here, was brought to my house, still dripping with blood. I ate well that night and the next morning set to work trying to clean the thing. It took me about four hours to strip and burn all of the meat and flesh off of these enormous things and made a complete mess of myself and my kitchen in the process. I've never felt like more of a dedicated teacher, and only wished some of you would have been there to witness this as testimony to my full scale acclimation to the bush. A little dirt, er... bone marrow, never hurt anyone, anyway.