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

I seem to be at a loss for words lately. At best, severely lacking words sufficient in describing my life to date.

I returned from my first trip outside of country nearly a month ago, the year mark has gone and passed and the next group of volunteers arrives in a few weeks.

Experiencing life outside of Vanuatu, the developed world at large, for the first time in 11 months and for a semi extended period of time, and then being thrust back into the ebb and flow of the village is a dichotomy I can’t begin to explain and perhaps the reason for my apparent inability to formulate my thoughts in any substantive manner. I’m still at a loss to even process the events of the last year, to wrap my mind around all that’s already happened and all that lies ahead. What can I say? There’s no sequence of words that will do, no photo that can show, how a place changes you. How a new culture, a different language checks your own identity. How an ideal guides you by day and seeps into your dreams at night.

Have you ever seen an animal react to a new environment? Slinking around the edge of things, eyes wide, giving a sniff here and there to test the waters, unsure what to think about much of anything but weary of the unfamiliarity nonetheless. This is much how I felt the first week in New Zealand. The bright lights of a city, the wide variety of just about anything you could ever possibly want available at your very fingertips, self check-out, traffic lights, clubs, heels, breakfast buffets, consistent electricity, consistently clean feet, lattes, conveyor belts, crosswalks, blow dryers, gas stations… so many things I had forgotten about, so many things to readjust to. Reverse culture shock- check. By the second week I had pretty much gotten into the swing of things, speaking English and wearing close toed shoes, but by that time I was departing for Vanuatu again. It’s truly fascinating the different versions of ourselves we create to cope with our surroundings. Whether it be a bamboo shack on a remote island or a chic café in a bustling city, we adapt.

So, if you’ve never been to New Zealand and you dig beautiful scenery, friendly people and doing cool shit I would recommend a visit. I wish I would have had several months to experience all that the land of the kiwi has to offer, but with only two weeks I think I did a fairly good job- flew into Auckland (North Island), acclimated, ate things, drank things… flew into Christchurch (South Island), rented a camper van, drove north to Blenheim, toured the Marlborough wine district by bike, drove farther north, sky dived over Abel Tasman, drove straight south to Wanaka, snowboarded Treble Cone, drove west through the mountains to Queenstown (adrenaline capital of the world), got snowed in, rocked my island apparel in a blizzard, feasted on the Christmas cookies my mom sent from the states in said blizzard and tried to remind myself it was August and therefore to refrain from singing “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas”, remembered how much I love the nightlife and how very talented I am in partaking in it, flew back to Auckland, ate more things, drank more things, cried a little, threw a small-ish tantrum about how unfair being an idealist and a diva at the same time is, returned to Port Vila, tried to motivate myself to do some work, drank kava instead, flew back to Ambae, tried to motivate myself to do some work, did some… then drank more kava, remembered how much I love kava, blogged about it.

Because of the unexpected and rather adverse weather conditions I wasn’t able to see Milford Sound or do the AJ Hackett bungee (first commercial jump, original jump originated in Vanuatu- what up) but with a little luck and perhaps some help from Visa victory will be mine… eventually.But up next: Australia and SE Asia.

(for the full set of photos from the trip: NZ- a set on Flickr)

Auckland

Christchurch

Marlborough Wine District

Abel Tasman

(not quite sure what face I'm making here, kinda looks like the mouthing of "fuck". I guess a surprise backflip out of a plane at 16,500 ft will do that to you.)

Wanaka

Queenstown

The open road...