First Experiences

My first week in my village was filled with settling into my new house, exploring my village, and beginning to make community relations. My host family here is amazing, I could not be more blessed. My papa is a bus transport driver, so I have a connection if and when i need to go into town, and he is an elder in the church so he is very well respected in the community. My mama is quite possibly the sweatest woman, and she does everything at the home you can think of. I have a few siblings, sisters and a brother, but all are married and moved out except 1- Evelyn. Evelyn is 22, a student at the university, and she works as a secretary in the primary school. We have already become great friends, and I am so blessed to have a companion like her to rely on for everything; also, she is fluent in English wich is a great help when Bislama gets a little much.

My home is situated in the direct center of town on the teacher compound. I live in a duplex setting, but my house is the only one so far, so it's pretty quiet. For a PCV home, I would have to say my place is flas. I have a completely cement home, with a tin roof, 12 windows, 2 bedrooms, a living space with kitchen, and ELECTRICITY 24/7!!! The only thing is that the cement gets a little hot during the mid day, but I plan to buy a fan so no worries there. Also, my place has a bed, 3 tables, 2 chairs, and a food safe inside. My bathroom and shower are outside and connected, but they are literally 10 steps away, so it's no big samting. Life here is very slow, you literally feel every hour in the day but I'm beginning to get used to it-or atleast trying too. I've filled up with a bunch of books, so I plan to do a lot of reading for the next 2 months until school starts. Also, I have a feeling I will be teaching a few pikinni how to play the piano, since all the elders think its a big deal that I know how to read music.

Also, another cool thing is that even though I'm only about a 20 minute drive from Port Vila, I have two big resorts in my village. So, I can walk a short distance to use Internet if I don't feel like going all the way to Vila. pretty sweet!

Some Things To Get Used Too:

- Properly storing food to prevent ants or other unwanted bugs
- Being addressed at Misses or White Misses
- Being the only one sitting on a chair in a room of 50+ ppl
- Having no privacy: pikinni looking in through the windows
- Having to tell every person I meet where I'm going or what I'm going to do; curious Ni Vans
- Eating LapLap
- Explaining something and then re-explaining it 10 different ways so people can understand
- Using mosquito coils and accepting bigfala bugs presence in and outside my house- this one will take a while. TIV