So yeah, Peace Corps Vanuatu is
where it's at! At least, it's where I'm at, and I'm quite happy to be
here. I'm out on the very northern end of the tall, narrow island of Maewo.
We're not far from the island's only
airstrip, in a village of about 45 households that are strung out
along a few kilometers of the island's single gravel road which
parallels the jagged, coral-lined coast.
Just across the road the land rises
steeply as you climb up to a densely forested interior. Up about 150
meters things level out and there are vast coconut plantations and
areas cleared for the gardens where families grow their staple crops
of manioc, yam, banana and taro. The people here have been
extraordinarily welcoming to me and after some shaky moments early on
that had me wondering just what in the world I must have been
thinking to have jumped into Peace Corps all over again, I'm now
getting settled and have started finding my footing, both
figuratively and literally. And nowadays there seems to be more to do
most days than I can find time for, which is a surefire formula for a
contented volunteer.
The reason things have gotten so
demanding here is the disaster on the nearby island of Ambae. When I
walk out of my house it's only a hundred paces down the hill past my
latrine and through some dense bush to where the path opens up onto
the aforementioned coastline. It's a remarkably beautiful spot.
Just a few kilometers across the sea
to the east lies Ambae. On a clear day you can see the gentle slopes
of its Manaro Volcano rising in the island's center and disappearing
into the clouds. But most days the view of the island itself is lost
in a light haze and the only indication that it's still there are the
thick plumes of smoke and ash that form in the sky above the volcano.
Since I arrived here in late June we'd
been hearing the frequent rumbling of the volcano, sounding like
distant thunder, and sometimes ominously accompanied by mild
earthquake tremors. Last month the volcano kicked into a higher gear
and enveloped big swaths of Ambae in ankle-deep ash. When a
subsequent rainstorm caused two ash-choked rivers to overflow, an
entire village that was perched on Manaro's western flank was washed
away in the middle of the night. Luckily, just as with Ngabes, there
seem to be Ni-Vans who never sleep, and the alarm was sounded in time
for people to escape to higher ground with nothing more than their
pajamas where they watched everything they owned slide down the side
of the volcano in a slurry of sulfurous ash and mud. That was enough
for the Vanuatu government and what had been a strongly suggested
evacuation was upgraded to a mandatory order with no exceptions.
Freight ships were marshaled and the several thousand islanders who
had been holding out on Ambae were carried off to other islands. A substantial share of them were brought here to Maewo and they began arriving
in our village by the dump truck full.
That was a month ago now, and our
little town of Marino has now nearly doubled its population with the
arrival of some 200 evacuees. It's been an exciting and busy time to
be here as you might imagine.
I've been pitching in whenever and
wherever I can as we set about building temporary housing for the
arriving families, getting water systems and latrine facilities in
place and so forth. There has been plenty of outside aid coming in
both from the Vanuatu government and international NGO's, but the
hands-on work on the ground is all local.
The orange “Community Disaster
Committee” vests became a hot item, as men set to work with their
bush knives hacking down small timber and bamboo to erect frames for
the tarpaulin tents that make up the improvised neighborhoods and
women and girls pinned panels of thatch for roofs and wove coconut
leaf screens for doors.
We didn't have any decent latrines here
to begin with—just a few crude “bush toilets” and those are
quickly being overwhelmed.
So we've made a big push to get the
pits dug and slabs poured for new "VIP" latrines. Unlike
Panama, the water table here is not so high as to be an issue, but
traditional bush toilets are generally very shallow because once you
dig down through a foot or so of loose volcanic soil you hit solid
layers of coral stone that can only be worried through by chipping
away at it for hours with a heavy iron bar know in Bislama as a
“groopah.”
The other big challenge that's been
occupying a lot of my attention is getting enough clean water to
everyone. When I first arrived here the community was barely getting
by with its aging gravity flow water system which was only working
intermittently. But that's not going to cut it now. The government
dropped off a big 6,000 liter poly tank that we set up in the middle
of town where water flows pretty consistently and that has saved the
day for now, allowing us to store up water from the trickle that runs
overnight.
The big problem comes further down the road
and further down the pipeline where I live. A small village from
Ambae--the the same people I mentioned who escaped in their
pajamas--have settled in a small encampment right across the road
from my house. We're all running very low on water cause the pipeline
has been dry more than it has flowed for more than a week now. I have some theories about what's going on
with the pipeline, but troubleshooting it has not proven easy. I've
been experimenting with washing my clothes in the ocean where I do
all my bathing these days if that gives you any idea of how it's
going. But as I said, the ocean is only a hundred steps away, so I
won't expect much sympathy on that count.
I've been so impressed with how the
people of Marino have welcomed the evacuees— upending their village
and disrupting their lives and to make a place for them. Even more
impressive is the equanimity of the new arrivals as they cope with
abandoning the island that has been home for as many generations as
they can imagine. At this point in seems unlikely they will ever
return.
The children seem to be adapting
to the tumult with surprising ease, finding new friends to play with
homemade toys and bonding over familiar routines like the traditional
group head check.
It's heartening to see but it's still very early in what's
bound to be a seminal chapter in everyone's life and with the rainy
season just now arriving the tarpaulin huts are not the only things
that are going to be put to the test. As for my own unique role here
it feels like the game has changed and the stakes raised in a way I
never anticipated. The more mundane challenges of
volunteer life seem rather pale in this context. Salty laundry and
lack of decent coffee (or rum) don't get much traction or cause much
distraction as I just join in with everyone else as we do our best to get
settled in to our new world.
