Sunday, September 20, 2009

In P-Town (Paunangisu)

It has been a week and after spending our first days at a resort (it’s not like Sandals – I use the term “resort” loosely). We learned about policies, bush first aid and a crash course on the basics of the language – Bislama.

We are now in our training village and because we are such a big group they had to split us into 3 different villages – Samaa, Emua and Paunangisu (each are a 30 min walk apart). P-town is like a rural suburbia since we are still so close to Port Vila (less than an hour drive – but as a trainee we weren’t allowed to leave the village), we have piped water, water seal toilets (similar to the toilet you know and love but this one you just use a bucket of about a liter of water to “flush”) and they have a lot of “waetman kakae” (so bread, kato – doughnuts, coffee, tin meat/fish and rice). I do like aelan kakae as well which can be surprising to some who know my eating habits but they have a lot of coconut, papaya, banana, mango, yams, manioc, taro - so a diet of fruits and starches - good thing I'll be wearing a mother hubbard as I might gain weight out here :)

P-town is also like any other big city with its own share of land disputes and power struggles as there are two chiefs that are claiming rightful authority over the village. It has split the village into two – not two sides of the road north and south but its divided house by house so its kinda hard to know who’s on what side – I just avoid the question or smile and nod when the topic comes up. There was a riot in the early 90s and houses were burnt and things said but now its just an annoyance – even for us volunteers as we have to split into two groups for community projects and such but hopefully us being there might help show them they can work together.


This is the house I slept in - there is also a seperate house for where my mom slept and the "dining room" and then there is a custom kitchen (meaning its made of leaves)


View from the beach at Ptown - you can see Nguna and Pele in the distance. The bay is really calm no waves just great views :)

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