Meet the Cast.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

JO- Lambubu
Canada

(This is me, clearly.)

CYNTHIA - Emua
Canada

MC - Lalinda
Canada

SAMUEL - Lambubu
Vanuatu

Showing off his Boy Scout uniform.

IVEN - Lambubu
Vanuatu

Shown here with Ingrid, the chicken I tried (and failed) to save from her fate as supper.

TIM - Lalinda
Australia

"Tim Van Rock: This is your Present."

LUCY - Lalinda
Australia

Lucy (left), shown here with MC.

ANNE - Lalinda
Canada

Anne, a.k.a "Funny Man", and her conservative one-piece bathing suit.

HENDRY - Emua
Vanuatu

Shown here with his bug on a leash.

REBBEKAH- Lambubu
Canada

With the silverback gorillas that live in the Australian Outback (or so she thinks...)

TARA - Lambubu

Australia

Big momma hen.

EMMA AND JULIE - Emua
Vanuatu

Julie (far left) and Emma (far right) getting ready for a night out in Vila with myself and Becs.

JESS - Lambubu
Canada

Jess (right, and smiling) is happy to shower in the rain. This is one of my favorite pictures of Jess (and there are many ) because of the sheer joy she found in bathing using raindrops that were dripping off the roof of the Rat Hall. Note: she got clean, but Becca (left) only made herself brown and streaky.

ZACH- Emua
Canada

Shown here receiving a gift from his host mom.

JACQUI and THOMPSON - Lalinda
Canada and Vanuatu

Jacqui (left) and Thompson (right) getting into the rowboat that will take them to Ambrym.

DAVE - Lambubu
Canada

The man of the house. And the only white man on the island. Gotta show your stuff...

ERIN - Emua
Australia

COURTNEY - Emua
Australia

Courtney (left) doing laundry with Cynth.

ROSE - Lambubu
Vanuatu

Beautiful sister Rose shows me why she likes kindy.

RONNA - Lalinda
Vanuatu

Ronna (center) shown here with MC (far right), Anne (second from right), Jacqui (second from left), and one of their Ambrym friends.

NICOLE - Lambubu
Australia

Posing on the swingset.

CURTIS - Emua
Canada

A-coconut drinkin'.

MEGHAN - Lalinda
United States

Meghan makes coconut milk from scratch in Vila.

REHAP - Lalinda
Vanuatu

Rehap (right) and Anne shield themselves from the Pacific rains.

So here we are.

This is where our story ends, and another one begins.

This is where I stopped writing in my journal, living solely in the moment rather than trying to make ways to remember them - that's kind of what journals are for, I guess, I've never kept one before.

The moment we stepped off the plane in Vila we were confronted with the reality that we had less than 48 hours left in Vanuatu. We had reports to type up, de-briefings to partake in, and souvenirs to buy for our families, ice cream to eat, and beer to drink. But most importantly, we had a short time left to cling to the Ni-Van challengers, as well as the Australians and other Canadians, with whom we would soon be parting ways. It was fast occurring to me that the Pacific Ocean is very, very big.

We were reunited with the Emua and Lalinda groups. We laughed, we sang, we shared stories, we danced, we drank, Jess and Tara got horrifying gastro, the rest of us kept drinking. We stayed up all night, we laughed some more...and then we had to leave; it had never hurt so much to see the sun come up. If I thought that leaving my host family was hard, it was nothing compared to leaving this group of inspiring youth who I was priveleged to be in company with all summer. I started to cry at least an hour before we left the Scout Hall - these goodbyes were ones that I just couldn't handle.

One last song...

Lambubu

Lalinda

Emua

All of the Ni-Vans came to the airport to say goodbye, honoring us with the traditional line-up and handshakes. By this point the handshaking ritual had become almost routine, but this one was long, drawn out, and soggy. As I'm writing this right now, four months and one day after leaving the Republic of Vanuatu, my heart hurts and I'm crying, missing my sista Rose, my Iven, Samuel, Morsen, Julie, Emma, Hendry, Rona, Thompson, Rehap, Joel, Barenda - not to mention all of my Canadian and Australian friends, the other group leaders, and the wonderful staff at the YCIV office.

Rehap: the great inspiration.

Rose: my sister forever

I cried most of the way back to Sydney. While our Vanuatu tale may have come to an end, it was nowhere near over for us yet. Liesa stayed behind, leaving four weeks later to be group leader for another project on Tanna, which from what I understand, was very, very successful. Nicole and Tara also stayed behind to explore the islands more. Jess and I traveled through Australia for three and a half weeks together, and either you've already heard my crazy stories, or you probably don't want to. Morsen also went with Liesa to Tanna - those two work together like spaghetti and meatballs. Samuel has a job, I think, building furniture at the resort on Irikiki - Cynthia tells me that Julie has a job there too. Rose wants to be a teacher...and Iven, Iven I'm sure will become a soccer star or something like that. We can't forget also to think about the past and future participants of this program, what they've gained, and what they have yet to gain and experience.

Gudfalla group leaders: Morsen and Liesa

It wasn't even that hot out, but I cried so hard I made myself sweat. And Cynthia (right) lives about ten minutes from me in Ottawa.

The money that I contributed, that you all helped me raise, for this project, allowed for the participation of these nine young men and women in this summer's projects. Not only did they work on the same six week short projects that we did, but they were part of a larger, more intensive program that had a one year life span but which will have lifelong repercussions. They were given computer skills training, language training, team building workshops, and employment services. My group leader, Morsen, was a YCI challenger last summer - he was actually in Lalinda, and shared a host family with Anne, so technically I guess they're brother and sister, even though they were there at different times - and went on to take on a different role with us this year. I am so proud to have gotten to spend time with these people, and can only hope that in some way or another I will find a way to be a part of their futures, which will unquestionably be bright.

August 3 - Lambubu to Norsup to Vila

We're at the "airport" right now in Norsup - I put airport in quotations because it's not what you'd imagine an airport to look like, even on a remote island. When the trucks pulled up, I looked around. "Are we stopping here?" I asked Edline, who had accompanied us to say goodbye. "This is the airport," she said sadly - sad both because she had become very attached to many of us, and possibly because she was sad that the airport was in such a decrepid condition. Once I got used to the idea though (which I did, because as per the norm, we've been waiting a long while for our plane to show up from Santo...) it really wasn't that bad - it does the trick, and from what I understand, planes don't crash as much as boats sink (there's the paranoia in me coming back...where has it been for the last six weeks?) Norsup is tiny, but there is a small restaurant where we had ice cold drinks for the first time in six weeks.

The airport at Norsup.

Airport 2.

The view from the beach at Norsup.

Would you want to leave this behind?

Earlier today, the entire community lined up outside of the Rat Hall to shake our hands, say final goodbyes, for real this time, and see us off. It was one of those amazing yet heart wrenching moments...because in all likelihood, I won't see these phenomenal people again, although I hope one day I will. Dora gave me an island dress before I left, yet again, surprising me with her generosity and kindness. We took some photos on the work site and reluctantly, very reluctantly, detached ourselves from the workers we had become so close with and the community we had begun to love and cherish like home.

Goodbye Kindy.

Goodbye Team.

Goodbye Brian who works at the co-op....and goodbye my island home.

We stuffed all eleven of us, plus Edline, Wells and Naomi, who weren't ready to let go yet, and all of our luggage and equipment into two tiny trucks and drove through the jungle up and over the mountains to the other side of the island. The tears turned into joyful songs, signature songs that will forever remind me of my time in Vanuatu and of my Canadian, Australian and Ni-Vanuatu family. After we get weighed (to make sure that we are not too fat fat so as to bring the little plane down) and the plane comes back, off we go...