Scooter Blues.

I cannot drive a scooter yet. This is lame.

I don't know how to ride a bike. This is also lame. Last but not least, my car driving abilities leave something to be desired, and while I do have my boating license, that isn't going to help me much here. The chosen mode of transportation is the zippy little scooter. I am terrified of it. Everything about it makes me ache inside. I am horrified of what I might do to myself or, more importantly, to society as a whole, whilst driving one of those things. Sadly, what this has meant for me thus far is a slight restriction of my freedom, considering that I have been condemned to walk or taxi everywhere or to be at the mercy of my roomate or any other person who might wish to give me a ride. Sometimes while I walk, and I am the only one walking, I look around me at the hoards of people flying by on their scooters and they look like little ants. I feel like an outcast.

These are but a few of the things that have or could happen to a person on a scooter. I'm not saying that I have done all of these things, only some.

1. One could, while trying to learn how to ride it, crash it into a row of parked scooters and knock them all over. Also into a parked car. Oops.
2. One could drive into a wall. This was not me. This was Rachel.
3. One could ride with a very cute but not sober enough boy, turn the corner, and wipe out, ending up crushed underneath his scooter.
4. One could only but mildly avert a collision with a stray black dog (ironically, the name of my favorite bar here...) only to slam on one's brakes and be thrown off, losing multiple chunks of skin in the process. Also Rachel.
5. One could come face to face with the side of a giant truck that turned the corner when it didn't have the right of way and didn't care that your little self was in the way.
6. After said encounter with giant scary truck one could run out of gas on the side of the road and have to walk one's scooter to the nearest gas station, crossing through an incredibly large and frightening intersection.
7. All jokes aside, serious things can happen. Riding a scooter can be dangerous if you're not careful and don't have your wits about you. 

With regards to number 6: Rachel's gas gage is f**d, despite the fact that she got it fixed, or so she thought. She has run out of gas while driving three times, which is no fun if you don't know where a gas station is and don't speak chinese well enough to ask for one. The other night, on our way home from the movies, we again heard the "put..put..put.....shiiiit" sound with which we had become too familiar. Not knowing where to find a gas station, we did what any other sensible girl would do: we walked to a nearby bar where our friends were congregated, had a few beers and a caesar salad, bought a water bottle, and Rachel had a friend give her a lift to a gas station where she filled the bottle up with petrol and then rode back to her bike and filled it up while I stayed at the bar and chatted with a cute boy. Everything works out in the end, doesn't it?

I never thought, in a million years, that I would miss OC Transpo and the STCUM the way I do now.

I wear my sunglasses at night.

Kenting, November 2007.

We work 6 days a week. This might sound horrifying, but in all essence, it's not that bad, save for the fact that it makes exploring Taiwan a wee bit difficult. For the most part, one needs a few days to really make a little trip worth it - the word "express" in "express bus" is often deceiving.

This being the case, we decided anyway to head to Kenting (pronounced KenDING) after work last weekend. At 6:05 we were out the door of Kojen and headed to the bus station. At 6:20 we had boarded what we were assured was the express bus and eagerly anticipating a solid 24 hours of beachy goodness. We had several Taiwan beers in our bags and were just about to crack them in celebration of a day off work when we discovered that the bathroom on the bus was indeed locked and therefore this might not be the greatest idea. Almost three hours later it didn't matter if we had have consumed those beers or not...as the bus jolted to a stop every ten feet to let one or two people on or off, I was sure I was going to pee all over myself, or perhaps Rachel.

The bladder control project was worth it though - Kenting is Taiwan's resort town, on the southernmost tip of the island, and it is beautiful. We arrived at around 930 pm and headed straight to meet the rest of our friends at our hostel, otherwise known as the Kenting Dive Center, and then for dinner and drinks. We took a brief break from glorious overconsumption of all goods to purchase silly sunglasses, which we wore all night - from the restaurant, to the German owned pub where we were served by the cute Taiwanese surfer dude who played his Roxette CD for us to our hearts' contents, to the beach, where we sat until the wee hours of the morning singing girly campfire songs designed to accompany our illicit campfire. I don't think we were supposed to be on the beach period, and we were especially not supposed to be lighting fires next to flammable nature, but we feigned ignorance when the floral-shirt-clad security guard came to tell us to move our fire closer to the water. ("No Chinese," we insisted, even though we had Alfie and Lars, two of our Taiwanese friends, with us.)

Sara and Rachel

Lyndsey and Me - his dog wore shades too.

After hitting the hay around 5 am, I was abruptly awakened at 630 am by my friend's puppy eating my face, but fell quickly back into my peaceful slumber. We woke up later and lazily wandered down to South Bay Beach after a traditional American breakfast of toast, eggs, and daiquiris, and spent the day making new friends, exploring, and being pelted by sand. After the most delicious Thai meal I'd ever had, we reluctantly got back on the bus to head back to reality and back to Kaohsiung. I like Kaohsiung, don't get me wrong, but it is nothing compared to the turquoise waters and fresh air and kitschy tourism of Kenting. I can't wait to go back.

Nanwan.

Normal is Relative, anyway.

Saturday, October 6, 2007 – I don’t know what Day it is anymore – time to stop counting.

So much for my commitment of writing every day. Things have drastically improved in Kaohsiung – it’s amazing how much of a difference a solid group of friends and a new apartment can make in one’s life. We now live with a Costa Rican named Keylor in a brand new apartment at the corner of MeiShu 2nd E. Road and MeiShu 3rd Street. Or something. It is spacious and clean, with a gorgeous view of the Love River, the downtown city core, and Monkey Mountain. We only pay $140 CAD a month. Golden. Rachel has a scooter – I am still looking. I have started teaching; thankfully I am not as awkward at it as I am at most other things in life (pool, bowling, scooter-riding, etc.) I don’t want to go home when I wake up in the morning.

It’s strange how quickly one accepts certain normalcies (my Macbook is telling me that this isn’t a word…let’s roll with it anyway) Going to bed at 3 am and getting up at 1…normal. Chocolate and strawberry flavored cheese, eggs soaked in tea, smoking in bars, riding a scooter to work, saying “Neehao!” to my doorman (I have a doorman!) every night, sending absurd amounts of text messages because it’s cheaper than calling, all normal. Typhoons: normal. I was terrified that I wouldn’t ever adapt to life here, but in so many ways it’s really just like home, but the people are Asian and the writing on all the signs is all in Chinese. I saw a woman on the MRT in Taipei who reminded me of Auntee Judy. We have Subway, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Ikea, and Costco. Everything here is very modern and efficient; I am amazed every day at how many things make so much more sense here than at home, except for the movie theaters – we went to see Evan Almighty the other night and had to wait in line for almost ten minutes to buy tickets, and there was only one person in front of us. The ticket counter was the same as the concession stand which was on a different floor than the theater itself, and we had assigned seats in a nearly empty viewing room – I guess not too many Taiwanese people feel the need to see Steve Carrell as Noah in a language that they don’t speak.

Last night we found out that today Taiwan was going to be hit with a “Super Typhoon”, so all of our classes were canceled. We went out and spent the money we would have made getting stupendously drunk (that’s a lie…it was $9 for an all you can drink entrance ticket, and we lost precisely $120 today by not working…eesh. Time for me to start getting paid…) so today has been a cozy, rainy day. I don’t think Rachel has emerged from her room yet, and I have been relaxing, writing, reading, and enjoying being inside while the wind rages outside. It’s raining horizontally, if that’s even possible. My Douglas Coupland novel has provoked me to start reveling about my life – the protagonist in the book that I’m reading is in his thirties and is what I guess you would call your typical screw-up with a lack of direction. It occurred to me that I don’t have much direction either, and while I’m thoroughly enjoying getting there, could it be possible that I will end up as one of those archetypal twenty-somethings who moves back in with their parents because they don’t know what else to do with themselves and have blown all of the money that their friends seem to have for houses and cars on things such as drugs, (not me) booze, (ok, me) and oh, I don’t know, travels throughout Central America, Asia and the Pacific?? I have no idea what I want to do with myself, but I do take pride in the fact that for the most part I live in the here and the now and don’t think too much farther ahead of what I want to do for dinner, speaking of which...I'm pretty sure I can hear a large plate of fried rice and koh shing tsai (tasty green veggies to you) calling my name...

September 26, 2007

I suppose it’s a good thing that I haven’t written anything in three days, even though I plan to practice writing every day while I’m here. It means I have had other things to do. We have been apartment hunting and trying to get ourselves in order. We still need phones, and scooters, but are close-ish to apartmental success. We may move into Tye and Antoinette’s apartment in the north – it seems like our best bet at the moment. I need to feel comfortable here, and the other places we have seen don’t work for me, and if they do, don’t work for Rachel. They have to work for both of us. I will feel so much happier once we are more settled, even if it means I have to walk 45 minutes to work because I can’t make a scooter go straight.

Yesterday was Moon Festival, a celebration of the Autumn equinox (I think) so we had the day off, and Rach, Brieanna, Jon and I took off for the day to Little Liouchiou Island. We caught a
bus to Donggang and then a ferry to the island, on which we were given the VIP treatment and allowed to sit in the captain’s quarters, even if this meant nearly losing our McDonald’s breakfasts all over the floor.When we got to the island we were immediately overwhelmed by tiny little Chinese women trying to get us to rent scooters from them, to which we eventually ceded because one of them chased us down so persistently that we managed to haggle her down to 350 NT for two scooters for the day, which is
a pretty solid deal.

The island is tiny, and we were able to get around it on the scooters in
about 30 minutes. It was beautiful, the pollution and noise and crowds of the city left behind, I felt like I was in South East Asia at last. We weren’t too far though – you can still see the 85 building and Monkey Mountain in Kaohsiung from the north coast of the island, and there was still KTV; I guess there is KTV everywhere. Jon gave us scooter lessons, at which Rachel excelled, and I failed miserably. I’m a little worried I’m not going to get the hang of it and will be doomed to a year of walking and cabbing and inconvenience, but I’m going to try a 50 instead of a 125 and hopefully things will go better. If not, I’m already prepared to write the email entitled “death by scooter” – it should be a good one.







I haven’t been sleeping well, but after 2 nights of non-sleep and a full day of activity, I was ready for it. Ben came by to watch a movie and left after thanking us for propping him up during it, because we both passed out hard and my body was finally afforded the good night’s rest it deserves.

September 23, 2007 (That's September 22 to you!)

Things are better now that we are in Kaohsiung. I’m still not entirely sure that this is where I want to be, but I am much more inclined to give it a chance here – one more day in Taipei and I surely would have been fighting my way to the front of the ticket line to get a flight home. We took the bus here on Friday and found our way to Kojen school 1, which is where I’ll be working – Rachel will be at school 2, which is not too far away. We were met by Michelle, who is my academic director, and taken to our second temporary apartment right next door to the school. We were thrilled to find that Ben was staying there as well and the three of us went to dinner where I feasted on my first vegetable of the week – asparagus salad, which consisted of asparagus covered in what tasted like sweet cream cheese icing, with a cherry on top, literally. After dinner Rachel went to sleep and Ben took me to the Chiang Kai-Shek cultural center where we watched groups of people breakdancing outside and what looked like some sort of aerobics step class accompanied by La Cucaracha. We walked home via Wufu road and for the first time since I’ve been here I was happy.

I woke up in the morning wanting to go home again, but this time knowing that the feeling would probably fade by the end of the day. Michelle took me to the hospital to get my vaccine and told me her life story while we were waiting, and the doctor was nice and chatty – wanted to hear about Costa Rica and about what I thought of Taiwan so far. He really didn’t think I needed the vaccine; shocker, no one does. I’m so glad to have that one less thing to worry about now – I’m not too worried about tsunamis anymore, now all I need to get over is the threat of being bombed by China, and I’ll be ok. Kaohsiung is the nationalist city of Taiwan and Ben seems to think that there must be many missiles pointed at us. Rose, a Taiwanese woman who used to work for Kojen and who is known throughout the city as being the best thing to have ever happened to foreigners (because she really is) says that maybe after the 2008 Olympics we can worry, but certainly not until then. After the hospital I ate lunch at the school and then took an afternoon nap before observing classes. I am observing Brieanna, an American teacher who is here with her husband Jon. I am taking over most of her classes and Rachel is taking over most of Jon’s because they are leaving Kojen for another school. Right now they live right below us in the Kojen apartments and they’ve taken us under their wing; we seem normal, they say, so it’s their pleasure. The class was a little overwhelming; the kids were raucous. I’m glad that I’m not being thrown into the lion’s den right away, I’ll be observing for at least another week.

Afterwards, Brieanna and Jon invited us out to dinner with them, so we went to this Japanese all you can eat restaurant with Rose and her blind father and the rest of their family. While there wasn’t much I could eat, it was an interesting experience nonetheless. I watched others eat jellyfish and learned how to say “My mother is mad at the horse” in Chinese – “Ma ma ma ma”. We then went to Green Bay, a bar down by the love river (Rose’s blind father and children came to this, as well) for some good times, and I got my happy birthday at last.

Birthday

Day 6

I cried until I passed out, and then I tried as hard as I could to not get up as long as possible. I was just dreading this birthday. So I finally got up, received my gift of two Kit Kat bars from Rachel, and got ready to go observe our first class, which was the way in which Kojen had decided I was to spend the night of my birthday. Why we couldn’t have observed a class in Kaohsiung, or even at the Kojen branch that was two blocks from our temporary apartment, is beyond me. Nothing at Kojen has made sense to me so far. Instead, we hoofed out to a part of the city that we weren’t familiar with, with patchy directions, to look for a street that was spelled incorrectly on the directions, and then spent four hours watching other people teach. We were going to check out the Shilin night markets afterwards, but tired and frustrated decided to head back to the apartment instead, where Rachel promptly fell asleep, and I spent the end of the worst birthday ever on the couch by myself.

Day 5

We had our first experience with the Taiwanese medical infrastructure today and our first introduction to Kojen. We headed to the head office for 10:30, and were escorted to the hospital by Alison, one of Kojen’s Taiwanese staff members. From the outside, the hospital was one of the nicest buildings we’ve seen so far. The inside felt more like a people processing machine than a place where people are treated. The whole ordeal took less than an hour – in, pictures, rapid health check, blood test, x-ray, out. We experienced what Brett refers to as “positive racism”; after the nurse checked our vision (a test I failed miserably) and our height, weight, and blood pressure, we saw the doctor, who checked our hearing with some machine that made a buzzing sound, and were told we could leave. I actually watched this doctor check off normal in the boxes next to spleen, liver, stomach, etc, without having laid a hand on me. Apparently, this is because I am white and thus healthy. This bothers me both because of my paranoia about my health and because I don’t like being treated preferentially. Ok, I take that back somewhat – it wouldn’t be so bad to be treated extra well when in a completely foreign environment where I am not at ease, particularly because I have been feeling almost invisible since I’ve been here. Walking down the street, I am one non-Asian person in a sea of nine billion Asian people; I think I have seen about 6 other white people since I’ve been here. I have never witnessed such a lack of racial diversity before, and it feels kind of strange. In comparison to Central America, where the locals stare you down, say hello, and are eager to start up a conversation wherever you go, here, people here pass you by without a second glance. I’m not sure why that is yet. I think it is mainly a cultural thing, as from what I’ve been told Asian culture is less outwardly welcoming than I would normally like.

In the afternoon we headed back to Kojen to sign our contracts. We were both feeling pretty good and productive before this but for some reason once we left the office we both felt horrible. I think it was information overload, which lead consequently to emotional overload. Rachel’s bags had finally arrived in Taipei so we decided to head to the airport to pick them up. Christine from Kojen gave us a map and directions to Taoyuan airport via an express bus. Once we’d finally located the bus stop, we waited nearly an hour for it to not come. “Maybe this isn’t the right bus,” we thought, and a nice man behind us who spoke just the smallest bit of English assured us that it was. Still no sign of any bus, the man behind us, who introduced himself to us but I didn’t understand so I’ll just call him Mr. Nice, asked us to share a taxi with him because he was going to miss his flight to Australia. I was so happy merely to have been noticed that I nearly cried, and we clearly accepted his offer. An hour later we were at our destination and without any difficulty picked up the bag and hopped on the express bus back to the city. This, my friends, is where we ran into trouble. We were exhausted, and upon arrival at Taipei Main Station we decided to hop in a cab home – unfortunately for us though, we didn’t have the little slip of paper with our address on it, only the map that Christine had given us, which as it turns out was not so good. The cab driver dropped us off in the location that we pointed to on the map, which turned out not to be near enough to where we needed to go, and we henceforth got horrifyingly lost in downtown Taipei, which was not a nice place for us to be lost in, because everything looks the bloody same. The map was not to scale, and I nearly lost it at one point, until a friendly couple stopped to ask if we needed help, and tried their best to help us find our way until I glorifyingly recognized the Diamond HK Style 24 hour restaurant that was on the corner of the street we needed to be on. Finally home – the word home used as loosely as possible here – we ate noodles from the 7/11 for the third night in a row and I started my 24th birthday off by crying myself to sleep.

Typhoon Day in Taipei

Day 4

I woke up this morning at 5 am – granted, I’d already been asleep for 9 and a half hours, but it was still no hour to be up at. “What am I doing here?” I thought to myself, for at least a half hour, before falling asleep again. My alarm woke me at 8:30, and I woke Rachel, only for us both to find stickies from Brett on our doors that read, “There is a note on the table. Read it.” It turns out that a “super typhoon” is affecting Taipei today, and Kojen was closed for a typhoon day, so we have been left alone to fend for ourselves for yet another lonely day. I know it’s not really fending, it’s more watching Chinese tv and doing nothing, but we are really quite anxious to do what we have to do, get to Kaohsiung, get settled in and attempt to restore some element of normalcy to our lives. My reportings on today are minimal: we watched some CSI, some Pirate Masters, and a horrifying movie about voodoo in Haiti featuring Bill Pullman in his early early years. I am experiencing the recurring cramp in my side that has plagued me for the past month, which is leading me to convince myself that I have rabies/malaria/stomach cancer/any other serious stomach disease that might exist – I am in desperate need of a way to curb my anxiety (other than the 4 Ativan that I have left…) otherwise this is going to be a lonnnng year. The seed has already been planted in my head that I may not make it the full year, which isn’t a good thought to be thinking so soon after my arrival. I’ve spent the better part of the afternoon talking with Paul online, who is in India, and has experienced many of the same fears and doubts that I have. It’s been amazing to talk to someone who understands how I feel, and he reminds me that when something doesn’t feel right, it’s just not worth sticking around for pride’s sake – so I will give it time, and hopefully things will start to feel right here soon. What’s meant to be, right? For now, I will try and enjoy the Billy Crystal movie we’ve just started to watch and hope that tomorrow brings better things – including, but not limited to, Rachel’s bags.

Taiwan, Part 1: Days 1, 2 and 3

Days 1, 2, and 3

It’s strange to think that I left home almost three days ago – I’m not quite sure what has happened in the interim. We left Buffalo on Saturday afternoon and after a brief chain-smoke in the Cleveland airport, hopped a flight to Los Angeles. In LA we had a 6 hour layover, the majority of which we spent in the food court staring at the departures screen, on which our flight was not yet posted because it was still far too far away, and in the horrifying lines at the ticket counter and the security checkpoints. We were two of maybe 10 non-Asian people in a sea of oh, maybe eight billion travelers at 1:00 on a Sunday morning. Once at the gate, I hungrily removed the bagel I’d purchased for 4 dollars from my bag, only to discard it due to moldiness, and instead took a sedative and waited to board the plane.

Our Malaysia Air flight to Taipei was pleasant – mostly because the Ativan helped me sleep for about 10 of the 14-hour flight, and because Rachel and I had a row to ourselves, facilitating as comfortable a sleep as one can muster on a trans-Pacific flight. At one point some rocky turbulence rose me from my slumber, which would normally evoke severe panic, but I was so doped up that all I could do was lift my head and then put it down again – what will be, will be, I figured. God bless that pill.

We arrived in Taipei at 6:30 am local time. Less than a third of the people on our flight had reached their final destination – the plane was going on to Kuala Lampur. Unfortunately, it seems as if Rachel’s backpack may also have continued on to Kuala Lampur, or was left behind at one of our many U.S. destinations. We’re not quite sure how to use the phones here, and furthermore, when we actually got it to work, the number that the airport people gave us doesn’t seem to be right.

We were met at the airport by a woman sent by Kojen to pick us up who, after not introducing herself to us, ushered us to the car and drove us into Taipei to our temporary apartment on something something lane. The apartment is owned by Kojen, and a Canadian named Brett lives here permanently. Another new teacher, Ben, was sitting in the living room watching TV, and he kindly took us for breakfast after we’d cleaned up. We ate at a little restaurant around the corner where Ben had befriended the staff during the course of his three day stay in Taipei, and we enjoyed some dumplings and iced soy milk, and upon request I armwrestled one of the guys who worked there. Or at least I think he worked there. While I was happy and quite relieved to be on solid land, I was still quite overwhelmed at the fact that I was in Asia. And was going to be for a year.

We were exhausted but knew we had to make it through the day in order to minimize the effects of jet lag. We decided that we would brave the MRT (massive rapid transit, I think, subway, in laymen’s terms) and visit Taipei 101, formerly the world’s tallest building, officially beat out only last week by some newly constructed monster building in Dubai. The bottom floors of the building are full of designer stores of the likes of Versace, Prada, Luis Vuitton…I was first given the impression that Taiwanese people must be really wealthy, but Rachel tells me that apparently they like to buy these expensive things, but can’t really afford them. Unfortunately, after we paid our $14 to ride the world’s fastest elevator up the 89 floors to the top, it was too foggy out for us to see any of the “most spectacular view of Taipei.” We saw what we could, had some ice cream and hot chocolate, gossiped about home for a while, which made us laugh – something we were greatly in need of doing. We headed back to the apartment, stopping at the 7/11 to get some noodles, which was more trying than it should have been, for me at least who doesn’t a) eat meat or b) read Chinese, and tried to stay awake as long as we could. We were both asleep by 7:30.

Observations about Taiwan so far:

-There is an overwhelming abundance of 7/11s here. We counted 8 on the way home from Taipei 101, and know that there is another one around the corner in the other direction.
-The crosswalks have counters, just like at home, but here they have little green men that run faster as your time to cross runs out. Also, some crosswalks allow you up to 90 seconds to cross while others only give you 21.
-There is an absence of obvious pet-owners in Taipei; perhaps, as in Vanuatu, people here think it is strange to keep dogs and cats as pets?
-There is meat in absolutely everything here – maybe there is a correlation between this and above?

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...

Bad Moon Rising, Revised.

Another one...

To the tune of, wait for it..."Bad Moon Rising."

I see a bad moon rising
I see trouble on the way
Don't go out tonight, it's bound not to be alright
There's a bad moon on the rise

I see hurricanes and lightning
I see volcanoes straight ahead
Don't go out tonight, it's bound notto be alright
There's a bad moon on the rise

I see rats sleeping on my bugnet
I hear them chew my underwear
Don't go out tonight, it's bound not to be alright
There's a bad moon on the rise

I see a dark cocoa plantation
I see Becs streaking through the trees
Don't go out tonight, it's bound not to be alright
There's a bad moon on the rise

I see a black american gangster
I see him drinking coconuts
Don't go out tonight, it's bound not to be alright
There's a bad moon on the rise (x2)


So Morsen thought he was a black American gangster. We were a little skeptical of his ability to be as such while drinking coconut milk out of a bamboo straw. He soon decided instead that black Canadian cowboy was more his style, much to Jess' content.

Jess and Morsen, wetem flannel mo axe!

Disclaimer: The author does not take responsibility for racial references made in this blog. I am solely recounting events as they transpired, without altering any language. Whereas in Canada, one would probably refer to oneself as an "American Gangster", or even just plain old gangster, this was not the case in Vanuatu. Furthermore, back home, we probably would have called me and the other Joanna 1 and Joanna 2, but over there it was insisted that we be referred to as Black Joanna and White Joanna. I found this a little uncomfortable at first, but then thought back to Yael's comments back in Sydney about the difference in "political correct-ness", or the abscence of it altogether, in Vanuatu. Things are different there...and you just have to go with the flow, as long you don't feel you're comprimising any of your own good values.

Brotha, Fire! - The Crazy Song, ft. Kalo Robbie

(To the tune of something Dave made up)

Olsem wanem, mi askem yu
Yu ansa hemi stret
Mi askem yu, yu go long wea
Yu ansa, mi go long walkabout...

CHORUS:

Brotha, fire, FIRE!
Numbawan, numbatwo, FIRE!
Yu no climb up hemi tabu, mi kan no kasem yu
Sista yu keep two feet on the ground

Olsem wanem, mi askem yu
Yu se no harem gud
Mi drink tumas kava mo mi danis wetem ladies all night long...

*CHORUS*

Olsem wanem, mi askem yu
Yu se mi missem yu
Mi likem yu mi wantem yu kam lukem mi bak long Vanuatu....

*CHORUS*

Our Bislama may not be premium, but this song went over really, really well. Numbawan, by the way, means "excellent"; I didn't realize this at first, so when the construction workers would say "numbawan" to me on the work site, I didn't really know how to respond, so I would say, "numba two!" I did realize that they were saying something of a positive nature, so when I needed reassurance that I'd done something properly, I would ask, "numbawan?" and they would answer, "numba two!" Whenever the men would see me around, they would shout, "Numba two!" ...it took me about two weeks to realize they were making fun of me. No wonder everyone in the community thought i was "funny and fat-fat."

August 2 - Malekula is crying.

Last night we wrote a song for Kalo Robbie entitled "Brotha, Fire (The Crazy Song) ft. Kalo Robbie" because in the past five weeks our lyric writing skills have improved tremendously. We thought it would be nice to sing it for everyone to get some smiles, because everyone is pretty depressed that we're out of here soon. Liesa then thought it would be a good idea to go GET Kalo and the others, and despite my incumbent stage fright, we sang it for them and had a good laugh. It was a good moment, and I couldn't help but thinking how lucky I was to be sitting around that fire instead of on that boat. Kalo told us that he thought of us as family, and that meant more than words can ever express. (He also gave me and Becca money for kava last night, and told us that when we were gone, he's look up into space and think of us...I don't even think we see the same stars in our hemisphere, but it doesn't matter. He's so great.)

Numbawan!!

At about 5 a.m., just about when we would have been waiting to get on the boat at Lits Lits, the heavens poured down on us, only for about 3 minutes. It was torrential rain, the likes of which I'd never seen before, and I took it as a good , good sign that we weren't getting on that boat (not that we were lacking in other signs) It was still dripping this morning, enough so that I (finally!) wore my 10 dollar yellow rain jacket to go to the toilet - Malekula is crying, she's sad that we're going away.

We went swimming today, despite the rain. We have nothing else to do, and we knew that it was our last chance. We are out of toilet paper, so we drip dry, and we are out of all food except for yams, so tonight Jess and I are preparing the 1st Annual YCI Lambubu Yam Festival.* We'll make yams in every which way we can possibly think of - boiled yams with coconut milk, boiled yams WITHOUT coconut milk, fried yams, yamcakes, roasted yams, purple yams...yams yams yams in all their glory! We have nothing to go with the yams, except coffee-flavored beverage, but that's ok, because yams go well with yams. Beer also goes well with yams, but that, my friends, will have to wait until tomorrow.

*YamFest 2006 was a great success; however, the peeling of the yams gave me an itchy rash on my neck.

Becca and Jess, preparing for the 1st Annual YCI Lambubu Yam Festival.

Me sharing a loving moment with my yam.