We had visitors. Many of them, some serially, some overlapping.

We made plans for our neighbor from the south to come visit. Her mama’s church group was coming up to Central Pentecost so she thought she’d come for a visit. The day before they were meant to come, her village got in a row(argument) with another village. The argument escalated quickly to violence and the church trip got canceled. After a day of hiding in the bush, sleeping under guard and generally acting crazy, she decided she needed a break from her village. She came to visit us.

Lucky for us, her boat driver’s luck was strong and he caught a bunch of tuna on the way up. He caught enough that he gave us two, which I promptly shared with some folks in my village. We had to figure out how to gut the fish we kept. We got as far as stab the knife in and realized that between the three of us, we hadn’t a clue how to gut a fish. Our collective knowledge got as far as, “Well, I saw someone do it once when I was younger…” That was insufficient for gutting our own fish. One of my mamas walked past, so I sang out and asked her for help. We gave her half the fish in thank you for gutting it. As it was, there was still more than the two of them could eat and I had my obligatory bite.

The next day, the volunteer in North Pentecost called us up and asked if he could come down for a visit. One of the ships was coming through and he could jump on to get down the coast. Of course, we said yes. He came down midday while we were at a volleyball tournament. He got dropped off at the dock by the tournament and we spent the day doing that.

As of tomorrow, they will be leaving us to head south. The northern PCV meant to go back that way, but the ship decided to skip Pentecost on this trip so he has to wait until the next one. He’s going to go walk about for a week and head back to site early next week.

Tomorrow, we will be hosting our boss. She came in on Monday and has been staying at the house in Melsisi with Alexandra. She will be staying with us for three nights and doing an official “site visit.” the idea is that Peace Corps tries to keep tabs on the volunteers by visiting once a year to listen to the community’s concerns and the PCVs concerns, or just to hang out and see if we’re still alive. She meant to come for two days. This is Vanuatu so she’ll be staying for five.

The same day she leaves, we are hosting our English neighbors from Melsisi. They wanted to get out of Melsisi for a night or two. Easter is coming up and that will be a long time to spend stuck in one place, so they’ll be here for a visit.

I think I will be able to run a B&B by the end of the week. Next up, get sleeping space for more than one more person. It can’t be a proper B&B if you have to sleep on the floor. Then again, there is no included laundry service.