Category Archives: travel

9-14 Australia Part 2: The Dry Activities

Lanterns at dusk = magic.

 We spent two days wet. Then we spent five days dry. The wet days get a blog to themselves, but dry days aren’t nearly as interesting. Mostly, we hung out, wandered around town, played on the internet, watched people on the boardwalk, and took afternoon naps.

One afternoon, we went for a walk on the boardwalk. There was a festival going on, so we thought we’d check it out. The festival wasn’t that interesting, but there were artistic interpretations of Chinese lanterns hung in a few trees. I thought they were cool so we stopped and took photos. Then we wandered onward and I didn’t think about it anymore. Until we were heading back to our hostel to get dinner. All the lanterns were lit. It was unexpectedly beautiful. We stopped and played with the camera again.
The false beach in Cairns has false rocks

We went back out to the boardwalk that night. We wanted to go walking. We stopped by a haagen daz (I lack umlauts and the knowledge of how to spell that.) ice cream parlor. There used to be one in uptown Minneapolis but it closed forever ago. It was delicious ice cream. We wandered on with our ice creams. I was thinking about turning around and heading back to the hostel when I heard flute music. Jason and I followed the music to a street performer. We sat and listened to him play and at ice cream and watched the stars.

Down by the boardwalk…

On our last day in Cairns, we rented a car. I haven’t gotten a new copy of my driver’s license since I lost my wallet, so Jason had to drive. He was excited to drive, which was great until they gave us a stick shift. So, we had to change to an automatic and then we were off. We went to Kuranda Wildlife Park and Aboriginal Experience. The wildlife park was decent. The cages seemed a bit small to me, but the animals all seemed content. The guide was very knowledgeable and clearly cared about the animals. He had lots of good stories about how dangerous all the animals are, which is only fair. It is Australia.

Please note the “Don’t get eaten by a crocodile” sign.

The Aboriginal Experience part was cheesy but fun. The guide, wearing a loincloth and body paint, took us to a field where he showed us how to throw a spear both with and without a launcher. Then he played the digerido. He showed us the basic technique and then invited us to try. Jason and another young guy from the group tried it first. Neither of them was terribly successful. Jason sounded like a dying animal. I tried it. I choose to believe I had greater success. I managed to make a noise that ended in a dying animal, instead of being a dying animal all the way through. Next up, we went and learned to throw a boomerang. Jason did pretty well; his got most of the way back to him. I did better than I thought I would.
Feeding a kangaroo!

When we finished with the aboriginal area, we went on a WWII Duck tour. The park has a dozen or so amphibious vehicles from WWII which they take around the nature preserve and point out interesting plants. The coolest part about that was finding out the English names for a bunch of things I see daily and some of the things I eat. We wandered through the orchard after that, which was also super informative.

It made noise.  I’ll take that.

We had a picnic lunch and then went to a little tourist stop where we looked at all the pretty things. There were a lot of pretty things. And a lot of hippies. All the blond dreadlocks and harem pants made me miss Fest. (Let me make myself clear that the blond dreadlocks and harem pants are not the things I miss about Fest, merely associated with all the good things there.) We wandered through the market area which sold a lot of crafts, “magic” stones and other items I would expect at Fest booths. It was nice to have a moment of forgetting that I’m on the other side of the world.

Jason had fun driving on the wrong side of the road. He did a good job staying on the right and staying in the middle of the lane. He did a less good job signaling his turns, however the windshield was very clean by the end of the day. I had fun channel surfing on the radio and watching the scenery.
It was a good and much needed vacation. I look forward to some extended traveling in a few months.
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9-6 Australia Part 1: Diving!

On the boat!

The highlight of this trip was the diving and the dive tour. We booked it well in advance after reading about a bunch of different dive operators. We went with Deep Sea Diver’s Den because it was PADI certified (as opposed to one of the other international certifications), had good reviews and was in the cheap side of the mid-range of prices. We made a good choice.

They picked us up on Monday morning and took us to the wharf where we boarded the first boat. The boat left the harbor and headed for the reef. After about an hour and a half, we stopped at the first dive site. I was glad the dive master who was guiding us made us run through basic skills, since it had been a few months. The other two people we were diving with hadn’t gone in a few years and it showed.

The dive itself was nice. Not the most impressive one we went on, but still, anything on the Great Barrier Reef is pretty much bound to be cool.

We left from that dive site and went further out on the reef where we dove again. After that dive, we joined up with the big, live-aboard boat. Jason and I and a few other people changed boats and put our stuff away. We had about ten minutes to sit down before we were back on the dive deck for dive three.

The fish really liked the ship’s light at night.

At this point some of the dives start running together. I’m not sure which one it was that I spotted the fire fish/ lion fish sleeping under the anchor blocks. (I was having problems equalizing and was going down slower than everyone, so I spotted it.) Then we swam over a turtle, though not a big guy. Only about two feet long. (Different ideas of big turtles started applying on the next dive.) We also saw a black-tipped reef shark that was about five feet long.

We returned to the boat around 5 and had an hour to chill out. I went up top and watched the water. That is a whole lot of blue. We ate tasty food and then went diving again. (Jason would like me to point out that the food was fantastic.)

I watched the sunrise.  It was a good one.

The night dive was very cool. There were big gray fish that have learned to hunt by the light of the torches. If we pointed a torch at a fish, the big fish would swoop in and eat it. It was almost as much fun to watch the other divers as to watch the fish. Each diver became a little pinpoint of light as we swam. It was like watching moving constellations. During our safety stop, (every dive there is a saftey stop before you go all the way up to let your body reacclimate) we covered our flashlights and waved our fingers through the air. There was a full moon and the bioluminescence made trails of sparkles through the water. I had a magic wand in my fingers.

Jason and I were the last group to head up. The boat had a flood light on the back and a bunch of fish were attracted to it. We watched the silhouette of the other divers and the fish in the light as we ascended. We could see little rainbow sparkles in the their bubbles, too.

Dawn over the live-aboard boat.

They fed us again once we were dry. The cook made too much dessert so we had to have two. In the morning, we ate breakfast and immediately got back in the water. We saw a turtle who’s shell was more than a meter long. We saw another turtle and a few more sharks. (Just reef sharks, don’t freak out.)

We moved from that mooring to one closer to shore where we did two dives. The last dive was my favorite. We went in caves. Our dive guide knew which caves popped out at the other end, so he led us through them. In one, the first exit we were heading for was blocked by a giant sea turtle, so we went further in. The second one was really dark and so neat. (Jason was much less impressed. I thought it was awesome.) Also, we swam under a turtle and saw a sleeping shark that was over 2 meters long.

Sleepy head. 

We transfered boats again after lunch and headed back to shore. (Again, Jason would like to say that the food was delicious.) We both napped on the way back in. Diving that much is exhausting, but really cool.

It had been a few months since we’d been diving, so it was good to go again. I had a few rough dives in the middle where I really struggled to keep my buoyancy right. I was pleased with my last two dives where I felt much more in control and calm about it. I still need to stay pretty aware of it, but at least I feel like I can control it and not have it be the only thing I do during my dive.

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8-19 Snafu Part 2: In Which We Discover New and Interesting Hiccups

After yesterday’s debacle at the airport, we’ve spent today sorting out what that means for us. More importantly, what that means for us going on vacation.

Here is a list of barriers to vacation and the state they are currently in, as chronologically as I can remember:

  1. Jason doesn’t have a passport. The US Embassy in PNG has put our passports in a DHL bag. We have the tracking number and are very closely watching its incremental progress to Vanuatu.
  2. Jason has shootings for Love Patrol on Wednesday. I called the director’s assistant, who talked to the director, who checked the script. Jason only has one scene and it isn’t a major one so they can reschedule.
  3. Jason’s residency visa for Vanuatu is associated with his canceled passport. We have a letter stating that Jason has residency. The letter doesn’t have anything about passport numbers, just his name. So, we should be good on that front. We hope.
  4. Jason doesn’t have a visa for Australia. We have to get the passport from the US Embassy and apply online for the Australian visa. We are still waiting on the passport. Again, cross your fingers for us.

So, all of those hiccups make sense for a passport snafu. This is where things fall into the ridiculous realm.

  1. Qantas (the airline we booked through) has dropped its code sharing with Air Vanuatu (the airline we were scheduled to fly on). This seems like a minor issue, on the surface but it turns out that when re-booking this is a huge problem.

Our awesome staff member, Richard, went to Air Vanuatu to discuss our tickets with them. They said they could issue a new ticket and itinerary to the tune of $1000 USD, but since we had originally booked with Qantas, we’d have to buy a new ticket. They wouldn’t honor the old ticket, because they weren’t part of the code share. Then we called Qantas. They saw the new itinerary that Air Vanuatu had created us and said we were already set up. Then Richard looked more closely at the document Air Vanuatu had given us and discovered that it was not a ticket, just an itinerary. So, we called Qantas back and explained that to them. Actually, we called Qantas back and Richard explained that to them. Then Richard explained a few things to them and in the end they gave us tickets for Friday with no additional charge. Richard is magic.

So, as the situation stands right now, we have tickets to Australia. I have a valid passport. Jason’s passport has left Papau New Guinnea and is in transit to Vanuatu. If his passport arrives by Thursday evening, we’re going to Australia on Friday. At least we are looking likely to get our vacation, even if its a week late.

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8-19 Snafu: Part 1

Jason and I are supposed to be in Australia. We are supposed to be exploring Cairns, getting ready to dive the Great Barrier Reef and otherwise relaxing. It was going to be a great vacation.

We arrived at the airport yesterday a full 2 hours before our flight left. We were relaxed and happy and ready for a break. We checked in. There was a hang up with Jason’s passport. We weren’t worried since we have residential visas, sometimes they have to double check our paperwork. When the airline person came back and asked us to chat with the manager, we started to get worried. The manager told us Jason’s passport is invalid. Thus started a fit of phone calls and swear words (not at the same time. Mostly.).

(Let me add as an aside that we both need a break. As much as it may look like we are enjoying our three years holiday on a tropical island, we both work really hard and deal with a lot of stupid things that stress us out. Our mental health has been taking a turn for the worse recently, thus the decision to go to Australia and relax for a week.)

Now, let us take a trip into the past to explain the present. Insert woobly noises here. Back in 2006, Jason got his first passport. In 2008, we realized that his name was misspelled. Before we could get in changed, his passport went into hiding. And by “into hiding” I mean we lost it. Now, let’s move forward in time to 2010. We had to apply for special government passports for PC. Jason submitted the paperwork canceling his personal one and applying for the new one. No problem. I kept my personal one and applied for my new one as well. No problem.

Fast forward again to April of this year. I looked at my personal passport and noticed it had expired. Jason and I discussed some things, including our future plans, and decided it made sense to apply for new personal passports. We filled out some paperwork and submitted it to the US Embassy in PNG. They sent us back an email saying Jason needed to fill out another form. Jason filled out the form and sent it in. They sent us another email a month later saying they misspelled my name. (Everyone misspells my name.) They apologized profusely and said they’d send us the passports as soon as mine got reissued with the correct spelling. That was about 2 months ago.

Yesterday, we found out that rather than canceling Jason’s personal passport, they canceled Jason’s government passport. You know, his only one. This is proving to cause several problems. The first and most pressing is that we aren’t in Australia. This week was the last week we can go on vacation without canceling other meetings, video shootings or workshops before October. So, that sucks. Secondly, Jason no longer has a passport and is living outside the US. I imagine this might be a problem. Thirdly, Jason no longer has a visa to live in this country, because that visa was linked to the canceled passport. I imagine this could also be a problem. Finally, if Jason gets hurt or sick and needs to be medevaced to Australia, he can’t go. I hope this won’t be a problem.

In short, this is a two letter phrase that starts with cluster and rhymes with duck. I’ll keep you updated on our continuing adventures with paperwork in the US government.

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8-3 Playing Tourist on Santo: Water Music and Kastom Dance

Water music

Along with my adventures going to people-I-don’t-know’s wedding, I got to tag along on a water music and kastom dance tour. (This is the fun part of having other PCV’s family come visit. Well, that and meeting people’s families.)

We arrived at the place and were ushered into a small seating area with a natagura roof. In the middle was a young man making kava by basis– stone-ground. He greeted us and the tour guide started talking about the kastom way of making kava, what the ritual is around kava and other anecdotes of the lovely drug we drink. His English was very good and he could answer the questions the other people asked. He sort of used me as a crutch, but I think that was out of habit and embarrassment, he didn’t need me.

More kava pictures…

We each got a shell of basiskava, which was nice. I miss basiskava, it tastes better and is stronger than meat-grinder kava. It was also pretty fresh, as opposed to a lot of Vila kava. The best part was the rest of the groups reaction to the kava. The parents were not going to drink anymore kava, but then didn’t want to be rude. After they drank, they looked at me and said, “It really is better that way.” All the volunteers with us said the same thing. I said, “I told you so.”

The women who perform are all from Gaua directly or are married to men from Gaua. Gaua is one of the larger banks islands and is an active volcano. They said they want to do this kind of tourism there but there aren’t enough tourists, so they came to Lugainville to do it instead. When they got to Lugainville, they needed a place to do it. So, they started a a kava bar to raise money to build a swimming pool. Now, they have a swimming pool and seating for tourists.

Badass face paint, take 1

The women of Gaua do what they call Water Music. They cup their hands in different sizes and slap the water of a pool to create different sounds. I’m not sure I would call it music, at least not music like a concert. I would liken it to a drum line, rather than a symphony. The sounds were mimicries of sounds in nature, like the sound a bird makes taking off from the water, or rain on a nataguraroof. Still, it was neat to hear and watch. I imagine it would be more impressive with more people, but it is midwinter here and not a lot of women were willing to get in the water.

Badass face- and body-paint

After the water music, we turned our chairs around and faced the dancing ground. The men came out and performed three kastomdances. My chair was at an awkward angle for photography, so I sat on the floor with my legs dangling over the edge of the stage. One of the dances was about kava, including the effects of kava. One of the effects of kava, is staggering around and holding onto your friends. The dancer who ended up in front of me grabbed onto my legs, instead of his dance partner. It was a cute touch to performance.

Afterward, we got pictures and refreshments. We were the last tour group of the day, so the tour guides sat and chatted with us longer than usual. I’m willing to guess that was partly due to being able to chat in Bislama, too. Still, we wandered over to their kava bar to wait for the bus and had a shell with them. The bus was late (of course), so we had a few shells with them. Unfortunately, it was not basiskava.

Every once in awhile, I do silly tourist things.

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7-31 Santo Photos

Bottle recycling at its best.  These were dug into the ground to create planters.

More bottle recycling, also for planters, though these hang against a wall for vertical gardening.

Wedding at dusk.  Waiting for the canoe to take her away and back again.
Playing tourist.  The dancer let me borrow his hat.

Water music is stret kastom blo Gaua.  These women are all from Gaua and played for us.

Giant moon over the water by San Michel.

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7-24 Tourism and Weddings

Tourism is the biggest industry in Vanuatu. Recently, I’ve noticed more people doing “destination weddings” here. It may just be that I moved into town where the “destination” part is more likely to happen, rather than that there is any real increase in weddings, too. On Monday evening, I got to see this industry up close.

While I’ve been visiting Santo, I’ve spent some time playing tourist. Though part of it is research, part of it is that my visit happened to coincide with another volunteer’s family coming into town. I’ve been tagging along on the more interesting events for that. On Monday, his mom and step-dad got married on a beach in Vanuatu.
Honestly, I just like this shot.
We arrived at about 5pm, just as it was starting to get dark. They immediately swept Andrea away and into a private hut to change clothes. And by change clothes, I do mean reduce clothes. She walked in wearing a lovely blue dress and walked out wearing a lot of leaves. The mama who made the skirt, neck piece, bra and crown was a super cute older woman. I learned later that she loves to dance because she totally got down with the PCVs.
I was the photographer for the women’s part. Mike did the photography for the men’s part. So, I don’t have any pictures of what happened to Bill, nor do I have any idea what happened to him. By the time we came out, he was safely dressed in a nambas and surrounded by a bunch of young men.
Off to the “new island” for the bride exchange.
They put Andrea on a canoe with a young man who paddled her out around the point. He blew a bubu shell horn as they traveled and the men went to wait on the beach. As they approached, one of the men on the beach stood forward and said, “You can’t land here. Not unless you pay me pigs.”
That started a short skit that went something like this:
Chief on Land: You can’t land here. Not unless you pay me pigs.
Chief on Boat: I don’t have any pigs.
Land: Then you have to fight my warriors.
Boat: I can’t fight your warriors.
Land: Then your daughter has to marry my son.
Boat: My daughter will marry your son.
The “procession” to the marriage arch.  Accompanied by string band.
The two on the boat disembarked and they walked to the group of men where the happy couple were formally “introduced” to each other. Then we walked over to the archway they’d covered in leaves an flowers and a priest performed a short ceremony. I wasn’t listening to most of it, I was busy taking pictures.
They exchanged rings made of coconut leaves and then the priest blessed the union. The boys who had been warriors during the skit turned out to be a string band who played the first song for the happy couple to dance to. After the first dance, we took a break to cut the wedding cake, which was yam laplap. The happy couple toasted their marriage with green coconuts and we got back to dancing. (Neither of them liked the coconuts so Hunter and I drank them instead.) We all munched on fresh fruit, sandwiches and fried tuna cakes while a couple of the guys went to get kava. We toasted with the kava and called it a night.
Blessing the joining at the end.
It was a fun, cheesy fusion between island and western. I enjoyed it and the rest of the volunteers there seemed to, as well.
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7-20 Work Trip Rollercoaster

 I’m in Santo. I came up north on Thursday morning and will be staying for a week.

Setting up the CD player
Brian and I are visiting schools around Santo to check on, and encourage, their Environment Committees. We should be hitting 2 schools a day every weekday and one school as an overnight because its out of town. When I’m not at the schools, I’m teaching poi spinning and recycled arts class in the youth center. It’s going to be a busy week. Unfortunately, it got off to a rough start.
Thursday morning, I left Vila. I had to get up at 5am to catch the plane. That is never a good start to my day. Then, when we arrived in Lugainville, we discovered that I did not, in fact, have a hotel room. The hotel had mis-booked us. We decided to leave our stuff in Brian’s room and go drop letter off at the schools. Brian grabbed the letters, only to realize they were empty envelopes and he’d forgotten the letters in Vila.
We stopped by the northern branch of Wan SmolBag, Northern Care Youth Clinic (NCYC), long enough to write and print new letters, then went around to the schools dropping them off. Because there is no mail system, no reliable internet and no landlines, the best way to inform a school we are coming is to go to the school and drop off a letter. We tried to get a hold of anyone in the one school we couldn’t easily drive to. We failed.
LION!
Friday morning, we went to the first school. It was a great success. The students were curious and engaged, the head mistress was excited to have us there and the teacher came to our lesson. The teacher even came up with ideas for the environment committee to do for their next lesson, without my giving them to her.
Friday midday, we found out that our plans for Friday afternoon had just fallen through. So, instead, I went to NCYC. I thought I’d teach a poi spinning class. Turns out, I walked head first into a massive hornet’s nest of politics. Ugh. I spent all afternoon discussing the situation with various people. At the end, the youth center coordinator and I decided out best option was to go to the “fire show” that was on for the evening. We didn’t actually know when it started, but we had a person in the village who would call us when they were announced.
I left NCYC and went to meet someone at a bar. This person usually drinks at this bar on Friday evenings, and I want to contact him. I didn’t have any other contact information, so I went to the bar and stood around awkwardly. Eventually, I discovered he was not there.
Fire spinning
The youth center coordinator called me and I met her on the road. We went to the fire show. It was not bad, but it was also not good. Then we decided to drink some kava. Then our taxi forgot us, for two hours. We drank a lot of kava. Our taxi did eventually come back for us. I got back to my hotel at 11 pm.
If the rest of the week is this much of a roller coaster, I’m going to need like a week to recover when I get back.
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5-2 Back to the Land of Hills and Taro

Some guys went net fishing.  That’s Ambae in the background.
I went back to Pentecost for 4 days. I was sent for official Peace Corps business, which means I didn’t get to chose where I was going, so I saw North Pentecost, but not my beloved Central. Maybe next time.
As a Peace Corps Volunteer Leader, part of my job description says I should be doing site visits. Every year, each volunteer should be visited by a staff member. The visit is a forum for the community to discuss the PCV’s work, family situation and overall demeanor and for the PCV to address any issues they are having. Basically, it is the “are you doing your job?” check up. There are 65 PCVs currently in Vanuatu. Which hopefully means lots of traveling for me. I’m crossing my fingers anyway.
I followed Judy, a staff member, on her site visit to my friend Mike’s site. He lives in Nabarangiut, the village I visited way back in Christmas of 2010. Not many people recognized me, since I’ve lost weight and cut my hair. A few did though, which was fun.
The sun was strong, so they gave me an umbrella.  It makes sense here, I promise.
The official work happen on Thursday. We met with Mike and then with his community. It was an easy visit. His community’s main question was how they could get him to extend for another year. For complaints to have, that’s probably the best one I can think of. They also had questions about the water project he’s been working on, which is being funded through the grants that I’m on the committee for. Convenient. I spent awhile explaining the long and complicated road that their money had gone on to reach them and how it would be there soon. They were glad to hear it. I even got applause.
Baby Alex is now Toddler Alex.  And pretty cute.
Mike’s community felt bad for him trying to feed five people. I think they realized that was outside of his cooking capabilities. (There was another PCV visiting him and Judy brought her son.) So, the community set up a feeding rotation. They told us where to be for each meal and we showed up to massive feasts each time. I got my fill of water taro.
One of the places we dined was the previous PCV’s host family. Shortly before they left, a baby was born and named Alex in her honor. I took pictures of baby Alex to pass along to her. Then I took pictures of the village and the family, because they wanted me to pass those along, too. I will, because I hope that in a year or two someone sends me pictures of Vansemakul and the people there.
Mike is fearless about jumping in the waterfall.
We had enough time on Friday to cool off at the waterfall. It was the first time Troy, Judy’s son, had seen a waterfall. He’s a Vila boy. He got excited then freaked out and refused to come back in the water. I guess that’s how small children are. Mike on the other hand, had no fear and climbed around the top to jump in. Crazy man.
It was fun to visit Mike and see Maureen. I enjoyed a brief return to Pentecost. I wish I could have gotten down to Central. That would have made my month. Next time.
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4-25 Photos from the Pentecost Trip

Maureen, in hip deep water at Mike’s site.  

Fishing.  The splashing is the swimmers driving the fish toward the net hooked on the canoe.

Can anyone identify this guy?  Seriously, it is a fish, at least it jumped out of the water and lacks limbs but it was chilling on that rock for like ten minutes.  Which implies to me that it doesn’t use the gill method of breathing.

Baby Alex, named after a PCV.

Market Day!  We found a market full of laplap and oranges.

She was terrified of me, but I got her picture before she ran away.  It was hot so her mother wrapped her head in a towel to keep the sun off her.

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