Before my departure for Vanuatu, many people asked where I was going and when I told them my destination, they would say something along the lines of “Oh that’s not a real Peace Corps experience, it’s just a two year vacation”.
This statement bothered me slightly, because it made it seem that a vacation is what I thought I’d be embarking on. I will tell you this… Yes this Vanuatu experience is different from other posts - it is quite the unique Peace Corps experience in fact. But standing out in the rain to get all the shampoo out of my hair because bucket showers don’t provide enough water pressure to wash it out does not sound like a vacation to me. I’m here to learn and I’m here to work.
It’s funny, I was reading Kenny’s Peace Corps Kazakhstan Newsletter (see PUT BLOG HERE for Kenny’s hilarious blog about his service in the Kaz) and there were some similar topics that are brought up in Peace Corps Vanuatu’s Newsletter. Domestic Violence, advice to Volunteers who are COSing (PC lingo for Close of Service… meaning they did their time and are packing up for their return to plush America). But as I come to my close of training, I am already beginning to see how my experience will be quite different from his. I won’t be freezing my ass off, that’s for sure. I won’t need to grow a beard to keep fight off frost bite. I won’t have to find a way to survive solely on beets for half a year.
But I will have to make some big adjustments that I think people do not realize about serving in the Pacific Islands. First, I’ll have to learn how to schedule my laundry washing days due to the scattered cyclone-like rain that tears through here randomly. It could be nice and sunny in the morning when I begin scrubbing my clothes, but after I hang them on the line and walk off to go to Technical Training, it will down pour, my clothes will get black mold, and I’ll have to do it all over again.
I will have to find a way to make laplap delicious, or at least find a way to come to terms with straight up manioc and taro. One Volunteer told me she now thinks laplap is like pizza, and curdled coconut milk is like cheese. Isolation from the Western world can truly stretch one’s imagination. I think it’s already starting to grow on me, as I found myself salivating over it last night.
I will have to find a way to come to terms with my island dress. Even on hot days. It’s not too bad – it allows me not to need to wear undergarments.
I have to find a way to not breathe when I go to poop in the long hole in the ground. That or somehow tell myself that poop is the new Febreeze.
On that note, I’ll also have to come to terms with the fact that all of my belongings will be constantly moist due to the humidity, and I will smell of BO basically every day. With or without my bucket shower.
I will have to accept the fact that if something seriously bad happens to me out on my island, like a freak accident, I’m either on my own or shit out of luck. Vanuatu is different from other posts because it’s so isolated from the rest of the world, but all the islands that make up Vanuatu are incredibly far from one another as well. There is no coast guard, helicopters, or as I learned last week in a very hard lesson there are very few well trained doctors or trained health care workers. I will say that I have the best health care from the Peace Corps doc and nurse than I’ve ever had in my life. But sapos I’m on my island and I stop breathing, my best bet is to text nearest volunteer to get their ass over, even though they are over a one to four hours away. And by that time I’ll be dead.
Isolation will take on a whole new meaning. While I will be surrounded by Ni-Vans constantly, the closest westerner could be both a boat ride and then a plane ride and then another boat ride away. Isolation from other volunteers, and isolation from people back in the US. It for sure that I will not have internet access… maybe every 2 or 3 months.
I’ll have to find a way to keep myself occupied without the use of electronics or electricity for that matter. Boredom is something they don’t really talk about in the PCV experience. Some days there is a lot of sitting around, waiting for a fish to bite. Your community probably won’t want to do some kind of project every minute of every day. I think in other countries, some might turn on to their lap top, read a book, go on the internet. Those are great ways to keep occupied! But ya know, without electricity, internet is out of the question (and depending on where I’m placed, cell phone use might also not be an option either), I can only watch one movie before my laptop dies, or read my book until the daylight runs out or until my solar light runs out of charge. But that’s the beauty of my solar light. I’m learning how to conserve the light in light of my lack of electricity and some days sun. I think learning to live off what you need and what you have has been one of my biggest lessons thus far from training.
I think if you are thinking about joining or applying for Peace Corps, you should know this: Every country is a completely different experience and PCVs will have completely different things to say. You can ask your friend who did Peace Corps in Cambodia “What’s it like to be a PCV?” and they will have a completely different answer than one who volunteered in Morocco. And you won’t REALLY know where you are going to be sent until you get that letter for staging. Actually… make that when you’re actually past customs in said country will you really know where you’re going. Definitely ask around, but take it with a grain of salt. Even mine.
