3 1/2 MINUTES or 5,000 YEARS

I heard it from a reliable source, who heard it from someone, who maybe overheard it said by someone who may have once read it in a book hopefully written by knowledgeable scientist-types who made the claim that Vanuatu is about 5,000 years behind what we would call the modern world. By “behind” we mean to say development of the mind and of the culture.

Five. Thousand. Years.

This sounds about right to me.

It’s also interesting to note that similar scientist-types have estimated Ni-Vans arrival on this little archipelago of islands to be about 4,000 years ago. So doing some quick math we can easily see, assuming all assumptions are reasonable, that these people have not experienced any freaking development since the day they set foot here.

Jeff Robinson, paraphrasing some others, once told me when I asked him his thoughts on Ni-Vans:

“Had you asked me after I had been here for one month I could have written you a book about Ni-Vans. Had you asked me after I had been here for one year I could have written maybe a page. And now you are asking me today and I couldn’t even write one sensible paragraph.”

The quote, as indicated, is not original but is certainly apt. I’ve been in this place for about 4 months and I’m beginning to really see his point of view. I would like to try and explain it to you – explain “Man-Tanna” as I’m coming to understand him – on this blog. Problem is that this whole 5,000 year thing works in BOTH directions. They are so far “behind” and “out-of-the-loop” that it makes it really difficult (and often impossible) for them to understand anything of the outside world and our way of thinking. At the same time, we being so “ahead” and “in-the-loop” makes it equally difficult (and often mind-bogglingly impossible) to understand where they are coming from and how they think and what motivates their actions, or inactions – as the case usually is.

And for the record I hate to use the terminology of “behind” and “ahead”. It’s all relative and only indicative of what WE know of OUR world and our level of development. But I suppose it’s reasonable enough for the point I need to make. They really are, in so many ways, about 5,000 years behind – and it shows up in strange, frustrating and sometimes funny ways. I hope to share some of those stories over the next two years.

None of this is to say that they don’t have things we would consider developed, such as electricity, which arrived in Tanna about 3 years ago and which is only available to select areas and even fewer users since it requires vatu (the currency) to pay for electricity and most of these people have been living off the land and continue to do so. Most only do vatu producing work on an “as needed” basis. As in, the store closest to me is open whenever the owner needs to make some vatu to pay for his kava. This may mean a couple hours Monday morning, but not again until Thursday afternoon or some sillyness like that. That sort of thing happens all over this island nation.

Another note about terminology:

Before coming here I did some checking up on the term “third world country” because I wanted to find out who was on that list. Turns out the origin of that word is from the Cold War and really has nothing directly to do with development. The powers that be in the United States started using the terminology “First World” to define any country that fell under our “sphere of influence” and “Second World” to define any country that fell under the “sphere of influence” of the U.S.S.R. In this way we divided up the planet. Anything not making either list was considered the “Third World” – basically the places neither of the super-powers gave a rats ass about. Most of the places Peace Corps sends volunteers, including Vanuatu, makes that rats ass list.

In any event, we like to call these third world places “Developing Nations” which has more than a hint of optimism in it.

But what we REALLY mean is “Nations We Are Trying To Develop”.

Sometimes we are dragging the people along – for better and sometimes for worse. Some times we are doing all the work. Often the work we do falls apart after we leave, if it’s not cared for by others like us. It’s enough to make you question the whole point of doing development work. Everything has to start with education and bringing people into the knowledge of the world. But this is tricky since education requires money and if you don’t have money well then you don’t get no education.

Of course, it’s the Peace Corps philosophy to work at the grass roots level and to try and only do things that can be sustained by the locals. We train as we go.

In my case my biggest hope is that the work I do, sustaining and expanding the local coffee industry, continues to provide a source of vatu that is then used to pay for the school fees for the next generation of Ni-Vans. If this keeps going in cycles then in a perfect world they will be able to provide their own technical assistance, provide their own teachers, provide their own health workers.

As it is now in Vanuatu damn near everything and anything of ANY substance has been donated, loaned, or granted by a foreign government or aide organization. And most of these “things” are operated or managed or given "over-sight" by outsiders even if they have a full staff of locals. That’s just the reality. In fact, fully half the operating budget of the federal government of Vanuatu is entirely foreign aide.

And now they are getting about $70 million more from the U.S. in the form of the Millenium Challenge. This is a cool program since it “challenges” the governments to earn the money by being clean, transparent, and I suppose democratic. I haven’t read all the fine print, just what I’ve heard from different people around the streets. Apparently they are going to pave the roads on several of the islands. This will be a very good thing since the dirt roads kill the life span of the few vehicles they do own.

Anyway…

Why are they 5,000 years behind us? This is a valid question and I’ve decided that it’s a multi-faceted monster that combines some of what I know of Jared Diamonds ideas, some of what I know of Thomas Friedman’s ideas, and then the almighty X-factor. A preliminary short list might look something like this:

Things they can’t control:

Isolation
Resources

Cultural things they can control:

Curiosity (lack thereof)
Ingenuity (lack thereof)
Leadership/Inspiration (lack thereof)
Sharing of Information (lack thereof)

And then, of course:

The X-Factor


This is a pretty big post and I’m running out of time so before I delve into these different things I’ll share one little story...

At the coffee factory, which was built before electricity and plumbed water, a modern bathroom was added on to the back of the building some years ago. You actually have to go outside and walk around to the back to enter the tiny plywood-walled bathroom. When I say modern I mean it has a wash basin with faucet and flushing toilet with running water that comes from a hose attached to a nearby water tank. The hose, apparently, jutted out from the base of the wall, but about 6 inches above ground level, before disappearing into the soil and re-emerging just 2 yards away at the base of the tank.

Before this bathroom they used a bush toilet – nothing but a hole in the ground surrounded by flimsy thatch walls (usually only on three sides). The hole would be covered by logs criss-crossed on top of each other such that you would place your legs on parallel logs above the hole and hope that the structure didn’t decide to collapse you into the hole while you were taking care of business. And there is certainly no paper. Leaves if you’re lucky. An altogether unpleasant experience.

So as it turns out this “modern” semi-pleasant bathroom has been in-operable since long before I came to Vanuatu. Just sitting there not being used collecting cobwebs and dust. It no longer had running water but no one could explain why. In fact, no one seemed to care.

One day Jeff went out determined to figure out the problem and discovered the original water line hidden behind some weeds. It had been sliced clean in half.

So.

What this means is that at one time, maybe many years ago, someone was using a bush knife to cut the weeds and accidentally sliced the water line to the bathroom. Instead of fixing the problem, which would have required very little work, they simply went back to using the nasty bush toilet.

This is a tiny story, and maybe not even a particularly good one, but it helps begin to illustrate Man-Tanna. They could have had a fully operable, clean and flushable toilet, but simply didn’t bother to patch or replace the water line once it had become broken.

Was it because they didn’t know how to fix the water line? Maybe, but not likely.

Could they not afford to fix it? Possibly, but a little duct tape would’ve worked for the short term.

Could they not decide who was responsible for fixing it? Getting hotter.

Did they not give a shit since they could simply go back to using the bush toilet they’ve used for generations and not be bothered with modern technology which fails them at times and requires maintenance and cleaning and sometimes money and certainly headaches and heartburn and so forth? Hot, hot, hot.

Truth is I don’t know, and I don’t care because now we have a fully operable, flushing toilet once again.

It took us three and a half minutes.