THE LIFE OF A VOLUNTEER

It’s still too soon for most volunteers to have got any projects started, but I hope to hear fom other PCV’s from my group. Two of them are currently visiting Tanna, and one from another group recently visited as well, to learn about the coffee industry down here so they can help replicate the success on other islands. And from them I’ve learned just tiny bits of un-verified gossip about life on other islands.

• One girl left her site after it became clear the only thing her counterpart wanted her to do was to help him set up some sort of micro-finance scheme.
• Another fella had some ideas of starting an ice cream factory (I know!), but is now recovering in Vila from a back injury.
• A PCV teacher (from a different group) just told me that his counterpart who is also the head of his school is now M.I.A. leaving him the only guy at the school and leaving the community wondering what he’s gonna do about it.
• One woman was medi-vac’d to Sydney for a dental procedure unavailable in Vanuatu.
• One girl was banned from our training village reportedly for kissing on all the boys.
• A Tanna PCV enjoyed a piece of fish and 30 minutes later, while walking up a road to the provice offices, experienced unannounced and unstoppable anal leakage. An oily substance, he likes to clarify – always telling the story while we are dining of fish.
• Another Tanna PCV was virtually attacked by a large group of missionaries who put their hands all over him, told him he was holding an imaginary candle, and loudly prayed for his soul.
• Another guy who sold his computer sales business to “do something completely different in the Peace Corps” was planning to work on a fisheries project but is now reportedly teaching computer skills.
• Similarly another guy left behind more than a decade in America’s coffee retail industry for a uniquely new experience and yet is now running a coffee factory in Tanna. And has a toothache. And is afraid to eat fish. And is vigilant about his proximity to missionaries.