Wow it's been a year and I am lazy!
Trip Start
Sep 21, 2007
1
39
Trip End
Ongoing
Lamap,
Vanuatu
Friday, October 3, 2008
I am absolutely having the time of my life. Mostly good times. But even the bad moments serves meaningful purpose.
Weather was beautiful the last few months. Mosquitoes weren't as much a problem as they were back in Jan-Apr. Loved the fact that it didn't rain as much. It's such an irony that rain is the source of life but too much of it is just annoying.
We got cell phone coverage in my area now. That's huge. It was >1000 people sharing 3 public phones that didn't always work.
Hiked the interior of Malekula bush for 42km. Doing the hike in flip-flops was just dumb and paid the price of various cuts on my feet. There were some seriously isolated and inaccessible villages along the way. Those people live a TRULY hardcore life.
Learning to play the ukulele makes me realize I am over analyzing it. It's an engineer's habit that's hard to break. Artistic stuff needs the subconscious part of the mind to steer the fingers.
It's a myth that doing workshops and awareness talks constitutes good efforts for development work. There is no quantifiable result to speak of.
I caught a huge pelagic fish (don't know the name of it) on an 80lb handline that was enough to feed 15+ people. To be honest I couldn't reel it in on my bare hands because I felt like the line was going to cut my fingers off. A ni-van on the boat reeled it in for me with his 'seasoned' hands.
Read lots of books, some very interesting.
Attended some sort of custom dance. Real neat. Maybe the culturally defining moment of my service so far!
