We are just getting ready to head off to the Anchor Bar in order to have dinner and watch the state of origin. I am dressed in the closest thing I have in my wardrobe to the colour maroon. ;)
Woke up bright and early to the sounds of cars going past our bedroom window and noises from the market across the road. At least I didn't have to have another cold shower this morning because I knew that my cleanliness would not last long. A little bit of incentive to get moving though was from the discussion the night before that the first 4 who were ready would get to catch a bus to school along with all our donations to the school. We had games, and balls, and clothes. There was quite a lot... I did prioritise a coffee, but I managed to get fourth in line. Phew.
Once we arrived at church we got moving pretty quickly. We opened a new paint tin, we got another ladder. Harvey took on the role of foreman, and we had about 15 young men from the church turn up and paint, and many of them took the jobs on the ladders so that was a bit of a relief. Apart from it being a little bit hot, we had quite a quick painting session. Managed to finish the undercoat on the front and side. Looks great! We were finished by about 11.
Hmm ... what was everyone else doing. Well David and Ben finished off the computer room, getting the extra power boards and tidying up all the cabling. Once that was finished a lot of young children crammed into the room, getting acquianted with programs like "paint" and "solitaire". We were impressed to see how enthusisastic everyone was - although it was a big challenge explaining how to use a mouse to someone. "Click" and "Move" were my starting words.
There is a man from Australia who is helping out at the church, his name is David. I sat in on an English lesson he gave to the kids. It was lovely to see them sounding out the words. One of the Wesley team members who was sitting with me, turned to me at one point and said "I didn't know that was how you spelt yacht". So yeah ... the kids are being taught very well :)
Our lunch was of bagettes and assorted toppings - Peanut Butter and banana is a WINNER! We also tried a fruit called "corossol", which I had tried yesterday. Such an unusual flavour and texture. A bit like mango, a bit like pineapple, a bit like chewing gum. I was delighted to see it did not have the laxative effect I had originally anticipated it would - but it certainly has a lot of fibre. Too much information?
After lunch was sports time for the kids at the school. I learnt where the sports fields are, and some of the kids were up the trees. That didn't seem to go for very long, and we came back to the hotel. I have had a sleep. Anyway. Better go. Go maroons!!!!
Wednesday, 4 July 2012
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
Hideaway Island
Today we took the day off from visiting the church and helping out ... we all felt it was well time for a beach day.
The day started with a lovely sleep-in and we met at ten o'clock and caught a bus from just outside where we are staying.... i was amazed that we fit all 12 of us plus the driver in one minivan! We enjoyed the views as we traveled to Hideaway Island. The beach was beautiful and you can see photos of it on facebook. To my surprise the beaches here have very little sand and there was coral where sand would be on an Aussie beach. Apart from the lack of sand, it was amazing because we were swimming among the fish, and they would swim so close and not be scared away by people.
We all had a go at snorkeling whilst we were at the beach ... for some of us including myself this was the first time, and was truly incredible!
Also at Hideaway island there is the worlds only underwater post office which we all had turns to stand on top of it. Later in the day some of the group (Jono, Adam, Ash, Dave, Nika, Harv, Kaye, and Tom) went on a snorkeling tour of the reef, Whilst myself, Ben, Katherine and Nami stayed on the beach, and had some lovely drinks and lunch before going back to do some more swimming.
After we returned most of the group headed down to the markets then headed out to Vietnamese for dinner whilst some stayed back and cooked food for dinner.
A good day, 4 days down, 6 to go!
The day started with a lovely sleep-in and we met at ten o'clock and caught a bus from just outside where we are staying.... i was amazed that we fit all 12 of us plus the driver in one minivan! We enjoyed the views as we traveled to Hideaway Island. The beach was beautiful and you can see photos of it on facebook. To my surprise the beaches here have very little sand and there was coral where sand would be on an Aussie beach. Apart from the lack of sand, it was amazing because we were swimming among the fish, and they would swim so close and not be scared away by people.
We all had a go at snorkeling whilst we were at the beach ... for some of us including myself this was the first time, and was truly incredible!
Also at Hideaway island there is the worlds only underwater post office which we all had turns to stand on top of it. Later in the day some of the group (Jono, Adam, Ash, Dave, Nika, Harv, Kaye, and Tom) went on a snorkeling tour of the reef, Whilst myself, Ben, Katherine and Nami stayed on the beach, and had some lovely drinks and lunch before going back to do some more swimming.
After we returned most of the group headed down to the markets then headed out to Vietnamese for dinner whilst some stayed back and cooked food for dinner.
A good day, 4 days down, 6 to go!
Monday, 2 July 2012
Nectar of the Gods
Another magnificent day. Not quite as hot today, still pretty hot ... and had a nice breeze in the afternoon - I think we were all grateful.
So today was our first day of "work" in Vanuatu. Yesterday we discovered that the classroom that we were to put the computers in had no desks, so Harvey and David went early to the hardware store early to get some wood in order to make desks. We borrowed a sander, and a drill, and at the end of the day we have some magificent desks, with computers on them, and all but one of the computers survived the trip. Harvey was just mentioning how good it was that everything worked today, the equipment we had survived the heat, we had enough wood - at one point they were putting legs on the desks, and ran out of wood - they looked up into the roof and there was a piece of wood almost exactly the right length. Yay God!
Unfortunately the keybords for the computers are currently MIA which is disapointing. But it was interesting to watch the kids just learning how to use a mouse - we had a bunch of them playing solitaire in the room at the end of the day. Daniel, the principal, is very happy what we've been able to achieve and he told us how excited the kids will be to be able to try them out.
We woke up bright and early in order to get to the school on time. I went to get another coffee (take away this time) and the market had opened. For 100 Vatu (about 1 dollar) Harvey had found a bunch of passionfruit. The first one I had was a little tart, but amazingly fresh. The second I had was a little sweeter. Harv called it "Nectar of the Gods".
We walked up the hill to the church. There is a long set of stairs to get on to the plateau. I find that I like to turn around on the set of stairs and and take a look at the view, which is breathtaking, but not quite as "breathtaking" as the walk up the stairs itself. Most others seem to cope pretty well with it, and I cope well enough that I am only slightly tempted to spend a buck-fifty on a bus.
We arrived roughly on 8am - and the teachers amongst us headed into the classrooms where kids broke into hearty rounds of the Vanuatu Anthem, If you're happy and you know it, and My God is so Big. Harv and David arrived in a ute with the rest of the boxes, and we set to work unpacking them, and cutting up the wood for the benches.
I went to start us on painting of the church but it turned out there were a few hurdles to doing that. We had to get the key, and we had to get the paint itself open. Harvey ended up having to hammer it open. We then started painting. The paint was quite thick, and we started slapping it on. we figured out a bit later that we could water it down a bit and it would slap on a bit easier, but the team got together and went really well. Nami went up top on the ladder, I alternated between standing, sitting on a chair, and standing on a chair. And others did similar. We managed to get two panels of the church done, and they look really great! I was particularly proud of my ingenuity in drinking a lot of my water and then cutting the top off to make a paint can. I have never used a hacksaw on a water bottle before, and I can tell you that it works ok. I bet you needed to know that :)
As we got a bit bored while painting we started doing some extra things to keep ourselves entertained. Like singing. I ran out of Aussie tunes pretty quick. We did a bit of bohemian rhapsody, and even a little Katy Perry. I need to google some more lyrics for tomorrow. Any suggestions please!!!
Nerida and Kaye wandered down to the market and got us some lunch. For 100 vatu they got a hand of bananas - really little ones which tasted lovely and sweet. I think I ate three. Also some cucumber, which I had on a bagette with some peanut butter. Very satisfying.
We had fun playing with the kids too. I wasn't quite as good at the scissors/paper/rock game as yesterday, but still had fun (and I think they liked our singing). Adam and Jono continue to make relationships with some of the young boys there - and to be honest the fun I see them havihg is exactly - exactly what I was hoping we would be doing. I keep remembering the story of Martha and Mary in the bible. With ... Mary I think it was, sitting with Jesus, having a chat, and Martha in the kitchen getting narky. I have had the "you guys gotta do more work" thing in my head a few times, but I turn it around almost straight away, I only hope that we all get to have a balance of our Martha and Mary time.
This afternoon Adam and Jono went down the back of the church and the boys cooked them some sweet potato and fruit in a fire that they built. They played soccer next to the church. It was pretty fun to watch them play together.
Not everyone is coping with Vanuatu time, but some are growing to love it. Tomorrow we are heading to the beach, and I'm really looking forward to a nice relaxing day. Although I think I will be happy to get back to the church on Wednesday and teach the kids some computering, and do some more painting.
Adam has just demonstrated some self torture by eating a very hot chilli in front of us. This is exactly what I was worried about since ... well let's face it ... a while now. I guess with the excellent relationship building and willingness to try new things, you also get the extremely bizarre chilli eating behaviour. Umm ... and on that note, I'm calling it a night. REALLY need a shower.
So today was our first day of "work" in Vanuatu. Yesterday we discovered that the classroom that we were to put the computers in had no desks, so Harvey and David went early to the hardware store early to get some wood in order to make desks. We borrowed a sander, and a drill, and at the end of the day we have some magificent desks, with computers on them, and all but one of the computers survived the trip. Harvey was just mentioning how good it was that everything worked today, the equipment we had survived the heat, we had enough wood - at one point they were putting legs on the desks, and ran out of wood - they looked up into the roof and there was a piece of wood almost exactly the right length. Yay God!
Unfortunately the keybords for the computers are currently MIA which is disapointing. But it was interesting to watch the kids just learning how to use a mouse - we had a bunch of them playing solitaire in the room at the end of the day. Daniel, the principal, is very happy what we've been able to achieve and he told us how excited the kids will be to be able to try them out.
We woke up bright and early in order to get to the school on time. I went to get another coffee (take away this time) and the market had opened. For 100 Vatu (about 1 dollar) Harvey had found a bunch of passionfruit. The first one I had was a little tart, but amazingly fresh. The second I had was a little sweeter. Harv called it "Nectar of the Gods".
We walked up the hill to the church. There is a long set of stairs to get on to the plateau. I find that I like to turn around on the set of stairs and and take a look at the view, which is breathtaking, but not quite as "breathtaking" as the walk up the stairs itself. Most others seem to cope pretty well with it, and I cope well enough that I am only slightly tempted to spend a buck-fifty on a bus.
We arrived roughly on 8am - and the teachers amongst us headed into the classrooms where kids broke into hearty rounds of the Vanuatu Anthem, If you're happy and you know it, and My God is so Big. Harv and David arrived in a ute with the rest of the boxes, and we set to work unpacking them, and cutting up the wood for the benches.
I went to start us on painting of the church but it turned out there were a few hurdles to doing that. We had to get the key, and we had to get the paint itself open. Harvey ended up having to hammer it open. We then started painting. The paint was quite thick, and we started slapping it on. we figured out a bit later that we could water it down a bit and it would slap on a bit easier, but the team got together and went really well. Nami went up top on the ladder, I alternated between standing, sitting on a chair, and standing on a chair. And others did similar. We managed to get two panels of the church done, and they look really great! I was particularly proud of my ingenuity in drinking a lot of my water and then cutting the top off to make a paint can. I have never used a hacksaw on a water bottle before, and I can tell you that it works ok. I bet you needed to know that :)
As we got a bit bored while painting we started doing some extra things to keep ourselves entertained. Like singing. I ran out of Aussie tunes pretty quick. We did a bit of bohemian rhapsody, and even a little Katy Perry. I need to google some more lyrics for tomorrow. Any suggestions please!!!
Nerida and Kaye wandered down to the market and got us some lunch. For 100 vatu they got a hand of bananas - really little ones which tasted lovely and sweet. I think I ate three. Also some cucumber, which I had on a bagette with some peanut butter. Very satisfying.
We had fun playing with the kids too. I wasn't quite as good at the scissors/paper/rock game as yesterday, but still had fun (and I think they liked our singing). Adam and Jono continue to make relationships with some of the young boys there - and to be honest the fun I see them havihg is exactly - exactly what I was hoping we would be doing. I keep remembering the story of Martha and Mary in the bible. With ... Mary I think it was, sitting with Jesus, having a chat, and Martha in the kitchen getting narky. I have had the "you guys gotta do more work" thing in my head a few times, but I turn it around almost straight away, I only hope that we all get to have a balance of our Martha and Mary time.
This afternoon Adam and Jono went down the back of the church and the boys cooked them some sweet potato and fruit in a fire that they built. They played soccer next to the church. It was pretty fun to watch them play together.
Not everyone is coping with Vanuatu time, but some are growing to love it. Tomorrow we are heading to the beach, and I'm really looking forward to a nice relaxing day. Although I think I will be happy to get back to the church on Wednesday and teach the kids some computering, and do some more painting.
Adam has just demonstrated some self torture by eating a very hot chilli in front of us. This is exactly what I was worried about since ... well let's face it ... a while now. I guess with the excellent relationship building and willingness to try new things, you also get the extremely bizarre chilli eating behaviour. Umm ... and on that note, I'm calling it a night. REALLY need a shower.
Sunday, 1 July 2012
A Church Service to Remember
What a massive couple of days!
I am writing on Sunday night. We've just had a lovely dinner of pasta, vegetables, BBQ chicken and pasta sauce, with bread. Pretty tasty. (Thanks Ali for your cooking prowess!)
Let me dial it back to a day ago though. Our flight was from Sydney to Brisbane and then Brisbane to Port Vila. On Saturday morning we had to catch our flight at 7am, so we had to be at the airport 90 minutes beforehand. At 4am I was already awake - in that very annoying "gotta get up soon" mindset. I had a quick shower and made it down the stairs in time to see the Smiths parking their car. They drove me to church, and from there we all got on Bob's bus. Despite the early hour the atmosphere was quite playful, a good atmosphere to begin. Our bags all weighed in ok. Mine was 22.3 - reasonably close to the limit of 23kg. David's exactly on the limit of 23 kg, and Adam's was the winner with 23.1 (we had stuffed it full of equipment from Bunnings).
Anyway, flight took off late - 40 minutes late, so our plans to shop and sit around for leisurely coffees in Brisbane international were quashed a bit. Having said that, I was reasonably impressed that we got through customs so easily - I would have thought it would have been a bit more difficult on the first day of school hols! We got to our flight on time - and it was a great flight. I seem to remember it being a 3 or 4 hour flight from Brisbane last time, but I must have been mistaken, it was only just over 2 hours.
When we landed there was a bit of a bump, soon enough though we emerged on to the tarmac into the joyous humidity of the Vanuatuan countryside, It makes a fantastic change from the cold Sydney weather last week. Can get a bit draining though. After we emerged from customs, we were greeted by Elder Johnny and some members of Seaside Paama church, we were given leis around our necks which had been handcrafted from some local grasses. Pretty special. Interesting point - the airport in Port Vila was a gift from Japan in the 90s.
We checked in at our hotel and headed up to see the church. Elder Johnny gave us some education in the coconut tree - which they call the tree of life. When the fruit is green you can drink it, when it is brown you get the desicated coconut out of it. With the palm fronds you can weave baskets, hats, mats, bags, clothing, toys and even a whistle which Harv tried out. And then we had some fruit for afternoon tea including some beatiful grapefruit which isn't quite as sour as it is as home. It was a great intro.
We headed back into town and checked out the supermarket which is right across the road. Some things are more expensive than home, but lots of it is cheaper. We bought water supplies and headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.
We had our first experience of "Vanuatu Time" before dinner when we were waiting for Jocelyn, Johnny's adopted daughter, to come and walk with us. We waited around for half an hour ... I think I am already used to it - for some it is a bit trying though. I wonder whether the rest of the team will come to understand it (and almost love it) like I do now. Johnny lives really close to the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu head office which is just up the hill from our hotel. We had a few introductions and a really nice dinner. we had some instructions from our UnitingWorld training that you should only take as much as you will definitely eat - as wastage is bad. I find I am taking a decent amount, but not heaps, and some of the foods I am loving - but some it has been a bit of a challenge to finish.
Some of the cultural norms around here are a little difficult to understand, but one definitely wasn't. We noticed that Elder Johnny was wearing shorts yesterday, and the boys wanted to confirm what they had to wear today. We were informed that long pants were acceptable - and that some "crazy Ni Vans" might wear shorts. Ni Van is to Vanuatu what Australian is to Australia. So yeah, long pants on Sundays.
By the time we arrived back at the hotel I was just about ready to crash, but being only 7pm we sat around and played UNO for a while. We gathered at 9pm and went through some Butterflies and Cockroaches, which is basically where you say one good thing that happened during the day, and one bad thing. My butterfly was the weather, and my cockroach was that we'd been delayed in Sydney. Not a big cockroach though, and so far I've only seen one cockroach in my room, so not bad all round.
I was awoken during the night with some loud noises on the road, which my room backs on to. I am hoping that was just a Saturday night thing. If it happens every night I shall be ... tired. Woke again at about 6:30 and got up. Got all the painting equipment and school presents out of my bag. It now closes quite easily! (Can't wait to fill it with sarongs...) Nami and I went searching for some coffee and found some up the road. Bit lucky to find it as nothing much opens on Sundays here. It is good that everyone takes a break.
We were asked to be at church at 9:30 on the understanding it was "Vanautu Time" so church started at 10:30. In the meantime we practiced the song we were to do in the afternoon, and also met some of the kids, and looked around the church. The "call to worship" is hitting a heavy metal pole against a giant gas cylinder - I think if I heard that on a Sunday morning I would most certainly be curious enough to check it out :)
It was a special day for the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu (PCV) - 164 years since it was inaugurated. As such we had a flag raising ceremony, and sang both the Vanuatu National Anthem, and the PCV Anthem. A bit of Bislama for you - "yumi" means "you and me" or "we", and since Vanuatu has a very community oriented culture, you hear that word about every second sentence. We sang some songs, and then Elder Johnny did a sermon. I was trying to hear what was being said, but it was a little difficult. I think he was talking about King Solomon, and I heard him say "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also", so ... I think it was a good message. The service was quite long compared to the services at Wesley in Castle Hill, (which are for the most part 1 hour on the dot). Finished up about 12:15 ... Probably the most "un-Wesley-like" thing I saw though, was during the offering, which was all the different cell groups bringing forth their offerings for PCV, the church would start singing, and then the cell group would be singing a different song, and one song would ... almost organically take over from the other song. I thought it was beautiful. we had a bit of a panic attack as we figured out we would need to sing a song as we brought our offering forward. We chose "Love the lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul and your mind ..." - and it went ... ok. After the service we split up into groups of two to sit and have lunch with our cell groups. All of which are named after ... I guess you'd call them suburbs ... of Port Vila.
So we sat down to a great lunch with everyone. From the kids I learnt a fun new twist on Scissors Paper Rock which is followed by what looks a bit like a chick fight. It was great to see all the team using their strengths. Adam was particularly good with the kids - they took him behind the school and climbed a cliff ... taking photos with his camera all the while. We chatted to the ladies and basically just sat around a bit, drinking in the atmosphere. After a while the musical concert happened ... we were half way down the programme.. David sang a lovely rendition of Amazing Grace, and most of the other songs still had words like "praesem God" in it, so I felt that the team's item "10-9-8 God is Great" was pretty appropriate. We were asked to sing one more, and we didn't have another one, but we managed to get a whole bunch of the Ni-Van kids up with us to sing and do the actions. So much fun.
My number one favourite moment of the afternoon though was when there was some lovely music being played and Ali said to me, "let's get up and dance", and all my theatre sports training kicked in when I accepted the offer and said, yes of course, let's go now, and then we danced for two dances and a few more of the team got up. I think the moments dancing in that small crowd will easily be one of my highlights. OMG. Thank you!
The musical afternoon over, we wandered down the hill back to our hotel, had an icecream, some of us had showers and we planned for dinner. We did butterflies and cockroaches again. And then I wrote a blog. And now you're up to date.
Probably have to do this more often. Tomorrow we start working with the preschool and with the computers we brought over. We're also going to be painting the church at some point. Given that my day job involves drawing pretty diagrams, typing and talking to people, this is definitely going to be a challenge!!!
I am writing on Sunday night. We've just had a lovely dinner of pasta, vegetables, BBQ chicken and pasta sauce, with bread. Pretty tasty. (Thanks Ali for your cooking prowess!)
Let me dial it back to a day ago though. Our flight was from Sydney to Brisbane and then Brisbane to Port Vila. On Saturday morning we had to catch our flight at 7am, so we had to be at the airport 90 minutes beforehand. At 4am I was already awake - in that very annoying "gotta get up soon" mindset. I had a quick shower and made it down the stairs in time to see the Smiths parking their car. They drove me to church, and from there we all got on Bob's bus. Despite the early hour the atmosphere was quite playful, a good atmosphere to begin. Our bags all weighed in ok. Mine was 22.3 - reasonably close to the limit of 23kg. David's exactly on the limit of 23 kg, and Adam's was the winner with 23.1 (we had stuffed it full of equipment from Bunnings).
Anyway, flight took off late - 40 minutes late, so our plans to shop and sit around for leisurely coffees in Brisbane international were quashed a bit. Having said that, I was reasonably impressed that we got through customs so easily - I would have thought it would have been a bit more difficult on the first day of school hols! We got to our flight on time - and it was a great flight. I seem to remember it being a 3 or 4 hour flight from Brisbane last time, but I must have been mistaken, it was only just over 2 hours.
When we landed there was a bit of a bump, soon enough though we emerged on to the tarmac into the joyous humidity of the Vanuatuan countryside, It makes a fantastic change from the cold Sydney weather last week. Can get a bit draining though. After we emerged from customs, we were greeted by Elder Johnny and some members of Seaside Paama church, we were given leis around our necks which had been handcrafted from some local grasses. Pretty special. Interesting point - the airport in Port Vila was a gift from Japan in the 90s.
We checked in at our hotel and headed up to see the church. Elder Johnny gave us some education in the coconut tree - which they call the tree of life. When the fruit is green you can drink it, when it is brown you get the desicated coconut out of it. With the palm fronds you can weave baskets, hats, mats, bags, clothing, toys and even a whistle which Harv tried out. And then we had some fruit for afternoon tea including some beatiful grapefruit which isn't quite as sour as it is as home. It was a great intro.
We headed back into town and checked out the supermarket which is right across the road. Some things are more expensive than home, but lots of it is cheaper. We bought water supplies and headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.
We had our first experience of "Vanuatu Time" before dinner when we were waiting for Jocelyn, Johnny's adopted daughter, to come and walk with us. We waited around for half an hour ... I think I am already used to it - for some it is a bit trying though. I wonder whether the rest of the team will come to understand it (and almost love it) like I do now. Johnny lives really close to the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu head office which is just up the hill from our hotel. We had a few introductions and a really nice dinner. we had some instructions from our UnitingWorld training that you should only take as much as you will definitely eat - as wastage is bad. I find I am taking a decent amount, but not heaps, and some of the foods I am loving - but some it has been a bit of a challenge to finish.
Some of the cultural norms around here are a little difficult to understand, but one definitely wasn't. We noticed that Elder Johnny was wearing shorts yesterday, and the boys wanted to confirm what they had to wear today. We were informed that long pants were acceptable - and that some "crazy Ni Vans" might wear shorts. Ni Van is to Vanuatu what Australian is to Australia. So yeah, long pants on Sundays.
By the time we arrived back at the hotel I was just about ready to crash, but being only 7pm we sat around and played UNO for a while. We gathered at 9pm and went through some Butterflies and Cockroaches, which is basically where you say one good thing that happened during the day, and one bad thing. My butterfly was the weather, and my cockroach was that we'd been delayed in Sydney. Not a big cockroach though, and so far I've only seen one cockroach in my room, so not bad all round.
I was awoken during the night with some loud noises on the road, which my room backs on to. I am hoping that was just a Saturday night thing. If it happens every night I shall be ... tired. Woke again at about 6:30 and got up. Got all the painting equipment and school presents out of my bag. It now closes quite easily! (Can't wait to fill it with sarongs...) Nami and I went searching for some coffee and found some up the road. Bit lucky to find it as nothing much opens on Sundays here. It is good that everyone takes a break.
We were asked to be at church at 9:30 on the understanding it was "Vanautu Time" so church started at 10:30. In the meantime we practiced the song we were to do in the afternoon, and also met some of the kids, and looked around the church. The "call to worship" is hitting a heavy metal pole against a giant gas cylinder - I think if I heard that on a Sunday morning I would most certainly be curious enough to check it out :)
It was a special day for the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu (PCV) - 164 years since it was inaugurated. As such we had a flag raising ceremony, and sang both the Vanuatu National Anthem, and the PCV Anthem. A bit of Bislama for you - "yumi" means "you and me" or "we", and since Vanuatu has a very community oriented culture, you hear that word about every second sentence. We sang some songs, and then Elder Johnny did a sermon. I was trying to hear what was being said, but it was a little difficult. I think he was talking about King Solomon, and I heard him say "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also", so ... I think it was a good message. The service was quite long compared to the services at Wesley in Castle Hill, (which are for the most part 1 hour on the dot). Finished up about 12:15 ... Probably the most "un-Wesley-like" thing I saw though, was during the offering, which was all the different cell groups bringing forth their offerings for PCV, the church would start singing, and then the cell group would be singing a different song, and one song would ... almost organically take over from the other song. I thought it was beautiful. we had a bit of a panic attack as we figured out we would need to sing a song as we brought our offering forward. We chose "Love the lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul and your mind ..." - and it went ... ok. After the service we split up into groups of two to sit and have lunch with our cell groups. All of which are named after ... I guess you'd call them suburbs ... of Port Vila.
- Jono and Harvey are with Lutah.
- Ashleigh and Nerida are with Alma.
- Nami and Kaye are with Beverly Hills.
- Ali and David are with Seneali.
- Ben and Adam are with Oelep & Hingal.
- Thomas and I are with Luli.
So we sat down to a great lunch with everyone. From the kids I learnt a fun new twist on Scissors Paper Rock which is followed by what looks a bit like a chick fight. It was great to see all the team using their strengths. Adam was particularly good with the kids - they took him behind the school and climbed a cliff ... taking photos with his camera all the while. We chatted to the ladies and basically just sat around a bit, drinking in the atmosphere. After a while the musical concert happened ... we were half way down the programme.. David sang a lovely rendition of Amazing Grace, and most of the other songs still had words like "praesem God" in it, so I felt that the team's item "10-9-8 God is Great" was pretty appropriate. We were asked to sing one more, and we didn't have another one, but we managed to get a whole bunch of the Ni-Van kids up with us to sing and do the actions. So much fun.
My number one favourite moment of the afternoon though was when there was some lovely music being played and Ali said to me, "let's get up and dance", and all my theatre sports training kicked in when I accepted the offer and said, yes of course, let's go now, and then we danced for two dances and a few more of the team got up. I think the moments dancing in that small crowd will easily be one of my highlights. OMG. Thank you!
The musical afternoon over, we wandered down the hill back to our hotel, had an icecream, some of us had showers and we planned for dinner. We did butterflies and cockroaches again. And then I wrote a blog. And now you're up to date.
Probably have to do this more often. Tomorrow we start working with the preschool and with the computers we brought over. We're also going to be painting the church at some point. Given that my day job involves drawing pretty diagrams, typing and talking to people, this is definitely going to be a challenge!!!
Saturday, 23 June 2012
One week to go!!!
This time next week I will be in Vanuatu :)
I wrote up the list of what I need to take yesterday. I would like to have been able to expand my wardrobe a little bit. Managed to find some nice shorts today - but I don't think this is the right time of year to be enhancing my summer wardrobe. So ... might have to get out the sewing kit and fix up a few buttons.
Last night we had our last youth group for the term - had a bit of a Vanuatu theme team. Part of the night included a "guess the melted chocolate" game, and there were a few of our team that were a little bit too keen to eat food that was clearly no longer edible. This does not fill me with confidence (but I'm still comfortable that we have a fantastic team). I am not sure whether I've mentioned that we now have a whopping 12 people going in the team.
We've also found out that the first Sunday we're there, there will be a lot of people at the church at Paama Seaside. This isn't a surprise - we've known about that for a while. But - what we have been informed of is that we are expected to do an item. So ... eek! I am thinking we can have a couple of things up our sleeve, Probably ...
Woohoo!
I wrote up the list of what I need to take yesterday. I would like to have been able to expand my wardrobe a little bit. Managed to find some nice shorts today - but I don't think this is the right time of year to be enhancing my summer wardrobe. So ... might have to get out the sewing kit and fix up a few buttons.
Last night we had our last youth group for the term - had a bit of a Vanuatu theme team. Part of the night included a "guess the melted chocolate" game, and there were a few of our team that were a little bit too keen to eat food that was clearly no longer edible. This does not fill me with confidence (but I'm still comfortable that we have a fantastic team). I am not sure whether I've mentioned that we now have a whopping 12 people going in the team.
We've also found out that the first Sunday we're there, there will be a lot of people at the church at Paama Seaside. This isn't a surprise - we've known about that for a while. But - what we have been informed of is that we are expected to do an item. So ... eek! I am thinking we can have a couple of things up our sleeve, Probably ...
- A hymn - I was reading my blog from last time and we sang Amazing Grace last time we were there. I am thinking ... This Kingdom? (I have a Vanuatu hymn book and I know they sing different Bislama words to the same tune in one of the songs - but you can never tell with a hymn book - maybe they never sing that one?)
- A kids song - because lots of the group we're going with is primarily a youth one, this should be our best item. Ali and I broke into "10-9-8 God is Great" when we were discussing items - so I think that might be my vote for that one. There is a rocket taking off at the end of it, plus it teaches kids about how to count backwards from 10. Can't go wrong!
- A blessing - at the end of lots of Sunday morning services we sing a blessing song called May the Feet of God ... it's a nice one, plus I can do half decent harmonies for it. Of course compared to the harmonies that people in Vanuatu do really naturally ... hmm maybe I shouldn't pit my lame harmonies against theirs. But it's quite a nice simple song.
- An Aussie song - one of my friends is in a bush band, and they play a cracking Click Go The Shears. I think between us we could do a pretty good rendition of it. Last time I sang it was probably in a choir at high school though - we should probably practice.
- And to round out our reportoire, a bit of Heel and Toe Polka :) Can't wait to teach some dance moves - big challenge! We could save that for the second week I think. Slightly smaller audience if everything goes pear shaped.
Woohoo!
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
This time next month ...
... I will be finalising the last of my packing for Vanuatu, ready to head off for a great week. A lot has happened in the last 20 days that has made me feel quite a bit more prepared. We have been doing the training that UnitingWorld has up online, and putting in some comments on the training forums. I find that I am quite willing to jump to some potentially rather disastrous conclusions, so the training has been great for me so far. This morning I did the child protection training, with questions like this:
Choose A or B as a precursor for this statement ... "be responsible around children"
A) I will always
B) I will never
I got 100% correct. This is a good sign I think...
I know I'll be adding some of the following things with me when I go ...
- combined sunscreen/insect repellant. My doctor recommended this stuff because it means you don't have to apply sunscreen as well as repellant separately. I know though, that the time when I get bitten most by mosquitoes is in the evening, so I suspect I'll end up taking different insect repellant as well. Insect bites definitely = bad.
- A laptop, so I can type blog type things.
- a mini hairbrush. It is from the stuff we sold at the garage sale, and it has a picture of Winnie the Pooh on it. I mention it not only because it's very cute, but because I forgot to take a brush last time I went to Vanuatu, and it drove me nuts the whole week.
- My sense of humour - as much as I like to think I can get all "chilled" on "Vanuatu Time", my nature is pretty much on time. If I am late, it is because I basically intended to be late, and even then, I'm normally only like ... 5 minutes late - so I can't even get the "fashionable" bit right. So will have to work on patience and fun stuff like that.
We are having a catch up this Sunday so we can run through some of the finer points of our trip. I keep forgetting who I have spoken to about what, so it will be great to get the whole team in one room!
We should hopefully be posting a bit more over the next month or so ... can't wait to see how things go when we are getting the last set of details ready.
Choose A or B as a precursor for this statement ... "be responsible around children"
A) I will always
B) I will never
I got 100% correct. This is a good sign I think...
I know I'll be adding some of the following things with me when I go ...
- combined sunscreen/insect repellant. My doctor recommended this stuff because it means you don't have to apply sunscreen as well as repellant separately. I know though, that the time when I get bitten most by mosquitoes is in the evening, so I suspect I'll end up taking different insect repellant as well. Insect bites definitely = bad.
- A laptop, so I can type blog type things.
- a mini hairbrush. It is from the stuff we sold at the garage sale, and it has a picture of Winnie the Pooh on it. I mention it not only because it's very cute, but because I forgot to take a brush last time I went to Vanuatu, and it drove me nuts the whole week.
- My sense of humour - as much as I like to think I can get all "chilled" on "Vanuatu Time", my nature is pretty much on time. If I am late, it is because I basically intended to be late, and even then, I'm normally only like ... 5 minutes late - so I can't even get the "fashionable" bit right. So will have to work on patience and fun stuff like that.
We are having a catch up this Sunday so we can run through some of the finer points of our trip. I keep forgetting who I have spoken to about what, so it will be great to get the whole team in one room!
We should hopefully be posting a bit more over the next month or so ... can't wait to see how things go when we are getting the last set of details ready.
Monday, 14 May 2012
Less than 50 days to go now...
What a massive couple of months. It is about a month and a half until we fly out now - and still quite a lot to do. I still need to get to my doctor and get her to fill in a form which says I'm ok to go and do these things in a different country. We have just received the training information from UnitingWorld - so we need to get into that. And all of the team seems to be pretty busy doing general day-to-day things.
On the plus side, the person who will meet the shipping container which we put all the computers arrives in Vanuatu this week. It then needs to be moved from one island to another. We are really praying that everything arrives safely! So far so good on this one.
We have also been busy selling some things to fundraise further. We had great fun at the Wesley Garage Sale a couple of weekends ago. Raised quite a bit too. We don't have a purpose for some of those funds yet. We have had quite a few situations in the last few years where we've wanted to give someone extra stuff to take with them to Vanuatu, and we hadn't taken the excess baggage $$($) into account. I will be quite happy if we don't spend all of that money straight away.
Anyway - we now have 12 people going on the trip. Three more intrepid explorers have joined us. I find myself really looking forward to the adventure.
On the plus side, the person who will meet the shipping container which we put all the computers arrives in Vanuatu this week. It then needs to be moved from one island to another. We are really praying that everything arrives safely! So far so good on this one.
We have also been busy selling some things to fundraise further. We had great fun at the Wesley Garage Sale a couple of weekends ago. Raised quite a bit too. We don't have a purpose for some of those funds yet. We have had quite a few situations in the last few years where we've wanted to give someone extra stuff to take with them to Vanuatu, and we hadn't taken the excess baggage $$($) into account. I will be quite happy if we don't spend all of that money straight away.
Anyway - we now have 12 people going on the trip. Three more intrepid explorers have joined us. I find myself really looking forward to the adventure.
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