First week

(Due to a technical hick-up this post was delayed a little...Apologies. I guess it will happen again sometime.)

Well, here I am! It is Saturday morning as I write this post, my first Saturday morning in Vanuatu. I am sitting at a small table in the outside breakfast area of the Hotel Formule, my home for the three –or so- weeks that I will be staying in Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu.

The trip over here was fine. Managed a bit of sleep on the 12 hour London – Singapore leg, so I arrived in Vanuatu relatively fit and cheerful. This feeling was matched by the 6 man stringband that welcomed all passangers in the arrivals hall, and sang happy songs as everybody waited in line to have their passports checked.

I was met at the airport by Karen (a Dutch VSO whom I had already met at the VSO ‘Skills for Working in Development’ training in the Netherlands) and Hugh, the VSO Vanuatu country director, who took me to my hotel.

In the evening I went out for a drink with Karen and a couple of other VSO. Joyce, the Governace and Participation programme manager who used to be the REDI-facilitator for Malampa (let’s say “my predecessor”) and Kate, a civil engineer who works for the Public Affairs Department of Malampa Province and lives in Lakatoro, my future hometown (let’s say my future “neighbour”). Both were raving about Lakatoro and the island on which it is situated, Malekula, which was good to hear.

On Wednesday and Thursday I joined in a workshop about HIV and AIDS that had been organised by VSO as part of their HIV/AIDS mainstreaming programme. The participants were a mixed group of VSO, their ni-Vanuatu counter-parts or colleagues, people from the Ministry of Health, some journalists and some other people – not sure where they were from. The workshop had a really good, friendly atmosphere; everybody participated and was interested eventhough some subjects were potentially a bit hard to stomach, such as an hour-long talk first thing Thursday morning about all the different kinds of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (there’s more than I thought) and what they look like (worse than I thought). Lovely.

After this a secret ballot was taken on condoms: how many people had never used one in their life? It turned out that this applied to almost half of the group. So then followed an extensive explanation and demonstration how to use condoms by Moses, a VSO from Uganda. Ofcourse people were invited to practise putting on a condom – on a styrofoam dummy that is – and pretty soon some people made half-hearted attempts at putting them on the dummies while others busied themselves with producing strawberry flavoured pink condom balloons. A good time was had by all.

In the evening I had dinner at Karen’s house. Karen will work at VSO office on the gender mainstreaming programme and has a nice house in Port Vila. She had also invited some Fillipino VSO: Bong, a lawyer who works at the Ministry of Justice, making sure that Vanuatu’s legislation is in line with international treaties and regulations and Susan, media advisor to the Vanuatu chapter of Transparency International. They are both lovely people and it was good to hear their experiences so far to date and get some useful tips on life and living in Port Vila. Again: a good time was had by all.

Yesterday I had my first chance to have a look at Port Vila.The Lonely Planet to Vanuatu decsribes the place as ‘lovely’ and ‘wonderful’, but I am not sure I agree. It’s alright. There is nothing really very distinctive about it, I don’t think. It could be anywhere, really. I am reassured by Joyce and Kate (and some other people who have been there) that Malekula and Lakatoro are nothing like Port Vila, so we’ll see.

Perhaps the weather plays a part in my luke-warm impression as well: it has been quite overcast since I have been here. Only this morning the sun seems to be making slow attempts at peeking from behind the numerous clouds. Quite a contrast to what I gather the weather in the Netherlands has been in the past week, with people actually dying from the heat. Over here I need a blanket at night and am currently wearing a cardigan! Just as well though, that it is not too hot: I am doing a LOT of sleeping in between the above activity and slowly, slowly seem to shed the jet-lag.

This afternoon I will further explore Port Vila with Karen, and two newly arrived VSO. Perhaps my impression will improve with the weather. I will let you know!