News from Vanuatu!

Great news! Obama!! I am SO proud of us!! All the Ni-Vanuatu here are both thrilled and amazed that we have a Presisdent of their color!! And more great news…we received our site assignments this week, which means we found out the location of where we will be spending our next two years as, for most of us, teacher trainers. Though there is a full range of islands where my group is going, I am not going far from the capital. I am very happy as it is a site that has been mentioned to me as a possibility since I got here because of my interest in and desire to do some of my work in French. I am going to a small island, Efira, a 15 minute boat ride from town. It is a village of about 500 people; as with all villages here, there is a chief and a local “custom” language is spoken besides Bislama. I will be living on the school campus. Different from most schools in Vanuatu that offer instruction in either English or French, my school is bilingual, with families having a choice of languages; then at grade five, all Vanuatu students begin another language so if they have begun in English, then they begin to study French as well…and visa versa. You might be asking my question…why isn’t school taught in the national language of Bislama? Politics is the answer; when Vanuatu became an independent nation in 1980, the French/English Condominuim government was dissolved and it was decided to avoid a politically divisive choice between the two languages, it would be better to compromise and choose Bislama, a form of pidgin that was developed in the mid-1800s with the onset of the sandalwood trade in the South Pacific.

A little about my house…I have been temporarily staying in it this week and will permanently move into it around December 1 after we are finished with training and our official swearing in on Thanksgiving Day. It is at the back of the school grounds, attached to the headmaster’s house with another teaacher’s house across a small courtyard; it is small, with a main room with a bed and a futon couch, bookcase and desk and big, woven mats on the floor as all houses here have. It also has a ‘kitchen” which means another room that has a propane 2 burner stove, a small table and a food cupboard; I will soon splurge and buy a little bar refrig since I have ELECTRICITY. I have a flush toilet and cold water shower just outside…no more outhouses and bucket showers for me. I think this form of “roughing it” is plenty for me, especially since I had to officially deny Medicare for my two Peace Corps years on my birthday this year!! A bonus: I asked a passing student to get the near-by ladder to reach a ripe papaya for me this morning from the tree by my door; “good-bye,” mangos, “hello,” papayas (popo here) and avocados…the avocado tree
is just across the courtyard!! Once I have moved, I will figure out how to send my pictures of these first 2+ months!!

I spent the first morning this week visiting the five primary school classrooms, K-6; after that, I “jumped” right in, doing running records (teacher jargon!) for the fourth grade teacher to assess her students in reading…all I can say is, I have my work cut out for me as TEN of her students are non-readers. I also spent time in the first grade teaching songs, poems, and, of course, doing a drawing project!! Art they will get!! There is also a “junior secondary”school attached which covers grades 6-10. Since I am in the Southern Hemisphere, we start summer vacation about the time I move back so the month of December and at least half of January will be a very slow time…and I am sure it will also be a bit lonely for me without my family!! So it will be a great time to hear from you all! And don’t forget to get back to my regular email on Thanksgiving Day, julieromberg@gmail.com when I will have bi-weekly internet access again…my mailing address will never change. I hope my blog entries aren’t too long!! Wish you were here! And have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!