The World Changes Every Day

Most of my time here in Vanuatu has actually been spent in Vanuatu's capital, Port Vila - waiting for work to get started between trips out of town.  I haven't written about many of that time - a lot of it has been wasting days on the internet, nothing that would really be interesting to read about (although maybe it would give a more realistic view of what my service has really been like).  But several adventures have been sprinkled in.  Here are some of them! One weekend early on in my stay here, another volunteer and I decided we wanted to visit Lololima Waterfall.  He'd heard the waterfall was cool, but neither of us knew how to get there.  I asked the women who work at the hotel where I've been staying, and they thought we could probably flag down one of the "busses" in Port Vila and get it to take us there for around 400 vatu ($4).  Busses in Port Vila are actually minivans that act sort of like taxis, driving around and picking up and dropping off pa

Ambrym is a beautiful island, and not all of my three weeks there was spent lying around on the floor - I also went swimming in the ocean almost every day.  Another good place to reflect on life.  I'm not dating anyone right now, and while I love the freedom to pack my bags and move to a tropical island in the South Pacific whenever I want sometimes I really feel like I'm ready to find my life partner.  The idea of sharing all these experiences sounds great.  One day on Ambrym I was alone at the beach, standing in the water and thinking about this.  I thought about how many of us have this desire to find a person that will make our lives feel complete, to be able to say "you complete me."  I've been in love in the past, and have dated some wonderful guys, and I do know that it isn't that easy - no matter how great a person is or how much you love them, they never are able to make everything perfect.  Maybe we're thinking about the phrase "you complet

Peace Corps, especially in Vanuatu, is certainly full of adventure - but the experience also involves a whole lot of personal reflection and wrestling with complicated issues.  Figuring out personal relationships, dealing with uncertainty about what my service is supposed to be about, what in the world I'm doing with my life, etc.  When I spent three weeks on Ambrym last month (the island where I went through Cyclone Cook), a lot of this wrestling came to a head.  While there, I learned that the funding for the project I originally came to Vanuatu to do had still not come through, and there were some serious doubts about if/how the project would go forward.  Everything felt very uncertain - I didn't even know for sure if I'd be able to finish my service here in Vanuatau.  This was pretty stressful for both me and the other volunteer I was staying with, who was doing the same project in her community. One day we were both particularly down about the whole thing, which is