My Life as a Port Vila Volunteer

One of the benefits to Port Vila - weekend scuba diving!

The other day, someone I met asked me how being a Peace Corps volunteer in the capital compares to serving in a more rural community.  While I haven’t served on an outer island here in Vanuatu, I did serve in a rural community in Benin – and told him that “it’s completely different – it’s like having a regular job, only without the money!”  Working with World Vision is very much like having a regular job.  I have a desk and a computer, I’m in the office from 8 to 5 – and there’s lots of work to do.  While I wouldn’t trade the challenges and rewards of serving in a rural area during my first service, at this point in my life this is exactly what I need.  I often find it amazing to look back over my time in Vanuatu so far, and think about how despite all the challenges and uncertainty of my first four months I ended up in a situation that is such a good fit – really a much better fit than my experience on Ambae would have been.Here’s a taste of what I’m working on here with World Vision:

ADTEG Project in Tanna

One of the projects I’m helping with is called Agricultural Development for Tanna’s Economic Growth (ADTEG).  This project has been going for a bit more than a year, in Tanna – an island in southern Vanuatu.  I got to spend about two weeks there in June.  The project is helping coffee farmers improve their practices, and introducing new horticultural crops.  I helped the team write their annual report for the first year of their activities (ah, the glamour of development work), and am working with them to think about ways to involve more women in their activities and to incorporate new crops like chickpeas into demo plots to be planted with farmers. 

Tanna is a really cool island – kastom, or traditional culture, is particularly strong there.  I got to tag along with the World Vision team to the opening ceremony for a water system they’d helped build (World Vision also does a lot of WASH work), and took part in a huge kastom dance as part of the celebrations with more than 100 people!  Tanna’s naturally beautiful as well, I had a wonderful time watching the sunrise each morning from a rock outcropping in the ocean near my bungalow.  And the Tanna World Vision team are wonderful people.  We spent a lot of time practicing songs and dances to perform at a World Vision-wide conference/retreat which took place in Port Vila immediately after my trip. 

Dancing with the Tanna office team...

And joining in a kastom dance in the field!

Waste Not Want Not Project – in Port Vila and Luganville

The second project I’m involved with, which is currently taking up more of my time, is called Waste Not Want Not.  It’s a project focusing on waste management - like many countries, Vanuatu is experiencing more and more problems with waste as plastic bags, bottles, wrappers, and other types of non-biodegradable trash have become more and more common.  Unlike the ADTEG project, this project is a new one – it is still being designed.  Which is a neat opportunity for me – being part of discussions about how the project will work.  The idea is to help communities start small businesses around waste management, following the model of Pango Green Force – a local, community-based trash collection company who World Vision has worked with.  I helped run a two-week design workshop with project staff earlier this summer, and am taking the lead on writing up the project design document – more glamorous report writing!  But an important skill to develop.

Serious times with the WNWN team.  Photo from Jowenna Halili

And outside of work...

And then of course one of the benefits to a 8-5 job – the free time in the evenings and weekends. Here again, living in Port Vila is very different from being a rural volunteer.  I shop at a grocery store and cook things pretty similar to what I would at home, I have electricity so I can read and watch tv on my computer easily in the evenings.  Port Vila is a great place to live – very much like a small town.  I’ve been swimming in the ocean regularly with friends, doing a kilometre or so 3 or 4 times a week.  I’ve become scuba certified too, and try to go diving (on guided dive trips through the same company who certified me) a couple times a month.  It’s a pricey hobby, but so worth it – I love anything that gets me out in nature.  And I’ve gone on some good vacations – I went to Aneityum, in the south of Vanuatu, to attend a friend’s wedding and recently had a 2-week visit from my Mom – we spent time with my host family from training on nearby Pele island, and went up to Gaua, an island in the north of Vanuatu – where we did a (very strenuous) hike to a waterfall, and then an overnight hike to lake Letas, the largest freshwater lake in the Pacific, and took a canoe across it to hike Mt Garet, a volcano! Anyone looking for a vacation destination?  I have a guest bedroom...  

Weekend resort-ing with a friend - this could be you!