Finally received letters from Stephanie yesterday. She says she has been told it's not official but she should start to mentally prepare for a move to Port Vila. Not too much other news - at least nothing worth posting here :)

Classrooms at Yevali School

School in Vanuatu is quite different from school in America. To begin with, there are no taxes so if a parent wants to send their child to school, they must pay. Therefore, if a parent can't afford tuition, children don't go to school. Education is not a top priority.


The children at Yevali School were so polite and well behaved. I'm sure they can act up but, they know they are there to learn.

We visited in July which is their winter. School was in session almost every day. They get a break around Christmas and through the month of January.

POT OF GOLD UNDER THE RAINBOW

At one point during our visit, Stephanie asked me what my favorite part of Malvasi (the village she is living in) was. Without hesitation my answer was "the people." As you can see from my earlier posts, my pictures while in Vanuatu were mostly people. My second favorite part of Malvasi was the beauty of the area.

When we were swimming in the ocean one afternoon a slight rain started. When I looked up at the sky there was a beautiful rainbow arched completely over Malvasi Village. The rumor that a pot of gold is at the end of the rainbow is false, in Vanuatu, the pot of gold is directly under the rainbow - and this picture is proof.

After watching Stephanie doing laundry, I vow never to complain about laundry at home again. The clothes are placed in the tub with soap & water to soak. Then, they are scrubbed, rinsed and hung on the line to dry. Some days she starts laundry and by the time the clothes are ready to hang, it starts to rain! When we arrived in Port Vila the last time, we paid $10 a load to have our clothes washed. Unfortunately, after having the basket of clean clothes returned to us we realized some of our clothes were missing - they were in a bag stored at the Peace Corp office. We brought the dirty clothes with us to Australia & will wash them later this week at the hotels laundrymat. Unfortunately, the bag does not contain any warm clothes!

Malvasi Kindy School

While we were on Epi, Steph took me to visit the schools. The first school we visited was next to Steph's house. This is the Kindy school - only kindergarten age students attend this school. There are some similarities to American schools - the children learn their ABC's, how to count, sing and play like in America. However, there are many differences too. Notice how uncluttered the classroom is. There are no toys, puzzles, educational games.....
Stephanie told me a story about a time her neighbor went to the bush and let her kindy age son stay with Stephanie. Steph got a puzzle out and worked it with him. Remarkably, he helped work the puzzle - all 100 pieces - until it was finished. There are not many kindergarten aged kids whose attention span would last through a 100 piece puzzle!

When we visited the school, the children sang some songs for us, complete with hand and body movements. They are absolutely adorable. Later in the week we visited the primary school which is a 35-40 minute walk from the village. I'll post some pictures later from our visit.

What cha got in your wallet

Well, we finally did it. Applied and got a Capital One Credit Card. The only reason we got this card is for free airline miles. Used the card today. Charged our trip to Vanuatu. Boy, oh boy! Did this every rack up the miles! Too bad I don't like to fly.