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29 September, 2002
Letter 4
Hi! We have been in a not writing mode the last couple of days,
busy with work (Wow! Who would have thought?) and play, too. It's
weird, though. Even though we're busy, we don't seem very rushed
about it. The days are full, but not crazy, except when we're
trying to catch a bus that has a half hour slop in its schedule.
Descriptions of what we are up to: the girls work their tails
off in school, and have been wonderfully disciplined about it
all. They just completed their first month's packets in all areas,
and we sent them in to be graded and looked at. They are showing
good pride in their work, and are genuinely working independently
a great deal of the time. There is still plenty of need for help,
since a lot of the assignments are "Discuss with your teacher
. . . " and Lora stays pretty busy helping. We also help
with review for tests, in the hope that their scores stay pretty
high. But both Kinsey and Emily will, in some subjects such as
math, go for several days without even asking for help, just plugging
on through. The content is rigorous. I have learned things both
from Emily's art history and from Kinsey's US history, for example,
and that impresses me with the level of expectations in this program.
Incidentally, we no longer refer to our roof as corrugated tin.
Following Emily's lessons on ancient architecture, we now refer
to it as a fluted cathedral ceiling.
Emily and Kinsey also attend two classes each here at Onesua.
Once a day they change out of shorts and into school uniforms,
white skirts and shirts, and go to French class. They are progressing
well, and I think they have shown a lot of bravery in walking
into a near-the-end-of-the-year class and saying, in effect, here
I am. I work with them on French most days so that they get to
practice basic conversation as well as writing. They each have
a good ear. I think that may be from the Bislama when they were
young. Folks say that the brain is hard-wired for the first language,
the second one is a stretch, and after that it gets easier. So
far, I'd have to say that their experience learning a second language
when young, even though it is largely forgotten now, has served
them well. They also attend PE once each week. They are currently
playing soccer, where they are impressed by how good the boys
are and frustrated by how little the girls ever get to touch the
ball.
Lora holds things together. Helping on school work, listening
to the stories of the day, and being there for all of us seems
to me the hardest job in the place. She also does most of the
laundry, at least the big things like sheets and towels, in the
sink on the back porch. The wringer makes the job easier than
it was ten years ago wringing by hand, but it is still time-consuming.
Lora also does the cooking (Thank goodness!) and cleaning and
sweeping, which allows Emily and me to breathe, since we seem
to be allergic to some of the stuff around, though not so much
as in Montana. I cooked dinner one day last week when Lora was
late getting back from Vila, and the kids said to our next door
neighbor, "It really wasn't that bad at all!" I think
they were surprised they survived!
Lora also has charge of our garden. We have slashed and burned
a small area of jungle next to the house. This is partly for help
with mosquito control and partly for fun, but is also to educate
us in local agriculture. We have bananas, papaya, tomatoes, lettuce,
manioc, kumala (a local sort of yam-very good!), and onions. We
also have to water it all by hand, and try to keep the grass from
growing back. We didn't get a very good burn, only sort of a smouldering
smudge, so the ground isn't very clean.
I teach. English is where the need was, and so that is where
I fit this term. I have two year eight classes, one year nine,
and a year ten. The year ten class is the most pressing, since
they sit the exams that will determine the next couple of years
of schooling in early November. I have also added a special review
class for some year twelve students, who sit the exam that will
decide if they get to go to university. Teaching, this first term,
is largely a matter of trying to figure out what has been done
and trying to stay ahead of the students. For example, I finished
reading the novel for year 12 at 5:00 Friday evening, and began
teaching it at 7:00 on Saturday morning. Kids are beginning to
feel confident enough around us to show up at the house for help,
so there are random interruptions during evenings or Saturdays
for tutoring.
We have learned a lot about the state of teacher training, which
is our long-term interest. There has been a great deal of progress.
Ten years ago, there was nothing. Now there is a Vanuatu Teacher's
College in Vila, staffed mostly by teachers pulled from the classroom,
which has helped create the current shortages. The University
of the South Pacific also has continuing education courses for
teachers who are already in the field. These courses are given
during the Christmas break, and are designed to help young teachers
who are currently teaching without certification or training.
I think that our job will be mostly concerning implementation
and encouragement rather than inventing things from scratch. We
have had various conversations and small meetings with staff and
administration, and will try to define exactly what approach will
be most useful to start with. There is a huge gap between the
ideal and the practice. For example, some teachers miss classes
without warning or planning, and some do not have the skills to
map out the planning of a term so that the curriculum fits into
the allotted time. Many do not take roll. So we start small. I
take roll in every class every day, and award merits to those
students who have perfect attendance each week, and thank them
for coming. Then I also say to them that I was in class every
day, and they thank me. I also keep detailed records of everything
I do (This is not one of my strong points!) in order to leave
a trail for the future. We are beginning to plan inservice sessions
for the end of this year, in November, and the beginning of next
year, in February, now. There have been no inservice training
of any kind this year. I believe that will change in 2003.
Yesterday we went snorkelling for the first time, in a very cautious
way, close to the girls' swimming beach in front of the school.
It was a lot of fun. We only have three snorkels so far, because
I have to be very picky about getting something that can be used
with my spare glasses lenses. Lora and I took turns with her mask,
and kept the girls company. It was amazing seeing all the little
fish with their bright colors, even here on our shallow, half-dead
reef. The girls learned that squeals of delight tend to fill your
mouth with water, but we were only in waist deep water anyway,
so there was no problem.
Today we borrowed the school truck and went to Siviri Village,
which was our adopted hometown ten years ago. This was the first
time I had driven in Vanuatu, and it was nerve wracking picking
my way slowly along the very rough road. Kinsey and Emily sat
in the back with two Onesua students from Siviri whom we had invited
along for the day. As we got closer to the village, we picked
up people walking to church, and by the time we arrived, the whole
back of the truck was full. It was great to see the people, comment
about how much each other's kids have grown, and catch up on the
news. Elder Arthur, my main Bislama teacher from our first visits
to the village, is 88 now. We shared stories with each other today,
mostly about how we have enjoyed telling stories about each other
during the past eight years.
We were officially welcomed in the Sunday morning church service,
and I gave a small talk as an example of the kind of sermon I
have given in the US using events in Siviri as examples. It was
scary to me to talk in Bislama and to tell them the way I had
used their village in sermons, but they enjoyed it.
When we wanted to get to know the village culture of Vanuatu,
we were invited to stay in a village called Siviri. People there
were very kind to us. We talked with them, and ate with them,
and shared our lives. Our children played with their children,
and splashed in the waves together. It was a good time. Over the
time we lived in Vanuatu, we went back to Siviri many times, and
we visited many other villages on offshore islands, but there
was one island that we did not go to. That was Moso, which is
a low island. It has no high hills that catch the sunlight. It
is dark, and low, and close beside the main island. We did not
know anyone there, and no one there knew us. We knew that it was
close, but we did not go.
The time came for us to finally go to Moso for a celebration,
so we went. Kinsey was frightened of the canoe. It looked old,
and very small, and I was a little frightened, too. As we got
close to Moso, we discovered that the water there is very clear,
and as blue as the sky, and the jungle is green. It was not a
dark place at all, but a place filled with light.
As we got close to the beach, a child's voice called out, "Kinsey,
Kinsey!" Kinsey turned to me and asked, "Who is that?
No one knows me here!"
Robin, a boy visiting from Siviri, was running along the beach
toward us. He had played many times with Kinsey and was happy
to see his friend coming to join him.
All the time that we talk, and eat, and travel, we are aware
that there is another place, not really very far away, that is
low and dark. It is easy to reach, and the time comes for each
of us to go there. That can be frightening, for it is an unknown
stage of life and we are alone. But someone there knows each of
us, and calls us by name, and the place is not really dark at
all. We can never travel so far, not even in death, that we can
leave God's love behind.
After church we stood outside the door and shook everyone's hands,
and then sat around and talked. We ate lunch, and then drove the
school truck back home, this time starting out full and gradually
shedding passengers on the way.
Elder Arthur, who is also the paramount chief of Siviri, decided
to close the beaches for fishing for several miles to the east
of the village. There are occasional small cardboard signs on
coconut trees announcing the closure, with Arthur's name and two
crossed fronds of a certain kind of palm that stands for chiefly
authority. It's sort of the local version of a letterhead on an
official announcement, or a notary's seal which says, "This
is for real. Better pay attention." The closure is to allow
the fish populations to rebound from overfishing. While he was
at it, he also posted signs about the need to be careful about
not disturbing nesting turtles or their eggs. I was very glad
to see the recognition of the need for conservation.
Siviri has suffered a split in the church. One leading elder
converted to the Assembly of God, took about sixty people with
him (out of a population of maybe 160), and has moved out of the
village. They took their houses with them, simply un-nailing the
corrugated iron sheets, and built a new village on the other side
of the gardens. Now they have to settle a dispute about who should
own the village's land, including the gardens and the new village
site, all of which is totally controlled by traditional land ownership,
not by modern law. This is very hard on everyone in the village,
and is the equivalent of civil war on a local scale. The church,
the community, and many families are split. It will probably take
years to sort out, using a combination of traditional chiefly
authority and modern courts and lawsuits. I feel sorry for elder
Arthur, for he is, of course, simply because of his position,
in the middle of it all.
So that's what's on our minds tonight: a place that we love,
filled with people that we love, who are destroying their community.
I wonder if God feels the same way about the world.
Love and Peace,
Lora and Bruce
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