Wednesday, October 12, 2011

My Soul Transportation: Boat Stories

Back on my island my only form of transportation is speed boats (fiberglass boats with a motor on the back). Yes, I have two legs and am able to walk but the paths can be scary and everything is at lest an hour's walk away and trying to walk to the bank or post office is a bad idea. Thus, I use boats to get everywhere: the bank, the post office, the air port, and some other villages. In general I take a boat ride every other week. Due to the frequency of boat rides, I have expierenced some pretty intersting trips.

The Time I Thought For Sure That I Was Going To Die:
One day I went to Pangi, the village where the post office and bank are located. The trip there went very smooth and was uneventful, in fact I don't even remember it. However, on the trip back to my village things got interesting. We had a full, full boat of maybe about 20 people or so. The ocean was getting pretty rough. We were being tossed around, some saltwater was splashing over the sides of the boat and the possibility of capsizing was a reality. It was about 5:45 in the afternoon, so the sun was going down and it was getting pretty dark. To this day I don't know how the boat driver could see where to go, the boats don't have lights. As if all of that wasn't enough, it was also raining. So we had water coming down on us and splashing over the boat. I could tell what was sea water and what was rain because whenever I got splashed by sea water it was warm (no, I was not peeing my pants). This trip I went with another volunteer who sat in the 'hull?' of the boat, the part in front where you can sit on the floor of the boat under a little shelter. I was sitting in front of her on a seat of the boat (a 2 x 4 plank of wood). She said that she could tell when we were about to get hit by a wave because I would flinch and squeeze my eyes closed. I don't think there was any part of my body or clothes that stayed dry.

The Chicken:
Just recently I took a boat to the airport. As I was getting on the boat at my beach someone hands the driver a chicken. Chicken transport is a fairly popular occurance as are gifts of chickens. Usually they will tie up the chicken's feet so that it cannot move around the boat. We start on our way and head up the coast of the island and the driver and his assistant catch a fish. So we slow down to reel in the fish and unhook it from the line. We start to speed back up when all of a sudden there's a chicken flapping on my right side. It scratches my arm as it falls onto the floor of the boat. The next thing I know the assistant is lunging over my seat to catch the chicken so it won't escapse. Only in Vanuatu can you be attacked by a chicken while in a boat.

The Longest Trip of My Life:
A few months ago I decided to head to Ambae. Ambae is another island not too far away from Pentecost (my place). However, to get to Ambae you have to be in the very north of Pentecost and then you can cross between the two islands. I live in the very south of Pentecost, in fact the most southern village on the island. Pentecost is a very long skinny island so the trip from my village to the north took about 7 hours in direct sunlight with the smell of motors and gasoline. Not such a boat load of fun. I can't even begin to calculate the gallons of sun block I used. The crossing between islands took another 2 hours. I will say that the crossing was not a rough as I was expecting, I've definitly experienced worse, but I had two of my sisters with me and they are both afraid of the ocean. The boat driver we had to make the crossing was terrible and my sisters yelled at him often. The trip wasn't all bad (at least it wasn't raining) and the redeeming qualities of the trip were 1) we did eventually reach Ambae and 2) I have now seen the entire west coast of my island (and it's beautiful of course!). 

Those are a few of my stories. I'm sure I'll have more to come!!

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