December 21, 2000 (received 12/18 @11PM)

Subject: One Bigfala e-mail

Hello everyone!

**Just a pre-emptive note, what will follow is a bigfala (Very large) e-mail because it will be one of the last sent for the next 3 mths. until we have internet access again in March or April.**

We hope you all are doing well as you get ready for the upcoming holidays. We've been back from our wokabout since last Saturday. It was a great experience. We are really excited about our site on Epi. We found out that we will definitely not have internet access at our site for quite awhile...

So....

I wanted to give you our postal address (snail mail) for Epi. We've finally got our address list back from storage again so we will be sending off a batch of letters soon. I'm actually excited to send letters again, there's just nothing like a good ol' fashioned letter. In the meantime if you want to send e-mail we'll be here in Port Vila until Dec. 28th and then off to our site on Epi. Here it is:

Amy and Brian Matthews
Lamen Bay, Epi
Vanuatu
South Pacific via Sydney

for emergency phone calls you could leave a message with our supervisor Isobel Donald at 678 28287 (she lives about a 10 min. walk from where we'll live). Brian and I were talking about what we wanted to tell everyone for this e-mail and we decided it would be neat to take a journal entry from our wokabout and share it with all of you! So here it goes...

12-16-00

This has been an incredible 4 1/2 day wokabout. It's been a time of a wide mixture of emotions. It's been refreshing, exhilariting, a little nerve racking and scary all at the same time. It's amazing to think what might be in store for us in thge next two years. Yesterday (friday) we spent our entire day on the small island -as the local people - refer to it (Lamen island - 2km across the bay). We went to see a custom ceremony for several boys who had been circumsized 2 weeks earlier, hidden away from everyone on the island in a Nakamahl (a custom house built specifically for them) and then they were to come out again to partake in the ceremonial celebration.

Here's what the day was like:

Brian and I got up early (at 5:30am). We headed over to breakfast at the bungalows dining hall (we stayed at guest houses, since our custom house was not ready for us to live in yet) at 6am. We sat down and then had to immediately get up from the table again, hastily stuffing our tasty pancakes (made by Lekon, the owner's wife) into a plastic bag with the leftover Tamba pumpkin (pumpkin cake) from the day before. We went to catch a motor boat on the beach approximately 50 ft away from the dining bungalow. Many people were waiting to get on the boat (about 15 of us). Many of them carrying gifts of offering, for example, a large bunch of ripe banananas, a mat (made from bandanas leaves) and a homemade bag with Kumala (like a potatoe). We piled into a small motor boat (used mostly for fishing and transport occasionally over to the small island). We slowly started across the bay, puttering along with probably to many people weighing the boat down. We made it across in about 30 mins. and walked (V- time = Vanuatu time = Slowly!) to the other side of the island (an island so small that it does not have a single truck) close to Lamen island primary school where Amy and Joel (two other Peace Corps Volunteers) live.

*** Small interjection in the story*** I've almost gotten used to the common everyday occurance of a chicken or a rooster walking slowly (V-time) past me every so often scowering the area for a piece of fruit or some other food item flung caressly to the side or in the area of doti (trash) that get's burned. The beauty is that there are lot's of animals, cats, pigs, chickens and roosters constantly wandering around acting as garbage disposals or garabage men. ***

O.k. On with the story.
So as we walked up to the gathering there were about 400 people watching. They came from the small island itself, Lamen Bay, Port Vila and other villages on Epi. There was the normal segregation of men and women. The majority of the men were talking together close to the activity in the center of the circle and the women were all hanging back (almost in the background) with all the pikinini (children).

Brian, the other Amy and I wer standing somewhere in the middle closer to the men so we could see. The two boys who had been circumsized were between the ages of 12-15. They were standing in the middle with their fathers and some uncles giving gifts to their sisters. Their sisters included a combo of true sisters and cousins. There were 45 in all. It was a huge line of slow gift giving. We were told what the significance of the gift giving was later in the evening after the ceremony. We were told, although my Bislama translation skills are still a little rusty , that this symbolized a public acknowledgement to everyone that the boys could not marry those particular women later in life and the women would help take care of them with cleaning and cooking once they were older and married.

So after the gift giving, all the uncles and fathers had to line up and run through the center of about 15 men or so who would whip them on the back with sticks. I have no idea what the significance of this was, but it definitely looked like it hurt - OUCH!!! The young boys who had been circumsized did not have to participate in this activity. After that the uncles, fathers and some other men from the village stood in the center playing musical beat on bamboo along with singing. They were all (including the two boys) wearing grass skirts, with red shorts underneath , red paint from berries on their forehead and cheeks and they were wearing palm leaved around the upper part of their forhead. The men played for about 15 minutes.

After that they brought over about 6 or 7 large bunches of ripe cooking bananas and parts of bulluk (cow) and pig that had been killed the night before or the morning of the ceremony. There was a man who stood up and pointed to the different bunches of food (speaking in the local language) and distributing out the food to the different clans of people to the islands. He was saying the food is to go to these different clans and to be made into lap lap ( a local food - that most of us volunteers are slowly growing to like the taste of) for the laffet (or feast) in celebration of the custom. After everything was said and done we went over to Amy and Joel's house and talked them about their year of Peace Corps experience and life in general for the rest of the day. We really enjoyed getting to them and we look forward to spending time with them in the future. The plan is to get together with them every two weeks or so. We ended up making macaroni and cheese and eating the all-american lunch to avoid lap lap for one more day before we eat it once a week in the future!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We thinking of you all at this special time of year! Love, Amy and Brian