18 October 2007

Halo bakegen,Mi bin promisem yufala smol pija, mo afta mi bin lukaot olgeta. Naoiami save sendem long yu, mi hopse yufala laekem! (basically, that sayshere are the pictures I promised, and I hope they make your wildestdreams come true)The first one is of my host brother's girlfriend and their nine-monthold daughter Samantha. Well, she was only six months old when thispicture was taken, but she's nine months old now. Samantha is great,she's a very quiet child who loves to see me. Whenever someonecarries her over to my house or I go to where she is, she likes itwhen I saw "Samantha! Hey!" in a high pitched voice. She laughs andmoves her hands up and down, usually hitting whoever is holding her.She's one of few babies in the village, and the one that is the leastscared of my skin color (it's so weird to them - one girl just looksat me, and if it's anybody besides her mama holding her, she startsbawling).The second picture was taken randomly one day when these pikininisshowed up at my house. The pikininis had come over and had asked tocolor, and had produced many worthy artistic works by the time Ithought to take a picture (look at the second to last picture to seethe results. I've had so many produced, I've run out of room and hadto take all of them down to give a chance to the new pictures).Thirdly, is a picture of my garden. Gardens here are located nowherenear our houses; mine is a 15 minute walk away up in the bush. (A 15minute-ravining-with-Tabbi walk away.) Obviously, it needs a littleweeding. Well, not so much anymore because this picture was takenbefore I got my hands and bush knife all dirty. On the ground arelots of kumala vine mixed in with the weeds and a popo tree is in themiddle (just a small one). You can also see a small banana treebehind the popo, some sticks that used to have my long bean vinegrowing on it, and the broad leaved plants on the left are taro.Fourth (namba 56) is a picture of my host papa, Tony, sitting in theaid post just waiting for somebody to show up and give him some workto do. No, I'm kidding, I made him pose. But pay special attentionto the posters in the background - some are kinda funny.Fifth, is a picture taken yesterday after I walked from one side ofPort Vila to the other. Yes, that is sweat, and in case you aren'tvery imaginative, it's in the shape of a bunny rabbit. I think it'sfunny, anywayOkay, now the pictures are a little out of order because I keptremembering good ones I wanted to add. Namba 6 is a picture I took atElaine's las kakae of our nasara family group. I'm not in the picturebecause I was taking it, but all these people are my new relatives.It didn't turn out very well because it was very dark, but notablepeople include Mama Emma on the bottom right in the brown islanddress. Behind her in the red/pink dress is Auntie Lolot, next to themis Lesou (the wonder 10-year-old), in the orange hat in front isMassi, Lesou's little sister, and on the left in the worn purpleisland dress is Mama Lilly. I could name everybody else, but it'dprobably get a little confusing...I already covered picture number 31 (see above, when I talk about thesecond picture, number 37) so I won't say anymore here. Except try toimagine me explaining what some of these pictures actually are of.Not many kids here know what ice cream or penguins are. That's alwaysvery fun.Okay, and the last one is one of my favorites. When I flew outyesterday, we were in this little tiny baby planlet (seats for tenpeople, including pilot and co-pilot). But the small plane meant thatwe had to take our time getting up in the air, and the wings weren'tin the way of the window view of land. This picture is of Malvasifrom the air, and you can see about half of the roof of my house. Thedescription is a little confusing, but I'll try: the building farthestto the left and closest to the solwota is the kindy. Perpendicular tothat building is another pretty close, which is the covered areabelonging to the kindy. Just a tad above and to the right of thesetwo places is my house. You can see the whole roof to my attachedkitchen, which slants down towards the solwata, and part of the roofof my house, which is attached above the kitchen. Other notablebuildings include the aid post (the cement building a little to theright of my house), the mamas house (the big cement building in themiddle a little closer to the solwota than the partially completedcement building right behind it) and the Presbyterian church (the bluebuilding in the middle of the far right).That's it for the pictures. In other news, my first cyclone is on itsway. Look it up, they're calling it Cyclone Xavier. If I were onEpi, the weather would be getting a little less pleasant right now...I wondered why the sky looked a little dark today.Well, have a good morning (for all of you who wake up to check your email)love,Stephthe disclaimer still applies