Behind The Facebook Photos…

It’s 6:30pm. By some miracle of miracles both kids are in bed. It’s dark, cold, and rainy outside. It feels like 10:00pm.

I know many people are curious about what’s going on behind the scenes for us, so here are some snapshots of life in Vanuatu during the last week.

I was at a cocktail party with Mike last Thursday at the Australian High Commissioner’s house. It was a diplomatic “do”—wine and champagne being shopped around by smiling servers, a great deal of talk about reconstruction work, and a whole roasted pig that disappeared from display at some point and returned to us via coconut shells and on top of taro.

The Governor General of Australia was there. He gave a speech (and, incidentally, partially answered a question I’ve always had as to what he actually does). The Prime Minister of Vanuatu spoke. At some point during the evening when my feet were hurting rather a lot, I found myself telling someone about Mike’s misadventures with cancer last year.

“This time last year he had no hair,” I heard myself say. Then I looked across the tent at Mike. He was sipping a glass of red wine and smiling. He had plenty of hair.

This time last year we’d only been back in Laos six weeks, I remembered. It was hot. We were exhausted and struggling to find out footing in Vientiane again. We were stressed about Dominic’s (re)adjustment.

In some ways, not a lot has changed. We’re still pretty much exhausted. We’re still struggling to find our footing—just in the South Pacific rather than in Asia. We’re still quite stressed about some aspects of Dominic’s behavior.

In other ways, a lot has changed. Until I talk about it (or until I have a flashback when I see a barber cut Mike’s hair too short, as happened last month) cancer seems more remote than the distance afforded by a single year.  We’ve moved countries. We’ve bought a house. We’ve witnessed the destruction wrought by the worst storm in the Pacific’s recorded history.

On Friday night we were out again. It’s rare at the moment for us to be out once a week, much less two nights out of two, but there you have it. It was another Australian High Commission event. I chatted to the Director of the Law and Justice program. Among other things, they work to strengthen local resources and recourses for women. As we were talking details, the director mentioned that an estimated 73% of women here are the victims of domestic violence at some point in their lives.

These are dramatic reminders to be grateful for all the good in my life, but I rarely need dramatic reminders on that front anymore. As it has for a while, gratitude whispers in my ear all the time now. Every time I put the kids to bed in warm clothes and on dry sheets. Every time I carry in groceries from the car (groceries I’ve usually spent nearly as much on as we pay our houselady every week). Every time I Skype someone. Every time the kids finally go to bed and the house is quiet.

Speaking of people who do not have all those luxuries in their lives… our houselady, Cynthia, and her partner, Harry, are making progress on rebuilding the house they lost in the cyclone. Just last week I passed along the last of the donated money. They have a tin roof up now. And a cement floor. Walls will go up soon.

Harry and Cynthia’s three children aged 6 years, 2 years, and 10 months old went with Harry’s mother to live on an island up North after the cyclone (she was better placed to care for them up there than Harry and Cynthia were down here in the midst of all the reconstruction chaos). They are planning on having the kids return here around Christmastime.

I know, right? Can you imagine eight months without your kids? Only having phone calls when you can afford the phone credit (which, like everything else, is not cheap here)?

What else is going on?

Mike is working hard and working well. World Vision has done some wonderful, thoughtful work in the aftermath of March’s disaster. A lot remains to be done, but many people have extra food, jerry cans, blankets, tarps, and more because of what Mike and the team have done here during the last couple of months. Good groundwork is being laid amidst a complex context for smart reconstruction programs moving forward.

I’m working most mornings again. I have a book in the long distance relationship series coming out in a couple of weeks. I’ve done a bit of consultancy work. I am fending off suggestions that I set up a counseling practice here—as they were in Laos, psychologists are thin on the ground here.

I’m learning new things every day. Friday it was where to go in town to buy ground pork (the French grocery store near the largest hardware store in town). Yesterday around 12:30am I heard a serious of loud thumps. When I went out to investigate I found bananas and onions scattered all over the floor, and I learned that Scallywag can reach the fruit basket on the kitchen bench overlooking the sink. He apparently has no qualms about helping himself to a midnight snack if we put leftover bread up there. Today I learned that Mike will be gone next week for four days visiting projects on a remote island. That was a bit of a bummer.

Alex is burbling along happily. He’s developing a mind of his own, so sometimes I’ll walk into his room to get him up after his nap only to hear, “No!! G’way. I wan’ Cyn.thi.a change diaper!” Alex is a cuddler, a giggler, a talker and a born mimic. He regularly wakes up about 5am. He has not yet figured out he weighs almost as much as Dominic. Whenever he is on the receiving end of big-brother mistreatment he still plops himself down on his fat little bottom and bawls. One of these days he’s going to figure out that he can hold Dominic down just by sitting on him and things are going to get very interesting.

It’s school holidays. Dominic is using his extra time at home to climb up the bars on our front window and attempt to pee in the hanging pot plant outside the front door. He has suddenly started calling me Mum instead of Mama for no earthly reason that I can figure out. Sometimes, now, after he’s pushed me close the internal brink he will pause to inquire with clinical interest, “are you losing your patience?”

Yesterday something transpired in the back of the truck that made Alex start to wail. When I demanded to know what had happened, Dominic told us the cyclone did it. When we replied that most definitely had not been the fault of the cyclone, he said, “It was the cyclone. It was me the cyclone.” An hour later we walked past a tiny baby and he leaned forward and said, “I need a baby. A baby just like that tiny little baby with dark brown curly hair. So, Mum, when we go to the proper baby shop you can buy one just like that, OK?” After we got home he went into a raging screaming tailspin that lasted longer than an hour because Mike got him out of the bath instead of me. Two hours later kissed us and whispered that he loved us. He continues to expand our emotional range and exhaust our parenting repertoire.

It’s a quarter past eight, now. I’ll put this post up tomorrow with some photos. But now, it’s bedtime. Mike is already asleep (I told you we were exhausted). It’s been grey and rainy here for three days so the solar hot-water heater is completely out of juice. We turned on the electric hot-water booster this morning. It made the water deliciously first-world hot. I’m hoping it is still that way. Off to find out.

Hope you are all well.