Putting down some roots

Dear friends,

Today, it’s been six months since Cyclone Pam, and five months since the kids and I arrived here to face the mammoth task of unpacking, learning our new home-city, and making new friends all over again.

Five months!!

It’s gone by so fast, I can’t even fathom. But when I think about all we’ve mapped out during those months it makes more sense. I’ve learned the hard way where two different doctors are, and that there’s a decent dental clinic here. I know which of three different Chinese restaurants is our pick, and where to go to get great steak. I know where to buy paint, lumber, or sand to make cement, and I practically have the plumber on speed dial. (Except, I’m still using my crappy $20 phone I bought in Laos 4 years ago so I don’t have speed dial. That phone is indestructible, though. It’s been dropped on tiles at least 100 times, and all I have to do is pick it up, put the battery back in, and snap the plastic back right back on. It’s an engineering marvel.)

What else have I learned about Vila? Well, I know not to expect a quick trip to the bank. Ever. And to try to avoid downtown on cruise ship days. I know which grocery store to buy chicken breasts from (when they’re in stock) and I am learning not to be too surprised when staples like eggs, carrots, and apples simply disappear from the shelves all over town for up to a week at a time.

Seriously, though, a town that runs out of carrots and eggs? That one still gets me when I pause to think too much about it.

The point is, I am soon going to have to stop saying that we are “settling in.” Although I still feel like most of our friendships here are in their infancy, and we’ve only visited eight or so of this island’s 43890325 gorgeous beaches, I need to shift gears and mindset and lingo and accept that “we are settled.” After all, we’ve planted seven trees around the house in the last few weeks and started a compost pile. You’re not a newbie if you’re composting.

So what is going on in normal life here, then, if that’s what it has slowly become?

Well, when school is in session I’ve found a great rhythm of working for three hours in the morning. I’ve got a consulting project that will occupy a couple of mornings a week between now and December. I’m focusing on the long distance website and relationship resources for couples two other mornings a week. One morning a week I take Alex to a local playgroup. In the afternoons I hang with the kids, read them stories, take care of life admin, and tour the local shops hunting for carrots and eggs.

The kids turned 2 and 4 in August. I made a rainbow cake, and in a moment of great maternal triumph (thanks mostly to Mike, Cynthia, and Harry who did facilitated the engineering) 120 balloons fell down from the ceiling. I have promised Mike to think more carefully next year before I make any casual suggestions to Dominic about things that “might” occur at his birthday party.

For the most part, Dominic is settled and happy at his school. Every so often something will trigger such an epic meltdown upon pick-up or drop-off that other parents will stop me for days afterwards to ask whether everything is OK, but for the most part Dominic is thriving in his preschool. He is overall more settled at cheerful at home, too, which is an enormous relief. We have a long way to go before I would call him easy to parent—somehow I doubt that we’ll ever get there—but he is somewhat less challenging than he was several months ago.

Thank. Goodness.

Also, he continues to make me laugh at least once a day.

Again, thank goodness.

Sociable and verbal, Alex is desperate to join big brother at preschool. In the meantime he’s keeping busy pretending to cut the grass, demanding kisses from his trusties (everyone always happy to oblige), and practicing his own big-brother style tantrums. The other day he screamed for 20 minutes because I took off his long pants. And what is it with kids howling with rage when they’re not in the mood to be changed and insisting that they really, really want that dirty diaper BACK ON. This is the 2^nd child of mine who is prone to this particular tirade. I don’t get it.

Mike oscillates between tired and exhausted. He and the World Vision team have done amazing work during the last six months. Cyclone Pam impacting the livelihoods of more than two-thirds the population here in Vanuatu and caused damages estimated at about half the annual GDP of the country. During the last six months World Vision has assisted more then 55,000 people. I’ve had a front-row seat during this response, and I’ve been so impressed by how Mike and the team stretched big during this time of enormous need, but didn’t over-reach. They’re on-track with all of their Pam grants and projects. They’ve actually been able to accomplish more than they expected to do. For anyone who is familiar with this industry, that is a huge accomplishment. Too often during times of crises, agencies over-commit and then find themselves unable to meet all their aid commitments.

Normally, during a major natural disaster response, we’d be expecting the pace to ease up slightly right about now. However…

Big sigh.

… It looks like Vanuatu will probably get hit with a one-two punch combination. What one forecaster described as a “Godzilla El Nino” is shaping up and likely to persist into 2016 as one of the strongest El Nino’s on record.

What does that mean for us? Well, drought for now, and then a higher likelihood of more strong cyclones early next year.

It’s the drought that’s already starting to cause problems.

In many areas people are already running out of water, including communities here in Vila. Harry and Cynthia’s new water tank that many of you helped fund has already run dry and they are carrying home water in bottles from our house at night. Today they’ve filled a dozen big plastic drinking bottles with water and they’re shipping them to Cynthia’s siblings on another island. In many places, crops that were planted in the aftermath of Pam are failing. Just when things should be looking up, significant numbers of people are facing months of hunger.

World Vision’s staff down in Tanna (the island most hard-hit by Pam) have already cycled back into relief-mode. Most of them haven’t yet had a chance to rebuild their own damaged houses (due to materials shortages until very recently as well as work pressures). Now they are working nights and weekends again and reconstruction is on hold.

Mike is wading through all of this every day at work. At home, far, far too many of our nights (as in, almost all of them) are still being repeatedly interrupted by very our own Category 5 Cyclone Dominic and moderately strong El Alex. It’s impossible to say you’re truly in survival mode when you know people nearby are buying drinking water by the bucketful and wondering how they’re going to feed their kids. But when it comes to energy and bandwidth, Mike and I are still having more days (er, weeks) than we want when we still feel we’re in survival mode ourselves.

I’m not quite sure how to end this post–possibly because my brain has yet to fully wake up despite being up since 4:30 with Alex. So I’ll just leave it here and pick up again on the blog soon. And, to that end, I have two questions for you. Leave a comment below and let me know how you are…

What is something that’s changed for you during the last five months?
What questions would you like to see me answer on the blog?

Cheers, all. I hope you have a grand old week.