28 aka Week 37 out of 112 total weeks
I started counting from the time training ended and I arrived in Santo as week one. But one PC started the count from the day we landed in country... if you add those in, that adds 9 weeks so 37 weeks in all, in a really strange country. Not sure which I should use. Hm... training being such a HUGE HUGE HUGE waste of time and money and energy I don't want count them. They are just tooooooo Horrible a memory. I will skip them.
We have the day off I know that so... it will be a good day to work on some side projects.
OKay... so it is teachers day and I was roped into taking photos as the government center. I went there at 8am... and no one is there. Ah Vanuatu... land of no one shows up on time.
Here are a few photos from today.
The speeches at the government building were very boring but oh well.
and here is ultimate frisbee photos:
Not much really happened today... the beer is not fermenting so will have to look into that tomorrow.
Oh I forgot last week We made some hamburgers too...
(07) Tuesday
Very slow start to the day. Been researching a few things about using Wamp for php apps. Also doing some story writing but I am not sure what direction my story should take... should I go off into a fantasy where the character are running for their lives or dial it back to reality... not sure.
I need to get some yeast and attempt to get this beer fermenting. It is doing nothing.
Also I want to get some hardware for a computer two things, some DDR2 ram, and a nic card.
Should go check the internet at the school this will be a whole week of it running fine.
8:00pm
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Weird day or maybe just normal Vanuatu day, but after hours or just sitting around at my house I ventured up to the school around noon and from there I went on a trek with my Principle and accountant, I should learn his name. I talk to more than most people at my school, since he pays for all the expensive hardware I end up getting, to fix all the broke things at my school. I thought I was just going to john Lum store... aka the best buy of Vanuatu in Santo/Luganville. But NO.
We went on this round about journey to a Ni-Van's house who is a butcher and my principle needed to ask him if he would be willing to slaughter and clean a goat for a pre-game festival/feast for the rugby tournament that is happening this week. I guess my school is heavily involved in this game and they bought a huge ass goat for the feast. After asked this guy to cut up the meat we went to this French guys place and picked up two more people to get the goat. Then we went and got the meat... then we dropped me off at John Lum... which I thought was a mid trip thing and they would pick me up... no dice. I walked home. They never came back. On my way home I checked on a bunch of things though.. like how much a thermometer cost at uncle bills, if I have mail post office, how much for baking yeast for beer problem solving... then i got home.
Yup. then I worked on some computer problems and found out I am substituting for Samuel my counterpart for a week... as he goes somewhere, no idea where.
That was my random day.
(08) Wednesday
So there will be an eclipse today.
When the eclipse happens worldwide
Lunar eclipses look approximately the same all over the world and happen at the same time.The times displayed might be a minute or two off actual times.
| Event | UTC Time | Time in Luganville* | Visible in Luganville |
|---|---|---|---|
| Penumbral Eclipse begins | Oct 8 at 8:17 AM | Oct 8 at 7:17 PM | Yes |
| Partial Eclipse begins | Oct 8 at 9:18 AM | Oct 8 at 8:18 PM | Yes |
| Full Eclipse begins | Oct 8 at 10:27 AM | Oct 8 at 9:27 PM | Yes |
| Maximum Eclipse | Oct 8 at 10:55 AM | Oct 8 at 9:55 PM | Yes |
| Full Eclipse ends | Oct 8 at 11:22 AM | Oct 8 at 10:22 PM | Yes |
| Partial Eclipse ends | Oct 8 at 12:32 PM | Oct 8 at 11:32 PM | Yes |
| Penumbral Eclipse ends | Oct 8 at 1:32 PM | Oct 9 at 12:32 AM | Yes |
I worked on a couple computers in the lab, fixing one's nic card issue... but getting neither of them on the network. Not sure why. Managed to show my counterpart a couple tasks for the first time in weeks.
4:00pm
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Full strange day as normal. I sat in a classroom from 1:30-4:00pm and helped teach a bit about excel. I think excel is one of the worst programs ever made but I get how it can be useful from time to time. It is sad that it's considered IT in this country.
I managed to get two computers back into circulation, one for the principal and the other in a conference room. Both we very troublesome about getting onto the network. I had to use some command line tricks to get it to work. But once I did that they were members of LUGANVILLE woohoo... and now I don't have to look at the crappy PC in french anymore or try and translate it back and forth all the time on the principles PC. I just can login with my account ,in english, fix any problem and log off... and then the principal can login and look at his desktop in whatever language or keyboard configuration and not be annoyed too.
After those successes I decided to go into town and eat a pizza. It was a waste of money a bit... but since i have nothing of any interest to eat at my place I spluged. Share a slice with Rich and wandered back home on foot until I get my bike fixed. Maybe tomorrow.
Yeah and at 7-9am tomorrow I am teaching again. I don't really know what to do to kill my time... maybe diagram the network and try and get the admins to work on the website. There is not much to do in that class it is a basic typing class. Kids are just learning how to use their fingers to type.
9-midnight
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Watched the moon eclipse. It was really great. Made my neighbors look too. They never saw anything like it... they were not even sure it was the moon at first. I was online too and made sure to get 4-5 other people to look out their window and see this... well hope you did too.
(09) Thursday
3am and I can't sleep. Shocking right? Blog time I guess.
Had a long day of teaching and then went home and crashed but people in the Peace Corps wanted to cheer me up because everything at my house is breaking so they came over and we made pumpkin soup
CHeck out these photos... I have not scrathed a coconut since training village time... Little rusty.
Planning stages:
Some serious bran storming... Rich seems to not approve for a minute...
The next party we planned out using my white Board... Kate is the the drawer... Used two colors of markers for enhanced readability. Good Job Kate. I like the turtle drawing and the hamburger.
(10) Friday
8:16 am and I am in a classroom teaching basic stuff in excel stuff... so bright... should get better blinds in that room.
So much to do today after this class.
1) Get the fridge fixed
2) Patch tire
3) Ask for gas in tank for cooking just went dead last night.
Fingers crossed on the top two .
4:00pm
Ended up dropping off the fridge at super cool but if they actually fix it soon is a real question. I doubt it. I patched my tired again after I found the metal shrapnel that was popping it every time and thought that would solve the problem but it went flat again. No clue why... but will try again.
I ran into Daria and had a decent conversation... she's quite funny in my opinion.
6:oopm
Then I went over to Kate and Bryan's and had some spaghetti with Mike Stafford, Rich. It was so good.
(11) Saturday
There are many things I really hate the sound:
1) of clothing being scrubbed on washboard or whatever is making the non-stop noise.
2) of the fijian rugby team screaming and WHOOping about every stupid thing they tell each other
3) of dogs murderously barking all night.
Oh well... I have speakers and I can drown them out constantly. I wish I had a soundproof building I could shut myself into.
Today there is the ruby match... I might go but mostly so I talk with a few people that plan to be there.
Time to do some work in the lab and fix my tire again.
I ended up skipping the rugby game because it was non-stop raining and by the time I got my tire fixed it was 4:30 and the game was almost over. I feel bad about missing it.
Had a burger at HQ... and fixed my burner to work... later we mostly all got together at the kava bar near the phillips gas station. Hunter and Sam were a no show.
Walked back with Rich and waited for Matt H. to show up and wait for Rich's food to show up at the small restaurants by the Mama's market.
(12) Sunday
It seems like I might have the wrong impression about my house. It really does not belong to me in the sense that I am its primary resident at the moment... it really is the house of ants and I am its honored guest. My job is to provide them, things to eat. I am a terrible host, I patched up several holes in the wall and destroyed entry for the landlord ants.
Time to crank my music as well so I can kill the blather from my neighbors all squeaking in high pitched local language and laughing in madman outbursts.
11:00am
Rich, Matt H and I went for a bike ride up to LopeLope... and of course it pours buckets of rain. Non-stop pretty much. We waded into the water it was shallow and Matt is doing his absolute best to freak me out about sand sharks. About how the depth of the water was the perfect level for them to sneak up on us and take a leg off. Great. Saw no sharks. I will post a couple photos later.
4:00pm
At night... we had a great BBQ event... everyone in Luganville showed up, Even Hunter a few hours late but he made it. Bryan, Kate, Rich, Mike Stafford and Hawkins, Sam, Jes, Hunter, Matt Hardwick and myself.
We made hamburgers, sausages, fired potatoes, with onions and garlic and lemon pepper tomatoes, ketchup and mustard and all kind of thing like that. It was beautiful. Then we watched a few shows, saw the episode of Broad City I forgot to show in the series 01. And then We watched some Twin Peaks.... I had this nugget planted in my brain from my friend back home, Mary so we watched episode 1-2 and the pilot which is an hour and 30 minutes. so committed some hours to this.
They liked it... Rich is on the fence about it, he thinks it is pretty weird. But the ones that stayed for the them mostly liked it.
