Some more blog from Viv.

Early one morning 

I’m not sure if it is a reaction to the anti-malarial medication or just a reaction to the newness of everything and the heat, etc, but I often find myself lying awake in the night. This is the situation again tonight. It is almost 2 am and my mind is very full and active so I thought I would try to write some of these thoughts down. This could even prove to be the best time to get on the computer, without the almost never-ending demands of the kids, and also not having to compete with Jon to use it. The desktop is coming sometime, along with the rest of our shipped goods – presently somewhere in Port Vila in the midst of customs for some undetermined period of time.

This is also a good time to write from the point of view that it is quite a pleasant temperature to work in and there is a slight, cool breeze coming in through the open glass louvre windows. Our poor old laptop will not get too over heated, and I shouldn’t break into a sweat just sitting typing as I usually do.

 

I experienced today, with Madelyne our house gel, the amazing deference that the Ni –Van people show to white people like myself. We had been warned of this phenomenon, but today’s incident brought it home.

 

Madelyne isn’t particularly easy to talk to. Even though she speaks quite good English, she is reluctant to talk a lot, and often shies away with embarrassed giggles, and her hand over her face, from any compliment or encouragement that I try to offer in response to her amazing work around our home. Perhaps because of this and my own lack of confidence in my role of employing her to do the house work, I often find myself answering her questions for her, or at least offering her possible options to answer my questions. Today, for example, it was relatively cool midmorning after heavy rain, so I offered to make her a cup of tea. I normally try to get her to have a wee break in the morning at some point, because it seems unless pushed she would spend the whole morning working very hard, often out in the hot sun, without a break. Any way, in offering her a cup of tea, I tried to find out how she liked it – with or without milk. I guess that I composed the question wrong and she said yes to milk, even though with a little more pushing I discovered that she really didn’t want milk at all. I probably should have thought of that - if you don’t have a fridge, you would never be in the habit of using milk at all, and actually there are no dairy farms here. All milk is imported as powder or UHT so probably in the villages there would be no culture of use of milk at all.

 

I hope that she enjoyed her tea. She would never say if she didn’t anyway, but she wouldn’t sit down and drink it, having a real break, she took it outside and had it while she hand washed our clothes!!

 

I have had other experiences with her not wanting to contradict or say no to anything I say, especially in trying to ascertain how and when she would prefer to be paid for her work in the house and also for a dress she made for me. I guess I will need to be more careful in how I ask questions of her in future. I feel a bit uncomfortable with this total deference to a white person’s wants.

 

Ants 

I hate ants. Having lived in Auckland and Tauranga, I am quite used to the situation of having ants in the home, and although I hate finding them in my kitchen in NZ I was quite prepared for them to be a problem here. I feel that God must have given me a certain amount of special grace to cope with them here as I haven’t felt too phased by them.

 

The issues are , of course, adequate ant – proof storage and kitchen hygiene – trying to wipe up any crumbs or sticky spills as soon as possible after a meal. Give an inch and they will take a mile – the only real problem we’ve had so far was in the peanut butter. They found their way into the jar when the lid wasn’t quite tightened. I scooped them all out and we ate the rest of the contents. It was far too expensive to throw it away! Needless to say, the peanut butter now lives in our small fridge. The small jar of marmite that we brought from NZ is also in there. I’m not sure if ants would go for it or not, but I didn’t like my chances of being able to fish any out if they decided they liked it!!

 

The dishes, too - as much as we’d love to be able to shut everything away in the dishwasher, that isn’t an option here, so we have to educate the kids in the fine art of dishwashing (after having heated some water on the gas stove first, of course).

 

One can’t help but have a certain amount of admiration for the wee blighters, too, especially when you observe an ant struggling under a burden several times its own size. Yesterday I had to spend several very long, hot hours waiting for ride home from town. At some point a lady sat next to me and snacked on some peanuts ( this is straight from the shell – not the shiny - packeted, roasted and salted variety). She dropped some of the rubbish where she was and some time later I observed the ants on the ground examining the leftovers. I noticed a group of perhaps a dozen ants struggling with a relatively large scrap that they wanted. As I watched them on and off, over a period of  probably an hour or 2, they struggled to get themselves going anywhere with this scrap. I guess they didn’t have themselves quite balanced or the teamwork quite sorted for they spent ages kind of going around in circles and not making any progress. I glanced back at them occasionally, amazed at their perseverance. And then all of a sudden they got it right and they were off, quick time with their prize – due reward for all that effort.

 

At this point I probably should make some clever observation about teamwork and unity, etc or quote a verse from Proverbs about the industriousness of ants, but it is now after 3 am and I can’t be bothered. I hope I have done enough writing to solve my insomnia problems and I’m heading for bed!!