excitement walk more walking vsa variation

over the past week the children have been getting more and more excited in anticipation of granddad visiting us. Last Wednesday evening at the airport we had an almost surreal experience of watching him walk off the plane, carrying two suitcases, one filled with goodies for us. We had dinner at a local Chinese restaurant before the 45 minute drive back to Talua. There were big smiles all round.

The next day on I decided to show dad around Navota Farm. Thinking it would about 2 hours to go up to the middle of the farm and back, we ended up walking for 5 hours. When we got to the first terrace on the hill, dad wanted to get to the top. It took a while but we got there after walking halfway around the hill to find a sort of track up. Needless to say we were both a bit stiff and sore on getting back.

Last Friday we had another big walk. The family and I visited Madelyn’s home for lunch. It was a 1 hour walk to Najingo, a short canoe ride across the water to Tangoa Island. After arriving at Madelyn’s we spent about 1 ½ hours exploring Tangoa Island. We then had lunch – which included “Laplap Worm”. In October, about four nights after full moon many people in South Santo head to the sea when it gets dark, looking for sea worms that apparently only come out at this time of the year. Viv and I were relieved we ate them before seeing the left over worms in a sack - slimy and disgusting. As for the flavour, the Laplap took away some of the flavour and they were not too bad, not too strong. It was a good day, but we were all tired that night after three hours walking. On the canoe trip back, one of Madelyn’s sisters who was paddling our canoe, told us they have a shark following them about once a month - some big and some small – one never swims between Najingo and Tangoa Island.

Last Saturday Viv and I hired the farm Ute and picked up two NZ VSA representatives who were visiting Santo on reconnaissance work. They wanted to have a look at Navota Farm for possible opportunities. It was good to meet them and show them around and have visitors for lunch. I was impressed with their ability to quickly understand the issues for a particular area. They do their homework well before sending someone. If you have ever thought of spending two years on a VSA placement – don’t hesitate – give it a go.

My class topics have changed a bit over the past while - I do enjoy the diversity and variation. I have gone from teaching Lukan Christology to teaching the Navota students small business skills like receipt books, cash books and cash flows. I also continue with the English classes and on two evenings each week teach computer classes. So the variation is enjoyable and other things pop up as well. For example last Tuesday morning having just got home from teaching at Navota Farm, the Talua accountant Ps Frank arrived asking me to help him with the Talua Cashbook. (I had mentioned to him a couple of months ago I’d help him with the monthly financial reports for Talua). There were five months of transactions to process. After a while it was all sorted – except I will need to spend a lot of time reconciling everything. He did have a hand written running balance but the computer had a different result - this slowed my progress down significantly as I had to double check each transaction. I have yet to discover how he came up with his balances cos they don’t add up.

In general we are all well, and are enjoying having granddad been here with us.

God Bless
Jon