Vanuatu is amazing. The people are SO friendly, everyone says hello and waves at us. There are more white people here than I expected, a lot of ex pats and tourists.
Our first night here we went out to an outdoor bar with a kiwi guy we met on the plane. We tasted the only local beer, Tusker, a lager. Not to be confused with Tusker from Kenya. After a few beers we were all feeling great and decided to go to a nightclub, haha. It was kind of ridiculous. They played music like U2 and John Mayer, who are good, but kind of hard to dance to and definitely not nightclub music.
We have been going to the local farmers market, which is open 24 hours. There are so many beautiful fruits/veg/eggs/chickens there. We have tried several new and interesting vegetables that I have never seen before. Yum.
We have worked the past 3 days at Vila Central Hospital in the maternity ward. All of the sisters (midwives), nurses and staff are so nice. It has been pretty slow in terms of births, and I have only helped 3 babies come into the world so far. I did get some suturing practice, which was great. The women here are naturals at birthing. Their labors are short, and their 2nd stage (pushing) is super short. They make very little noise and pretty much only give birth on their backs.
The first baby I helped with was OP (occiput posterior) so it came out face up. Babies don't fit as well through the pelvis this way, so the mama had a lot of back pain. They call this presentation FTP (face to pubes) here, which is cute.
I am learning the local language, Bislama. It is a lot like English, and pretty easy to understand. My favorite little saying: pullem good wind (take deep breaths), sit sit (literally shit shit, which is synonymous with pushing).
Ok I could go on forever, but this is long enough for tonight. Now I am going to enjoy my dinner of lentils and sauteed vegetables. Yum.
Peace and love,
Samantha*
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