MOVIN' ON UP!

I have some exciting news – I’ve moved! About six weeks ago, my counterpart (boss at work) mentioned that a nice furnished house would be coming available to rent and that she would like to move me from my current spot to the new place. This house was being rented by another volunteer, and he was vacating, so she thought it would be worth checking out. You see, the Peace Corps provides volunteers with a monthly stipend to cover food and incidentals, but the organization that a volunteer works for provides housing and utilities. We drove out to see the other house, and it was just great, so a moving day was picked.

Before I could move in, Peace Corps staffers came out to survey the new place and approve it. This was followed up by Peace Corps sending another staff person to glue in the jalousie window slats so that nobody could pull them out and climb into the house, and for extra measure, they installed a dead bolt and refastened the security screens. So it was all systems go! My counterpart came out to my little apartment and loaded up all my gear – my luggage packed with what I brought, along with a few large plastic bags containing my cookware, groceries, and a few other things that I’ve acquired since being here.

My new house is just great. First and foremost, it is located in a much safer area of Port Vila and is just a short walk away from two grocery stores and a hardware store. It’s also still about a 25 or 30 minute walk to work, so I get my exercise every day. Given that it is in a safer spot, I can walk home most evenings as well, so my exercise routine has doubled – which I’m hope will pay off with a sculpted body that will look great in a bikini by the time I leave here. (Yeah – right…giggle!)

There are several very exciting things about my new home. First of all, it is located right on a lagoon and one whole side of the house has windows, so I usually get a lovely cross-breeze…not to mention the lovely view of the lagoon. At last, I finally feel like I’m living on an island. But the other unbelievable thing is the fact that I have a small 4-burner gas stove – WITH AN OVEN!! There is no temperature gauge on the oven, but so far no smoke or flames have come out and everything I’ve baked has turned out, so my guessing game with the temperature is working pretty well.

This place is probably three times larger than my other apartment – and the icing on the cake is that I have a second bedroom. So, there’s room for other volunteers to come and stay with me when they’re in Port Vila from the outer islands. In fact, already Carla’s B&B has done a brisk business. I think I’ve had houseguests all but about 5 nights since moving in.

But, I’ve saved the best for last…so far I have not encountered any leeches or GIANT SPIDERS! I do have those little red worms still and probably kill about 20 or so of those each day, but they are harmless and not scary at all. I also have two good friends who keep the big cockroach population in control – Larry the Lizard and Iggy his little brother. Larry is green and probably measures about 8” from tail to nose, but Iggy is considerably smaller. Yes, I’ve seen several steak-sized cockroaches, but nothing like I had before. And usually, I just find their legs – so I guess Larry and Iggy are “white meat men” and don’t like the drumsticks! Yes folks…life is good in Port Vila. I feel extremely pampered – but try to share it with all my buds when they’re in town!