the wai

How to: Coconut scratching stoolCoconuts are a way of life here...

Sun, 21 Oct 2018 15:36:59 -0400

How to: Coconut scratching stool

Coconuts are a way of life here in Vanuatu. Eat them, drink them, milk them, cook them, they are delicious is all of their different shapes and forms. This video focuses on the milking side of things.

Coconut milk is used heavily in local cooking by scratching out of the inside of brown coconuts, adding water, then squeezing out with the hands. But to get a nice finely scratched coconut, you need a scratcher. I’ve been asking around for a while about where to find these scratching stools, but no luck. Many people have offered to make me one, but I decided to take it into my own two hands and get busy on a sunny Saturday morning.

See how it turned out and get in touch if you need any tips on how to make your own. Needless to say, the milk is now flowing, sans-air miles, sans-BPA poisoning, sans-pollution, sans-expensive.. con-deliciousness.

Google Win

Thu, 04 Oct 2018 19:05:29 -0400

I recently transitioned to using Google Photo’s for managing photos on my iPhone as I became increasingly frustrated with how difficult it was to simply download photos from my phone. This was a time consuming process but eventually managed to get all my photos for the last 10 years uploaded to the cloud.

The Google photos set up is great for work too, simply take photos, and when you get back to WIFI, they will upload to the cloud ready to download and share. But recently I found another feature that makes this process even better.

Google My Maps is a pretty useful but somewhat hidden platform for creating your own online maps with the Google platform. After a little exploring and assuming that it must be possible I discovered you can import photos into you Google My Maps map straight from Google Photos. Assuming you have location services turn on on your device when taking photos, these will automatically geo-locate to where they were taken; generally accurate to 5 - 10 m.

Check out the map of my recent construction monitoring visit to Malo:

https://drive.google.com/a/thewai.co.nz/open?id=1sA-YvYbVzlqatKbozdXJTSCWA-giLGrh&usp=sharing

These points can then also be exported to Google Earth to get a rough idea of elevation as well. Pretty dam handy. Seems like technology is finally catching up to make these kind of things that you assume should be easy, actually easy.

My iPhone was recently displaced after some rather exuberant Birthday celebrations, and now the owner of a Moto G4, googles original flagship phone, which makes the process even easier.

Disclaimer: no privacy issues have been considered in this shameless promotion of Google.

"Whatungarongaro te tangata, toi tū te whenua"

Wed, 12 Sep 2018 03:43:30 -0400

“Whatungarongaro te tangata, toi tū te whenua”

A lesson in faith

Wed, 12 Sep 2018 03:38:15 -0400

It’s just gone Saturday afternoon in Luganville, and I’ve got hummus on the brain. I’ve collected the cans of chickepeas (didn’t soak this time soz) and as I get home after a busy morning at work #volunteering, I walk around to the back garden to check for fallen lemons. We have a pretty productive tree out back, maybe every second or third time I go out I find 1 or 2 on the ground, but there is always the chance there will be none.

As I around the corner I spot two siting in plain sight. Instant relief, joy, gratification. An irrational moment of thought that somehow, in this moment especially, I have earned these lemons. Science and growing up in western society have taught me that this no link between our actions and random acts of nature, say a lemon falling from a tree. But this mantra escapes me momentarily as I feel in some small way I am being rewarded for the intentions I have put into the universe this morning.

The lads and I from the Department of Water Resources were out this morning cleaning and delivering Portaloos to an evacuation centre in Luganville. More than two hundred people of Ambae have turned the Apostolic Church downtown into a mini urban-village and have had the use of only two toilets for a couple of weeks now. I have been working with the WASH cluster, and after much number crunching and meetings, we finally got organized to actually (hopefully) deliver some relief items this week. Toilets for the church being the top priority.

Finding the lemons was a lesson in faith. That creeping curiosity that for some reason, a power greater than myself is showing favour through providing bounty. Have I joined the church? Not yet, but I am endlessly intrigued by how this kind of faith may/may not have been manipulated throughout the ages. Mother Nature is a beautiful creature and I’m looking to untrain what science has taught me that she is dictated by quantifiable actions and re-actions alone. Embrace the in-explainable, make lemons rain from the sky like raindrops. Surely it make life more interesting.

Nava knows where it goes

Sun, 26 Aug 2018 00:41:41 -0400

This is Nava, first name Salatiel, and he is kindly pointing out where to mark a point for a new tap stand to deliver water. Nava has been working in water supply for more than 30 years in the area of Torba, so fair to say, he knows where to put a tap. The other fullas are residents of a small village in the middle of Santo, called Kororo. The village kindly invited us to stay with them one night as we did a small survey for a new water supply and consultation with the community.

The villagers of Kororo are sticking to Kustom ways in sporting the Nambas, which are the thin pieces of fabric containing the nether regions. We were treated to a big kai including pork crackling, that had been cooked inside a length of bamboo in an earth oven. Very tasty, but pretty fatty, and I could only stomach so much being someone who doesn’t eat a lot of meat. In the evening we shared a few tall glasses of kava and had a good chat with the chief over some bush tobacco.

It was great to get out “in the field” and get a small taste of the village life. It’s crucial that these communities get good service to water so that they can maintain the custom way of life and resist the pressure of urban drift. Something that the Vanuatu government is also very interested in doing, especially with Luganville infrastructure being very stretched as it is. Hopefully we can get a good outcome and source for these people, as they say “wota blo sors blo laef”.

Full steam to Santo

Wed, 15 Aug 2018 03:22:49 -0400

There is a bit of a festival atmosphere in Luganville at the moment. I’ve only been here a few weeks, but it seems in the last 10 days there has been a noticeable increase in the hive of activity down main street, people hanging from cranes (see photo), kind of like the feel you get in a small kiwi bach town in the lead up to new years eve. Sadly, this increased hum in not a cause for celebration, and is in fact due to the evacuation of 11,000 people from the island of Ambae because of falling volcanic ash.

While the government has officially supported for the evacuees to relocate to the island of Maewo, it is gradually becoming obvious that the majority are choosing to relocate to Santo. The reasons for this are many and vary depending on who you speak to, but Santo may provide more opportunities, and it seems many have more support here. Many are staying with family in the mid-term until they can establish new communities on land they have purchased. The lynch-pin to these plans of course being, access to water.

The influx of people is also adding pressure to the already stretched capacity of the urban water supply in Luganville, so it’s fair to say that I’ve been injected into a busy in at the Department of Water Resources.

But in reality, I’m sure things are always changing here, being so exposed to elements and changes in the natural environment that they draw their livelihood from. From the people I have spoken to so far, they are still laughing and smiling and pretty at peace to just get on with it and carve out a new life. Pretty admirable and made me wonder how the reaction would be back home, say if the population of Waiheke had to pack whatever they could fit onto small ferry’s and leave without a clear indication of ever being able to return.

So, it seems this will be quite a defining part of my work here in the first wee while, who knows how long. I’m still very much just taking in the new environment and getting to know my team, who are passionate about finding ways to help out. I’m still just sponging it all up to try and find ways I can be support as well. Smiling seems to work for starters.

Let’s face it, life isn’t much fun if you can’t compost. Sending...

Tue, 07 Aug 2018 02:35:12 -0400

Dig a square pit to fit the size of the tire, flat.

Start a circle hole in the tire wall (at the join indent), make the hole bigger with a knife. Jam in the end of the the spade to get lever and open 'er up like a can. Do this for two tires on one side

Also found the bottom of an old washing basket for the lid. Not sure if it should be open but will give it a whirl for now.

You could also have a middle tire cut on both walls if you wanted to go three high.

Stack the tires.

I attached some mesh with old electrical cable to keep the vermin out (hopefully!)

I also attached the lid with some electrical cable and whacked a stone on top for good measure.

Add some paper and some green waste from around the garden and your away! Mahi!

Let’s face it, life isn’t much fun if you can’t compost. Sending endless food scraps to landfill and missing a golden opportunity to enlighten the environmental ego, it really brings you down. Waste management in Vanauatu is pretty limited so haven’t seen any commercial bins for sale and even struggling to find suitable materials to make one. Then I had a rummage around the yard and spotted some tires that looked like some likely candidates. A quick youtube later and I was out there doing it myself! Here’s how it turned out.

First field trip

Wed, 01 Aug 2018 21:04:38 -0400

Got out with the boys this morning to hand deliver the water bills (Bil blo wota) to a few hundred residents around Luganville. There are very few road names here and no postal system, so all the bills are delivered in person by the DoWR staff each quarter.

This was good fun to meet my new workmates and have a look around the town. It felt a bit mafioso-esque, rolling around in a big truck, 3 bigs guys and one white falla, serving these people with the bills. But there was always a good laugh and joke between the people and they all seemed pretty happy. Good opportunity for me to get some more of the street talk of Bislama happening too. I made a pack with my man Ezekiel to get it down in 3 months so that we can joke more.

So that was a good first field trip, should be lots more fun to have out on the road, and some work as well too of course.

While this song may technically be about an island, islands are...

Tue, 31 Jul 2018 06:59:18 -0400

While this song may technically be about an island, islands are of course surrounded by water, therefore I deem it relevant. I’ve been playing a lot of these guys lately, especially when zoning out around the litre metre track. Melt away on your own impossible island.

Touchdown Port Vila

Mon, 30 Jul 2018 07:14:01 -0400

I was wondering before I left, when it would actually set in that I was moving to live in Vanuatu. So far it had all felt a bit detached and like it was happening to someone else. Perhaps this was due to my generally aloof nature, or due to the process all being pretty seamless, although with quite a few boxes to be ticked. I expected that it would click when I stepped off the plane and felt the rush of humid air and took in my new surroundings.

I think the penny dropped more on the plane itself, with the hospitable hostesses and the first glimpses of coconut palm clad islands. Or more probably it is still dropping after two and a half weeks in. Regardless, I made it to Port Villa and then was met by something I didn’t expect… traffic jams, vans as far as the eye can see, taxis and noise. This is no sleepy island paradise. It has its charm, once you tune out the hum. To make up for this, people seem very relaxed and you are most often greeted with a smile when you catch someones eye.

To help with the adjustment of deployment into a foreign place, we were put up in a pretty plush motel, complete with swimming pool and continental breakfast each morning; not bad for volunteering! It was nice to have this for a week but motel life gets old quite and I was looking forward to being able to set up my new home in Luganville by the end.

The first two days involved orientation briefings with the VSA in-country team and having a look around the place and getting to know the other volunteers. We also had a meet and greet with the NZ High Commision to caht about goals and strategy in the Pacific, which felt casually official and gave a good sense of purpose. It was great to meet people working on some great project, as well as hearing the common pitfalls which were eagerly shared. I’m cautious to try and not let others experiences influence my expectations too much tho.

I then had a weekend to myself as the others went their own ways before I worked two days in the DoWR Vila offices. This was World Cup Fever weekend with France making it to the final, and somewhat surprisingly, old colonial ties holding strong and providing a solid reason to get behind team. I also had my first dabble in the Kava bars, which was surprisingly pleasant, but not too mind bending at this stage. Give it time.

I then had two days meeting my new colleagues at the DoWR and a good time hearing about some of the projects going on. Plenty of work on it seems and lots of raiding of peoples hard drives for important documents and data. This was a good taste of what is awaiting me in Santo and I finally felt like I could start to get an understanding of where things are at in terms of systems and what is happening on the ground. It seems I’ll be thrown into a busy time with lots of work to do, but hoping I can still manage this in a way to ensure I’m sharing the experience, and not just doing the work.

All in all an exciting first week, spirits high and feeling good about finally touching down after months of preparation. Next stop Luganville and learning the language.

EWB Humanitarian Engineering Conference 2018

Tue, 17 Jul 2018 05:40:52 -0400

I was lucky to be invited by Engineers without Borders (EWB) to the 2018 Humanitarian Engineering conference the week before my departure to Vanuatu to join the Department of Water Resources (DoWR) in Luganville. This was especially good timing, given that the Director of the DoWR, Erickson Sammy, was a keynote speaker on the day. There was also a large focus on projects in Vanuatu, which gave me an exciting taste of what lay ahead of me.

The day was kicked off with the a short round of coffees (reusable mugs provided! #mahi) before jumping into the opening ceremony and the first presentation from Susan Freeman Green of Engineering New Zealand (Eng NZ).

The talk was focusing of the rebranding of Eng NZ and the change of focus to a more inclusive and interactive framework. While I agree that Eng NZ has made great steps in the last few years to become more accessible, the presentation itself was a missed opportunity to get a room full of bright sparks fired up. Gone are the days of talking to slides for an hour, and I found myself transported back 8 years to my engineering lecturers. Yes there were flashy stock images and a snappy video, but it was a great way to fire up the day. A plea to all presenters, stop presenting and find a way to get the crowd engaged!

Thankfully things improved for the next session with Eryn Hooper from Oceans Watch demonstrating a great example of true Human Centred Design in developing an ecological monitoring tool for the conservation of marine environments in the northern areas of the island of Efate, Vanuatu. The talk highlighted that locals were noticing deterioration of ecological resource in recent years, which climate change was expected to be accelerating. Oceans Watch developed a toolkit for ni-Van communities to use to monitor a number of important indicators, without introducing technology and materials that weren’t already available, reducing the risk of introducing pollution. The info was really well presented and got me thinking of innovative ways to implement monitoring for water supplies in rural communities.

Next up was the Director, Erickson Sammy, from the DoWR, based in Port Vila. Erickson presented a background of the geographical and cultural background of Vanuatu, which presents a number of unique challenges in developing a unified approach to water management. The communities are very dispersed and diverse, and there are many logistical challenges in assessing supplies, consultation and sourcing materials. On top of this, Vanuatu has no capacity to formally train local Engineers, so must rely on the youth to go abroad to gain qualifications, and then hope they return home to work. Despite this, they have implemented a National Implementation Plan (NIP) with the ambitious target of achieving 100% access to clean water by 2030, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. Erickson stated that enabling the communities to develop their own committees to navigate the water safety planning process was key to improving water quality and resilience.

The second keynote involved a joint presentation from Mary Curnow of Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA), Carys Everett (EWBNZ) and again Erickson Sammy (DoWR). This talk was focused on the collaborative effort between these three organisations to strengthen Vanuatu’s Water Sector. No pressure! This talk was all about developing the one of the roles that I will be filling as Provincial Water Sector Adviser for the northern islands. The partnership was developed to capitalise on the respective strengths of each party, in the goal of building the capacity of the DoWR staff over the next three years. The partnership had been underway for about a year, before getting someone on the ground. I even got up a had a quick chat about why I had applied for the position. Sounded like a good holiday!

Other notable chats were from Matt working with Live and Learn on improving access to sanitation facilities, Risu Kalotiti in developing rural Coconut Oil programs, and Sahara Arae from ADRA with an impressive water supply project using hydraulic ram pumps on the island of Tanna, yes all of these were based in Vanuatu. I sure got my moneys worth!

I highly recommend this conference for anyone looking to get into the development sector and add a bit more soul to your basic engineering. It was pretty inspiring to see the cool projects people were involved in, and added a lot of excitement to my impending departure.

That John Frum feeling

Thu, 12 Jul 2018 06:44:57 -0400

The name John Frum is unknown to most and an enigma to those that may have heard of him. But to a small number of villages on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, John Frum is their yet-to-return saviour, who will one day return with a ship load of cargo, and deliver them to a better life. Sound familiar?

While I’m not saying I feel like a saviour, I am shipping a ship load of stuff to an island in the very archipelago where John is meant to return. If you are keen to learn more about the John Frum movement, I highly recommend the documentary Waiting for John.

As part of the relocation package with VSA, they provide up to 50 kg of unaccompanied baggage to be sent ahead to your location of assignment. Now they advised that the 50 kg limit was not a target, and you should only take what you need, I pretty much hit the limit like it was a bullseye.

I’ve been battling internally with what to take, and I’d be embarrassed to share my inventory openly, but the hierarchy generally went: music equipment, indoor/outdoor activities, cooking stuff, with the odd item of clothing stuffed into any spare nooks to fill space. Notable items that didn’t make the cut include a bicycle, a second guitar, surfboard and toothpaste.

Two years is a long time, and with anticipated downtime, it seems to make sense that I should take my creature comforts to keep me entertained. But is this really in the spirit of volunteering? How much I really want to immerse into another way of life plays off my against my irrational urges for electronic equipment. I guess only time will tell. I can say however, that for someone who doesn’t really enjoy shopping, the process of purchasing and packing all of this equipment was sufficiently unnerving. I hope this is not a bad omen.

LM COUNTER: 1 MILL / 1 MILL !

Mon, 09 Jul 2018 02:37:10 -0400

Reflections

Mon, 02 Jul 2018 19:03:12 -0400

This is a strange place

You get a bit of time to think walking these Litre Metres. Now I’m lucky to rent in a pretty nice neighbourhood, and I was wondering to myself, how much do all these houses cost, that I walk around each day? So with a lil help from handy GIS, I found a number.

$863,170,000 NZD

Thats eight hundred and sixty three million, one hundred and seventy thousand New Zealand Dollars, if you had trouble reading that many numbers. That equates to an average of $3805 NZD/m2, and these numbers exclude the price tag of the numerous luxury cars parked out front.

Take a short bus ride to the CBD down Queens street and back up Hobson street and you will see people camped out in every second store front, and people packed in like sardines on mattresses under the awning of the Auckland City Mission. This society is broken. How did this kind of disparity develop and how do we continue to allow it?

There is more than more than enough to go around, why is it so hard to share so that all can live with dignity. No self-respecting community should ignore people in need. We don’t even smile as those living rough as we pass them, because we are crippled by our collective shame in knowing this problem could easily be fixed.

Here’s another little video about life on the Litre Metre track.

Fri, 22 Jun 2018 22:32:17 -0400

Here’s another little video about life on the Litre Metre track.

The day the plane came.

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 05:10:37 -0400

An itinerary flew into my inbox this after, delivering the message that this was actually happening. I have had confirmation that I would be going on this adventure for a couple of months now, but always with the caveat that there might be some logistical or bureaucratic bump in the road that could derail the whole thing. Now it seems really real.

I first applied for the position back in February, which is pretty robust process through the VSA portal, touching on professional experience, motivation and cultural awareness. This was followed by a trip to Wellington in March for a day of interviews to assess general fit, emotional stability and technical ability. To my surprise I was the only applicant interviewing for this position, and it all seemed to go really well. Following this I was offered a provisional position, pending on a raft of paperwork and check-ups to complete.

Thankfully my medical, dental and various other profiles were up to scratch, and I ultimately ended up getting my visa approved and acceptance from the Department of Water Resources in Vanuatu. Then came the contract and now the fights. A bit of a process indeed! But actually, it has all been pretty smooth sailing to be honest. I was pretty daunted at time, but just kept chipping away, and the staff at VSA were extremely supportive.

So now it is actually happening, two more weeks of work, two weeks to get ready, then I’ll be off. Excitement building and now a month seems like an age, but no doubt it will fly by. Must make the most of it.

The Litre Metre track. 2.7 km, 47 m elevation.

Sat, 09 Jun 2018 01:08:01 -0400

The Litre Metre track. 2.7 km, 47 m elevation.

Just got the cans back from the shop with some after market...

Sat, 09 Jun 2018 00:52:31 -0400

Just got the cans back from the shop with some after market decals for some extra street credit. Time for a lap around the track!… It you have no idea what I just said: I put some pieces of paper on my containers.

Big day on the campaign trail.

Thu, 07 Jun 2018 05:05:23 -0400

Well today got off to a firing start on the pledge page with some heavy hitting donations. Sending ngā mihi mahana to everyone who has put in their support with extra special mention to my awesomely cool uncle and auntie, Eddie and Jane, whose philanthropy knows no bounds.

Big thanks also going to MARKPLAN Consulting Ltd and Mitchell Rooney. Mitchell is a great guy and engineer and has worked at MARKPLAN exclusively, so I can only assume they are great too. I’m looking forward to seeing what they have been getting involved with in Vanuatu.

Donations open ;) 1 milion LM!

Wed, 30 May 2018 08:27:11 -0400

Donations open ;) 1 milion LM!:

1 million litre metres to get me to Vanuatu