Week 5 and 6!!

For week 5 and 6, I spent my time in a village on Nguna Island. The name of the village is Mere. It is about a 45 minute up the mountain from the sea. The walk up the mountain was no joke. Plus the two weeks we were there, it rained A LOT so it was muddy and slippery. During these two weeks our group of 8 hiked up and down the mountain 8 different times. It was crazy. One of the girls Cynthia and I fell a lot. It almost became a game. We laughed so much in the mountain. Those of you who know me, I also screamed the whole time in the mountain. My group got used to and stopped worrying about me every time I screamed. These two weeks were the most physical weeks I have ever experienced. I would not have made it without the 7 other people that were up there with me.

My house up in Mere was a customhouse. It was amazing. I had the house to myself. It was on the property of my host family. It was really cool inside. The only part that sucked was that every creature could get in there. So before I went to bed, I sprayed bug spray on me and around my bed. I then would get under my mosquito net and fall asleep. If I heard anything which I did all the time, I would not look. In the mornings, I never saw anything. So in my mind no creature was there.

 My Room

 The front room

 My custom house

My swim house! (Shower)

My host family was amazing. They were a lot of them. My mama and sister were great. They helped me so much with language. We ate really well.

One Sunday, all the volunteers decided to hike up to the doormat volcano on Nguna. The locals told us it was about an hour hike. UMMMMM, maybe for them. It took most of us 2 hours. Me and another volunteer took almost 3 hours. It was the hardest walk ever. Not only was it steep but also the sun was burning down. A couple of times, I thought I was going to pass out. We finally made it and it was worth it. The view was great. The top of the volcano was full of grass and flowers, which I was not expecting. But I am happy to say that I hiked a volcano. Now, I hope I get a chance to hike an active one.

So we were supposed to spend week 7 in this village. However, a cyclone named Pam changed that. On Tuesday of week 7 Peace Corps pulled us off of our island to the capital to wait out the storm. I will write about this in another post.