After 7 weeks of being together in the training village our group departed to Vila. I was in the training village Paningisu which is a big village of about 700. There were 12 volunteers in the village which meant we had plenty of other volunteers to chat and hang out with, and of course vent at times. Life in the village was different, but in general Efate (the main island) is much more modern than the outer islands. I mean, we still had roosters running around, constant mice problems, outhouses, and bucket baths, etc. but Paningisu is only an hour drive from the capitol.
The village threw us a last kakae (dinner) the night before we left. All kinds of local food....lap-lap, fish, saporo, etc. Our host families gave us presents too. I got a weaved bag with my my kustom name (Lei Tare) on one side and Serah (gotta love the wrong spellings here) on the other. One tradition they have is dumping baby powder on people for celebrations. Not really sure what the story behind it is....and its actually kind of annoyin...but my mama is all about it. So we got powder dumped on our sholders and necks and on our new island dresses too...which meant I got to wear baby powder to the swearing in ceremony as well since the island dress was for the ceremony too and I didn't wash it. :)
Some people were pretty choked up about saying goodbye to their training families. But honestly I didn't really mind. They were all really sweet, and took good care of me, but I was happy to move out of their house. Looking forward to getting my own place at site and to getting settled in.
Drinking Kava (the national drink)
Our welcome to the training village
Other volunteers our first day at the training village
The first tastes of Kava. As you can tell by our faces, it tastes awful!
My host mama and little sister Jeanet
The house I lived in during training
This is beef being hung from a tree. They were preparing it for a wedding celebration.
My host family got this kitten to eat the mice in the house. He wasn't much of a hunter though. 
Our training group sporting the island dresses. Yes, we think they are tacky too. 
My host papa and brother Silbia. 
