kolbykirk.com

Vanuatu

Filed Under international travel

I’ve been home sick with bronchitis for the past week. It hit hard and kept me home on the couch like a criminal under house arrest. It gave me a lot of time to contemplate how bacteria could have crippled my lifestyle so quickly and brutally. But now, thanks to a Kiwi friend, I’m suffering from a virus as well.

It all came back so suddenly. One moment I’m just sitting here answering some e-mails, and the next, I’m dreaming of adventures in an archipelago. It all started with an instant message:

“I’m in Vanuata. Doing research in Malekula for three months.“

For a moment, I thought he was making up fictional locales. I’m better than most Americans when it comes to world geography, but Vanuata? Malekula? I really thought he was just randomly pecking at the keyboard.

I met Joe in Nicaragua a couple years ago. We drank hooch with a group of hostelers until we passed out. He kindly kicked me in the ribs at 3am to let me know the hostel wanted me to leave (I was not a paid guest). Only true friends begin relationships this way. We hung out in Granada a few days later and I showed him around Los Angeles when he was on his way back home to New Zealand. We’ve been keeping in touch online ever since.

Which brings us to his current instant message. He tells me he’s about to begin a three-month expedition into the rural communities of Malekula talking to the indigenous people about traditional knowledge and education. Doesn’t that last sentence just bleed excitement and adventure? Thanks to wikipedia, I discover that he’s on an island of the Republic of Vanuata, which is east of Australia in the South Pacific.

Joe’s a biologist, but assisting an ethnobotanist in order to go on this trip. I’m equally jealous as fascinated by his trip. Here’s a photo he just sent me. See if you can pick him out of the crowd:

Thanks to Joe, my travel bug (or virus) is back in full force.