Just some of the things I’ve seen around my village and Vanuatu.
One and two-year-olds running around with knives the size of their arms and using knives with crazy accuracy.
Second grade boy frying himself lunch. He walked home from school, made a fire, cleaned his dish and fried up some Lap-Lap while his mother was busying herself with making food for market.
Elementary age kids playing chase games, marbles, and hop-scotch type games. They need very little to entertain themselves. I’ve watched young girls sit around for hours doing nothing more than checking each other’s hair for lice. The idea of 24/7 entertainment doesn’t exist here. It’s refreshing, to say the least.
Speaking of lice-picking… it’s a common pastime to search for lice. Kiddos picking it out of their mama’s hair. Kiddos picking it out of other kid’s hair, etc. A lot of times the preferred method of killing the lice is to put it in their mouth and bite it. Yummy.
After-school chores include going to collect food from the garden, scrubbing pans in the river, washing their own clothes in the river, and chopping fire wood.
School kiddos climbing coconut trees and cutting down the leaves to secure classroom roofs for a cyclone.
Cooking here is often a family affair. It is not rare to see a situation such as the following:
- eight-year-old boy removes husks of coconuts with bushknife and scratches coconuts
- ten-year-old girl goes to garden to find cabbage. Washes and cuts it.
- Papa dives to catch fish. Cleans fish. Milks coconuts.
- Mama starts fire and does the cooking of the cabbage and fish.
- Four to ten-year olds carry an armful of plastic bottles to the river to collect water to drink and cook with.
- Etc.
