Peace Corps Volunteer Dale writes: A Memorial Service for Peace Corps Vounteer John Roberts



"Yesterday was a day to not be forgotten. Early in the morning the entire training group loaded into buses to go to Port Vila to attend the memorial services of John Roberts, a PCV who was accidentally killed on the island of Erromango. We arrived at the hospital and drove around to the back where men from our village (John had trained there two years ago) had stayed with his body since its return from Erromango. It is the custom that the dead not be left alone until they are buried."

Peace Corps Volunteer Dale writes: A Memorial Service for Peace Corps Vounteer John Roberts

Peace Corps Mourns

10.14.07

[Excerpt]

Yesterday was a day to not be forgotten. Early in the morning the entire training group loaded into buses to go to Port Vila to attend the memorial services of John Roberts, a PCV who was accidentally killed on the island of Erromango. We arrived at the hospital and drove around to the back where men from our village (John had trained there two years ago) had stayed with his body since its return from Erromango. It is the custom that the dead not be left alone until they are buried. John was being kept in a refrigerator storage container.

On the door was draped the Peace Corps flag. It of course was a somber seating. Cars and buses started to arrive with Peace Corps staff and other PCVs. Then a pickup truck arrives with five mamas from Erromango. They came in a receiving line to our head nurse Jane who had flown by helicopter to retrieve John.

The first mama was crying heavily. The women kneeled on the mat in front of the container and began to cry and wail. It was the most heart wrenching sorrow I have ever witnessed. There was a building next door where apparently someone else was lying in state. A group of men had been sitting outside the building. The same wailing started inside there. The mamas in front continued for at least five minutes, and then the three stood up and took a break. Two continued but a bit lessened in intensity. After a few minute they all started again with the mama who must have been his host pounding her fists on the container door.

A Peace Corps pickup truck was backed up to the container; the white coffin was carried by eight men, including PCVs from the same group and men from the training village. The pickup lead a procession through Vila, past the Peace Corps offices and to a church. The church was a fairly large A framed building with open sides.

There were maybe two hundred people in attendance. Included was the Prime Minster, the President and First Lady of Vanuatu, the entire staff of VRDCTA (the NGO managing the Rural Training Centers), many PCVs, PC staff, Mangaliulu villagers and Erromango village family and their chiefs. There was a great deal of speaking and prayers, some hymns, a slide presentation of John from his group and the obituary by the PC Country Director, Kevin George. John was the only son of a farmer and school teacher in Nebraska. He had graduated Nebraska-Lincoln and joined the Peace Corps in 2005.

He was an only child and when Kevin George said his parents had lived their lives through their only son I personally lost it. I couldn’t help but think of my children. How as a parent I want everything in the world to be right with them. How I revel in their smallest achievements. How I feel anguish in their smallest pains. How can one even begin to feel the loss of a child? It is so unnatural to have a child pass on before the parent.

Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: October, 2007; Peace Corps Vanuatu; Directory of Vanuatu RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Vanuatu RPCVs; Obituaries; Fallen

When this story was posted in October 2007, this was on the front page of PCOL:




Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers

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