Wednesday, November 4, 2009

lunch-offs

I am busy! My goodness. Every day is a day full of something. In some ways I wish I were less busy, so I could relax a bit more and read more books. But I don’t want to stop the momentum, because my whole area is really excited to start working. So, I guess I will keep going.

I realized an upside to visiting so many areas within a given week. Each village or settlement is vying to give me the best lunch. They ask me what I had at each place earlier in the week, and, to remain diplomatic, I tell them that their village, of course, has the best food. I think part of them thinks that if they serve me the best lunch, they will keep me coming back, and I will in turn help their community the most. In reality, I will, with or without lunch, invest in all of them equally. But I won’t tell them that. It’s kind of like learning you should never interrupt someone while they are complimenting you. Why stop such a good thing!

Watched Gilmore Girls last night for the first time in a very long time. I realized that trying to understand rapid Fijian is excellent practice for understanding the entirety of the dialogue in any given episode. Before I would only pick up about 50% of what was said. Now, almost everything! Well, at least about 80%.

Parents come in 4 days! They will sleep here in my bure on Monday night. Then we’ll venture off to visit the rest of the country. I am extremely excited for their visit. I will be sure to take lots of pictures and post them here.