AIDS, Dubai, ukulele.

Got back from Suva this week from HIV/AIDS training part II. I brought my village nurse and one youth, and we will get to work shortly on designing a workshop for our area. It was a great workshop -- so informative, so expansive. My village nurse got to sit down and talk with our region's zone nurse, and I think I finally understand how health care works in Fiji. We even came up with a workplan of how to improve awareness/education surrounding HIV/AIDS in the province of Ra. But of course, all Suka (the 40-year-old village nurse) could talk about when we got back to the village is how we went to Traps (a dancing club in Suva). So when I walk around the village, the ladies call out "Traps!" and laugh and I tell them "Shhh! Wara tukunia vei Tata!" (don't tell tata!).

Also. Fiji is unpredictable. I know this, and this is why I no longer make plans. But instead of being a constant frustration, this unpredictability, along with all other quirks of Fiji, are starting to become endearing. Even the kids are becoming cuter. Is it a one year thing?

Like, when my favorite person in my village, Te, disappeared for a couple weeks and I thought he had moved to Dubai. Te was my hopeful new community partner who provided the impetus for the women's group vegetable farming project, who I swapped novels with and corresponded with by letters carried by boys on horses (he lives in a nearby settlement 2 hrs walk away). Our weekly meetings, which often lasted all day, always restored my faith in the world. We would talk about the future of Fiji's economy, the role of the Methodist Church in Fiji, the word "sustainability" and how important a concept it is to understand. He's just so smart. And then he got busy, and in the market one day his mom told me he and his brother had just signed a 5-year contract to work in Dubai for an American company to patrol the Red Sea for Somalian Pirates. So, there I was, feeling a bit lost, missing my talks with Te, and, oh yeah, hoping he wasn't at the mercy of pirates in foreign waters somewhere.

But then, as I was rinsing the last of my laundry yesterday in my sink, I look up, and there's Te. He's back, and never went to Dubai. Furthermore, he has recommitted himself to this vegetable farming project. He and I even got teary talking about how the ladies are really starting to take ownership of the farm; they weeded the field last week, and are raising money through fundraisers for plowing/harrowing/seeds/fertilizer, even though there is a good chance we will get that all funded.

I want to rely on Te, but I know that everything in Fiji is transient, is impermanent. It is hard to rely on anything. And I think that is more natural that way. How sterile and rigid America seems sometimes, with appointments down to the 15 minute interval, highways sturdy and strong, rivers contained, rain diverted into cemented channels. When I sit in the bus and wait for either the washed out road in front of us or behind us to recede so we can cross and I can get home, instead of getting frustrated, I am realizing that I have never lived so close to nature. I like being at its whim, because I think that's how it's supposed to be. What's more natural than a flood? So just like roads, I'm learning people ebb and flow, and all I can do is enjoy someone's presence while they are here in the moment with me. Isa attachments.

Also! I bought a ukulele in Suva last week. It's pink, cutecutecute, maybe even cuter than Papukeni. Only know 3 chords, but more to come...