farming mada.

When I was on my way back to my village, 3 hours into my bus ride, I realized the key to my house was in my ever-elusive backpack. So the rest of the way I patched up a plan: 1. ask tata for spare key 2.see if i can shove one small child inside the house through gap over my door to open side door from within 3.somehow break lock.

I get to house and tata says the spare key to my house is at the school in a locked box. The key to the locked box is with a man named Suli who is cutting sugarcane somewhere near Rakiraki. I looked around for a small child, and while Sinu was willing and able, the crack above my door seemed to have shrunk, and a small baby would be the only thing that would fit. And it would probably just rock back and forth and cry, not open the door from within. Unhelpful. So up came Sisa with a file, and after about 30 minutes, he sawed that lock right off.

I am still putting the pieces all back together, but things have improved a lot.

Also. Do I dare say I love not having a computer? My God, my life is so simple. I just whittle away the evenings in the hammock reading. No longer frantic when and if the generator comes on, not having the self control not to watch a show (just like how i don't have the self control not to buy ice cream in town -- when will i get the opportunity again? perhaps not for awhile). But electronics and Fiji have always been incongruous. Why follow a path that meets so much resistance.

A few days after going through the motions I went outside with my cane knife and started whacking at weeds. I went to a piece of land i often stare at from my window, thinking to myself, that could make a good gardening plot.

The next day I got out the pitchfork and went at it again. I upturned the soil and threw it around, loosening it bit by bit.

The neighbor boys soon came to help me. God they're so sweet. Sisa, the same brother who chopped my lock off, climbed into the lemon tree and started hacking the branches with a cane knife, so that my new garden would get more direct sunlight. Huge branches came crashing down. Avi and his brother Dile got their pitchforks and knives and helped me turn the soil over better. I had to snap myself out of just watching them work. They are so adept with knives. Maybe there is sense in giving the little kids knives to play with. Little farmers in training. They just sweep the grass away like a leisurely frisbee toss. And then we came to roots. Some roots as thick as a few cans of soda. With one whack they cut the thing clear through, and then would delicately lift it like a piece of spaghetti. Meanwhile, I would be wrestling with it, clutching with both hands and jumping backward trying to elevate it.

Planting starts tomorrow.

america a monet?

Today I sat in the Fiji US Embassy waiting for someone to talk to about getting a new passport. I sat in one of many chairs that were spaced as if the office were an airplane. Would someone soon offer me peanuts? In front of me were three framed photographs -- Obama, Hillary, and Biden. Smiley, happy. On the walls were pictures from America. A crowded street, a park, and the beginning construction of the Capitol.

Awww.

Rosy from afar, I know. but i hope i never take America for granted ever again. One thing I love about Peace Corps is that it makes you appreciate things so much. Cheese is a delicacy. Berries, easy transportation, bagels, parks, environmentalists, pizza, political activism, tortilla chips, fast internet, sports, refried beans, hummus. Watching people recreate for the sake of recreation. Libraries, book stores, coffee shops. Even simply sitting in a quiet house reading a book.

Tomorrow, back to the village, and I get to leave big bad Suva behind me.

yep, It's a wild world.

Today, honesty.

Yesterday my backpack was stolen from beside my chair at an internet café in Suva. I was talking to my sister on Skype, straining to hear her over the loud bustle and even covering my eyes at times to better concentrate on her words, perhaps thinking by shutting out one sense I would amplify another. I sat calm and motionless as someone reached down to my feet and grabbed my bag containing my computer, iPod, wallet, passport, cash, and walked out the back door. They may as well have taken the chair from under me, watching callously as I crashed to the floor.

I don’t unleash wrath very often. I’m pretty subdued, calm. I was always that kid on the soccer field that tried to break up fights instead of start them. But I unleashed some wrath in that internet café, some pretty good wrath, I think. So lost and confused, at 24 in a strange country that I had known so well, that I had grown to love and trust, that suddenly turned its back on me. That ripped the rug from under me. And this time, as I cursed through the aisles of the internet café, it was the kind-hearted employee who calmed me down, who spoke to me gently, who directed me to the nearest police post.

I don’t know what to say. It’s just stuff. Yes. But I can’t seem to shake the sad disappointment out of me this time. Will I ever trust this place again?

I’ve been to hell and back in this country so many times. It’s just so intense. Culture shock, burnout, isolation, cyclones, floods, homesickness. Blah blah blah. I have had to learn to cope with bad days alone in a house of sticks using nothing but clumsy, newly invented tools. Hell, I learned the guitar. I’ve made up games. I’ve written 850 pages in my journal. I’ve pretty much memorized a book I was sent about mindfulness, gratitude, and peace. All for what? To keep myself sane, to keep myself here, to fulfill a commitment I made. A commitment that asks us to draw a sunset with 3 crayons, two blue and one green. That asks us to hike with a limp, and eat soup with a fork. But sometimes the stretch is too much, and I break a little bit. Sometimes I imagine it as building muscle as I break and re-form. But sometimes it feels like an irreversible strain as I become impatient and absolutely humorless, someone that I don’t know and don’t particularly like.

And sometimes I wake up feeling guilty I am not doing enough. I don’t have hours. I don’t have a separation between work and home. I just am. I wake up slowly with 3 cups of coffee as I do crossword puzzles or read about politics of faraway lands. As my cat jumps into my lap and purrs, I think, man Lisa, you could do more. You could start your day earlier. You could be taking on another project. Just try harder.

I don’t claim to be doing anything more noble than anyone else in this world. I have kept myself alive on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for a long time now, and yes, I’m damn proud of that. And up to this point, I have fallen, but have always managed to pick myself up and dust myself off. I don’t think what I do is anything extraordinary, and anyone else in my position would probably do a better job than me. It is easy to make yourself into a martyr as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Who can invalidate your actions? It is easy to make yourself into a martyr on a blog. Who can invalidate your claim? You are your own judge. And what a dizzyingly terrifying role that becomes. Because who are you, who am I, who are any of us to judge what we do.

But you know, I don’t go around robbing people. I don’t wake up plotting crime. I don’t cause harm to anybody, at least not intentionally. But some do. Some have, some do, some will. As I have entered a sometimes masochistic search for truth and certainty, trying to figure out what in this world I can believe in, what I can trust, all the while messing up myself sometimes but dammit trying to be a good person, trying not to hurt anyone and trying to solidify my moral backbone and build a foundation upon which to live the rest of my life, there are and will always be bad people out there countervailing the good.

Do they balance out to static? Is the world just supposed to be stuck in this equilibrium?

Luckily I know more of Fiji than Suva. I have so many positive impressions of this place. And I know that, though it's hard to picture now in my foggy visions of berries and cereal aisles and national parks, there are bad people in America too.

Eh. I usually try to end on a positive note with this thing. But maybe sometimes it's just not supposed to end on a positive note. Like the world, maybe today I could just fade to static.