g-l-a-m-o-r-o-u-s

Going to Suva, the capital of Fiji (yet only slightly bigger than Roswell, New Mexico) is like stepping on one of those electronic moving walkways. Man is life exciting at first, seeing the same scenery but going by so fast. But then you step off, and trip up a bit, acclimating to the village pace once more. But then you get used to it again, and life goes on just fine. It is like straddling two worlds, being in Suva and being in the village. And I do enjoy each world very much. It's just those transitions that trip you up...

Part of the transition back from town to the village is opening the door after being away for so long and seeing which creatures have taken up residence in your residence. This time, just frogs. Well, there are always frogs, but they somehow get more fearless when you aren't there and poop freely everywhere. Which is a much better situation than it could be (i.e. rat, cockroach infestations) although cleaning up frog poop is not like cleaning up cat or gecko poop, because it doesn't just vanish in one wipe. You have to devote some time to it. Glamorous, i know. But these are the kinds of things I spend so much time thinking about and dealing with on a regular basis!

Speaking of glamorous. I also discovered an impromptu ant farm in my parmesan cheese. And even though I find those kinds of things fascinating, not in my cheese. No way. So i spent a good while sifting out the ants, one by one. Man that was tedious, saving my cheese like that, and I'm not even really a cheese person. But it was dealt with, and it's all ok now. (The day the ants get into my coffee...then we might have a serious problem.)

I'm on a metaphor kick today. But I thought of another one while I was in Suva. Life is baseball, and we are on deck to bat. Right now, we PCVs are swinging around a few bats to warm up, and it is a bit clumsy and heavy and ungraceful at times. But that is only to highlight the immensely directed, calculated, swift swing we will have at the plate, with one bat, back in America. Or something.

Potential future purchase I am excited about: ukulele.

cyclone camp

Big news this week was Cyclone Tomas, a category 4, hitting Fiji. I was already in Suva for a training on HIV/AIDS outreach with about 10 other volunteers, so we were instructed to just stay put. No major damage to Suva (and if they hadn't said it was a cyclone I wouldn't have noticed!) but better to be safe, right? All volunteers were consolidated to nearby cities, and it only looks like a few sites are affected (although some may be severely affected - still don't know).

We all got pretty stir crazy during the national curfew, in which we would be arrested if we were caught walking in the city. But we made it fun. There were a few computers that were constantly running "ugly betty" and "glee." I painted my toenails teal. There was a pool, and we did water aerobics and ran around the perimeter making a whirlpool, only to switch directions and get swept backwards. We had cards and "set." We even made up games. My favorite was the jump/roll bed game, where one person would roll back and forth along the bed and the other would have to jump across them as they rolled, and if the jumper touched the other person, they lost. Another was the Gladiator cushion game, where we took two long cushions, stood two tile hypotenuses away from each other, and whacked each other until someone stepped out of their tile. At the breaking point we started an impromptu drum circle, using whatever we could whack together to make noise. I might have been playing the toaster at one point.

Overall, quite a different experience than the last cyclone. And hey, when did this whole experience start being so fun??

what is this, a school for ants??

It has gotten to the point where I merely set something down on the table and the ants sense it, walk up to whatever it is, evaluate it as edible or not, and then climb up it or walk away. It could be a hot cup of coffee, or a book. They still check. They are too smart, and I cannot keep up with them. But i have discovered Mortein bug spray, and I definitely decimated close to 4 ant colonies in my floor on Tuesday.

I've been meaning to share this story, because this was a real turning point for me in how i view this place. One day coming back from town, I took my normal 2:30 bus (the only afternoon bus that goes to my village) but got off early to visit Lydia in her village. I left my vegetables on the bus. Damn, considering that’s my one shot at getting vegetables for the whole week. I returned to my village a couple days later, and nana handed me all of my vegetables minus a few tomatoes that had gone bad. Someone on my bus had noticed I had left them, and then, when the bus reached my village, carried the vegetables all the way to my house and gave them to my nana. And my nana kept them safe, in a bowl, awaiting my return. It is frustrating sometimes being so dependent, so reliant, on those around me. But if I allow myself to truly give into it, to just fall back and let the village envelop me, I know no feeling of greater safety, save my home back in America, surrounded by my “real” family. But how rare, how incredible, to have found this feeling on the other side of the world, away from everyone and everything I know.

Turned 24 last month! Thanks mom, for the candy. And Denise, for the wonderful book! And Jess M, for that hilarious card. Conveniently, the day before my birthday, the medical officer called me and several other volunteers, letting us know we had to come into Suva for an H1N1 vaccination the following day. Following the mass vaccination, we all went out on the town dancing to celebrate being done with the shot, being together, and, oh yeah, my birthday. It’s not often things happen like that here. Good fortune indeed.

I slept with a blanket last night, for the whole night. This is huge. This means that the heat is subsiding, the worst is over, and now we just coast into fall. That does not mean that my bure is still unbearably hot sometimes. And, in the time of most dire heat, aka 4pm, I hear the clinking of spoons against teacups. The hottest hour in my village is tea time. Do Fijians have esophagi (?) made of ice cubes? Thermoregulation of steel? Either way, it’s pretty damn impressive, even if I want no part of it.

OK, now deep thoughts by Lisa. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to enjoy the means toward an end. Like, not reading books just to say you’ve read them. Not hurrying up mountains just to say you’ve climbed them. Not cooking a meal just because you’re hungry. If you are too focused on the end, and rush through the process, you have wasted time, because the end is such a minor part of the whole! Instead, relishing each page, each overlook, each chopped vegetable along the way. Finding joy in the way you’re getting there. Because then – does it even matter where you end up? And isn’t life just one huge, long process? Isn’t the Peace Corps one huge, long process? But to find joy in each day, regardless of any outcome in the future – I think that might just be a good way to live.

paddling, wasp, work

Fun stories from this week include a swim across the Viti Levu Bay, approx. 2 miles, in which I paddled a boat while 6 fellow volunteer swimmers swam. (Sorry dad, I just didn't get those swimming genes!).

Another fun story includes a wasp attack during an impromptu hike, in which I got bitten about 7-8 times by the same wasp, throwing my body down the hill of sugarcane to escape. Never before have I swatted away a wasp, only to watch it come right back for me, looking for a new place to attack. It was something out of a horror film, perhaps, only it was just one, but man, did it make itself known. And I was in clear sight of my main road. If my village didn't think Americans were crazy to begin with, seeing me flail and scream around a patch of sugarcane has probably confirmed their suspicion.

The best part was that I was on the way to feed the pig at the time. And afterward, I thought I saw a clear shot up to the top of the hill, so I went for it. I'm always looking for a way up the hill behind the pigs, so that I can look out on the valley from a clear, uninterrupted vantage point. But no. The search continues.

And I returned, with an empty bucket, pale and shaky, with cuts on my arms and legs, telling my neighbors that I had returned from feeding the pig.

Am I a crazy American? I am starting to think so.

But good news. I have found a new community partner to work with, who is extremely intelligent (and I have actually swapped novels with!). A few days ago he asked me, "Now Lisa, I just found this out yesterday and it really shocked me. Is Turkey part of the European Union or the Middle East?"

An intellectual challenge!

I told him I didn't really know, and he launched into a discussion about its precarious intersection between Europe and the Middle east...

I have actually talked to him about the Fijian tendency to expect Peace Corps volunteers to give them free handouts (eg. brushcutters, sewing machines) and how unsustainable it all is. He agrees that it is unsustainable, and that is not my job, and we are both thinking of ways to supply this community with income-generating projects that could, if these communities wanted in the future, buy them 15 brushcutters and sewing machines if they so desired. Talks of backpacker's resorts, vanilla planting, and money management workshops. We'll see where it all goes...

fiji summer hits

School restarts next week, and life will once again move like it did in the end of November. I'm excited for that. I'm excited to dedicate a full year of myself to do whatever I can to improve my villages. I'm ready.

Right now though the days are hot and long. Fiji right now is an unexpected and never before experienced amount of tough. The water shuts off multiple times every day, and sometimes for more than a day. The heat is so bad at times you wipe your brow every 15 seconds, thinking of ice cream, dreaming of snow-covered mountains. Life continues to move back home, without you, and visitors remind you that you are being slowly forgotten, and not on purpose, but because life just moves. It's just the natural progression of things.

I am slowly realizing what a family I have here, though. The volunteers around me are an endless supply of laughter and diversion and fun. Without them, I am not sure I could stay and do the things I am trying to do. What an amazing group of friends I have here. How lucky am I!

I have not mentioned the cyclone, which happened mid-December. It shook me up beyond belief. Without dwelling on it, safe to say, I do not like cyclones. And, with 8 more scheduled to rip through the South Pacific this season, I may have to change locations for a few months to ensure that I never have to experience that ever again in my village. My location is particularly vulnerable, as the river flooded and I was trapped to weather the storm in a tin house that could have easily been crushed by a tree or had its roof blown off. And nearly did.

One thing that has surprised me recently is thinking of religion in a new way. Not as the root of all evil, and as a way to justify persecution, like I unfortunately used to. But rather as a source of strength and help when life is too sad, or too hard. Having never before even considered religion, this is a huge realization for me. But I've always felt there is too much sadness in the world to not believe in something higher. Perhaps I've never before been driven to places so dark as to really seek it out, to need it. But I am starting to really see its value. It gives people hope, and sometimes, that's all you could ask for.

Everything will be ok. And I still, despite it all, would not want to be anywhere else. I am having an amazing experience. Here I am, making my way in Fiji, trying to do something good in the world. That can't be all bad.

parents visit!

Parents! They made it here all right, after stopping off in New Zealand for a bit, tramping and shearing and sailing and whatnot. I never told them, but I spent the whole day before their arrival cleaning my bure and making “practice pancakes.” Pancakes are kind of a big deal in my family, and while mine will never compare to my dad’s, I wanted to keep our pancake tradition alive and thus tried my best with what I had. I shared them with my neighbors, who said, “Lisa! You are too smart at pancakes!” (The joke-that-never-gets-old among us PCVs is that Fijians use the word “smart” when they mean “does well.” I have been told I’m also too smart at weeding tavioka, eating Fijian food, and feeding the pig.)

Anyways, so that was Sunday. Monday morning, the morning they were to arrive, I thought I’d give them a tiny laugh and put on my most obnoxious red jiaba-sulu. So I walked out on the road to intercept their taxi in my full-on Fijian apparel. I purposely walked just outside the village because I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to handle seeing them again after so long, and didn’t want to be entirely overwhelmed by having the villagers swarming around to meet them to boot.

I’m not sure I can quite express the happiness I felt seeing the taxi emerge from the sugar cane fields, seeing dad’s face in the front window, rushing to the taxi to give them both hugs. So much comfort after so many months of discomfort! Not so much discomfort, but newness and differences and irregularities. Finally faces that were so familiar that made me remember who the hell I am and where the hell I come from!

They did great. Mom even tried the grog, which is the Fijian ceremonial drink that comes from pounding the roots of the kava plant. Although it did take her quite a lot of sips to down one coconut shell-full, to her credit, it does taste like dirt water. I made them lunch (Chaana masala), someone brought us pineapple, someone brought us cow’s milk, and then we were invited to my Fiji family’s house for special dinner and a meke (dance).

After the dinner, but before the meke, mom remembered the reading glasses she had brought from America. After I told her my “tata” really needed some new reading glasses, asking if she could bring an extra pair when she came, she took it upon herself to solicit more from friends. I keep hearing about them even now, how happy they have made the village. So, thanks mom! (And Denise, and everybody else!)

The next morning I made the pancakes with “Peace Corps Syrup” (sugar, water, vanilla) – I think they were a hit – and then we headed out to Rakiraki, my nearest town. I gave them the grand tour which took about 15 minutes. Then we headed to a hotel.

How interesting (and backwards) to see the country from the side of tourists. My favorite was at one of the hotels, every night at 6 o’clock, a man draped in nothing but coconut leaves ran around yelling “Bula!” (hello!) to every table as he lit the tiki torches. Mom and dad asked me if that happens in the village every night at 6 o’clock too. Of course.

Before I knew it, they were gone, and I found myself at a Peace Corps-sponsored workshop on “project and design management” with all the other Viti Levu rural volunteers on the Coral Coast. Their visit seemed too short – but wouldn’t any length feel too short? But how wonderful to be surrounded by some of my favorite fellow volunteers for an entire week – it made the departure of mom and dad much more manageable. Now the village wonders when "sister chessika" will visit.


Mom and I feeding the pig.


Ladies do a "meke" (dance) for mom and dad.


Crossing the river out of the village to catch the bus.


Some of my village faves with mom and dad.


Dad's not too sure about picking up a box of un-refrigerated Mixed Chicken Pieces at the Rakiraki supermarket.


Dad talking with some of my uncles.


Mom meets Papukeni.


Mom (slowly) sips the kava.


Ok. We're in paradise. Now what?


Right? Right? Come visit.

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.