one letter.

To my dearest village,

I am writing today not only because it is clear to me, after a year, that you love letters. In fact, I think you have asked me to write close to a dozen letters on your behalf, asking for this or that or the other thing. And I have written some, but I also have not written others. You will probably still ask me to write some when I get back to you this afternoon. But that is not the point today. Today, I am writing a letter not on your behalf, but to you.

I am sure you think I am very strange. Just yesterday I was walking away from you at 5 o'clock, heading for my friend Kara's village to help celebrate her birthday. I was walking, because I love to walk. The bus went by, and I did not get on. How strange! I kept walking stubbornly along the road, as the sun was setting, away from you. Why was I not preparing the kerosene lantern, taking my bath, and starting to prepare dinner? I know how this must seem, this aimless walking I sometimes do, to either nowhere in particular, or to some far-off destination at an odd hour! I am not sure I will ever be able to explain it, but I want you to know, that I know to you it is very odd.

Remember when I threw my cat into my hamper and rode the carrier to meet two other Peace Corps Volunteers to go to the other side of the island to get our cats spayed? That was a long ways to go in one day to cut open a cat and remove the part of it that makes babies. Why would I spend time and energy and money doing such a thing? When I came back, Papukeni was very groggy and was sleeping on my floormat. She had a bright purple splotch surrounding a big scar on her bum, and your children gathered at my doorstep to stare at her. Just this morning she was running around and playing! Why is she now so sad! And so purple! You see, I didn't want her to have babies because I wanted her to stay healthy and also, when her babies have babies, and those babies have babies, you will be squirming with cats! That would be too many cats. You know, like how you have too many dogs right now, and the female dogs look droopy and tired all the time because they have been having too many babies. I wanted to save Papukeni from this same fate.

You also must know how very much I respect your ways, traditions, and culture. I feel lucky to be able to live within your limits, even though sometimes I appear to not want anything to do with you. I need some space sometimes, some privacy. This is very different, and I know how odd this must seem to you! But I love being completely immersed in your events during the day, only to be able to sit down and retreat in the evenings, sitting in my chair by the window, reading a book or writing or playing the guitar.

Reading, in fact, is one thing I do most of the time you think I am sleeping. I have read so many books in my house, accounts of Sudanese diaspora, of a time-travelling man, of a murder mystery taking place in New Mexico, of a family in America trying to grow their own food for a whole year (which you do, and have done, for quite a long time). You see, sometimes I like to read to take me to another place. Not out of disrespect to you, but as some sort of respite. Entertainment. To see how another person sees the world. Out of curiosity. Out of a desire to know and learn more.

I know this may be hard to believe, but I'm not used to wearing skirts! This is hilarious, I know, because have you seen me in nothing but skirts! Believe it or not, most people I know in America have never seen me in a skirt. How odd! And when you sometimes see me running (again, aimlessly! Where am I going to so rapidly?) along the road in the early mornings, in a skirt, it feels very strange to me! In America, I only ran in shorts. I never walked, let alone ran and trained, in skirts.

I hope that you like having me, because i very much like being a part of you. I am sorry I am not Fijian, and will never be, and that I behave oddly sometimes. But I have enjoyed learning about Fiji, and have also enjoyed teaching you about America through my sometimes eccentric behavior and baked goods and music. I am sorry I am not as good a teacher to you as you have been to me, and know that I am trying, and that I want only good things for you and your future.

Sincerely,
Lisa

A mouse finds my coffee.

Oh hell no. Luckily, I keep most of it in a sealed glass jar. But I had reserves in a flimsy plastic pouch, which it devoured (?). It also chewed through the top of my oil and I found it spilling over onto my bamboo floor. So, it's on. Papukeni is on mouse patrol. I guess that's what I get for leaving the village for a couple weeks, the longest I've yet been away from the village at one time.

But my sister was here! How wonderful to see her. We spent a week in the village -- talked in a meadow, floated down the river, picked fruit, hiked to a waterfall, ate freshly-caught prawns at the top of a mountain, drank plenty grog. Then we spent a week going around elsewhere, ending up at a cute resort in the Yasawas, meeting some very nice people from Israel, England, Australia, NZ, etc. We are such desert people coming from New Mexico and all. But we tried scuba diving! First in the swimming pool, to see if we could hack it, then the actual ocean. What a trip. I had been fearing it for some reason, but really, if you like breathing, you will like scuba diving. So, let's see if I can be somewhat responsible with my money and save up enough to get certified.

Then we had a week-long conference in Suva called MST - "Mid service training." By some curious misfortune, the hotel bookings got messed up such that most of us had our own room in a ridiculously nice renovated hotel for 3 nights until they consolidated us into 3's onto the other not-yet-renovated side of the hotel (that's more like it). What a nice treat those 3 nights were, though. What especially impeccable timing to be able to watch world cup games on a flat screen TV. Sorry taxpayers.

The new group of volunteers has arrived, which is awesome, but that means the old group is leaving. They stagger their departure, so a few leave every week or so. Which basically means this month has been going by in rolling waves of depression. Isa! But they are all eager to be leaving and starting their new adventures, going on with their lives, blah blah. I will still miss them a bunch.

Fourth of July! My goodness, what a day. We Ra volunteers met at John C.'s house and cooked delicious food, took a boat to an island to snorkel, then ate the delicious food, pretty much continuously, over the entire rest of the day. Hamburgers, veggie burgers, baked beans, potato salad, coleslaw, chips'n'salsa, other various dips, other various chips, nacho cheese fritos, pecan pie, chocolate cake, cheesecake, ice cream. Best day ever?

Also, it's cold now. I always remember July as the month my mother swore off New Mexico, the yard exploding with weeds, the heat melting our souls, inserting limeade intravenously. Planning an escape north, somewhere, anywhere. But here, in July, I wake up chilly. Like, wool-socks-flannel-shirt-fleece-pants kind of chilly. Soon, maybe August, I'll be able to see my breath in the mornings! How exciting. And yes, I know I have a mouse, but silver lining, the ants cannot maneuver in the cold!

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...

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...