A day in the life...

Well, as you can tell from the last year of stories I've told...nothing in Fiji is ever certain...
I started out working with FRIEND, and still am a bit...but I've finally found my niche here. I'm working at a school for kids with special needs. I'm assisting them develop a P.E. program & an art program. Two to three days a week I call the following photos "work." The teachers & I just completed a workshop on developing P.E. for students with special needs...and everyone is excited to start making a curriculum & involving all the kids, which from what I've been told, wasn't the case before.


I'm also developing an art curriculum...I'm like the neighborhood garbage collector right now...anytime I see someone throwing away a plastic bottle, egg carton, or anything else that could possibly be transformed into an art project , I fly through the air like superwoman to save it from the rubbish. I have rediscovered my love for arts & crafts though, I get excited when I practice them at home...speaking of, please don't spend money on postage, but I'll be home in August & if you wanted to donate some construction paper, crayons, powder paint, markers, or glue we could really use it. Once the art program is up & running we'll ask parents to give $1-2/year to fund it, but first we need to show them why art is so important in their children's development.


And finally, we also really need a library at the school. The kids have very few books to read & learn from...and most of their learning involves repeating the same things every day... a lack of resources makes it difficult to encourage creativity in thoughts & actions, improved literacy, or comprehension. Not only this, but the teachers don't have great resources to reference on the special needs of their students & intervention strategies. I'd love to get a library up & running before I leave...I'm looking for options of how to get this done, if anyone knows of organizations that would fund something like this, let me know!


That's it for now, hope you're enjoying summer back home...we're just now moving into winter...80 degrees, brrrrr!Some of the kids on a Friday game day....they're a handful, but they sure do make me laugh!
Some of the kids during our water break....
This is my yaca (yah-the). Names mean a lot in Fiji, your last name determines your clan, and can show which position you have in society. It's an honor to have someone named after you, in fact I think in the training villages there are a couple new little ones that were named after Peace Corps Volunteers. You also have a special connection with those who share the same name with you, they are your yaca...and this is mine...her name is Sera but I address her as yaca.
One reason I love kids...you say 'everyone hop like frogs...' and they do, no questions asked, and no worries about how ridiculous they might look.

Ok, so the cone is supposed to be on the ground, but this is a creative "thinking outside of the box" use of one, so I approve.

If only curing AIDS was as simpe as taking a bath....

If you were wondering what type of challenges both local stakeholders as well as foreign volunteers face when approaching HIV/AIDS awareness....this would be a big one.

I have nothing else to say on this topic for now....but you can look forward to a response soon I'm sure.

11 months & counting...

The last month has been mildly busy with lots of paperwork, grant writing, and curriculum planning that you all really don’t want to read about.

My new place finally feels like a home after my roommate and I decorated it, added curtains, planted a garden, and have done our best to make it not feel like a prison cell of blue cinder blocks. We live on a little compound with four flats…and our neighbors just had a baby! I’m really excited to hold the little bundle of joy often, and I’m trying to re-learn the Hindi I haven’t really been using since moving to the city so I can make friends with the mother who speaks very little English.

The new group of volunteers comes in less than a month. It’s feeling very surreal knowing that a year ago I was in a similar place of frantic packing, a whirlwind of activities trying to fit everyone into my every-waning schedule, constant confusion & questions about what Fiji would be like, and attempting to prepare myself for the two years that lie ahead of me. If I could go back in time I would only pack half of what I did and fill the rest of the space with good tea & coffee, graham crackers, fruit leather, and a coffee press. I would have quit work more than a few weeks in advance to spend adequate time with all the people whose lives I would not be a direct part of in the two years to come, gone to a few more Cubs games, and taken more photos that would soon plaster the cinder blocks I have for walls. I would have written down my questions instead of letting them whirl like a cyclone through my head, and I would have stopped trying to prepare myself and focused on the here & now because no one can adequately prepare themselves for two years of Peace Corps service. Even though the available work goes in waves here, and occasionally I’ve been ready to throw in the towel and jump on the next plane to America, a year in I can recognize that I have done a lot of growing in my personal life, become much more capable of entertaining myself without tv, friends in the room next door, or constant internet access, learned how to cook with limited resources (you all would be wow-ed at my ability to cook sans-microwave), gained more patience than I ever thought possible, and taken my spirituality out of the western box it was wrapped in.

This next year might fly by…part of me hopes it does because I really miss the company of close friends, working in non-profits who really have their stuff together, and tacos. On the other hand, I hope to soak in every moment—every mundane detail of life here—knowing that when I arrive home the slow pace I once complained about, the simplicity I moaned about, and the hot weather I curse daily as I sweat on my way to work—will be things I wish I could return to after experiencing American life once again.

Work. Scuba. and more Work. hurray!

Today I can finally say, after almost a year in country, that I have some sort of direction and am actually doing some work with my counterparts. In this post I have included some photos, compliments of Maya, from our scuba adventures...which have been awesome breaks from really busy weeks.

At FRIEND, I've been working on getting awareness campaigns, and youth development events off the ground. By May we hope to hold the first Lautoka Poetry Slam--there is one in Suva monthly at USP, and we're hoping to provide the same opportunity for people in the west. The staff here brainstormed a great idea to motivate youth and provide them an opportunity to gain leadership skills and experience. I'm currently working on a proposal for a youth leadership retreat over December holiday that would focus on youth leadership in the community. This proposal should be finished mid-April, and hopefully posted to start raising funds by May.

Other than that I've been doing things like working on upgrading our website, designing awareness factsheets on health and environment issues, and doing staff capacity building during our daily morning trainings.

Now that work has picked up, the time here is flying by...I can barely believe it's been almost a year...and I foresee the next one going by even faster.

fan coral.

Shark dive. They may look scary, but they are beautiful creatures.

"Let the Colors Shower Joy"

Happy Holi everyone!

We celebrated this Indian festival last week with colored dye & music. The office staff went most of the day with colors on our faces & clothing...and we were visited by some men from a local temple that sang some songs for us. Later in the day the youth theatre group performed in a settlement where they had been celebrating holi all day. Everyone was covered in dye & their spirits were high when we arrived to perform the "Birds & Bats" play.

What is Holi?

Well, In some parts of India, specially in Bengal and Orissa, Holi Purnima is also celebrated as the birthday of Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (A.D. 1486-1533).

However, the literal meaning of the word 'Holi' is 'burning'. There are various legends to explain the meaning of this word, most prominent of all is the legend associated with demon king Hiranyakashyap.

Hiranyakashyap wanted everybody in his kingdom to worship only him but to his great disappointment, his son, Prahlad became an ardent devotee of Lord Naarayana. Hiaranyakashyap commanded his sister, Holika to enter a blazing fire with Prahlad in her lap. Holika had a boon whereby she could enter fire without any damage on herself. However, she was not aware that the boon worked only when she enters the fire alone. As a result she paid a price for her sinister desires, while Prahlad was saved by the grace of the god for his extreme devotion.

The festival, therefore, celebrates the victory of good over evil and also the triumph of devotion. Legend of Lord Krishna is also associated with play with colors as the Lord started the tradition of play with colours by applying colour on his beloved Radha and other gopis. Gradually, the play gained popularity with the people and became a tradition.There are also a few other legends associated with the festival - like the legend of Shiva and Kaamadeva and those of Ogress Dhundhi and Pootana.

All depict triumph of good over evil - lending a philosophy to the festival. (http://www.holifestival.org/history-of-holi.html)

The colors are meant for pure enjoyment, a celebration of joy and goodness. And of course, my favorite part of most Indian holidays...we got to eat Indian sweets all day long. It's celebrated by Hindus & non-Hindus alike, and a feeling of brotherhood & unity despite religious, socio-economic, and personal differences is celebrated.

I hope to one day celebrate the holiday in India where it originates!

Thandai (A thick beverage consumed during holidays)

Ingredients:

250 gms sweetened condensed milk

1 1/2 litre milk

10 almonds, soaked in water and peeled

6 pepper corns

4 cardamoms, crushed

2 tsp fennel seeds (saunf)

1 tsp khus essence (poppy seeds)

Few ice cubes, crushed



Method:Grind well the peeled almonds, cardamom and fennel seeds to a fine paste and mix with the rest of the ingredients. Strain the mixture well. Take crushed ice cubes in a glass till half and fill the rest with the above mixture. Serve garnished with rose petals. Makes for 12 glasses Preparation time: 5-10 minutes

Let's Talk About Sex.

This week I went to another volunteer's (Steve's) village to do an HIV/AIDS & other STI workshop with his recently formed youth group. In typical Fijian fashion, it was postponed from Thursday to Friday due to a church session that went two hours past when it was supposed to...but eventually we did have the workshop, and I was incredibly impressed by the way the youth interacted and took seriously the issue.

You see friends, in this culture talking about sex is taboo, so usually the first thirty minutes of any workshop having to do with anything remotely related to sex is a bunch of giggling and uncomfortable twitching...occassionally some comments about how I, the facilitator should practice condom use on one of the male participants. His youth group was completely opposite. From the beginning they were interested, asked intelligent questions, and took part in all activities.

Around the grog bowl we discussed things like what HIV stands for (the first guess for "H" was homosexual" so we cleared up that myth on the spot, discussing that HIV happens to everyone and in Fiji of the 300 reported cases, less than 10 are the result of homosexual relationships), how it's transmitted, what the risk is in various sexual activities as well as the villager tattooing that is a cultural norm here, how we can tell if someone has it (FYI, you can't. testing.testing.testing people), and how to prevent it.

I realized at the end how much I take confidential health care in America for granted. The biggest concern for the youth in getting condoms is that the health center they would normally get them at is the employment center for others in the village as well as relatives and as soon as they accessed this free service, the entire village would know. They plan on talking further about how to confidentially access condoms...the most viable option seems like when they take a trip to Suva two hours away they will go to the adolescent reproductive health center there because they can be assured of confidentiality.

Next week is a busy one, the youth theatre group at FRIEND begins performances, my roomate moves in, and I go on several dives over the weekend...

down to the basics.

I’ve been in Lautoka for about a month now, and it is a much better fit for me than my previous assignment. I’m working with FRIEND (Foundation for Rural Integrated Enterprises ‘N Development) in the programs department mainly focusing on the programs for at risk youth. We’re currently wrapping up training for a peer education theatre group that will now be going out into communities doing a play about relationship between races in Fiji and the history of how it has gotten to where it is. They’ll then engage their audiences in discussion around this topic. We’ll also be doing a youth employment workshop soon that will hopefully provide at risk youth an opportunity to gain self esteem and understand job skills such as resume writing, interviewing, and customer service. The hope is that this type of participatory workshop would empower the youth to pursue jobs they are interested in instead of continuing in victim mode of always needing to rely on others to survive. I’m hoping to implement some informal way for youth to access services at FRIEND since the workshops require a big chunk of time and only allow for a small number of participants at a time. There is another youth volunteer coming to the organization in March, so once she gets here it will be more clear what my longer term role here will be.

I moved into my new home last week, and am waiting for the Australian volunteer to move in with me in March. I also brought my puppy home with me this past weekend, whose name is Maggi. One of the other volunteers saved her for me from a litter under his house, and she and I had an interesting 2 hour trip back up to her new home. I packed the poor furball into my backpack, travelled with her through town, got on a bus, and then arrived to Lautoka which has much more hustle & bustle than her birthplace…she’s still adjusting to the sound of cars & people, as well as not being able to run into the woods whenever she pleases.

I see a lot of the next group of Peace Corps Fiji volunteers have been perusing the current volunteer’s posts. To those of you arriving in May I would say don’t stress too much on your packing. You can get any basic thing like toiletries and clothing here. Of course, bring some of your own…things you just can’t live without while here, but you can find village appropriate wear at the second hand Australian shops around. Think about what it is you really love to do at home…or something you’d like to do while here and use your packing room for that instead. I wish I would have brought more art material, more books, and snorkel gear to begin with (I had it sent from home after I arrived). I was wondering about internet access and phones—contact with people at home before I left. You can rest assured that even those deep into the rural areas have phones they got here, and have access to e-mail fairly regularly (I may stand corrected, but I believe all volunteers can access internet at least once a month…). Have fun in your last three months at home, we look forward to meeting you at Nadi International Airport very soon!