2 months of chaos.

So I've been really terrible at keeping you guys at home up to date on life here in Fiji. I've been really busy, so here's a photo montage to give you a brief idea...

The week I got back to Fiji was Sugar Festival...the annual "County Fair" type event in Lautoka.

There were dance competitions. a parade


and Sugar Queens of all sorts...including a night for transgender queens. Miss Rotuma was my favorite.

The next week we had a literacy camp at the school. A few other volunteers came to help, and though a bit chaotic (like most projects are) it was fun and a huge hit with the students & teachers.
We made silly sentences,

and bookmarks amongst other things.

The last day everyone got an award for participating. They were very excited about said awards, and some still carry them around...which is incredible because typically if you give them a piece of paper it's gone by lunch time.

We started the world map mural! Next week we start painting the countries in :)

We celebrated Fiji Day (Fiji's Independence Day)...

The kids put on a skit & sang the national anthem way out of tune...

and I decided I needed a weekend off, so I went snorkeling near Steve's village.

I went on a treasure hunt under the water and found this. I also explored an abandoned hotel...but those pictures are not for the public as most of the writing on the wall is explicit in nature.

I went to one of the squatter settlements nearby to do some composting & backyard squarefoot gardening workshops with my colleagues...

The community was very proud of their model makeshift compost

and square foot gardening is underway...first up, capsicum & Tomatoes

There was a "Race Against Poverty" in Lautoka, sort of like the Amazing Race except the clues all led to stakeholders in poverty alleviation in the area. I serves as the photographer/official hydrater of all participants. They were probably sick of me telling them "drink water!"

Next we celebrated Diwali...the Indian festival of lights. It's when Lord Raam is said to have returned from exile, and it is a celebration of his reunion with Sita Raam.

Everyone dressed in their best Sarees & Cameez

Jessie & I lit our Diwali candles & put them in the front to burn at night.
We went for some delicious curry & sweets at a local friend's place

After the race & Diwali festivities, a few of us decided to rest in Nadi Bay.

And that pretty much sums it up.

Happy Belated Diwali!!!

P.S. here's a glimpse into my daily life. and yes, they really are this nuts, even when there's not a camera in front of them.

video compliments of Amy. This was her group of crazy children during our literacy fetsival.

America consumes. and Fiji keeps on living.

Since being here, I’ve become much more aware of what it means to have come from a consumerist society—a society of people that can’t get enough of bigger, better, newer, and shinier. Millions upon millions of dollars are spent on advertising alone. I haven’t done any formal research or anything, but if I were to guess I’ll bet we could feed a nation of starving people just using all the money we spend marketing products most of us don’t actually need…and if we did we could just go to the supermarket & find them. No offense to you all whom I love dearly at home, but checking facebook these days just makes me nervous to go back to that consumer world I came from. Every five minutes a new status update tells me that so and so has a new i-pod, that someone’s partner proposed & now they have a really expensive ring on their finger which no doubt will be posted in its own photo album where everyone will ooo and ahhh over the huge rock, that someone’s phone is broken—God forbid you not be able to communicate with them for the day it takes to fix it….you get the picture. Now I can’t point any fingers because I too come from this world…a world where half the fun of the Superbowl is the commercials, where buying a few cups of Starbucks a week is normal, and where last season’s clothes are sent to Village Discount because they’re no longer good enough to wear. I just hope I don’t fall back into this love of material things…and I probably won’t be as big of a waster of money as I used to be….but the temptation to fit in has remained with me—whether here in Fiji or back in America, and in America to fit in is to consume.

To contrast America…let me give you a few of my favorite examples that describe the simpler way of life lived here. Commercials here probably cost about $50 to make. Seriously, they just go to someone’s kitchen & film them cooking up some chow noodles (similar to ramen) and then put a low budget jingle to it. No fancy technology, no woman in a bikini eating a seductive bowl of noodles….just an ordinary mom in a sulu stirring a pot. As far as clothing goes…I can walk out of my house wearing a bright pink sulu (piece of cloth) tied around my waste, an orange Illini t-shirt, and old flip flops…and no one would give me a second look. No one would look me up & down & then turn to their friend and quietly talk about how my shirt didn’t match my skirt or how flipflops were SO last season….in fact I have gotten a few “URO!”s (the equivolent of Sexy! or Healthy!) in that exact outfit. I don’t seem to need much here, I don’t have a craving for bigger or better…I mean a good beer would be nice, and a dress without bleach stains might be a good addition to the wardrobe…but I honestly don’t feel that desire to have the latest version of the i-phone, or a bunch of accessories that only match one outfit, or thirty pairs of shoes (and you all know how much I love shoes)…I don’t want much here…I’m content with having enough, and I hope that attitude crosses cultures when I get back to America.

Now a look into my life over the last month (minus 4th of July…those will be up soon!)

On this particular day it was probably about 80* outside...brrr! Winter has arrived!

My herbs are growing! Fresh basil, thyme, rosemary & oregano...mmm mmm delicious :)

This is what the steam that feeds right into the ocean looked like before the community clean-up.

Clearing twisties wrappers out of the bushes.

Two little helpers ready to take on the leaves.

The kids each colored a letter during art class the week prior.
The boys decided to surprise us with a dance they made up during recess. Hilarious.
I've honestly never seen him so into anything in my life. I have discovered the way to his heart is through pop music & dancing.
They made up a rap about the school. He wants to be like "Chris Brown." isa.
blue eyes. One of my favorite kids ever.

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