Year in Review, v. 2

2008 is almost over... in Fiji, anyway. I'm pretty amazed at how quickly this year has gone by considering I've spent over half of it here in Fiji. I've been thinking a lot about whether or not this is the new American Revolution for which many of us have been waiting. [Insert: some day i'll expound on this. Think about it, though, is all I'm saying.] We have a new president who is young, liberal, passionate, and yes, black. I've been thinking a lot about race and the conclusion I've come to, without being in the US during the whole election, is that yes, race does matter. Of course it matters. How can it not? I'm not saying I voted for Obama because he's non-white but it certainly helped. The involvement of so many disenfranchised youth and voters this year is astounding. The hope (while I'm getting sick of that word, it can't help but be used) he's brought to so many people is fantastic. The new direction of America is finally happening. I feel like people are awake, finally, now, after so many years of being in a daze, brainwashed and lied to and manipulated. The economy is in shambles. A new president. A new outlook. People seem to care again. I feel good for America. The country is on the brink of utter collapse and now it will (hopefully) evolve into something magnificent that it once stood for. Sermon ended.

What else. My part of 2008 in America feels like another world. I had the best birthday this year that I've had since I was 20. Best (and last) kickball game of my 3 year career. Best live concert to go out on a bang with- The New Pornographers. Best dance parties at the Majestic (Houses in Motion on my birthday, DJ Nick Nice). I could be found at the Orpheum during Happy Hour, Sundance, The Old Fashioned, The Paradise, The 'Bou. My favorite album of the year (out of the maybe 3 that I actually heard that came out this year)... Red Letter Year. How can Ani DiFranco consistently keep reinventing her sound and have it sound so freaking awesome? How is that possible?? My only grievance is that there are too many love songs and the production isn't up to snuff that the first two really strong tracks have... I guess when your partner is your producer and your baby's daddy, the love songs take on a different meaning. Best album I've rediscovered? Another Ani one: Revelling/Reckoning. It's so beautiful, so emotional, so political, so raw and simple. How have I overlooked that for the past 7 years?!?

BOOKS I READ IN 2008:
-The Virgin in the Garden, A.S. Byatt
-Falling Angels, Tracey Chevalier
-Population: 485, Michael Perry (note: I saw this book in the USP library in Suva! It cost something like $28!)
-The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
-Love is a Mix Tape, Rob Sheffield
-In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan
-The Town and the City, Jack Kerouac
-A Whistling Woman, A.S. Byatt
-Tale of the City, Armistead Maupin
-Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
-Slapstick, Kurt Vonnegut
-Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson
-The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
-What is the What, Dave Eggers
-Down Under, Bill Bryson
-Grace (Eventually), Anne Lamott
-The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
-Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt
-A thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
-The Bookseller of Kabul, Asne Sierstad
-Banker to the Poor, Muhammad Yunus
-The Plot Against America, Philip Roth
-The Monkeywrench Gang, Edward Abbey
-The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell

THINGS I LEARNED IN 2008
-How to ask for help
-How to be helpless
-How to be alone
-How to husk, crack, scrape, and cook coconuts
-How to walk barefoot
-Patience
-How to eat what you absolutely don't want to eat and pretend you enjoy it (tinned fish, beef for example)
-How to hand wash my clothes
-How to cook with the fire (I can actually start it on my own now and have a really successful fire! Usually I can do it without kerosene- whoopee!)

We're almost done with our bread oven. First project: completed! Next we're on to getting septic tanks for all the houses in the village, a completed and upgraded footpath, and a market by the road while continuing to battle erosion. ***We're done with the bread oven and I wish I could get pictures up!! Next up is building a kitchen so we can start the bread making business and bring the women some dough (bad pun)!***


Christmas is over and I'm glad. Was it even Christmas? It felt like just another day. Here are some things I miss about Christmas in Wisconsin:
-Snow, and feeling cold then going inside and getting all warmed up
-Jewish coffee cake, truffles, creme de menthe squares, sugar cookies
-The smells: snow, pine, cooking
-wrapping presents
-Christmas carols- especially Amy Grant
-Christmas Eve... visiting with the Rowleys, cooking, finishing up everything, our family dinners
-All the awful symbols that make American holidays what they are: Santa, Rudolph, bells, holly, etc
-All those things we only get once a year, like the Christmas movies on TV and the books and decorations and ornaments

I decided to stay here for New Year's because there's a lot happening in the village. There's a wedding next weekend and then I'm thinking I might be do for a vacation.

If anyone is planning on sending anything to me in the near future, I'm wondering if you could possibly include some trashy tabloid magazines.

Yesterday I made chocolate chip cookies. They actually turned out! I didn't burn them on the fire!!!! I consider that a great accomplishment. They're the first baked good I've actually made that tasted yummy. I think people here are so used to eating crappy processed desserts and overly sweet sweets that they don't quite get the perfection of a simple chocolate chip cookie.

I'm getting used to picking ants out of my tea or off my bread, grasshoppers hopping around my lantern and mosquito net, finding insects and creepy crawly creatures in my bread and veggies, fruit flies so massive I can hear them from inside my house, mice in my cupboard, geckos in my cupboard... it's weird that this is normal now to me. Weird in a good way.

Thanks for the holiday cheer! I think of Wisconsin often.

reality

It's almost |Christmas... wow... it sure doesn't feel like it here! In church though they've been singing some carols- "Oh Holy Night" and "O Come all Ye Faithful" for a couple. They're beautiful sung a capella and in Fijian.

I got stung by another bee last night, this time on the toe and just sitting on a veranda drinking grog. It hurts but hasn't swelled up nearly as much as the other one did. This one kid got stung by three on his ears this weekend. They're really vicious.

Last night I blew out my lantern, laid down in bed, and those 20 seconds something plopped down next to me. Not to much surprise, it was a big old cockroach that I couldn't seem to get rid of.

I sometimes go to the Catholic church services which are held in one of the villager's houses. It's a simple service but I find that I enjoy the ritualism of the Catholic service. I don't know why I was surprised at some of the similarities; religion is religion wherever you go. it's been so long since I've gone to mass though that some simple things I can't remember, like the Apostle's Creed or even the prayer we used to say before eating.

I went to my first Fijian wedding this weekend. It lasted about 4 days. It was in a village not far from my mine, only about a 30 -45 min walk or so. I went Thurs. for the ceremony and went back Friday and Saturday nights for grog and dancing. There were a TON of people there and needless to say I did a lot of Fijian dancing. And grog drinking. The wedding isn't really that different: there's a church service, eating, gifts, and then a party. Men and women actually got to drink grog together (!) and it was family/villagers who cooked and served the food. One of my biggest surprises was the turtles. I couldn't bring myself to eat them. They look so helpless, these giant sea turtles on their backs killed mid stroke.

I guess that's about all. We start building the bread oven this week (I hope...). I'm here to buy supplies today. Things are moving along... If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me if I'm going to marry a Fijian or told me I should stay here forever, I would be so unbelievably rich. Every mother wants to marry me away.

I really want to post more pictures but this time it's the computer that is the problem. I haven't had a problem opening my camera up before but the files are showing up as hidden every time I try to open up the folder. So... no pictures of the dead turtles, the wedding, my house, or my creatures.

If I'm not on here before, have a very merry christmas, make some snow angels for me, drink lots of apple knockers, and have a happy happy new year!!!!!!!!!!

Hello hello hello from the Friendly North!

All is well up here in my new village. I'm adjusting to life near the ocean and in a bamboo bure. By that, I mean I'm enjoying the company of my new friends, Susan B Anthony and Lyndon B Johnson. Respectively, they are a giant black hairy spider and a toad. My other friends include cockroaches, bees, a gigantic gecko (seriously, it's enormous and eats my food!) and a buttload of flies. I want to post pictures of them but my camera battery just died and I can't.

Lets see, I eat fish every day. I'm ODing on fish, seriously, because it makes me sick after I eat so much. I eat a lot of crabs. We're not talking little crabs from Red Lobster; no, these things are the size of about three or four of my hands. They're huge. The pinchers are enormous and delicious.

I had my first big adventure last Friday. The village is nestled along a river which opens into the ocean. Along the river to the ocean is a mangrove swamp. It's big, but not too big. I've been going running in the mornings and how nice does it feel to take a swim after a hot run (I've had to start getting up closer to 5:30; by 6:30 the sun is too hot and too bright to be active!)? I decided on Friday that I would go to the ocean. I've swam in the ocean before and while it's not really cold (it's really, really warm and the sand in some places is so hot it burns your feet), it's refreshing and I think the salt does my skin good. So I decided I would go through the mangroves this time, a way that I went with one of the guys from the village a week earlier. ONly this time I went alone. And this time it was high tide, unbeknownst to me. I start trucking through the mangroves and guess what, I get lost. I try to stay along the river but it's so wet that I can't or I'll get stuck in the muck. It's fine and I'm lively as I climb over and through the trees and then I realize that it's actually not going to happen that I'll get to the ocean. So now I'm a little nervous and tired and hungry because I hadn't had my breakfast yet. I'm trying to make my way back but everything looks the same and I'm in a thicket of mature trees and young saplings. Oilei. And then the most awful striking pain hits my forearm under my elbow. It hurt like you wouldn't, wouldn't ever believe. Now I'm mad at myself and the pain in my arm is all I can think about. That and the sweat dripping off my face and how in the world could I get lost in the mangroves right at the edge of the village? Who does that?? I finally get out, far from where I started but coming in through where the church is being built. I show my arm to one of the women, because by now it's started to swell and it hurts ot move my arm, and she tells me it's a bee sting. By Saturday my arm had swelled up and there became a huge red welt. It itched and kept getting bigger. The redness persisted and the swelling did, too. It's finally going away but the redness is still there and it still itches. It's been awful, but of course has been a great way to get integrated into the community and something for us to laugh about. It's been quite the entertainment for everyone who are used to getting stung. But I've been stung before and never had this problem! No one seemed concerned; I even went to the health center to see the nurse who just said to put hydrocortesone on it.

Not having electricity is something I'm getting used to. We have a generator from 6:30- 9:30 pm but I don't actually have an outlet. Everyone who isn't drinking grog watches movie after movie at ridiculous speed. Then we light our lanterns and it's pitch dark.

I'm starting a project (already) that was started by the other PCV. We'll be building a bread oven for the Women's Group to take over. The village is giving us the money, compliments of a logging decision, and the other guy had already done the ground work to getting it built. So next week i get a $1000 cash and get to buy the materials. It's pretty exciting to get something going so soon! We have a lot more to do that I feel good about over the next two years. Including reparing some of the damage from the logging decision. It's so frustrating to see this but given the choices, and actually being here seeing the choices made, it's a sticky situation. The village clans own a huge amount of land up here. They decided to allow a logging company to come in and clearcut. They got a huge sum of money but now they're seeing landslides and increased erosion problems. And, there's this pool that everyone likes swimming in over in the next village ( just a 10 min walk). It's amazing: the water comes all the way from up in the mountains and it's cool and clean. The pool is in this natural rock creation and there are little waterfalls and the kids jump in from up high on the rocks and it's a great little place to be when it's hot (I'm getting a reputation for going there!). Except, I keep hearing about how it used to be much deeper. You can see where the water level once was. Then they tell me it's because of the logging. The logging company is taking the sand out and they moved some of the rocks to lower the water level so they can get the sand easier. Then, yesterday I went to two villages to bless the construction of two new churches and I see that the sand from this pool is being used for these churches. Apparently the logging company is paying for and helping build the churches and houses in these villages. Shit. The money is really helping people but the long term problems aren't yet being considered. It's really frustrating to see.

Have to go now; a bunch of us in the area are having lunch together in Savusavu and I have another quote to get on prices. Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving!

ni sa bula si'a!

My house! From the back. It's a traditional bamboo bure.












My "kitchen"- they built this addition for me. I have a wood fire stove and a gas stove.


















Inside view #1: rest of my kitchen (a real sink!!! and it works!!!) and the door to the bathroom

Inside view #2: my bed

painting of Jesus. I visited another volunteer near Rakiraki and in her site is a Catholic church with this painting. I found out afterwards it's apparently very famous because it shows a black jesus. But of course we all know that Jesus wasn't white, right? White people didn't originate in Jerusalem, Egypt, Bethalehem, or any other biblical "middle eastern" places. Anyway, some French missionaries painted it awhile back. It's a beautiful church and the view is spectacular.

I am up in the North now. It's hot. Bloody, bloody, bloody hot. Stifling hot. I have a cute little bamboo bure (see above picture) that I'm loving. it is actually pretty cool inside, with a nice air flow. I'm replacing another volunteer who left suddenly in October. He had started some goo dprojects so I'm excited to continue his work. It's very different up here, both culturally and environmentally. I'm on the ocean (don't get excited about the beach- it's muck and disgusting) eating fish every single meal outside of breakfast. There are a gazillion coconuts and everything has lolo (coconut milk) in it, which is good but really fattening I had lost weight in Nairukuruku but it's all back, plus some, after my indulgence in Suva and the food here. Yuck. The women don't go to the field, which is really hard for me. I really enjoyed farming. They do all the fishing though so i'm excited to try that and they can keep gardens, which are closer to the village. It's a small village of about 27 houses (I think that's a generous count, I need to double check). It's a Chiefly village, which means it's in charge of the "tikina" (like a county) and very important. It's also really conservative, hence the very dramatic split of gender roles. The sexual politics will be hard to overcome here as women are pretty much expected not to be able to do any labor and to of course cook, a lot (which is really nice if you want a kitchen built so you can, gasp! cook your own meals, unlike many of the male vols. Americans can cook?!?).

The language is very different, too. They drop the "k" sound, which is in some of the most oft used words, like 'lako', 'tiko,' and 'vinaka' (meaning, respectively, to go/come, to stay/reside/live in, and thank you) are now 'la'o,' "ti'o," and 'vina'a" and the "q" sound is replaced by "k." Plus a bunch of different words for other things: 'maka' means no and fish is "koli."

I've also started going by "Alisi," making good use of a rarely used middle name. I decided Taylar was just a little too difficult to say. A new village, a new name, a new start!

we can and we did!

Yay!!!!!!!! Congratulations on our new president!!!! I can finally, finally, finally say I am proud to be an American after all these years!

I watched election coverage for a good chunk of the day Wednesday in Rakiraki with a bunch of other volunteers. It was exciting. I cried, a lot. How amazing. I know I had my HRC days but all in all, I'm happy with Obama. Wisconsin, you rock for going 56% Obama and taking back the house and senate! (Shouldn't it have been higher, though?? And thank heavens Gard was not elected... maybe there isn't room for bigotry in northern Wisco) Scary thing is looking at the popular vote: it was only 51% Obama, 47% McCain. That's too close for comfort. But still! Change is in the air...

Tomorrow, Saturday, I'm moving to my new village on Vanua Levu, the other big island. I'm extremely excited but have no other information other than I am replacing another Volunteer who left in October and he had a really cool traditional bure (house). More to come later, but I might not be online much for awhile.

Just a little update...
I'm still in Suva, still reading a lot and spending lots of money I don't really have. I finished "What is the What" by Dave Eggers and I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it. Another powerful book highlighting injustices of the world, this time in Sudan. It makes you realize how complicated the world is and how little we pay attention to the plight of others the world over. And how little the US government actually does to prevent potential/ future worldwide disasters before exacerbating them. I am speaking, of course, about Osama bin Laden/terrorism. I'm not saying that the US could have prevented civil war in southern Sudan, but our government certainly didn't help matters or heed warning signs. Mind you, civil war in Sudan started in the 80's so I'm not surprised seeing as Reagan didn't really care about anyone except rich white straight capitalists.

I digress... I also saw the new Guy Ritchie movie, "Rock 'n Rolla," last week. I really liked it but it was slightly different while being very similar to every other Guy Ritchie movie. Eh, it wasn't about terrorism or Iraq so it was good :) A very cool movie...

I should be getting my new site placement soon! It looks like I'll be moving up north to the island of Vanua Levu.

If you don't vote for Barack Obama, I'm never coming back. Please please please with every ounce of your soul and heart, pray, wish, beg, light a candle, send an ESP message, do whatever you need to do to get him elected!

Thanks so much for the well wishes during this difficult time for me! Soon I'll have a new village and will stay there, in the bush, growing my dalo and cassava. I'll keep you posted!

diwali pictures

Some Diwali pictures... Satish is getting the "dhir" ready to light, Sat and his wife in their yard, their light display (lights on the ground), a house lit up, and Sat's daughters, Keondra, and myself at the end of the night.

Diwali

Today is/was Diwali, or, the Festival of Lights. I'm spending the day with one of the Peace Corps staff members and his family. It has been an extremely eventful, fun, and educational day for me. Diwali is a traditional festival where you pray for good luck and prosperity, eat a lot, visit family and friends, and of course set up a lot of lights around your house. It has been amazing experience seeing all the houses decorated with (Christmas) lights, candles, and all these creative ways of lighting up. I've eaten so many delicious Indian sweets and candies and fried things, plus a lot of puri, palau, roti, curry, and many other wonderful, delectable, spicy, delicious Indian dishes. Yuuuumm. The weight I lost in the village was just put back on today alone. The oldest daughter and I visited some other houses in the neighborhood and at every house you eat. We dressed up in sarees and kamees and all these pretty, sparkly, lacy, sheek outfits. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow. There are firecrackers that go off from all directions all over the settlement. Literally, I walked under and stood under these fireworks that in American I think we have laws against standing so close to. The best way I can liken Diwali is to that of Christmas in AMerica. Throughout the past week or two there have been major sales at every shopping center (given that Indo-Fijians own about 80-90% of all businesses in Fiji, they go all out on Diwali sales), lights adorn all these houses- the brighter the better, you spend all day decorating and cooking all these special food, and then you share the day with those you love gorging yourself and talking. I was told that traditionally whatever you did on Diwali is how the rest of your year will go; so if your a shop owner and you give a lot of credit, that's how your year will be: always giving credit. If you don't shower, don't spend money, etc etc, that's how your year will go.

One thing that really struck me was seeing the sexual politics of the Indo-Fijian community, something I've had very little experience with until now. At one of the houses, we had to move inside the house because men were coming over to visit and we as women couldn't be seen sitting outside with her uncle. The women, especially the daughters, have enormous responsibility in cooking, cleaning, and entertaining guests; far more so I think than in the village.

More to come... but all in all, a really good way to spend the holiday and to get out of Suva!

Moving

So, I suppose I should update everyone on my status. Peace Corps has decided to move me from my village due to some safety and security concerns. I'm hanging out in Suva City until they can find me another village. It was really sad and really frustrating, but there's not much I can do about it so I'll keep on keeping on. In the meantime, I have a lot of time to regroup, enjoy Suva and the company of other PCVs, and catch up on pop culture. That means I'm almost done reading "Midnight's Children," watched Ironman and Definitely, Maybe (Definitely can't stand Abigail Breslin, definitely love Ryan Reynolds, definitely love when Madison plays a part in movies!), and went to see Body of Lies yesterday. It was good and brought me back to reality a little bit; it's only been a few months but I feel so distanced from things like terrorism, torture, and the war in Iraq because even though they do influence my life and I read about them occassionally in Newsweek, my day to day thought process is rooted in Fiji. I thought I didn't like Suva but this morning walking in to our office I got a really good view of the harbor, the ocean, and the mountains in the distance. It's really pretty here; there's so much greenery still in the residential areas. But still, this is such an interesting time for Fiji. I was talking to a woman who is originally from France who has been here for 16 years about the changes she's seen. She's lived in a village, married a Fijian villager, and is now living in Suva. She put a lot of emphasis on the changes brought by television about that same time. But what else happened not yet 16 years ago? A little thing called NAFTA which probably (I have no evidence for this, just correlation and causation) brought TVs- and everything else Fijians deem necessary to life. This woman argues that before TV there were burglaries, no gangs, and a lot of the violence issues were brought out by television. And where else do people find out about stoves or stereos or phones and all these other "modernities"? You can see the struggle of balancing Western culture with a place like Fiji. You have unfinished billboard signs, grocery stores stocking individually packaged overly processed extra sugary, extra transfatty goods, bills owned for appliances, washing machines, rusty old cars, and a political system wrestling with its own identity. I digress...

My address is once again...
Taylar Foster, PCV
Peace Corps Fiji
Private Mail Bag
Suva, Fiji Islands

And if you try sending things but they get sent back to you, try, try again! That's happened to me and to other volunteers. You probably have the address right!

While I'm still not over my first village, it will always have a special place in my heart, I'll now be able to start over, coming into a village understanding village life, knowing how to speak Fijian, and be more prepared for delving into work to be done. We have to stay optimistic, right?

The Beast

I'm spending some time in Suva and today I did a little exploring. By exploring I mean I read my way around the Western eating establishments, visited the library, and checked out the USP campus. First, the most un-lively- USP (University of South Pacific). It's a really pretty campus. USP is spread throughout 11 (?) different Pacific Island countries, a very cool idea. You can move around through the different campuses. There's a lot of greenery at this one and a nice bookstore where you can find some trade paperbacks for $8.50 or anything else worth reading starting from $26. Yup, Jennifer Weiner goes for roughly $29 here in Fiji and don't even get me started on the classics!
I then hit up the Suva City Public Library, which just celebrated its 100 year anniversary. It was started by Andrew Carnegie. Of the roughly 220 books, I'd say maybe 80% of them were published before 1970. That said, there are still some gems to be found. however, a library card costs $20. You're able to check out up to 4 books during any 2-week period and I would get 50% of the library fee back after my two years. Hmm...
I ended the afternoon at a cafe called Bad Dog, as American as you can get. Lo and behold, what American beer special did I find? None other than bottles of Miller Genuine Draft ($7, or happy hour price of $3.50) and cans of our very own, very dear, very high quality Milwaukee's Best ($2.50/HH or $5 regularly. Given the exchange rate, it's probably about US$3 so all in all not a bad deal). I was ecstatic, and still am. But I had already paid for my draught beer so I'll save that thrill for the next time.
Ch-ch-changes to come, I'll fill in later but I'm going to go grab that Beast.

Nature scenes... we have a picture of the school, my favorite footpath framed between flowers and coconut trees, the river, and steps from one path leading to/from the river. Across the river is where a lot of farmland is. It's relatively flat for a ways and cows graze everywhere. This is where our youth farming project is and where I cut firewood. If you keep going, it leads up into the mountains where there's more farming, especially yaqona (you can see them in the distance).

Here's the e-mail I sent today, which I thought I'd post here.

Hello hello all! I thought I'd send a little note letting you know I'm alive and well and kicking it in Fiji. I'm inland so no white sandy beaches for me and rain almost every day. Althought I'm told the rainy season is going to end very very soon, which I'm most excited about. It also means that it still does get cold at night (seriously!) and can get really hot during the day. I work on different farms most days and have my own garden that's blooming. However, I found out this week that all my stuff is planted too close together so my crops won't be as big as they would be otherwise. I am growing cucumbers, Chinese cabbage (bok choy), carrots, long beans, French beans, capsicum (peppers), pumpkin (I think... the seeds have yet to sprout), eggplant, and bele, a Fijian leafy green.

We have a lot of events in my village and almost everyday I help the women prepare meals, big feasts where anyone and everyone can eat and everyone brings something. The people are wonderful, very helpful and generous. Everyone has pitched in to bring me something, build something for me, take me somewhere, and of course feed me. They keep me well fed on cassava, taro, taro leaves, and tilapia. Fijians are very happy, lovable, laughable people. They take time relax ("Davo!" is what I hear most commonly, meanly lay down and rest. It's more encouraged to lay down when you are at someone's house than it is to sit up. It took me awhile to get used to it, but now I love it. I don't feel bad falling asleep whereever I am, either!) during the day and at night. Every night there's a grog party somewhere, which can be a little much sometimes but other times it's a great social activity and where decisions really get made. Everyone is willing to pitch in to help out their neighbors, who are probably family in some way. Every familial relationship is important, from aunties to cousins to whatever your kinship.

For example, there was a funeral in the village last weekend. The village literally stopped for three days. Cassava was harvested, groups of boys slaughtered cows and pigs, and everyone helps bring food and mourning items for the family. The neighbors of the deceased (who again were related) held the camp where all the meals were eaten. Whoever showed up when it was time to eat was given a dish. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, morning and afternoon tea were all cooked for three days. Each matagali (your "clan") paid their respects to the family bringing mats, dalo, pigs, fabrics, and grog. It's a very public grieving. There's a church service and burial followed by eating and grog, much like American funerals (without the "dirty water"- yaqona). There are ten days of morning and then after 50 days there's another celebration and mourning officially ends after 100 nights. During this time, close men in the family don't cut their hair or shave their facial hair. Normally, thick facial hair is taboo in the village. Visitors who come to the funeral are each sent home with part of the cow or pig in return for what they brought.

Another example, my kitchen. I have a kitchen! It's made out of bamboo and has an open fire stove. Yup, I'm learning how to cook over an open fire. I have to cut my own firewood and then carry it tied to my back across the river. I'll take a picture next time because it's quite the site! I haven't really gotten the hang of starting and keeping the fire going, but all in time. It took a few weeks to actually complete and dozens of different men helped. I'll take pictures of that, too. Unfortunately I only have a few pictures of the building process.

Tuesdays are village work days. This week on Monday and Tuesday the men built another footpath. The women cooked the meals and tea. Jolly old time I daresay. Everyone brought his own bowl and chili and the women served up giant pots (GIANT) of dalo leaves (rourou) and sui, the bones of the cow.

I'm starting to work with the school and this week was working on organizing the library. Here's a plea: they need books!!! Books and any kidn of materials/ supplies for kids (crayons, pencils, paper, scissors, puzzles). There's no money available, due to foreign aid being cut off due to the interim government from the 2006 coup. Any help you might be able to offer would be very greatly appreciated. My mother is currently working on a book collection effort, which the teachers at the school are thrilled about. If you want to help or donate some books, please see her!

My life is so totally different in N. than it ever was in the States I can't really explain the magnitude of what I'm learning. I could do a whole women's and gender studies dissertation on co-ed volleyball, for example. One of the things I feel most proud about already accomplishing is the inclusion of volleyball into N. Day activities. If no volleyball, the girls/women would not have had an activity while all the boys/men played rugby. Now we play volleyball every day, except SUnday of course which is taboo. From 4- 6 pm, after you get back from the bush, there are sports. Rugby for the boys and now volleyball for the boys and girls. It's a lot of fun, honestly. Except that they're quick to cover me which means I rarely get to attempt to hit the ball. Needless to say, my arms are bruised all over from what I have done! It's a good way for me to get to know people, too. And ages in Fiji are all mixed together. Of course the elders are held to a higher esteem but it's perfectly reasonable to see 17- 40 year olds hanging out, be it playing sports or drinking grog or telling stories.

Here's a quick list of some of my injuries/ ailments: ringworm, four spots on both my hands burned from soybean oil and other cooking incidents, a gash on my right big toe, a cut on my right foot, sore thighs and shoulders from volleyball and gardening, three scars on my left shin from the bush, cuts on both my ring fingers from bamboo (it's sharp!), and plenty of other knicks, gashes, and bruises. They heal pretty quickly, all things considered. There have been some other ailments but we'll save those for the story telling after my two years. :)

All in all it's fun so far. Every day is work for me, I don't really get time off. I'm learning sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sooooo soooooooo much and ultimately I think that's what this whole experience will be: me learning and bringing back what I've learned. And of course dispelling myths that all Americans are wealthy, employed, and have guns. Telling people we're not all farmers either and we have to buy our food... and that we don't have fires or grog and we keep doors closed on our houses and you can't just show up at someone's house and expect a meal... these are the interesting tidbits I'm proud to share. And that we do in fact have rivers in our country but no, we don't have bananas or pineapples or mangos or papayas or guavas or dalo or cassava or rourou growing in our country. But what, then, do you eat?

I hope this finds you all well. Sorry I can't really send each person a personalized note. I've gotten a little lax on my letter writing as well. I thought I'd have a lot of time to sit around and not do anything but it turns out there's always something to do in the village or someone to talk with and there's always a grog party. So... for the sake of integration, you'll have to settle for a mass produced e-mail. Vosoti au. Did I mention I go to church 1, 2, sometimes 3 times a week? Believe it. Those pigs have made it to outer space, Kelsey. I kid you not.

rainforest adventure

I added comments to previous posts!

I decided to try my hand at fiction, since this doesn't really feel like my real life.


It could have been a scene from Survivor or from a Discovery Channel reality show: the little white American girl trudging through the rainforest, Birkenstock clad wearing 80's fit second-secondhand clothes, muddy and sweaty and sunburn creeping through her tanned white skin, ponytail covered by her skirt swooped into a scarf. The walk there was unexpected, starting out with a nicely kept gravel road and well traveled trail. The two-day adventure ended with a walk back, every inch of her body just waiting to be on solid flat ground. The trail fades in and out. She slides muddy step to muddy step, climbing and falling, thinking “Keep going, don't stop.” There's no time to look at the scenery, nowhere to look but down. A thorny branch scrapes across her neck, her gumboot catches on a tree root. In the forest it's cool and damp, wet earthy mud surrounded by deep chocolatey browns and dirty browns, down and at eye level; above linger top story trees and greenery. This is work. For her companions, it's everyday life, part of the necessity of living inland of a tropical climate. Soon the trail through the forest ends and opens into a clearing. Along a river lies the clearing, rocks and sand. The site of the lunch, the relaxation point, the almost end of a hard day's work. The women cook over an open fire, built on sturdy logs replaced the next day, balancing on rocks. A giant pot, salt, and bowls are the only objects brought from home; everything else used is found in the bush. The cooked cassava is spread onto banana leaves, a giant mound of starch. They pick the dalo leaves, bathe, cut firewood, cook. Soon the men trickle in. There's a flurry of bowls being passed around, containers used and reused, filled and emptied with dalo leaves. Nei Seta caught prawns from a pond downstream and they eat them fried in the fire, with chilies and salt. The crunch is fresh and smoky; a real delicacy. There's a lull as the men and boys chow down which soon crescendos to boisterous cackles and giggles, chattering and joking. Fijians are happy people who love laughing, even as exhaustion looms and the stench of sweat and hard work overpowers the forest smells. Cigarettes are lit, clothes are rinsed in the river and laid out to dry, men sprawl and stretch, napping with a rock as a pillow. Somewhere one of the boys hacks away a tree. The work these days are clearing forest for cows. And suddenly, they hear the hooves grumbling through the brush. They whoop and holler, jump up as the girl sits on her rock unaware of the commotion. Rate grabs her arm and pulls her up as the wild bull charges through the clearing, confusedly barreling through the river followed closely by the 20 year olds with their machetes ready as they strike three blows to its neck and down it goes, a massive lump crumbling to the ground, red blood dripping from its neck. They breath a collective sigh of relief and resume their talanoa (telling stories). The girl is shaken as they laugh about her reluctance to move. The cows here are wild, compared to her like the wild pigs, free range and unaccustomed to human activity for far too long. Their goal is to reign in the animals for farming. Until then, the cows are wild and beastly striking fear into the people working to avoid them. Later, they are hurry through the hills as they tread closely to where another one is traveling. They take the girl to where a creek meets the river, a cold opening of fresh, drinkable water, crisp and soothing out of the hot sun. The divvying up of the bull begins; its place of death becomes its burial site as each part is quickly dismembered, each organ cleaned and opened. Sacks are filled, baskets made from coconut fronds to carry it back. Then it's time for the women to head back. They go a different route, a flatter, less muddy way. One, two, five streams and rivers forged. Grasses knee-high through fields with coconut trees and hardwoods with bright orange flowers leading out of the thicket of rainforest. Four Fijian women and her, the slowpoke of the group, pushing to keep pace with her leaders as they lift her up single handedly where the step has eroded away from mud. Over downed trees, under bamboo arches, through barbed wire downed and still intact, across muddy trails and atop ridges of hills, lunging vine to vine, tree to tree to keep steady.

When they reach their destination, the landowner's house in a neighboring village, they are instantly welcomed in by another nei (aunty) and her family. Soon the men come in, carrying the sacks of meat. Some come wearing the legs and thighs, the flesh cut from the skin and fashioned into a sort of backpack. Food hygiene laws don't exist in Fiji. The sacks are emptied and more slaughtering commences. Everyone moves in tandem, knowing exactly what to do and how to do it. Pots come out to start bowling water and cassava, knives are flourished, the women start cubing the meat while the men finish the butchering. It's a jovial nature, still, renewed by the prospect of eating the fresh meat. They fry some of it in the fire- throw chunks into the burning flames- and eat with salt, chili, and moli (citrus) while the rest is divided into meals. The girl, usually shy to join in, takes up a knife and joins the women. They kid with her to try to the meat, and after not eating red meat for ¼ of her life, she dives in and tries it. It's a day of new beginnings. It's only too soon that the women must leave. The men will stay back to head early into the field the next day. Day two the women go back to cook breakfast for the men- dalo leaves and the beef- before they make their way to the clearing to start the lunch. This time she's not so shy, taking a seat to dish out the cassava. They joke with her, teasing and laughing about her inability to maneuver through the rainforest. They revive yesterday's conversation about how best to get her out of the forest. One way is shorter, one way is less muddy, one way is flatter. Her feet, you see, are those of a European city girl. They're like a baby; small and soft and relearning how to walk in mud. Today she isn't wearing her gumboots, a change in plans made the women change into their host's clothes and this journey is done mostly barefoot. Her best investments in clothing/footwear: a pair of Birkenstock sandals bought for 30 lira eight years ago and a pair of Old Navy flip flops, courtesy of her sister.

The women hurry to their home village to prepare tea for the men. Everything's a group effort, everyone pitches in something: flour for the bubakau, sugar, tea, mugs, soybean oil. That night, the two days end with a grog session for those not too weary to partake. Our heroine is nestled between an elder and an almost elder, still a youth because he's not yet married. She jokes and jostles with the boys as they relive the days events and can be comfortable with one another. They've become her big brothers, her fathers, uncles.

“If my family could only see me now,” she thinks, more than once those two days. “They'll never believe me.” Her agility surprised her, her improvement over the two days strengthened, her feet toughened, and the scrapes, scratches, nicks, and gashes told the stories of the adventures for days to come, and will continue to provide the impetus for future talanoa. Trip to the bush after trip to the bush, she's becoming a “Kai Viti,” one “Vaka malua!” (slowly) at a time.

Other things that have been going on...
One of the things I'm struggling with is not only the fact that in the village setting everyone's business is public business but what do you do when you have issues with peoples' private lives? I am not one to judge how people live their lives, but when I found out someone I liked and respected hit his wife or when someone else I really looked up to literally was beating his son with a belt or a stick as the kid is screaming and yelling and running out of the house crying during the middle of the afternoon, it changes my opinion of the person. And yet the same night, I find myself drinking grog with them. I have a hard time rationalizing these things.

Despite this, Fijians are some of the happiest people you'll ever meet. They love laughing and veiwali (joking) and don't hold anything against you for too long.

Familial relationships are super important in Fiji. For example, here are some lists of my families: (fathers) Tata lailai lewe vico, tata lailai Gram/Alupate, tata lailai, (mothers) Nana lailai Anali, Nana lailai, Na Queenie, Na Ula, Nana Tuvou, Na Vini, Na Sala (Buila), Na Sala, Nana Sieta, Nana Vasemaca, (aunties) Nei, Nei Paulina, Nei, Nei Seta, Nei Meri, Nei Tirisi, (uncles) Momo, Momo Saramia, Momo Semi, Momo Ratu Viliami, Momo Viliami, Momo Mala, Momo Philip, Momo Bici, Momo Isoa. There are more, too, in addition to numerous “tavale” (cousins), brothers, and sisters.

My best clothing investment so far: a $15 pair of gumboots! Move over, Chacos.
My biggest food craving so far: This might sound contradictory to all my social, ethical, and food systems belief, but a 3 cheese quesadilla from Taco Bell one late night after a grog party was something I would have gone great, great distances for. Cheesy, spicy goodness... hmmmmm. The hunger pain was unbelievably ridiculous and could not be satisfied by anything in my cupboards, like peanut butter, which I eat literally every day.

One political note: I was unbelievably excited and energized and surprised and floored that the House voted down the bill to bail out Wall Street!!! Yay! They're finally doing something really smart for everybody else besides Big Business! And then today, I see that the Senate is going to vote for it. WTF? The US is one of the only countries that has its government and stocks/bonds privatized but publicly supported. It is not teh responsibility of the government to bail out private businesses. Dave Obey was quoted in both of Fiji's newspapers, but I didn't quite get what "side" he was on, and why are the Democrats in favor of this spending bill???? Isn't there supposed to be a line drawn between private corporations and government interference? They made this mess now they have to deal with it. Too many years of too many risks with a lot of peoples' money (not to mention entire lives and well being) for the sake of multi-million dollar profits by private companies should not be rescued by taxpayers' dollars! Oi lei, turaga!

those of you in Madison: You better have gone to see either A) Salman Rushdie or B) She and Him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Chris, if you're out there: it makes me very, very happy to think about seeing The New Pornographers! What a great last show to have seen. I get really pumped up to think about "Don't Bring me Down" and all the dancing. I want to dance!

Has anyone seen Southland Tales? Whoa.

pictures

I'm not really sure what's going on with the formatting here, but here are some pictures...

We have some of the men building my kitchen, made from bamboo, which you can see being made for the floor (surprisingly soft!). We have my neighbors, Amelia and Timoci giving me moli, little citrus fruits. Kids playing in the rain. Some of the kindergardeners and their teacher in front of their school. me with some elders and the cutest, most well behaved little baby named Tevita. Fridays are the youth days and here are pictures of the gang and me with them. My garden, which has really taken off! I have cucumbers, long beans, french beans, eggplant, carrots, and Chinese cabbage. Group of women during our village's celebration last week.

Some day I'll write about my adventures in the bush the last two days. Here's a little taste: hiking barefoot through the rainforest and slaughtering and eating wild cow.

Not too much to report this time.

Yesterday I kind of starting "working," even though the past six weeks have been work. I am working with a bunch of Youth from the village (Youth being anyone aged 14 on up, married or single, male or female) on their dalo farm. They have about 13,000 dalo planted so far and want to have 17,000. Their goal is to buy a truck for the village. Every Friday is Youth Day, when everyone works on the youth farm. It was my first time going. There were about 30 of us. Two other women went but they picked rourou (dalo leaves) to cook for lunch while I stayed and helped garden- meaning I whacked away the grass to turn the soil and then a hole is pounded with a big stick and the dalo stalks are replanted. It was pretty fun, actually, even though it rained most of the morning. Afterwards we had a big lunch and then most of us ended up drinking grog later that evening. My goal, I think, is to help figure out how to buy the truck and how to get money to maintain the farm. I still need more info but I think this was a really good start. I'm trying to post some pictures so you can see.

Wednesday night I came home and my neighbor was having a party. I should say, my neighbor's 19 year old son was having a party. I stopped by to see what was going on and he told me, "We're drinking wainimole (citrus juice), see? [points to a basin] That's what we do, drink wainimole." Oh really, Josua? That's why you and three others are giggling and calling my name out the window and laying on the floor?? Totally a house party when your mom's away, Fiji style. It was great. Hilarious, to me. It's not like I'm going to tell on him.

I have a garden, too, that I want to upload pictures of. It's pretty big. A bunch of the men got to together to help dig and turn the soil. Right now I have Chinese cabbage, carrots, French beans, long beans, and eggplant. After 1 week everything had sprouted and the beans after two weeks are huge! I'm planting cucumbers next to my house and today I bought more seeds so I plan to start planting even more.

Thursday work started (finally!) on my kitchen. In my village, people have their kitchens outside their houses, usually made of bamboo. They still have to put in a floor and the walls. I'm so excited!!!!! I finally get to start cooking with the fire instead of my gas stove. This also means I'm going to have to teach the women how to bake. I can't bake with my stove and I'm super stoked to bake with the fire (no pun intended). They're all anxious to learn, too.

I have a few music requests, if anyone feels like sending me any cds. Some I didn't have time to download into iTunes, some I don't have, some I realized I lost somewhere, and some that were super scratched and I can't listen to!

In no particular order:
-She and Him
-The Postal Service
-Amnesiac
-Pulp, Greatest Hits
-Prince
-MMJ, It Still Moves
-Cake

pictures and update from the bush

Where to start...
This might be a little “confessionalish” but I don't really have many people to talk to here and a lot is going on, so I apologize if I give away too much. Every day is a new adventure for me, too, and maybe I can give some insight into what it's like living in a place so entirely different from my own. I'm living in my new village now. It's different, very different from the other village where I was. It's bigger here, with a population close to 400. It's very spread out and very much a farming community. Being away from a town or the city, the feel is very different, too, and everything has to be planned out very carefully. We get two buses a day, two that go to Suva and two that come from Suva. You miss the bus, you're stuck. Add to that my banking and all money is in Suva and almost every day something is going on, making it hard to leave the village.

NEW BEGINNINGS
I've had a busy first few weeks in the village. My first Monday I went fishing with some of the men. We hiked up to where one of the farms is, where you can easily get into the river. They tried fishing (spear fishing) but the fish were all dead because the water is dirty. So we boarded a bamboo raft and floated on down the river, stopping periodically for them to check for fish. We stopped, too, so I could find some ota, which is a leafy green that grows wild in the woods. We climbed upland and walked around through the thicket to pick the ota. Mind you, this was all barefoot. It's absolutely beautiful up there. The river winds through the mountains and honestly gets cleaner the further up you go, which I discovered on Thursday. Tuesday, though, was another busy day of fishing. I went with the women this time to a pond on another plantation, across the river. You swim across the river and hike a good 30-45 minutes (I have no idea the distance...) to the pond. Then you wade knee deep in mud and cow dung into the pond, with your gigantic fishing nets. The women have bamboo shafts buried in the mud to catch the eels, which they did (biggest eels I've ever seen). Some women use the nets to scoop up fish, others just dive and catch them. They then bite the heads to kill them and either put them in bags or tuck them into the folds of their shorts until they get to land. It's fascinating to watch because they have their whole routine down. You walk around the periphery of the pond- “walk” is a fluid term because half the time you're swimming, half the time you're pulling your feet out of the muck- to find the best spot, all the while pulling your bags/catches tied to a bamboo pole behind you. Knee deep in mud. The traditional mud bath. Then you walk back through the pasture (eating guavas along the way) and swim back across the river to the village to scale and cook your fish.
Wednesday was not quite as exciting, although I did learn how to cook rourou, another leafy green (the leaves of taro/dalo), in bamboo. You stuff it down in the bamboo- which you wrestle with with your machete- in little balls and then you cook it over the first. When it's done, you wrap it in banana leaves with onions and salt. Yum yum. I ate mine with yams.
Thursday picked up a little as Josi, my landlord/caretaker, and I went back to the plantation to pick rourou. Picking rourou means again trekking knee-deep through mud and cow shit to pick off the leaves, which then stain your hands. Before this, though, I drank fresh milk. From the cow to the fire to my stomach, with a few tablespoons of sugar. It was really good, but unfortunately the first time I got sick the next day. We ended up helping some of her family catch their fish, which they did further up in the original spot in the river with a much larger net. Rode the bamboo raft again (fondly called “HMS No-come-back) further upstream where the water was cleaner. I got to actually swim and hitch a ride on bamboo, which you literally ride while swimming along the river. The water felt so nice and refreshing and cool. And the scenery is absolutely stunning, no joke. Apparently there was some kind of “Eco-challenge” there a couple years ago, and someone said something about The Amazing Race, too. To top off the day, after the swimming and being pulled along by the bamboo, I rode a horse. Bareback, of course. All in all a full and productive day.
Another day I went to farm yaqona root, which is the grog that sustains Fijians. This plantation is also across the river, on a mountain ridge. I can't even estimate how long it took to walk up there, but it was a long long time. It was beautiful, again, of course, because you can see all these mountains in the distance and the jungle foliage and the village across the way. Yaqona grows as multiple branches into one plant, which you dig up and tear apart parts of the root. The branches are then replanted for another plant. It takes about 3-4 years for a yaqona plant to mature and throughout the plot of land we were working on you can see any number of different size plants. In the one trip we made to weed and harvest, we harvested one plant, which took a couple hours. We also weeded, using a machete to hack away the weeds and clear the drainage path. What you can't hack, you pull up by hand. This is going uphill, of course, barefoot and in both the rain and blazing sun. Going back down was not quite as enjoyable as it took twice as long in the rain. Literally, this path is a mud trail. Needless to say, I pretty much slipped and scooted my way down more than I actually walked. It was a muddy mess and tested almost all of my fears. If you've never farmed on a mountain ridge barefoot in the rain, I don't know if you've actually lived. On the way back, I was so tired and nerve-wracked that not even walking through the muddy cow shit affected me.
The thing I'm continually fascinated with is that these men and women are doing all of this because they have to, and they're doing it by hundreds of years of perfected methods. There are no gadgets or gizmos, no bait, no fancy fishing equipment, no motors, no rods, no beer, nothing telling you exactly where the fish are at how deep levels of the water. No fish is too small. You are fully in touch with the earth. If you don't catch anything, you don't eat. If you don't go to the farm, you don't have your dinner. So you make sure you get something. You farm on the mountain because where else will you farm? Most of this farming is done organically, and I'm not really sure what I can bring to the improvement of farming practices because they practice crop rotation and have multiple crops (banana, coconut, and papaya trees, dalo, cassava, yaqona, cucumber, pumpkin to name a few) growing at the same time and what do I know about farming in the tropics on a hillside?
Because of all this, I find myself starting to change. Maybe it started the minute I stepped on the plane back in Madison, which feels oh so long ago, or maybe it started in Nakaile, or maybe it started Monday when I started over again. The concept of time for Fijians is totally different than Americans. So is the idea of food, relationships, family, and work. It sounds cliché, but I ask myself about the “point” of life here. For the people around me, the point of life, the reason to get up everyday, is to eat. You need to feed your family. You get someplace when you get there. You meet when you hear the drums. You go to work, on the farm, after breakfast. While the idea of time, or lack thereof, is sometimes infuriating, I think I'm doing pretty well. I'm learning a lot about patience. Nothing happens quickly here, except for covering up your yaqona as it's drying out in the sun and it starts to rain suddenly- which happens a lot here.

OBSESSIONS
Food has become such a central focus of my life. I've heard that PCVs get obsessed with food, and I can totally see why. It's easy to do because your life revolves around food. You don't eat, you don't survive. It's simple. And here, it's such a social activity. It could be that I also finished reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food-- let me go on a tangent for a minute. While this book didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know, it told the science and politics behind what I knew and reinforced so many of my values that I have been mocked for in the past (by my family, uh huh). Food is so important in our lives and it's something we usually pay no mind about. The food we eat has enormous consequences not only for our lives and health but also for the environment, economy, and future of all humankind. Sounds dramatic, I know, but if you really really think about it, you'll realize how integrally tied our lives are with what and how we eat. Take a look at the book, I urge you, and if nothing else read the last chapter. I especially did like that Pollan points out that a lot of us can be eating differently, we only choose not to. You see people in Lexuses and BMWs shopping at Wal-Mart and eating McDonald's, the people who can afford to spend money on foods from smaller markets or more upscale dining establishments that use locally grown and/or organic food. We just don't think about where our food is coming from and what goes in to producing it. Another point I also really liked that Pollan made was about the difference between organic and local. Organic is becoming just another buzzword. To go back to Wal-Mart, they have “organic” products now. Stop and think about it. Is buying something from Dole that claims to be “organic” from Wal-Mart really the same as buying Don's tomatoes from the Farmer's Market in Madison different? He doesn't use pesticides or fertilizers and yet as a small scale farmer can't afford the organic patent. Does that make his tomatoes any less organic than those that Dole claims to sell? Those that may only be partially grown organically and then shipped from South America or Spain, but still qualify under FDA regulations. Which is better to buy? Organic standards have been lowered significantly the past couple of years in the US. If you buy organic, just know where it's coming from. Buying local is so much better than any label you could look for in a supermarket. And, as Pollan identifies, money is so relative. He hits it right on when he says that Americans are willing to pay exorbitant gas prices (that really aren't that exorbitant if you consider the cradle-to-grave cost), pay for cable and satellite dishes, have multiple phones/phone lines, DSL, new clothes and shoes and purses, etc but aren't willing to spend a couple dollars on fresh, organic, and locally grown produce. It might be costly in the short term, but in the long run, the health benefits far outweigh the decision to have another name brand purse or food that's better for your body and the Earth. I'm just saying.
Back to food in Fiji: life is centered around food. Everyday most of the family goes to one of the gardens to get the day's meals. The “gardens” are the plantations next to the village, in the village, across the road from the village, and across the river from the village. Each family has a plot of land. When you're eating and someone walks past, you call that person to eat with you. If your neighbor or family member doesn't have food, you share with them. Any event can call for a big feast, which the women prepare and the men eat first. I've helped feed the class 8 kids as they took their exams, the 12 and under rugby team after Saturday practice, the teachers' meeting, the Sunday meal after church, and so on. Everyone brings something to share and all eat from giant plates full of dalo, cassava, chicken, beef stir fry, dahl, coleslaw, rourou, and every kind of fish dish you can imagine. I've eaten so many fish... On Sundays the day is spent eating, cleaning up from eating, and then resting from eating.
The other obsession I have is feet. I used to hate feet. They're dirty, ugly, and mine are short and stubby and hairy and deformed. And then I got here, and realized how important feet are. To back up, the whole evolution of the human body based on geography has become an obsession. To anyone who refutes evolution, I say take a look at a Fijian body and take a look at an American's body. Drastic differences. To return to the feet issue, Fijians have enormous feet. They have to. Shoes are a fairly new idea here and most people still live their lives barefoot. They walk on paved and unpaved roads barefoot, cross the rocky and/or muddy rivers barefoot, go to the farm without shoes, hike the mountains barefoot, fish barefoot, ride the bus barefoot, go to the city barefoot.... you get the point. The Fijian foot is shaped to hold the body up and to withstand the ground underneath. Their feet are wide and heels thick. I can't even describe what a Fijian foot looks like except to compare mine to theirs, mine being a small, soft, babylike babied piece of my body. The foot cream that Mom bought on clearance for me is just another piece of clutter in my house. There's no way I can use it. If I groom my feet, I am asking for pain everyday, not to mention the fact that I'd have to explain how my feet are so soft and why. It's not practical at all, and I'm sure Morgan is quivering in disgust. Looking at everyone's feet has become a fascination. My feet are developing a thick skin, rough and tough. Oh, and I've also never had my feet touched so much by people noting their progress! It's only too often my feet are a topic of conversation!

THINGS I LIKE ABOUT FIJI
Fijians aren't too concerned with appearance (as long as you dress the dresscode). I have to look so silly trudging to the shower with my shampoo, face soap, body soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, and towel. It's refreshing. But I am constantly amazed with Fijian bodies. There are 7 year olds that have more muscle than I have. The young boys are all lanky skinny little boys who can shimmy up a coconut tree with their knees literally parallel with the ground. The men have bodies withered and glistening from being in the farm everyday. Their muscles are huge, especially their thighs and upper arms, built for hauling firewood on their backs, playing rugby barefoot (it's said Fijians use coconuts to play rugby with if they don't have a ball), hacking down bamboo and yaqona, and doing any number of physical chores that are a part of daily life. And the women, they have their own evolutionary parts. What looks like an overweight woman is really just someone whose breasts are made for one purpose: to feed babies. I mean that in all sincere bluntness. The really empowering thing about breastfeeding is that it's so natural here. It's no secret thing, just a matter of life. I've seen so many women breastfeeding in so many different places, there would literally be about 100 lawsuits in line in America. (My only issue is that some of the kids are too old to be breastfed- when they can lift up the shirt and find the nipple on their own, when they're walking, when they're teething, seems a little too late to be breastfed.) Women can lift these huge boiling hot kettles from the fire barehanded and pour out tea as naturally as I can write my name. Their calves are thick and taut. They can trudge through the ponds and mountains carrying sacks of food like feathers. Except no one notices the bodies, with the exception being mine. I can't say how refreshing it is to be around people who don't care what you like or smell like. I do however get on a regular basis, “'O koko levu! Bulabula, levulevu. Vinaka!” or, “Oh, you're a big lady. Healthy, fatty.” I'm pretty sure it's a compliment but one my Americanism hasn't yet been able to shake.
At night, I can look up at the sky and see stars. Lots of stars. The moon seems to shine brighter here. I've seen the Milky Way. Palm trees silhouette against the dark sky and it's absolutely mind boggling to me that I'm here. The sky is actually dark, something that you don't often see in America.
Everyone has been extremely friendly. Fijians are very hospitable, very gracious, and very giving. I'm supposed to be cooking for myself. I bought a two burner gas stove and dishes and utensils. But everyday, someone brings me food. In one day I got two breakfasts, roti and banana pancakes. People are always giving me cassava, yams, breadfruit, bananas, ota. I'm invited to dinners and lunches regularly. I've attached myself to a family who have all been really great. There's Na Ula and her two kids, one who is 21 and the other who is 14 and Salote and her daughter Ecelaina, who is 7. Ecelaina is one spunky fiery little girl with this big head of wild blond curly hair (and perpetual lice). She can climb up and down the hills wearing my Chacos carrying my machete in the rain like it's nothing. It's been with them that I've harvested the yaqona, picked ota (which I found out is a fern), harvested cassava, eaten pumpkin leaves (a new favorite), and where I spend most of days. I help garden and then we eat and sleep awhile, shower and then cook and eat again. They've fed me more meals than I can count and taught me a lot.

I spend a lot of time talking about America. It's good, I think, because the thing people here identify with America is money. “There's a lot of money in America,” is something I hear consistently. And how do you explain that yes, there is a lot of money but it's not evenly distributed and the cost of living is really high? I try to explain this, that there are some people with a lot of money and a lot of people with a little money and most just get by in the middle. I want to say that America has been a capitalist country for far longer than Fiji, and Fiji's economy is weak and trying to grow. Money and globalization are new concepts for Fiji. People are now so into money here but yet I want to say to them that there's only so much money they need? It's things like school fees, electricity, flour and sugar, and bus fare that cost money here, all of which are products of the “Western” world. Fijians depend on flour, sugar, salt, and tea for every meal but it doesn't seem to occur to people that their ancestors lived without these for hundreds of years. It's so aggravating because the culture is starting to become so materialistic. I spend a lot of time talking about guns and trying to explain the different levels of government and about ARnold Schwarzegger (No, I haven't met him I have to tell people). People get glued to the TV for hours. I have absolutely no patience for the TV anymore (to note, in my village I don't think they actually can watch the one TV station Fiji has, Fiji One, but instead watch these horrible awful movies from America, the Philippines, and South Korea or music videos by people like Celine Dion). But some “Arrested Development” would be so indulgent some days that if anyone can burn some DVDs............ Australia, New Zealand, England, and America are extremely influential here and materialism is on the rise. I hate saying this but it is inevitable. I don't like it and I want to change it, but how do you do that? The funny thing is, people will have “stuff” here but it becomes decoration. No one really sits on their chairs and couches, unopened packages of toys hang on the wall, stuffed animals sit on tables. It's this weird dichotomy of worlds.
To maybe put things in perspective, the entire country of Fiji has as many people as the city of Milwaukee. Metropolitan Milwaukee wipes Fiji off the map. When I tell people this, they're full of disbelief. Understandably so, and still I want to tell them about the enormity of someplace like China. I have a hard time trying to describe Wisconsin, too, because I think WI is such an amalgamation of the U.S. We have some big cities and we have small towns and villages. We have farming, which is definitely something people relate to here, and we have forests. We have lakes and rivers and it's not a dense state. The weather is hot and cold. We don't have coconuts (!) but we do have apples.

Pictures from top left: This is where I get my water from and brush my teeth every night. I fill up buckets and bottles for the day and that's what I use. Next, this is one of the foothpaths in my village. My host dad with the WI hat I gave him. Our group doing a traditional dance at the Swearing In Ceremony. My house! My kitchen (i did not pick out the Winnie the Pooh fabric). Some kindergardeners doing a dance.

Saturday updates... Last Saturday was a very good day indeed. In the morning I went diving for
mussels with some girls from the village in the Rewa river. It's one of the biggest rivers in Fiji and one of the least clean as well. I'm told bull sharks like to spawn in our part of the river but I won't believe it as long as I'm swimming in there. My nose got sunburned but now it went away. It felt really good to swim even though I didn't actually get any mussels. In the evening some of us went dancing with a bunch of the guys from the village. Let me say, dancing in Fiji with Fijians is a blast. There's no Madonna, but there is this "Damaged" song we heard somewhere around 5 times (between 3 clubs) that one night. "'Cause I'm damaged, so damaged, I don't know what to do. Said you'd never leave me said you'd always love me..." It's pretty terrible and great at the same time. Fijians are very touchy feely, which is odd because PDA is taboo.

This Saturday I'm recovering from a long night of yaqona drinking and trying to some stuff for my new place I'll be moving to next week. Check out the pictures on PHotobucket (if they work). Thanks for the package, Laura! Aunty Lani, I got your letter, too.

Pictures: top left, me in front of my host family's house. Top right, "Iron Chef Day" with my team and our meal: Satay peanut noodles Fiji style, veggies burgers, and enchiladas. My cheese withdrawal was semi-fulfilled. Bottom left, our village group doing a traditional meke dance about mongooses. Bottom right, me with the Sunday school class.

Brr!

That's right: Brrrrrrr. Who would have thought I'd say Fiji is cold! But it is, at least where I'll be living. All those jokes about me living in the bush? Yup. I will be. I'm in the jungle mountains of Fiji and it's chilly. I guess it warms up around October and gets hot but I actually need to buy a hat! People were dressed in winter boots, wool coats, hats, and scarves. Riding the bus- which has no closed windows- is the worst. But, I have the most amazing, spectacular view! It's beautiful in the mountains. My village is actually down in an open valley but surrounded by hills and trees. It's really big for a village. There's only one road in and two buses go through a day. It's really secluded. My house is cute, small but nice. I have a "caretaker" who owns the house and lives in her own house next door with her two sons. I met some really cool people there already, including this 50 year old single woman who has a son w/ a British businessman and speaks really wonderful English. When we were talking about church I told her I don't really go to church and she said, "That's okay my dear, that's okay" and was very okay about it. She's really tall and skinny and walks gracefully around in these men's old sport coats. There's this other old woman who's 68 and widowed and doesn't smoke or drink grog or eat meat and retired from the Ministry of Health. I call her Nana, which is ironic, especially because we sat and talked for a long time and it feels like I already have a grandmotherly figure in the village. She's really sassy and doesn't like to be bored or be idle. She likes her alone time and keeps her doors closed a lot. She says "frankly" a lot and doesn't care what the village thinks about her keeping her door closed. She doesn't like television and thinks the schools place too much emphasis on sports rather than education and reading.

But, I'm going to miss "Host village" and all the people I've met there.

I made my first political faux pas though, yesterday. We're not supposed to talk about politics, which I know and have been really good about, but then at our conference earlier in the week it came up that it's okay to talk about American political perspectives as long as you clarify you're speaking on your own behalf and not as a representative of the American government or Peace Corps. I thought I was reading the situation okay when I was asked who I think is going to win in November: Obama or McCain. Well, I wasn't too serious about it but I said, in Fijian, that I hope Obama wins. "And McCain?" "I don't really like him and I think if he wins the whole world is in trouble." "I like McCain. He's a war hero. Did you know that?" yeah. And? It ended there, but I just keep thinking about politics when I really don't want to. That's the message the world is getting: McCain is a war "hero" and that should determine who the president of one fo the most powerful countries in the world is. Uh, no. But I can just picture what is happening in the US right now, like what happened with Kerry and to a point with Gore: McCain's camp is going to be all negative and his supporters are going to throw out the "war hero" story over and over again as if that really means anything. Obama's going to play nice, play fair (which I like, really) and never stand up for himself. he's going to roll over and be the moderate, middle of the road guy who tows the party line. I hope this isn't happening. Why can't we as liberals, as self-entitled "Progressives," stand up for ourselves? We don't need a president who is middle of the road and bows to the other side! We need a president who isn't afraid to stick to what s/he believes. If the Right can do it, we can do it too.

Enough. I think I'll head back to my first village. I'll be changing my address when I head to N. in a couple weeks, but until then PC mail gets to PCVs. Hope everyone is well! Stay cool, eat some cheese for me, and let me know what's up!