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