Pictures

Well here y'all go! Pictures... I tried what I could with what little time I had last night to get pictures onto my flash drive and on here. I'll try to do some more soon.erosion. we lost almost 2.5 meters in the storm.
waiting to dress the groom

kids at school
half of these kids will be in my kindergarten class
Workshop about the erosion problem, before this last storm.
The completed bread oven.
Celebration of the completion of the bread oven.
Having some fun while building the bread oven. We had to redo the shelves.
Drinking grog.
The much anticipated posting of pictures is here! Above is the pool where we go swimming. It's pretty clean (all things considered) and cold and there are great rocks to lay out and suntan on. The kids jump off the rocks and trees. There are some small waterfalls up here, too. Very pretty, very relaxing.
This is from the first wedding I went to before Christmas. Yup, it's turtles.
Me and the Chief, who's also the chief of the tikina (what would be similar to a county).
I love this little girl! This was at a birthday party I attended for a 5 year old and 1 year old. They have relatives in the US who sent a ton of birthday party things- goodie bags, plastic cups/plates, balloons, banners, hats, horns... it was like walking into America.
My "namesake" (her name's Alisi too; we call each other "yaca" because we have the same name) sitting on her mother's lap. Her mom is the preacher's wife, and I call the preacher "Tamaku" meaning "Father." They're eating the candy canes from Aunty Lani.
I think this picture speaks volumes... I love this kid. He has some learning disabilities and doesn't quite realize what's going on around him. He's holding a pig's tongue.
We're scraping coconuts to make coconut oil, which Fijians use like we use lotion. We scrapped a hundred coconuts!
My Christmas tree! These kids helped me decorate it. It's a mangrove.
A view looking towards the mountains from the Chiefly burial site in themiddle of the village. It's pretty high up...
...but this is the other side, facing the ocean. My house is below the big tree right in the middle of the picture.
A big 'ol bowl full of dalo at last weekend's wedding.
The wedding gifts from aforementioned wedding. The wedding outfits are in the middle. People bring blankets, pillows, mosquito nets, and the woven mats as gifts, then it's all laid out like this. What's shown is what is left after giving some to the preacher man and the bride's family.
And here's the groom, on the right. He's actually dressed in the traditional Tongan wedding dress. The different colored 'masi' cloth on his arms represent that he is part of the Chiefly family and that his wife (the opposite color) is also from a Chiefly family. His best man is to the left, wearing the Fijian outfit.
Me.
Our lovo ni madrai! The bread oven. Our first bake will be this Monday. We're having a tea party. I get to bring my kindergarten class. Yes, folks, I am the new kindergarten teacher! But we can't call it kidi (kindi) because we're not registered... yet. The women in the village wouldn't let the former teacher teach because she just had a baby and that means she has to sit inside all day with a 2-month old watching it sleep. We've had issues over who's going to teach the kids.

The Hero award goes to... Kate! Thank you, thank you, thank for the 5 (FIVE!)! CDs!!!! And Katy, for the book! Thanks, ladies.

All's well in the village... we had a funeral this week, a wedding last weekend. I have to ask people not to send me things; I'd rather you wait because I'm going to kerekere (a Fijian system of borrowing or asking for something to be done. you're not supposed to refuse when someone kerekere's you) some money soon. We need to build a school for the kindi class and we're going to need some $$$. Peace Corps has a way of donating to causes; more info to come.

after the storm...

Well, I survived the cyclone. Up here in the north we didn't get hit too hard. Needless to say, it was the worst wind I've ever seen and after the 8th? 10th? day of rain, I had had enough. Then finally, the sun was out! The heat was back! Humidity! Sweat dripping down your face unstoppably! The worst damage in my village was along the river. A flood in either 2006 or 2007 destroyed a lot of the village; numerous homes were lost. The erosion of the river only intensified with this storm. We lost up to 2.5 meters in some places. Our bread oven is now threatened to go in the river! And yet, the elders are still not convinced that logging is bad. Landslides occurred all along the road. One of our buses is indefinitely stopped due to landslides. The only thing that really held up in the village: my bure. I have the strongest house in the village, so I'm told. And it's true: no leaks (i did lose a lot of the leaves of my roof but no leaks!), no flooding, no cracks.

But all is back to normal. We're working on a community health profile, interviewing every family in the village about spirituality, education, finances, health, and social structures. The surveying would make Frank start beating himself up with his cane! But, by using the secondary education students, we were able to get most of the families interviewed and it was helpful for them- I hope. Some of the questions ask about where thevillage's water comes from. The answer, from a lot of the students, is "the pipe/ tap." Um, well, yes, but from where? A never ending, always flowing pipe? I love things like this and am excited to start compiling the data. But how Fiji is this: they made these really nice booklets, one for each family, and one for the community where you compile all the information. Except, there is no spreadsheet or database or anything, really, to keep track of all the info. Thus, I will design a spreadsheet so I can tally each response by hand and give that to the Ministry of Health for a template. Otherwise, what good is the data if it's just sitting inthese books?

There is plenty for me to do in the village, which I like. I've started working in our co-operative, which is technically the Women's Store except the women don't seem to have much input. Not that they don't have the opportunity. They just aren't really interested. It's me and this older man who's really lovely. He speaks excellent English. He laughs a lot. There are only a couple windows in the store and it's hotter than the blazes in there. But, this man, Maciu, aka Shopkeeper, just installed this little solar energy power unit, with three flourescent light bulbs. And I guess we're getting a solar powered fridge (for ice cream)! The village owes the store over $600 in diesel for the generator, so something has to change in the village.

That's about all for now. Things are going well. I've come to the conclusion that I did something to my camera that isn't allowing me to view the pictures online. I don't know what in the world I did or happened but I'd love to get more pictures up!!!

And, what would a blog post be without another exclamation of joy and excitement for America. I listened to Obama's inaugural speech twice and watched him take the oath a few times. So he bungled it a little; he's human and he was excited and nervous- just look at him! he giggled! it's so exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a great speech, particularly the part about rights and equality for all and how America is a patchwork country and how great that is.

Sigh. Now to buy some veggies and catch my bus back. MWAH.

it's raining cats and dogs!

Not really, but it sure feels like it. I'm in the middle of my first tropical storm, what they call a tropical depression. That means it's been raining for a week straight now and tomorrow it's supposed to pick up again. The wind has been nuts crazy strong and I've never seen so much rain in my life! Luckily, my little bure is holding strong. I've lost a lot of my roof but no leaks... yet. And yet, life goes on as normal. Except that I do have a litter of puppies that keep coming to me for refuge from the storm. I can't help but take pity on them they're just so small and cute! And flea/pest infected, sadly. I feed them sometimes and let them stay in my kitchen (which is outside and really just where my stoves are) out of the rain but they really want to come in and snuggle! If they were clean, I would totally let them. They're just so helpless.

There's not really anything new to report, we've just been staying in. Things are finally quieting down in the village after Christmas. I've done a lot of cooking, trying out new recipes. Some things I've made that were good include: mango jam (during mango season, people kept bringing me armloads full of them! I whipped up some yummy jam in no time and shared it with a bunch of families, some thought I had bought it), a pumpkin risotto which actually was more like pumpkin risotto soup even though I didn't have Parmesan or parsley, samosas, Spanish rice, boiled eggs (I'm trying to recreate a salad I love at the Old Fashioned and at Culver's with hard boiled eggs, avacadoes, almonds instead of walnuts, blue cheese (a splurge), pumpkin seeds, tomatoes) and calzones... I'm perfecting my tortillas/roti making skills as well as my pancake recipes (mostly banana pancakes, of course). I made gulab jamun which sort of turned out. I'll need to try that one again. Pretty much everything I make has eggplant in it; eggplants grow really well here and there are plenty of them. There are also a loto f pumpkins so I'm experimenting with them. If anyone has any advice on drying/roasting the seeds, I'd love to know. It's avocado season and I'm trying to eat as many as I can, but I don't really know what to do with them honestly, except make guacamole but trying to have ripe avocadoes and tomatoes at the same time is a little tricky. I just watched "Waitress" and I think my next project will be pie. But where to find a pie pan? is the first question.

I really apologize about not getting any pictures up. I'm honestly trying at every computer/ internet place I go. I think something happened on the camera end that's not allowing me to open the files on the computers. Once I figure it out, I promise pictures.