Tuesday, March 23, 2010

aftermath...

Well, the worst is over. Remember how I joked about hoping the roof was still on my house?? When I left Savusavu Wednesday, I immediately saw the effects of Tomas. Town didn't get hit too hard, but as soon as you got out of town, you could see where the storm hit. The road along the ocean was covered in sand and debris. Trees were down the whole way up to K. Death was everywhere in the foliage. Surprisingly, there was very little structural damage, save for a few lost roofs. The wind and salt from the sea killed most breadfruit trees, blew down banana and vudi (like a plantain, the 'big brother' to the banana) and coconut trees, and has basically taken out our main food supply: dalo, cassava, waci (a.k.a. rourou, or dalo leaves), breadfruit, eggplants, bele (a spinach like leafy green)... Everywhere are downed trees. It looks like someone took a 'spray', some kind of weed killer, and aerially sprayed for miles. It was depressing going back to the village, seeing some really, really big trees taken down. But I was definitely glad when I saw how much was intact. Then I got closer to my house.

My house is still there, yes. But the boys had moved everything, everything I own in Fiji, into Tui's house. Half my roof lay in a pile on the ground and in the compounds of four other houses. (I asked Kanu one day, "Who cut down the dridriwai [the leaves my roof is made out of]?" He looked at me and laughed, said, "That's your roof; no one cut it down." The insides were moved, pushed in by the force of the wind. Debris and dirt and leaves littered the ground, the shower, the sinks. It smelled of mold and rot. In short: my house in uninhabitable. And everything I own is now parceled out between three different rooms and everyone else in the village. I guess now is as good a time as any to clean house.

So I moved in my Nana and Maku, in my my sister Leti's old room. The rest of my things are in Tui's room and in Pita's room. (To further complicate things... Pita moved into Tui's house because his house was taken over for the kindergarten, which is now not going to happen either, in the foreseeable future.) Let me back up...

Here is my Fijian family:
-Nana and Maku (short for 'tamaku', which means my father. Half the village calls him this): my parents
-Tui, their son, my brother, who's the same age I am (There is another son who lives in Suva and a daughter, Leti, who got married a few months ago)
-Pita, their nephew, my brother, who's 27-ish and whose parents are deceased
-Kiri, who was married into the family whose husband died last year
-Koro, Kiri's brother-in-law, a perpetual bachelor

We're a family of orphans.

Tui stays in the house next door to Nana and Maku's. This is Maku's uncle's house (I think?), who lives on Viti Levu. Tui has stayed there for years in this three bedroom house. Pita just moved in a few weeks ago. The third bedroom, which would be ideal to be mine, is full of paint, nails, windows, and other things for the building of the church. My belongings share their time between both Pita and Tui's rooms. This is the place I spent the most time anyway, prior to the storm. Really, not too much has changed. I've slept many nights in both the houses, in Leti's room and with the boys as one big slumber party. But, I will admit, it is a change being in the house 24/7. Especially the bathing part. In my bure, I had the shower and toilet right inside with me. Now, everything's outside, across a lake of mud. I shower wearing a sulu wrapped around me, in an open to the sun with no door shower. I feel like I am seriously on my way to being a Fijian woman. My role in the house has changed, too, and no one feels bad having me pull my share (washing dishes, hauling in buckets of water, serving the boys/Maku).

It would be nice, in all honesty, to have my house back. I miss my autonomy. But, this is good too. The problem is, it could take weeks to fix the roof and floor, especially because the storm took out all the dridriwai, so there's no way to fix the roof even if we wanted it done ASAP.

What else... We just got cell service nearby (as close as it can get) yesterday afternoon but landlines are still down... Friday I went with Pita and we collected coconuts, well, I did and he cut what dalo was left. Saturday I went fishing with a couple of the women. That was a trip, because we actually went fishing with our lines out in the reef. We walked out there and had to catch our bait (small prawns) in a stream before heading out to the sea. We walked out across the coral to where the reef drops off and then we cast out our line- literally fishing wire with a hook on the end and a small weight wrapped around an empty bottle- and reel it in again. I have some problems actually 'casting' my line out and usually S had to do it for me. I ended up with about 8 really small little buggers and a horrible sunburn. But it was fun. Uncle Bruce would have been so proud of me! I had to take the hooks out (when they swallow the hooks, we have to bit the top of the end, essentially killing the fish, in order to pull it out) and I even de-scaled and gutted them!!!!! Imagine... then I went to choir practice and drank grog until 2:30 am. And then I got sick. Now I'm in town trying to get a whole plethora of things done and it is hot hot hot.

By the way, do I think it was necessary to be in town during the cyclone? No. The guys keep telling me all the stories from their side- how they played rugby Monday morning, drank grog every night, talked about how I should be there experiencing this with them... all I could say was, "I wanted to be there!!!!!"

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

all clear!

This should be longer, but I'm going to make it very prompt because I'm trying to hitch a ride with some governments folks back up to my village this afternoon (yay!!). Savusavu town was okay, all in all, after the storm went through. We, PCVs here in Savusavu, gave a collective, "That was it??" after the storm passed. We were expecting more, but I guess it's good that it wasn't any worse. Which is not at all to minimize the damage that Tomas did cause to some villages and islands. There was a lot of damage and flooding, and I'm anxious to see my village.

I thank everyone for your prayers, thoughts, wishes, e-mails, etc etc. It's always nice to hear from people, even when it's just to offer support during natural disasters!!

Here's a little 'nother hint into my life here, one that I'm getting really sad to leave the closer it gets (and being stuck away from the village for almost a week): you know those people that say they never ever kill anything? Not a single living thing? People that say that have obviously never had lice. If you have an outbreak of head lice, you want to kill those little bloodsuckers as soon as possible. They are awful. You want to smash their little (or big) bodies in two. And watch your blood spurt out of their bodies. It's gross, yes, but welcome to the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer in a village! This is by far the worst outbreak I've had yet. Three weeks now! (that's a conservative estimate) They're driving me nuts nuts nutso.

Until later...

Saturday, March 13, 2010

See that cluster of islands at the bottom? That's Fiji. This was yesterday. Now, the storm is directly over us.

Who says I don't have a sense of humor?? I find this picture utterly hilarious, and the fact that I'm showing it to the world is a big step forward in my self-development. Look at the way I'm sitting!! I didn't see it until the next day, when we were drinking grog, and I just laughed and laughed and laughed and brother Pita told me I looked like I was a dog, the way I'm sitting. But to explain... this is how I spend my days: working on the church. Sometimes there isn't much for me to do during the day so I hang out with my brothers, my 'boys.' They're building the church (Opening Day: 6 May, 2010!!! So close!!!) and I usually help them. I don't have much to do and this feels like something very tangible I can do. I'm learning a lot and we have great conversations, especially about really touchy subjects and my work in the village. These guys are my confidants (Pita, Tui, Nemani, Akilio) and my friends. I'm already starting to miss them. Sometimes I end up being the default baby-sitter. Manoa, another of the workers, has a son whose mother works in town during the week and he brings Ropate along. Nem's son also comes to visit. I end up entertaining the kids, helping them with tea, watching over them when they get into paint and nails, and running around making a fool of myself with these beautiful little boys. So much fun! See a picture of Ropate down below.
An Open Letter to Tropical Cyclone Tomas:

Dearest Tomas,
Please be kind to us. You're on your way over, that much is for sure, but your arrival date is a little unclear. You're coming at 11 km/hr, but your offspring, wind, will be moving up to 213 km/hr (currently, FYI, your winds are at 120 km/hr: you better watch your speed, Casey Jones). You made me leave my village, which I "resisted" (apparently, because I asked if I could stay in the village in the health center, which is what I'm hearing my boss very professionally told other Volunteers), to ride in an unsafe vehicle to head directly into bad weather only to find the town bustling with activity and the ATMs out of money and one that is tricky and costs a lot of money because it's not my bank's ATM. So I was left hungry (had a very rushed tea at 7:30 and we didn't get to town until almost 1) and penniless and in town against my will not really getting a very good idea of your visit being as how I came from the village and don't understand Fijian, or how cyclones work, very well. So you see, we did not get off to a very good start. I wasn't afraid of you, oh no, not until I got to town and until my superiors at the office put panic into me. Normally, when I panic, I like someone with strength to talk me through my issues (think: "Papa, it's 3 am and I'm lost and have no money somewhere in Rome." Or, "Mom? Papa? I'm in Amersterdam and I have no money, sorry to wake you up at 5 am." Or most recently relying on my brother Tui to fix my house - the guy is seriously the calmest person I know- during the non-tsunami tsunami, for which I received a 3 AM wake up call telling me there was a tsunami warning for the next day and turns out...nothing happened. Or anytime I go to Josie, saying, "Josie, I need help.") and here, in town, I don't have that. I'm staying at a house where the homeowners are not here and I still haven't received much information about what to do except to "stand fast" and "stock up." And...? Now I'm waiting for you to come, and I hear maybe on Monday? You're a category 4; that's pretty strong.
I've eaten and showered and stocked up. I got money. I've calmed down some, but I still freak out when I think that I'm going to be here for anywhere from 4-7 days and our power is going to go out (eventually) and maybe even the water (or just get undrinkably dirty). But I'm okay. And I guess we have to reschedule our workshops that have been organized for Tuesday and Wednesday with three different villages/women's groups. Ahh!! I have so little time left in the village and now I'm stuck here. I wanted to spend a week in the village and would have done so, if not for this.





But I'm here. And I'm okay. And you're somewhere on your way. Here's a list of our rations:


-about 100 or so liters of water
-four bottles of wine
-a block of cheese
-mango licorice, oreos, popcorn

-avocadoes, eggplant, onions, bananas, garlic, pineapple, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers
-pasta
-beans, dried and canned
-eggs
-canned corn, tomatoes, tomato paste
(pictures of our food rations coming later!)
-4 boxes of tuna (compliments of PC for our emergency rations.)

-toilet paper, mosquito coils, matches, kerosene, lantern
-Movies, playing cards, batteries, books, crossword puzzle books, journal
...and you get the picture.

So, Tomas, in closing: I'm waiting for you. We're charging everything. I've heard hurricanes are fun. I could use some fun.






Some things to note:

I have a long list of people to write letters to: Morgan, Mrs. Rowley, and Michele are some of them.