On another note... (I promise, no politics)

Some snippets of thought:

Etiquette: Always carry dishes, either with food or empty, with two hands.

Tabua: Give to father of bride-to-be, the more the tabua, the more she's worth(I would be worth 5 or 6)

Frogs are nuts here! They are everywhere at night, especially when it rains! And it's like they want you to step on them because they're always underfoot when you're walking. It's insane and ridiculous and I have stepped on a ridiculous number of frogs- with and without shoes!

There's been a little revival in my garden because of so much rain. The English cabbage is growing well, even some that I planted that I thought weren't going to make it have hung in there. So has some Chinese cabbage that I transplanted and the beans are still coming. I also think my tomato plants are not all dead yet. There are a few that are still healthy and I think they're just a little slow... the carrots are slow, too, and not dead but not ready to eat yet, either. The eggplant are doing extremely well! If only I could plant some pumpkin and basil and other herbs...And I'm still bummed about my peppers.

One of the most annoying things ever: having a mosquito stuck inside your mosquito net! Oh wait, having two mosquitoes stuck inside your mosquito net!

That said,I know some people are crazy about saying “That can give you cancer!” about things like mosquito coils, but I don't care. It's worth a decent night sleep every night to burn one for a few hours so I can doze off and notscratch myself to death the next day. And really, if you let it anything can give you cancer for cripes sake. Avoid the obvious things like cigarettes and keep healthy, and I think my odds are no greater or worse from using/not using a mosquito coil.

Never guess what I did yesterday. I was supposed to go fishing with one of the women in the village but because the wind was too strong she decided we would go get the “vivili.” I had no idea what that was; they explained that you get the vivili from under the rocks. So we go to the river/ ponds and I discover that we are going diving for snails. There were three of us. One wore the goggles/snorkel, one looked for snails without the goggles, and then there was me. I swam around, sloshed around, really, on the slippery rocks, and held the bag which held all our finds. I did collect a bunch of snails- a lot, really. Some were really hard to get off the sides of rocks. Those little suckers can really stick. Some were just on the bottom of the river. Some were long and narrow, others round little bumps. A lot of them really had perfected the art of mimicry. It's incredible! You really have to run your hand (or feet) over the rocks to find them, because just looking won't always work. And then they were cooked in lolo, coconut cream. Speaking of snails (I could really say a lot about them), there are some really cool ones. I saw one yesterday morning that looked just like a leaf. It was long and narrow and black, with a little gold strip along its back. The only thing identifying it as a snail, other than its snail-like pace, was the two little antennae. I've seen some cool snails. Of all colors and sizes and styles. And every time, I think of Pat and Snailish Records (shameless plug!).

Saturday my sister and I went to tend to our yaqona plantation. We only have about100,but they were really healthy! We planted them in early July I think it was. We hadn't checked on them since and what we did Saturday was to weed a little and unbury the seedlings. When you plant yaqona, you cut up one of the trunks of the plant that has little nubbins of buds on it and then bury those pieces. The new plant grows up from the old pieces, usually 3-5 pieces in each overturned plot of soil. How it works is you have to weed your area, then turn a little soil, then put the pieces in the soil, but not too deep. Then you cover it with the weeded area, grasses and sticks and stuff. After a couple months, you go back and uncover the plots and they should have sprouted again. Ours did! Only a couple had died- which is good. We had to replant the village yaqona because they all died. But anyway, it's exciting. This was part of a youth project. The youth group planted 1000 plants, paid work. Then we planted mine and Leti's, and we planted another young woman's. After another 3-5 years, Leti can harvest her plants and sell it. You have the literal roots, called waka, which is stronger than the cut pieces (lewena) which is the root going further up. The waka is what is used as your sevusevu and for more formal occasions when drinking grog or going someplace. The waka goes for about $20 or so a kilo and the cut pieces for about $16-18 at our village store. If you buy the waka for yourself, it's $26/kilo or $3/100 grams. The selling price depends on how mature your plant is. The longer you let it grow, the more mature it is, the stronger it is, and the more money you get for it.

I realized something yesterday. I've been way too cautious throughout my life. I'm not very brave. I mean, to a point I am- I'm in Fiji for two years. But I don't take chances. Never have. I was a fairly active child, I think, but I wasn't brave or daring. I played it safe, always. Sure, I jumped off a really high cliff into the jellyfish filled Mediterranean Sea once, drive a car (driving is still like the most unsafe thing to do ever), fly, swim in the ocean, travel by myself to completely foreign countries, and sometimes put myself in situations where maybe I shouldn't, but things like walking on rocks freak me out. Make me all cautious. That's just me, and I wish I would have done more when I was younger to get over that. I see these kids here, and they're fearless. They jump off these big rocks into the same pool where I'm looking for snails, afraid to put my feet down. They run and jump and slide and twirl and flip over and into and off of so many different substances. Then they grow up to be just as fearless!

(Note: I’m trying to fix them all, but you might notice words run together. This is because the spacebar on my laptop sticks and doesn’t really work and I wrote this on my laptop.)