Extreme Stationary

Well, I'm back and... I'm sick again! Yay! This time it's really bad. I have a head cold again and I've been coughing so much I lost my voice. That, in addition to the fact that the school bazaar just ended. It started Wednesday and my last day was yesterday, but I think some people are still going. Different villages sent up a stall and sell food and other stuff. Each stall/ mataqali (different families) raise money for the school. There is also a really big 7's rugby tournament. Our team, Pusi loa (black cats, but yes, pusi is the same as pussy), was boys from three different villages nearby and they had two teams. They made it to the semi-finals but lost. Unfortunately, it's been really busy in the village and having a wedding Wednesday didn't help anything. (weddings mean busy-ness and lots o' grog drinking)

Ah, the wedding. This was my brother's wedding, which was supposed to be on Tuesday. Then it changed the day before. Why, you ask. Well, I don't really know. But guess who was the bridesmaid/maid of honor?!? Yup, me. I had about 20 minutes notice. Really all it meant was that I wore the masi cloth, had sandalwood in my hair, stood next to the bride, and had to shake a bajillion hands. And gets lots of kisses. Oh, and I got the best part of the fish at lunch.

But back to the bazaar. Our stall sold different styles of fish (curried, fried parcels, with lolo), turtle, sausage stew, pie, tuna sandwiches (bread with tuna and butter and grated carrot and tomatoes and more butter), and tea. I had to help collect the money, which made for really long, tiring days. At night, there's grog drinking and dancing. It was fun, but would have been more fun had I been healthy. Add to the cold and late nights/early mornings (up before 5 am!!!) and grog drinking, there was a lot of cheering for the boys. It was a riot: all these big old Fijian women with their fancy sulu jaba (the dress/skirt outfit) with a purse on one arm and a big old knife in the other running out into the field screaming and cheering and hugging the ref when they scored.... and jumping up and hitting the roofing iron with your knife... and general merriment. For 15 minutes. No, really, it was a lot of fun. People come from all over for this. I've been hearing about it for almost the entire year I've been in the village. I only danced on Thursday; Friday I was just too tired. People think it's a hoot when I dance and there's nothing like dancing a hill in a space about four feet by four feet with about 100 boys and men watching you and another boy dance.

Speaking of dancing in small spaces... have I mentioned my sure-fire stress relief/ warm up for the bathroom cure? Well, it's like this: first I close my doors, then my curtains. Then I make sure I'm wearing something comfortable and I tie up my hair. Then I grab my iPod and head for my shower, a very very small space. I turn on my iPod, play my 'favorites' playlist, and crank the volume. And then I dance. And dance. I shake it like you wouldn't believe. Every kind of danc emove, I do it in the privacy of my shower. You'd be surprised what you can do in a small space. Definite dance favorites: Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show, Friends in Low Places, anything Violent Femmes, Debaser (Pixies), M.I.A., Santogold, some Wilco, some Regina Spektor, Everlong (you forget that the Foo Fighters used to know how to rock it out. I forget that sometimes I can headbang. Try it to this song!), Son of a Preacher Man, and of course, Total Eclipse of the Heart! Only thing missing: Like a Prayer. Would you believe it, I didn't put the Immaculate Collection on my iTunes!!!!! Of course, there are others (Chris Brown's Forever, anything from Kate) but those are foolproof songs to make me sweat. And it makes the freezing cold shower water bearable in the cold weather and coldness of my shower. My bathroom is the coolest place in my house- it's really dark and the cement bottom stays cool.

Yeah, it'd be even funnier if you saw it in real life. Before, I used to just stay in half of my bure. But then I got really paranoid and so I've moved into the bathroom, which does have its limitations (like almost falling when it's slippery from water). But it makes me feel rejuvenated. My favorite time is before church on Sundays. it's actually the worst time to do it but no one knows how awful I'm being by breaking the rule of not doing anything physical on a Sunday and it inevitably makes me late for church.

Oh, to explain the title of this post, "Extreme Stationary" is the name of one of the rugby teams. I don't know what it means, because that's not really anything in English, is it? They're an army group, so I think they're thinking along the lines of "stations" or maybe that they're so good they're immovable objects? Hmm...

Unfortunately, I can't post any pictures because I only have a couple from the past week. Wednesday at the wedding my camera decided to stop working. The screen is black. I took some pictures and then it went black and I can't do anything with it. It worked a couple hours later but yesterday the team wanted a picture (we've been talking aobut this picture for six months!!) and my camera didn't work. :( What to do?!? I wanted a picture of my family here, too, because we don't have one of all of us.

hopefully things will slow down in a couple weeks and I can kick these bad things out of my immune system. During Diwali I binged on sweets, then during the bazaar I didn't eat anything healthy and I'm sure that has a lot to do with it, too!