My House

My house is a two room ranch with a lovely view of the river.   The master bathroom is a cold-water shower over a real flush toilet! Between the shower and the sink leaks, I catch a delightful bucket of water each night which I can use to wash laundry in the morning.  Unfortunately, there was a slight error in engineering of the bathroom and the drain does not lie at the lowest point in the room, so water must be redirected after every shower.   The master bedroom is conveniently located in the kitchen!  I am quite fortunate as I have two, count ‘em, TWO sinks in my house!  I cook on a single burner gas stove and I use a full set of dishware!  The front room has a giant desk that remains unused, and two comfy wooden armchairs which I employ during my reading hours.  There is a large overhang “porch” out front and a small overhang porch out back.   The house  sits on the corner of the main road going inland and the main road into the village, so I am privy to all the village gossip, as people tend to stand chat outside my house late into the night.  Sweet!

My Village

I live in the second largest village in the state of Nadroga.  We are a 2 minute walk (or a 5 minute amble) into the town, which is just across the river.  The old sugar railway used to run behind our village, out the side and across the river by way of its very own bridge, but the rail has been out of commision since 3 years ago, when the bridge collapsed.  Half of the bridge remains, twisted and falling into the river.  When in town, a great place to sit and eat an ice cream with friends is at the “end,” or middle rather, of the old bridge that points straight toward our village.  There are 450+ residents of my village.  Many of the young kids attend school  just on the other side of the (stable) bridge.  The walk to the school passes through the old town, which is a number of store fronts that have been closed for years and years and are now the home to several families.  One such store front has been converted to an Assembly of God church!  The school-age youth in my village, who are generally Methodist, like to stand out in front of the church on Sunday evenings to appreciate the music, singing and dancing, since these are tabu in their religion.

My Belly

 I’m getting fat.  Fatter.  I read that in this program, often guys will lose 15 lbs and girls will gain 15 lbs.  Someone has said that the reasoning is that men process complex carbohydrates differently than women do, and the Fijian diet is VERY heavy in starches.  I think this may be possible.  I think, additionally, men are able to be more independent here-they can run alone, they can wander in the woods alone, they can do all kinds of things that women are discouraged from doing so they are able to be much more active.  I am trying to work in my garden, exercise in my house, and train a little outside with some of the women from the village, but I find more often than not, I’m just staying lazy.

My Garden

My program encourages us to maintain a backyard garden and I am absolutely thrilled.  The idea is that we keep a garden, thereby demonstrating to the village how easy and successful a home garden can be, and encouraging them to eat locally, independently and with the ability even to sell the excess produce and not just save money, but actually earn money!  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), many people in my village already keep their own gardens and, while they often offer help to me, many times they scoff at my feeble attempts to till the soil or build a proper fence.

At any rate, directly behind my house is a flat piece of land that seemed perfect for my garden. Actually, there are a few faults- my clothes line runs directly overhead and the land is on the South side of the house, so it catches shade most of the day- but considering the amount of sun we get, a little shade ain’t half bad.  First I began by marking off where I would like my plots to be.  I then turned the soil.  I made rows between the plots and added the extra soil to the plots to make hills, thereby creating a draining system.  Chickens run loose around the village so as soon as I turned the soil, they started hanging around my yard to get the grass seeds.  (Also, there was an issue with dogs doing their duty on top of the piles of soil- I don’t know WHAT their deal is with that, so weird!)  Because of this,  I am currently in the process of building a fence around my plots.  Originally, I dug holes and sunk posts, connecting each post with a couple of cross hatching sticks, but I came to realize this was a poor excuse for a chicken fence as they had no problem walking through the gaps.  So now I am splitting posts and sinking them in, 5 inches apart and with one layer tilted in one direction and another the other.  Hopefully this will work.

Because I have clearly formed plots with banana leaves lying across them to keep the soil from drying in the hot sun, and I’m clearly working in the garden several hours a day, people ask me what I’ve planted.  I keep having to tell them that all I’ve planted so far is a fence.

Volunteers

I’ve gotten to know many of the current class of volunteers as well as a number of those from previous classes.  From what I can tell, people who sign up for this sort of work are an ilk unlike any other- wanting to make a difference, eager for action, easy to befriend, and certain to be unique.  There are 25 of us in our group, now spread all over Fiji, and I must admit, I’m sad for the loss of them.  Fortunately for me, there are a sprinkling of good people near enough to me that we can meet up often for coffee or tea (or cookies and soda).

Heat

Much like Brazil, there isn’t a lot of heating available in Fiji.  Being a tropical nation, temperatures rarely drop below 65 degrees.  As such, houses are poorly insulated and water comes cold.  I mean really cold.  I have had running water since arriving here, but the idea of standing under freezing water, under ordinary conditions, is unbearable.  I have taken to either showering after a run, when I am already too warm and the cold water is refreshing, or drawing a bucket bath (fill a bucket with water and use a small basin to pour the water over self- the real challenge lies in getting soap rinsed free of self) and adding a kettle of boiling water.  At night, one starts sleeping rather warm, lying on top of the sheets, but as the night progresses the blankets are drawn close and the cool air is not seen as favourably.  At one point during training, I found myself curled under a blanket nearly an inch and a half thick!

Training

Upon arriving in Fiji, we were met at the airport by a number of volunteers and staff members.  After passing through customs, we loaded all of our selves and our possessions (including a 15ft surfboard brought by one eager trainee) and our selves onto an open-air bus and started to drive away.  Which is when a large cushy touring bus arrived, windows dewed with airconditioning condensation, arrived and we realized we had been directed onto the wrong bus- headed in the wrong directions.  (Such an incident is endearingly referred to as getting “Fiji-ed” by previously established members of our clan.)

We traveled part of the way around the southern coast of Viti Levu (the Coral Coast) to a tourist village where we stayed at a resort and received an orientation to training.  There was really nothing of great value learned during this time, just an idea of how training will go.  The next day, we had water safety training on a cold and windy beach, and then spent the afternoon aboard a bus to our next training destination.  Positioned at a technical college, we spent the weekend learning elements of safety and health that we would need to know for the next 7 weeks.  We were then told what languages we would learn, given our first language class, and then divided into training groups. 

On Monday, we were delivered to our host villages where we lived with separate families throughout the duration of our training.  Each week we had language class Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday from 8 am to 2 pm.  Sprinkled throughout, we had a few technical trainings and interviews with various staff members.  Thursdays were “center days,” where all 25 trainees met in town to get more in-depth technical training and a great deal of policy information.  Fridays were spent in brief language classes and then cultural afternoons were divided among the training villages, one per week.  A great meal was provided, followed by cultural information typical of the sort of village we were in and then entertainment, generally a meke performed by the trainees of the village.

My Host Family

I lived with a wonderful family during training.  There were my host mother and father, their 5 children, aged 19-35, plus their oldest son’s wife and their two sons, aged 10 months and 2 years.  My host father is a military officer who has traveled the world, so his English is exceptional.  My host sister, (who I live with mainly during the week while she cares for the small boys and the rest of the folk live at the farm house or at school,) attended an International secondary school where she was only allowed to speak in English, so she also speaks excellent English.  I was truly saddened the day I moved out of their house.

What, you don't like Thoreau?

Apparently Walden isn't interesting enough for some people out there.  Well, I'm sorry! I've been busy.  I told myself I wouldn't be like any of the other blogs I read who didn't post anything during training, but here I am, a week past swearing in and I haven't made a darned post.  I will attempt to update in short bursts, as opposed to one lengthy, boring post.

I’ve been in Fiji about 2 months.  I developed a degree of comprehension in the national dialect of Fijian, Bauan, only to find that I will be sent to a village where the dialect is Nadroga, and thusly quite different.  I begin tutorage shortly.

I’ve been to the ocean once.