Finishing up November

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Here in Rakiraki we had a small gathering to celebrate and give thanks. Nuper and Ahndree came to hang out with John and me for the weekend. We created a Thanksgiving feast with a Fijian twist. We had fried fish (instead of turkey), mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie (from an actual pumpkin!!!), dark chocolate brownies (just because they sounded delicious) and cool glasses of Captain Choney's Pineapple Kacabote to wash it all down. Everything turned out perfect; the pumpkin pie even tasted like America......so I hear. Unfortunately for me I was recovering from some intense food poisoning and could not enjoy the dinner. It was all just too savory for my queasy stomach to handle. The night before Thanksgiving I spent in the toilet. I made some bad decisions the day before and paid the price.....dearly. What did it was one or both of the following food items: three-week old rice and/or moldy cheese. I know, you are wondering why I would consume either. Let me explain my rationale for consuming both: the cheese was for lunch and there was a bit of mold on one side so I cut it off and thought the rest would be good. You just don't waste cheese in this country, it is too precious. The rice was for dinner and honestly I was just too damn lazy to cook up another pot. So, yes, I made two bad decisions; I did it to myself.

By Friday morning (two days later) I was fine. So the four of us made our way to Nananu i' Ra for the rest of the weekend. Ahndree introduced us to a returned Peace Corps volunteer and his wife who have decided to retire here in Fiji. They very generously offered to take us to the island and then out to some reefs for snorkeling. After dropping our stuff at the resort, we got back in the boat and motored to the Northern side of Nananu and had a picnic and snorkel day. Nuper climbed a coconut tree and got us some bu (young coconut) and Ahndree husked them....all of them. Ahndree is by far Peace Corps finest coconut husker. The snorkeling wasn't great due to the strong current and heavy rains but it was still a good time. The next day we got up early and hiked the ridge trail along the top of the island. We hiked for about an hour and came to a dead end on top of the ridge. Hot and sweaty, we decided to bush-whack our way down to the beach for a swim. We got a lot of cuts and bruises but eventually made it down in four whole pieces. The beach we ended up on is called "One Secluded Beach". We decided to hike back to the resort along the coastline. As we began to walk it started to pour. We were all in our bathing suites at that point and the rain felt glorious against our saltwater-covered skin and cooled us off nicely. At one point in the walk we decided to swim along the coast instead of hike and found a really healthy reef in the process. When we finally made it back to the resort it was 1:00, the hike/rock climb/swim lasted about five hours. That afternoon it proceeded to rain non-stop. Tired and satisfied from our adventure we spent the rest of the afternoon watching movies in the main room of the resort. At about five we took the sea kayaks out for a night paddle. Needless to say, we all slept well that night.

John and Judy (the returned PCV's) met us on the island for our last day and again took us around for a picnic/snorkel trip. This time we snorkeled around Nananu i' Cake and Honeymoon Island (the islands next to Nananu i' Ra). The reefs were much healthier there as both islands are fully forested and relatively uninhabited. The best snorkeling of the day was on Honeymoon Island. It was there that we saw a black-tipped reef shark and that Choney saw a sting ray!

The trip was a great way to end a month that has been full of workshops, traveling and meetings.

Fiji Butterflyfish Count

Last Saturday, Nov 8, I had what I guess could be called my first real project. Helen Sykes, an environmental consultant in Suva, started this awareness-building activity called "The Great Fiji Butterflyfish Count". Basically, the idea is similar to Audubon's Christmas Bird Count. Resorts and villages register to do the count during the first week of November and are sent free underwater dive slates featuring detailed pictures of all 27 species of butterflyfish found in Fiji. Butterflyfish eat coral polyps, and are therefore only found on coral reefs. Their abundance and diversity are directly related to the health of the reef. As such, they are excellent indicator species for assessing the health of the reef.
I registered my village to do the count, went around the village promoting the idea, and then found a boat owner who was willing to take me. I then bought four gallons of outboard Premix fuel and came to the village early on Saturday to see who wanted to go. I really didn't have too many people committed to going beforehand, but on Saturday morning I got a pretty big group of people who decided to go at the last minute. A lot of people brought spear guns and fishing line. I asked them to not fish for the 30 minutes it took to do the count, after which we could fish to our heart's content.
Some of the people I went out with really seemed to enjoy identifying the fish. Just observing the reef without trying to harvest something from it was probably a new thing for them. When I collected the dive slates I saw a lot of wacky results. A lot of fish were marked that I'm sure were not there. Despite this, I feel the activity was a success.
I have been fishing several times in Fiji so far, but this trip was the first time I had ever used a speargun. Conservationist that I am, I have to admit that it was freakin' fun. I killed a couple of snappers (kabatia) and one lobster (urau). On the reef I saw a 4ft long nurse shark (qio), which I did not even think about shooting, as well as a few blue-spotted stingrays (vai), which I really did not even think about shooting.
Fijians have always used the reef for sustanence, so I had no problem taking them out on an educational trip and then killing a bunch of fish with them. I am hoping to use my two years here to help them realize that they can get more from their reefs if they practice a bit of restraint, for example by establishing Marine Protected Areas and obeying catch limits. As it is, the villagers will kill pretty much any fish they see whether it is a juvenile or adult, fish on all parts of the reef, and catch any sea turtle they see.
I think my village was actually the only one to register for this event- all other participants were resorts. I have told some of the other environmental volunteers about this activity, so hopefully they can get their villages to do it next year.

Fire!

We have learned in our six short months in this country that Fiji's national past time is not Rugby but burning stuff. The people of Fiji, young and old alike, will burn just about anything. They burn trash, sugar cane, cassava, mangroves, over-grown grassy areas......the list goes on. So last week John and I were not surprised to wake to the smell of burning plastic or as I like to refer to it, "the smell of cancer." What was surprising is where the smell was coming from and who was responsible for it. We looked toward the smoke and noticed that the fire was coming from the Methodist Mission School just above us and that the school children were tending to the fire. It was Monday morning at 8:00; school was in session. John marched up the hill to inform the head-master about the fire. As John spoke to the teacher he learned that the children did not start the fire for fun but rather at the request of one of the other teachers.....it was cleaning day! John then proceeded to tell the head-master about the dangers of burning plastic and how you should NEVER burn anything, especially plastic with children around. The response was, "Oh, yes, yes, yes, burning plastic is very bad, these are naughty children." John did not argue the point that the children were instructed to burn but simply proceeded to dump a bucket of water on the melting "Twisties" wrappers.

About two hours later we hear the second fire before we can even smell it. This time it is on the other side of the school even closer to our house. This looks to be a trash fire that has grown out of control. In fact, this second fire was coming down the hill toward our house! I ran up the hill to find a swarm of school children swatting at the overgrown fire.....not an adult in sight. I yelled at the children, "who started this fire? why are you by yourselves? where is the head-master?" The children stopped, looked at me for a second and then turned back to the fire, swatting at it with tree branches. I ran back to the house and started filling our laundry buckets with water. Some of the children followed me and grabbed the buckets. These kids were fire-control experts apparently......they too knew that water was needed. Soon all of the children on top of the hill were in our yard waiting to fill a bucket of water. I had just finished washing laundry......there were my panties dangling over the heads of the little school boys. Embarrassed, I ran around pulling panties and bras off the line.

Stop for a minute and get yourself a mental picture of this: sweating school boys running all around our yard frantically with me darting between them with an overflowing armful of intimate-ware pulling my remaining unmentionables from the line. I was bright red!

What was craziest about this whole experience was that the children were not in panic, they were having a great time, they were laughing. Soon I see John appear at the top of the hill with the head-mater. John is pointing at the fire and then at the house. The fire truck finally shows up and soaks the area. John trots down the hill and informs me that it was again the "naughty children" who started the fire. We both know they were again instructed to start the fire by another teacher.

That is not the end of the excitement though....just as we are leaving the house we hear it again. The fire is back up and burning. Again it is coming to our house. John has the fire department on speed-dial. They show up in no time and again put out the fire. This time the fire-marshal is pissed. I rarely see Fijians pissed so I kept my distance. Needless to say, John arranged for us to speak to the students and teachers at next week's assembly. The topic of our discussion: proper trash disposal (translation: don't burn your shit at school!)

The Big Day

So this is it, the final stretch. It is Wednesday, Nov. 5th, the US election results start coming in today at 11:00 am Fiji time. John, myself and some of the other Ra volunteers are going to a local hotel to watch as the polls close in the states (6:00 pm eastern time, Tuesday, Nov. 4th). Now a moment of silence for our respective candidates.........may the best man win!

From Nadi to Suva

Last week was a week of traveling for me. On Wednesday afternoon I traveled to Nadi with six Fijian ladies, in the bed of a truck, sitting on ibes (hand-woven mats). We were making our way to Rural Women's Day in Viti Levu's most tourist laden city. I attended as a representative for two Indo-Fijian communities. I brought with me tamarind chutney to sell for the Indian ladies in the clubs. Unlike Fijian women, Indian women find it difficult to leave their homes for more than a day. As John and I have explained before, Indo-Fijians live in settlements (neighborhoods where they own their own compound) while Fijians live in villages where almost everything in shared. This village lifestyle lends itself more to a sense of security. The Fijian ladies I traveled with were from three different villages in the Ra Province and were going to sell ibes, baskets, brooms, fans, and honey.

In Nadi there were women from all over Fiji selling their handicrafts and treats. It was very interesting to see the different styles of mats and fans that were sold. Every Fijian woman knows how to make the two items but the style in which they are weaved and the materials they use depend on the area of Fiji they are from. Rural Women's Day not just a fun place to buy handicrafts, it was also a good opportunity for the visiting women to get ideas from each other. For example, there was one group of women from Vanua Levu selling coconut oil.....not an unusual product but the way it was packaged was very different. The women used recycled Bounty Rum (yucky rum!) bottles for their oil (also not unusual) but instead of leaving the label on the bottles like most other women do, they took them off, polished up the bottles, and covered the lids with nice pieces of bula material and bows. Now, I really don't have any use for coconut oil but I was tempted to buy a bottle just because it looked pretty and professional :) I took a picture of the bottle to show the women back in Rakiraki.

After Rural Women's Day ended I made my way to Suva to meet John and Natalie. A large group of volunteers met in Suva to say goodbye to every one's favorite FRE-6er - Heath! Unfortunately Heath was Medically Separated from Peace Corps Fiji after having to be sent to Australia for surgery. He did not want to leave but did not have a choice. He plans to contest the separation upon his arrival back to the States. We are rooting for him!

I like to think that we sent Heath off in style. We hit up karaoke and did a lot dancing at Traps! We even made time for a hiking and swimming day at Colo i' Suva park.


As a side note: it is HOT AS BALLS in Fiji right now! To fight the heat John and I finally found a fridge (the most wonderful invention in the history of everything!). We have been putting our clean underwear in the freezer which offers a nice, cold, tingle when we put them on in the morning. We also freeze bottles of water and stick them down our shirt, pants, skirts (as a reminder John wears skirts too). The ice thaws on our skin and then we drink the cold water. God bless the fridge. AMEN!

I will post pictures from Nadi and Suva as soon as possible (if you're lucky, I might even post a picture of our fridge).

Trips and Training

Looking at Nananu i' Ra from the highest point on the ridge trail. It was a windy, cloudy day but the view was awesome!

This is an eel swallowing a crab whole along a rocky part of beach in Nananu i' Ra. As John and I walked along the coast line the crabs would jump off the side of the rocks into the ocean to "save themselves" from us. This poor guy would have been much safer on the rock :(

Aw, precious family time! Ma and Pa Smurf and little Nuper pose before the Rubics Cube game during All-Volunteer Training in Nadi. Special.

I know that Peter and John will not be happy when they see this picture posted but I could not resist. The Rubics Cube game went a bit off course.

Us on the white-sand beach of Leleuvia.

Early Service Training

Hey everyone. Sorry for not posting in such a long time. Leslie and I have had a busy couple of weeks. Last week all Peace Corps volunteers in Fiji met in Nadi for "All-Vol" day. The Fre 6s (my group) came a few days before the All-Vol day to do some training, and the Fre 5s (group that has been here one year) stayed after All Vol day for their training. The sessions were actually a major improvement over Pre service training. They emphasized practical skills we need to do our jobs rather than abstract concepts like "integration". We spent a lot of time learning about how to get funding, which is something that is on all of our minds. We stayed in the very nice Tokatoka hotel, near the Nadi airport. The hotel had a fantastic pool and the rooms were air conditioned. It was quite a shock.
On the night of All-Vol day the Fre 5s and the Fre 6s had a party and played a game called "Rubric's Cube". The idea of this game is you come to the party wearing clothes of 6 different colors (I forget the colors but they are supposed to be the six colors of the rubrics cube). You then swap clothing with people until all your clothes are of a single color. Nobody got too crazy with it, but we do have some very funny pictures. I will have to post these next time.
After All-Vol day the environmental volunteers, plus a few others, headed south to the Shangri-La Resort to learn about coral farming. We were taught by an energetic 60-something marine biologist named Austin. Coral farming is pretty straightforward. Basically you snip little pieces off live coral, and let them grow on a steel grate. The growing colonies can then be used to repopulate bleached or otherwise damaged areas. Of course, if the corals in an area are damaged because of water pollution, as is the case in my village, you need to deal with this first before you plant corals.
We got to do some snorkeling around the resort. Shangri-La has a Marine Protected Area, so we saw quite a few large fish.
After this, Leslie and I headed first to Suva and then to Leleuvia. Leleuvia is a tiny island near Ovalau with white sand beaches and abundant corals. It is what comes to mind when people think "Fiji". We spent two nights here in a simple thatched bure, snorkeling at least 5 hours each day.
We are now back at site and are eager to actually get some projects going now. Leslie is working on grant applications for some borehole projects that will deliver water to some settlements in very dry areas. I am still pushing the marine conservation and piggery waste thing. Progress is very slow here. We will do our best to let everyone know what is happening.

Nananu i Ra

Leslie and I took our first weekend leave last week to go to the nearby island of Nananu i Ra. We spent two days on the island, and one night in the hotel. The owner of Safari Lodge gave us a pretty good deal on the room so we are likely to go back there. The weather was pretty windy the whole time we were on the island. One of the guests at Safari Lodge was taking kiteboarding lessons and was absolutely loving the wind. It is pretty impressive how fast you can go on those things. I really would love to give it a try but it is a pretty expensive hobby. At this point the last thing I need is something else to spend money on. Leslie and I did our best not to spend money on the island. Instead of going kitesurfing we walked partway around the island and did a bit of snorkeling. At one point, as we were hiking around a rocky cliff that jutted into the sea we saw a large brown eel devouring a crab. The crab seemed way too big for the eel, but the eel managed to get it down its throat by means of a lot of writhing and flopping around. They eat these eels here, although I have not yet tried it.
This Friday all the Peace Corps volunteers in Fiji will be meeting in Nadi. We will have a few days of training and a big party. I am really looking forward to it. After the big gathering the environmental volunteers will be headed to the Coral Coast to learn about coral farming. Coral Farming is basically a way for communities to make cash while taking pressure off of the coral reefs. They grow the coral on iron grating near the shore and sell it in tourist shops. This keeps them from harvesting to coral on the actual reefs.
A couple of weeks ago I went scuba diving again. Leslie and I walked to Volivoli beach first thing in the morning and went out with Ra divers. The first dive we did that day ranks as one of the best dives I have ever done. We saw three sharks: a blacktip reef shark, a graytip reef shark, and a bull shark. The bull shark was probably 10 or 12 feet and came within about 20 feet of us. It was quite an experience.

Changes Ahead

It looks like things will be changing quite a bit in the near future. Leslie and I just had our site visits, and the decision was made to change Leslie's assignment. She will still be working with some of the women's groups with whom she has established a relationship, she will just no longer be working for the larger network of women's groups. Her new official host agency will be the Women's Interest office. In addition, we will be moving to my village in the next few months. Although the house we move into in the village will, no doubt, be a step down from our current house, I think this really makes the most sense. As it is, I'm missing out on a lot of village gatherings because I am never in the village at night time. We have a huge Peace Corps gathering coming up in October. I think everyone is pretty excited about this. I'm looking forward to meeting some of the current volunteers.
I have been talking to my village a lot about cleaning up the piggeries in the village. I am hoping to get some compost piggeries built in the next few months. I am also looking into biogas digesters, which are quite a bit more expensive to build. If anyone knows anything about biogas digesters send me a message.

John stabs mouse

I tried to think of a clever title for this post but I think this one gets the point across. We have been having mouse problems in our house. Our produce occasionally gets nibbled on and we often find little shits in our kitchen. We put out traps and poison, but the little bastards seem to survive. I got up one morning and saw one of the mice hunching behind a papaya on our counter top. He didn't see me as his head was down behind the papaya. Slowly, I crept over to the other side of the counter where we keep our silverware- including a very sharp knife. I grabbed the knife, crept up to the mouse and swung the blade down on the little shit-head. I felt the knife penetrate soft flesh and come to a stop on the wooden countertop. The mouse squealed loudly. I had him pinned to the countertop. I searched the counter for something to dispatch him with. I spotted the wine bottle that one of our fellow Peace Corps volunteers had given us. I brought the bottle down upon the mouse's head and it immediately went stiff. My heart was literally racing. I didn't feel the slightest bit of pity for the filthy little creature. Rather I felt proud and triumphant. Leslie and I had just finished reading Lord of the Flies and I couldn't help thinking of the chant, "Kill the pig, eat her flesh, spill her blood." The way I see it, if I'm becoming a bit of a savage it just means I'm adapting well.

A Waqa named Saqa

I caught a fish. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I built a small boat with the help of some people from the village. The boat is made out of a single 12-ft piece of corrugated roofing tin and is called a bavelo. By itself the thing is extremely tippy. A few days ago one of the guys from the village helped me make an outrigger for the boat out of a thick piece of bamboo. With the outrigger attached, I was able to paddle the boat on the ocean and easily handle moderately sized waves. For any Peace Corps people reading this blog, I always wear a lifejacket when paddling my bavelo and I stay very close to shore. Well, I took my waqa (Fijian word for boat- pronounced wanga) out on it's maiden voyage a few days ago and trolled a hook baited with some fish behind it just for the heck of it. I didn't have a paddle at that time so I just paddled with two plastic plates. It was very hard work. As I was returning to shore I noticed that the boat was handling very strangely. It was difficult to paddle and would not follow a straight path. I pulled on the fishing line that was stretched out behind the boat. It was tight. I assumed that I had snagged a rock. I gave it a tug, and it tugged back very hard. I fought the fish over the next half hour. The line I was using was only 10 pound test and was wrapped around a Fiji water bottle, so I had to play the fish very slowly. Several times I had the fish close to the boat when it decided to run and I had to let it take the line out. Finally I played the thing to exhaustion and pulled the fish up to the boat. It was a big, 24in saqa (pronounced sanga- bigeye trevally). I plopped it into the bavelo and headed back to the village. I received quite a welcome when the villagers saw my fish. The guy who helped me build the outrigger announced that the name of my little boat would be "Saqa".

More Pictures from Fiji

The volunteers in the Indo-Fijian settlement learned an Indian dance for the Swearing In Ceremony. I was as red as a tomato during the entire dance.

The Environment trainees in the Fijian villages learned a "Meke" for the the Ceremony. The group in the background are singing while the "warriors" do their dance. This picture shows John fighting off the vicious warrior Garrett! Can't remember who won.

Self-Portrait in the ocean!

Our house. Yes, it is VERY green! Ahndree thinks we should name it the "Pineapple Paradise" but we aren't too big on naming inanimate objects like cars or houses. We can see the ocean from the porch!!!

Another self-portrait at our favortie beach just outside of Rakiraki town. It is a 15 minute bus ride from our house.

Circus Mission

Last Sunday (Siga Tabu) Leslie and I went to my village to go to church. Yes, I have become quite the church-goer lately. After the church service we went over to one of the houses in the village for lunch. We found out that there was a sort of party going on that day and a big feast had been prepared. I asked (in Fijian) what the celebration was for. I was told (also in Fijian) that the feast was for one of the boys in the village who was returning from the hospital. I am still learning Fijian, so it took me a while to figure out exactly what was going on. I made out that a 13 year old boy from the village had been in the hospital for the past four days, something was cut, and he's coming back today. The man telling me all this kept sticking his index finger out and drawing the finger from his other hand across it in a cutting motion. " So he cut his finger off?" I asked. " No, his penis!" was the reply. " He cut his penis off?" I asked, shocked. " Yes, just the tip. He is better now. It is our custom." Then I understood that a circumcision had taken place. Here in Fiji circumcision is kind of a coming of age thing and takes place when a boy is 12 or 13.
After this strange conversation we sat around on the patio to have lunch. The boy walked out of the house bow-legged with a sulu wrapped around him. He was holding the front of the sulu about a foot away from his crotch. He looked really embarrassed. All eyes were on him as he sat down to eat. I was glad that I was not in his place.

Cool Pictures Now

Ok, I promised Leslie I would post the people pictures first. Here are the photos I've been dying to post. School of blue green chromis.

Crown of thorns starfish. This guy was the size of a large pizza. They are poisonous and eat coral. Very scary.

Tomato anenomefish. Always fun to see.

Some kind of parrotfish. I'm thinking turquois-capped.

Whoa! Holy crap a shark. White-tipped reef shark. He was only about 4 ft long. I think Leslie peed in the ocean when she saw it, though.

Pictures finally

The choir in Vitawa

Nearly blind kid helped by the free glasses program

Mrs. Krishna's birthday party. (still during training)

Site announcements. Leslie and I are standing on a big map of Viti Levu. This was a pretty exciting day

Leslie and Toad

I don't have a whole lot to talk about today, but I thought I'd share with everybody a few funny stories. The first one is about the cane toads that occur in plague proportions throughout Fiji. Leslie had painted the back door to our house and had left the door open so the fresh breeze would help the paint dry more quickly. We were in our room reading for a few hours as the paint was drying and I walked into the kitchen to get a snack. I saw a big fat cane toad on our kitchen floor, hopping around. I went to pick it up and the thing literally exploded with urine. I mean it was a LOT of freakin' piss. The toad was about the size of a baseball, yet it seemed to produce about a full liter of toad piss. My shorts were soaking with it, and there was a big puddle of it on the floor. Luckily for me toad tinkle doesn't really cause warts....I think.
The second funny story is about Leslie (yay! funny Leslie story!) As some of you may already know, Leslie is quite the sleep talker. I have had lengthy conversations with her while she was fast asleep. Well, this particular conversation was really unusual. I woke up in the middle of the night to hear Leslie mumbling some sort of gibberish. She actually sat up in bed, opened her eyes and said, "John! Will you please pick that meat off the floor? It's going to stink." I didn't know what the hell she was talking about. Meat on the floor? I asked, " Really, meat on the floor. Huh. How do you think it got there?" "It fell off the truck." she replied, in a very annoyed tone. How else would it have gotten there? " So, some meat fell off the truck and landed on the floor. Interesting. Do you want me to eat it?" "No! I want you to pick it up. Stop being patronizing!" Leslie has quite the vocabulary when she is sleep talking. After that she dozed off. I told her about it the next day and she had no recollection.

Getting Involved

My primary project is very slowly starting to pick up. I have visited the club's bee farm to check the status of the hives. We will have our second harvest next month. Checking the hives was terrifying though. During training I just watched as the hive-managers pulled out the hives to check for honey production. This time I had to help! I was the one in charge of the smoke and the bees don't like this person, that is for sure. I was dive-bombed by bees the whole time, yikes. It was pretty exciting though, so much energy buzzing around me, I couldn't hear a thing. Next month will be all that much more exciting as we pull out the honey. I am going to do some research on making bee's wax candles so maybe we can make some extra money at Diwali time.

I am also making myself available to the other groups in Rakiraki. I have joined the Ra District Hospital Board as the Acting Secretary. I have also joined the Inner-Agencies Committee for the Protection of Children and will be helping them as they plan a fundraising dinner and auction......this must be my calling in life. They are thinking about auctioning off some wine from New Zealand and Australia and it wasn't even my suggestion. Finally, John and I have both joined the Fiji Red Cross Society. With them we will visit neighboring villages to talk on our respective specializations. John will do workshops on piggery clean-up and proper rubbish disposal, while I will talk about money management and budgeting. I am excited about this new secondary project as it is something John and I can do together.

Here in Fiji, I have also become an avid reader. Not having any other form of entertainment, books have become my salvation. In the past four(ish) months I have read more books than I read all of last year. Time kept me from getting involved in a good book back in the States. When every minute of every day is spoken for, starting a book is a big commitment. Now, I have nothing but time! The favorites so far have been The Poisonwood Bible (this was a second read), The Namesake and The Red Tent. I started reading Eat, Pray, Love, as many people recommended it, but could not get past page 75. It is the most shallow book I have ever attempted to read. Her style of writing also bothered me, it was much too casual, like we were buddies. After giving it many second chances I decided to put it down for good. Please share any book recomendations you have as John and I are always on the lookout for a good read.

John and I are planning a trip to either Suva or Lautoka in the next few weeks and hope to upload pictures while in one of the two big cities. The internet here in RR is WAY too slow.

Hello Everybody. Sorry for not posting in a while. Things have been pretty busy lately. I've been going into my village almost every day, and Leslie has been working at the local hospital. A group of doctors from the U.S. were doing eye exams in town and Leslie was helping with that. I guess the Lions Club collects used prescription glasses for these programs. Eye exams are only a dollar, prescription glasses are two dollars, and cataract surgery is 30 dollars. Some people were pretty bummed about the glasses they got since some of the donated glasses were truly ridiculous. But I guess for 2 dollars you really can't expect too much. I helped out with this on Thursday. It was pretty hectic. The line of people was out the door.
I've been doing a bit of snorkeling recently. I've been taking a lot of underwater pictures of fish and then trying to identify them back at home. I'm definitely getting hooked on these coral reefs. I'll post the pictures once I get to a fast internet connection. Those of you waiting for pictures will have to bear with us for a few weeks, but once we are able to get to a big city we'll try to upload a lot of photographs.
I built a boat this week. Well, really I watched as one of the guys from the village built it for me. It is called a Bavelo, and is basically a 12 ft canoe made from a single piece of corrugated tin roofing material. It is the most ridiculous looking boat you can imagine. I haven't taken it out into the water yet. I'll probably build an outrigger for it before I take it out. I will, of course, not take it farther out than I can swim and will ALWAYS wear my lifejacket.
A lot of people in my village are excited about getting an ecotourism project going. I think the village is well situated to take advantage of the tourists visiting the north coast of Viti Levu. Of course, my main concern is not really whether or not we will be able to make money, but what the village hopes to do with the money. I'm hoping that I'll be able to convince them to reinvest it back into the community through scholarships and other things.

One Week Down

So we have officially spent one full week in Rakiraki. We have spent this first week setting up house, starting our garden and getting to know our respective counterparts. I am pretty sure that Thursdays are going to be my new favorite day of the week. Thursday is the day when people from neighboring villages in the Ra Province come to Rakiraki to do their shopping. RR has pretty much everything you need. There are at least four grocery stores, a Rupes Big Bear (where we got our bikes), a post office, three different banks, hardware stores, three internet cafes and a hand-full of other little Fijian shops. The open-air market here is great. It is open every day and is packed with local produce, kava, and handmade brooms and mats. It has been the place I use my hindi most as a lot of the produce vendors are Indo-Fijian. It is super fun to surprise the locals with my killer language skills. Note: my Hindi is actually not that great I just really paid attention to the lessons on shopping....surprise :) Anyways, because villagers come into town to do their shopping on Thursday so too do the Peace Corps volunteers in our province. This means that we get to see a few more of our Peace Corps friends. Today John and I had lunch with Tara (stationed here in RR), Ahndree (village near the bay), Natalie (village across the bay), and Sylvia (stationed in Nadi but homeless right now so chillin in R-town) and it was so great. Thursday lunch has been a tradition for the volunteers in the area so Tara and Andree seemed happy to have four new lunch buddies. The six of us looked pretty ridiculous walking around the two streets of Rakiraki but we were so happy to see each other it was easy to ignore the stares.

At Site

Well, training is officially over! Our group swore in on July 24 and quickly loaded up into buses to be shuttled to the far corners of Fiji. The day before swearing in we had about 8 hours to kill in Suva. I went to meet with Helen Sykes, an environmental consultant based in Suva. After that, I met up with some fellow trainees at a bar. After having completed 8 weeks of training we were all in need of a drink. Some of the wilder volunteers had 2 drinks! After that, we were shuttled back to the campus at Nadave where we went to bed early in order to be well rested the next day. Despite this precaution, we all seemed to be particularly groggy on the 24th.

Leslie and I spent the first night at site with another volunteer in the area named Tara. The next day we moved into our new home, and began furiously cleaning. There was a dead rat in one of the cupboards, but before either of us could clean it up a cat raced into the house and munched it down. Both Leslie's host agency and my host village have been very generous in donating furniture for our house. We still have a list of things we need to buy, but are not in too much of a hurry. The house has electricity and running water, and you can just barely see the ocean from the front patio. We don't have a refrigerator at the moment, so we have been doing our shopping day to day. It is actually not as hard as it sounds.

My village has been very understanding of our need to spend a few days getting the house ready before we start work. They actually suggested that I not go to church with them on Sunday but instead take the day off. With that in mind, Leslie and I rode our bikes (oh yeah, we bought bikes in Suva) to Volivoli beach (mentioned in another posting). My bike broke down several times on the ride, but we made it. At the beach Leslie and I happened to meet the group leader for some sort of high school group doing a study abroad in Fiji. She invited us to go out snorkeling with them. The guys at Ra Divers, the dive shop on Volivoli beach, were really cool and had no problem letting us tag along for no charge. They took us out about 6km to a small seamount with spectacular coral cover. I took a ton of pictures with our underwater camera which I will be sure to post at some point. We saw a white-tip reef shark!

We should be able to post regularly as our house is fairly near an internet cafe. Keep in touch, everyone!

Finishing up training

Training is quickly coming to a close. We have our final Language Proficiency Interview on Monday. Before heading out to site, everyone is expected to be at the "intermediate-low" level in their respective language. Supposedly, those who are not at this level will stay in Suva for an extra week of language training before being sent to site. I will be suprised if anyone ends up doing this.

Last night was cultural night in the Indo-Fijian settlement. The Hindi class learned a dance and a song, and a few of the teenage girls from the settlement performed a couple of dances. There was a massive quantity of really good spicy food and plenty of yaqona.

Yesterday I went to USP in Suva to meet with a woman doing turtle conservation work on the north coast of Viti Levu, near my site. I will probably be helping her a bit in communicating with the villages in the area.

Tomorrow, Leslie and I will celebrate our one year aniversary. We really do not have any big plans, since our options are much more limited here, but we are planning on going out to a nice restaurant and having some wine. Thank you everyone who has sent us letters/packages. We really appreciate it.

Site Visit!!!

The road leading into Rakiraki town!

John's training village just outside of Rakiraki.

Looking at Rakiraki from Volivoli Beach Resort.

John playing in the sand with his new "nephew".

Trying out the under-water camera!

Hub day at John's training village - I am an
honorary member of the village as John's wife!

The monipusi (mongoose) dance. Those who know
John will recognize his sweet dance moves :)

We got a lesson in Beekeeping.
We survived without a sting.

Hub day in the Indo-Fijian settlement.
Pretty sarees!

Site announcements. We are standing in
Rakiraki - our new home!!!

Doing Site Visit

Leslie and I are doing a visit of our site in the Rakiraki area. I'm actually not supposed to disclose the exact town on this blog, but I think all of our friends know it already. This part of Viti Levu is beautiful. There are mountains to the south of us, and the ocean is very close. The diving in this area is supposed to be world class. This week we are staying with a current Peace Corps volunteer. The Peace Corps has not yet found a house for us, so we have been looking for a place to rent. Leslie will be taking over another volunteer's job with a local Indo-Fijian women's organization. I will be traveling to a nearby village to do environmental work. I will find our today a little more about what projects the village is looking at. A lot of times the host agencies have a misunderstanding about what Peace Corps does, so it will be nice to meet with my village and answer any questions they might have.

Sites Announced!!!

Friday, July 4th was a big day for the FRE-6 trainees. We found out where we will be assigned for the next two years. The day started with a surprise Emergency Action Plan run-through that started at 6 am. Mahen (my language teacher) came to our house and knocked on our window before sun-up. We had to grab our emergency bag which contained clothes, dry food, water, medical kit and our life vests. We spent two hours sitting at the hub office drinking coffee in our pjs. Good times. After our consolidation training we planted trees at our host homes to celebrate the 4th of July and learn about native Fijian vegetation. At 11:30 we headed to Lomanisau (one of the host villages) for the big announcement and 4th of July celebration. Currently serving Peace Corps volunteers mapped out Fiji on the grass. As our names were called they took us to our assigned area in Fiji. John and I are going to spend two years in Raki Raki (Northern Viti Levu). John will be commuting to a neighboring village to help the community set up a Marine Protected Area as well as Mangrove planting, waist disposal and other fun environmental stuff. I will be working with an Indo-Fijian Women's Group. The group is an NGO and they have asked for help with small income generating projects, basic bookkeeping and budgeting skills, marketing, and general women's outreach. I am taking over an existing project. The current volunteer will end her service next week so we will have a chance to chat before she leaves. John and I are both very happy with our assignment. We will live in a rented flat and will have electricity and running water. We will also be a mere 3 hours from Suva and Nausori so we will be able to visit our host mom and the "big city" very easily. We are also super stoked about how close we will be to the ocean. Raki Raki is surrounded by some great scuba sites! It won't be long until I'm certified, until then, John will have to scout out the reefs for me :) We leave tomorrow for our Counterpart Conference and then Tuesday we go to Raki Raki for a week to check everything out.

First day in Fiji. Traveling from Nadi to Nadave.
















Precious children from our first village visit.







FRE-6: 32 Volunteers in total. States represented: Maine, Wyoming, Colorado, Georgia, Missouri, Arizona, Oregon, Alaska, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Washington, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, California and others I have forgotten. Ages range from 21 to 50's.













Indo-Fijian settlement volunteers. First Hindi wedding. Leslie, Keondra, Sara, Jessica, Christa, and Dristica (Keondra's host sister)












Nope, we're not missionaries :)

1 month of training complete

We have been in Fiji one month now. Both Leslie and I have made quite a bit of progress in the language. Today we had a scavenger hunt in Suva as a way to familiarize ourselves with the city. I think my group came in last. We spent too much time in the University of the South Pacific's book store looking at the coral reef books.

So far I have been in the ocean twice, and Leslie has been only once. They keep us on a pretty tight leash during training, and prefer to keep most of the training inside village community halls. Last week the environmental volunteers got to take a trip to Kiuva to do some snorkeling. A few researchers from USP taught us the basics of transect sampling and took us out to the reef to try it out. When we got out to the reef everybody decided that it would be more fun to just snorkel around and look at the fish, instead of trying to lay a transect. The reef was degraded in certain areas, but was still beautiful. We saw a sea snake, a few clown fish, a moray eel, one of those rays with the electric blue spots, and more species of fish than I could count.

Fiji definitely has some environmental issues that need to be addressed. For one, waste management is a severe problem. Most of the villages lack trash pick-up services of any kind, so they resort to burning the trash (plastic and all), piling it up, or throwing it into the river. Piggeries, also, usually empty directly into the river, with the feces-laden runoff causing the coral reefs to become overrun with algae. Unsustainable fishing practices are also common. Villagers in some areas use dynamite fishing and fishing with poison. In many areas, simply too many fish are being caught. Another major component of Peace Corps' work in Fiji involves setting up Marine Protected Areas.

Leslie and I will know exactly where we are going in two weeks. We are extremely excited to find out. If anyone is considering applying to the Peace Corps, post a comment and I'll tell you more about it. Training is difficult for reasons I never anticipated. Once again, I'm sorry for not posting photos. Maybe next week, rairai beka.

I haven't done this yet, so let me get it out of the way now: This blog does not reflect the opinions of the U.S. Peace Corps or the U.S. Government. The opinions in this blog solely belong to John and/or Leslie.

Ok, I'm glad that's out of the way. Leslie and I are settling into a routine here in Fiji. Leslie's Hindi skills have improved quite a bit in the past week, and I am feeling more and more comfortable with Fijian. We are staying in a settlement, which is basically like a small town. Leslie stays in the settlement to learn Hindi, and I walk to a nearby village every day for Fijian lessons. On the weekends, we try to divide our time equally between the Fijian village and the Indo-Fijian settlement. People are very welcoming and hospitable in both communities, though there are noticeable differences between the two cultures.

The Fijian village is highly communal. The houses are close together, and everyone knows everyone else's business. There is a chief to every village, whose position is entirely hereditary, as well as a Turaga ni koro (man of the village) who is elected. All Fijians are Christian. The denomination varies depending on where you go, and many villages have a few different churches. The most popular denomination in Fiji is the Methodist church. Church services last about 2.5 hours. They are full of firery sermons and singing. Fijians are able to harmonize beautifully. A lot of the volunteers are having issues with the lack of privacy in the village. While the Fijians are extremely friendly and hospitable, they don't really understand the concept of "alone time".

The Indo-Fijian settlement is a little more spread out. There are a few shops and, in general, the houses have more ammenities than those in the villages. There is a lot more privacy and religious freedom in the settlement. I think most Indo-Fijians are Hindu, though many have converted to Christianity, and our host mom is Sai. I don't know much about the Sai religion yet, but I do know that they try to unite all major monotheistic religions, emphasizing their similarities rather than their differences. We went to a Sai center last Sunday. It basically involved meditation and a brief introduction to the religion and to its founder, Sai Baba.

Both the Fijians and the Indo-Fijians live drinking Kava (aka Yaqona or Grog). For the Fijians, drinking yaqona is highly ritualized- you have to clap (Cobo) before drinking your shell (bilo) of Kava. The Kava is made in a large wooden bowl called the tanoa. In the settlement, yaqona drinking is much more casual. People will often drink out of ceramic cups while watching T.V.
Leslie still doesn't like the taste of Kava, but I love it. If you drink a lot- about 12 bilos- you definitely feel it. I've heard that it is much stronger in Vanuatu. It never leads to violence like alcohol sometimes does.

Yesterday, we went to the beach for water safety training. Basically we put on life jackets and jumped off a boat to make sure we could float in the water. It was a bit silly, but it was nice getting to go the the ocean. Now we can go to the beach as long as we can convince someone from the settlement or village to accompany us.

The environmental volunteers recently had a talk with Randy Thaman, a professor from University of the South Pacific (USP). He obviously had a lot of passion about conservation in the Pacific, and was a great speaker. The business volunteers recently visited an ecotourism and culture-revitalization project in a neighboring village, as well as the UNDP office in Suva.

In case anyone was thinking of asking, we still don't know where we will be stationed. It could be anywhere in Fiji. We will know on July 4. Sorry for not posting any photographs. The internet connection at every cafe we have visited so far has been extremely slow. We will have to wait until we go to the Peace Corps headquarters in Suva.

Sota Tale!

Jone' ( pronounced Chonay)

Beach Day Canceled - Boooo!

I swear that I saw a single tear fall from John's eye yesterday when they announced the cancellation of Beach Day. It has been raining and windy (not cold but very humid) here all week and so the Peace Corps staff decided that we should not go to the beach today (Friday). Rain has never stopped me from enjoying the beach so I too was pretty bummed by the news. Three weeks and counting and still no beach....crazy! On the upside, our Hindi language class let out early and we were able to take a trip into town.

There is not much to post, life as a trainee is proving to be pretty boring. We get up and go to language class, have lunch, go to tech class, return home, have dinner, take a bath and go to bed (usually no later than 10 p.m.). I have been getting up at 6 a.m. each morning to help my host mom make the curry and roti for breakfast. I am getting pretty good at rolling the roti. I have yet to make a perfect circle though...most look like profiles or maps. Roti is like a tortilla. While a lot of the trainees in the Fijian villages are tired of their food, John and I are still loving the roti and curry.

We are going into Suva (Fiji's capital) tomorrow to look for a second-hand guitar and a saree. We will try to post pictures while we are in town as I again forgot the camera...oops.

Fir Milegaa,

Leslie

Pre-Service Training

Bula and Namaste!

We have been in Fiji now for two weeks. During our first week we stayed at a training camp in Eastern Fiji called Nadave (pronounced nandave). We stayed in bures (dorms) with the other 30 Peace Corps Fiji volunteers. Boys stayed in one bure while girls were split into two. It was very much like college which was fun since John and I have been out of college for a good four years now. We enjoy all of the other volunteers; they are great individuals. Most of the other volunteers are in their mid to early twenties (I am actually the oldest girl at 26....crazy!). There are two "senior" volunteers in their 50's. They are both men and one is actually from Kodiak, Alaska (holler!). While at the training camp we had no access to email or phones. We spent our days in language and cross-cultural classes. In the evenings we enjoyed multiple kava sessions with our trainers. These sessions would last well into the wee hours of the morning. I have not acquired a taste for kava yet, it has the flavor of a dirty root. It is a huge deal here though so I am sure I will learn to love it soon. John already thinks it is great :)

On Wednesday we moved to our host villages where we will spend the next three months of Pre-Service Training. We live with local families in the Nausori area. John and I are living in an Indo-Fijian settlement with a very nice Indian widow. She has given us the Hindi names Gisel (for me) and Anmol (for John). Peace Corps has me learning Hindi while John must travel to a neighboring Fijian village to learn Fijian. We are experiencing the best of both worlds here. Tonight we will be attending our first Hindi wedding and we are very excited. One of the other host moms will be dressing me in a sari for the wedding! Tomorrow we will be going to the Fijian village where John studies for a "Welcome" church service that they have planned for the Peace Corps volunteers. Most Fijians are Christian and church on Sunday can last over two hours. After church the village will prepare a feast....I am not joking.....there is TONS of food. They make fish (all different kinds) usually cooked or fried in coconut milk and wrapped in taro leaves. They also prepare cassava, bread fruit and taro (those are staples at every Fijian meal). There will no doubt be plenty of singing and dancing as well. The Fijian people love music.

So far, John and I love this country. The people are so generous and kind. The Fijian host mothers hug and kiss you and tell you they love you after your first encounter with them.....they are very welcoming. We have yet to visit the beach but have a trip planned next Friday.

We will post some pictures on our next trip into town.

In New Zealand

We just arrived in New Zealand. The overnight flight was surprisingly painless. The airline we used was Air New Zealand. The food was good, the seats were comfortable, and each seat had its own video screen. Two thumbs up for that airline. I probably won't have time to individually email everybody today, but I figured this post would be a good way to keep a lot of people up to date simultaneously. We fly to Fiji this evening. We've got some time to kill in New Zealand. I'm not sure what we'll do.

Trip to Sunriver Oregon

Skiing on Mt. Bachelor in May...beautiful.















Leslie, John, JP and Matthew on Mt. Bachelor













The whole gang and the Lava Lands National Park in Central Oregon.














Posing at the High Desert Museum...John, Matthew, JP, Kurt, Summer and Leslie.

Leaving in 12 days

Leslie and I are currently in Beaverton, Oregon, waiting to depart for Fiji with the U.S. Peace Corps. We have accepted an invitation to serve in the Integrated Environmental Resources Management project. We have no idea where in Fiji we will be working, or what exactly we will be doing. We hope to use this blog throughout our assignment as a way of keeping in touch with family and friends back home.
I'll use this first posting to give a bit of background information about ourselves. Leslie and I both graduated in 2004 from the University of Dallas. Leslie's major was painting, mine was biology. After finishing undergrad, Leslie went on to get her MBA from the University of Dallas, while I am just now finishing my Master's Degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences from Texas A&M University. Leslie has also spent the past three years working for the American Heart Association in Dallas.
If anyone is considering joining the Peace Corps and would like to know more about it, feel free to send us a message. At this point, we really can't say much about what Peace Corps service is like, but we can answer questions about the application process. My advice to anyone considering Peace Corps service is to begin the application about a year before you will actually be available to leave. The application takes a very long time. It involves interviews, many many written personal statements, and a thorough medical screening.
At this point, the days are going by very quickly for us as our time in the U.S. is coming to a close. On May 18th we fly to Los Angeles for staging, and on May 19th we fly to Fiji. We have an 11 hour layover in Auckland, New Zealand on our way to Fiji, so hopefully we will have some time to see a bit of the city. Once we arrive in Fiji we will begin training. We will not officially become Peace Corps volunteers until late July when we complete our training. We will do our best to keep this blog up to date. Since we are sharing this blog, some of the posts will be from me (John) and some will be from Leslie.