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!)