Swim to the top of Fiji

Mountain Foliage

Yoga at Fiji's highest point

The carrier ride to the interior

Yesterday Leslie and I completed one of our major goals while in Fiji: Climbing Mount Tomanivi (aka Victoria Peak), the highest peak in Fiji. This may not seem like such a major accomplishment since the height of the peak is just over 4000 feet, making it more of a hill in continental terms. However, the weather during the trek made the climb a major undertaking. Rain was pouring literally the entire time we were hiking. The trail to the summit became not so much a trail as a rapidly flowing stream leading Nuper to quip that we "swam to the top of Fiji". Additionally, the second half of the climb up was more rock/mud scrambling than hiking so we really put the upper-body muscles to work. While the hike was difficult, spirits were high the entire time. The view from the top was basically of clouds and rain so we only hung around long enough to take a few pictures. On the way down, Leslie was the only volunteer who hadn't given herself "mud butt" (a term we created for the resulting muddy stain left after falling on one's backside). The three streams we crossed on the way up were rivers on the way down.

Overall the most difficult part of the hike was the organization of it. The mountain is located 2 hours interior of Tavua so you have to hire a carrier (truck with tarps over the bed, passengers sit under the tarps) to drive you inside (there are no buses). Once there we stayed at the Emperor Guesthouse owned by the Vatukoula Mining Company. The house had plenty of beds for the nine of us and even had a fireplace. It was definitely not the typical Fiji experience to be bundled up in a jacket sitting by a roaring fire, but it was a nice change of scenery. They told us the price was $50FJ but when we got there they tried to charge us an additional $10 per person for electricity. We got them down to a flat $5 total, which is good seeing the electricity only worked for about an hour. We had to go through the village to hike Mt. Victoria so first we were required to seek permission from the chief. We bargained with the Turaga ni Koro (village head-man) for a group rate as none of us brought enough cash to cover the $20FJ they originally asked. We were fortunate to have two Fijian boys with us, friends of ours, so we didn't need to hire guides, that would have been an additional charge. An elderly man from Navai village was a bit hesitant to let us do the hike without guides from his village. To impress upon us the danger of getting lost in the forest he told us a story of a policeman who went hiking solo and turned up two weeks later, almost dead, and in nothing but his tighty-whities. " His shoes were gone, his shirt was ripped, and his pants were gone. All he had left was his sapota (underwear)." I have no idea how this guy lost his clothes but a few other people told us the story as well, and they all were very impressed by the man's near nudity. Obviously we felt a bit "nickel and dimed" by the locals in the interior, but overall it was a great experience.

To the subject of work, Leslie and John C. just completed their last beekeeping training with the Nagoro Women's Group, an Indian Women's Group near Rakiraki town. Within the last year they have managed to increase their hives from 3 to 19. One of the women in the group now has four of her own hives. These women are a success-story for beekeeping in Ra. Next week, Leslie and Judy are preparing to do a Gingerbread-cooking workshop in the village with the women. The women in the village have really enjoyed Leslie's baking lessons so far.

We just received a cyclone warning for Ra. Cyclone Mick is expected to hit Northern Viti Levu in the next 24 hours. We are on Stand-fast and cannot leave our site until directed by Peace Corps. Needless to say, I will not be doing any fishing for the next few days. Since I will be stuck inside my goal is to complete my GEF grant and get this MPA moving (financially speaking).

Let the Hoildays begin

It has been over a month since our last post....oops! The past few months have been relatively eventful for me and Choney. After our Kayaking trip with John and Natalie went straight to work in the village.

John C. and I had four weeks of beekeeping technical trainings that we starting right after the trip. We worked three days a week. Some days in more than three apiaries. That is a lot of bees. I can say without much hesitation that I am glad that that string of trainings is over. Beekeeping work is exhausting...much more so for John and the local trainers than me as the men don't let me do any of the heavy lifting. I work the smoker for the most part. In the third week of training I had an "ah ha" moment: I realized that I understand beekeeping well enough that I can split a hive on my own. Doesn't sound like much but I was pretty proud of myself.

Since the beekeeping trainings I have been trying to spend as much time as possible in the village. I spend the majority of my time with three women: Ruci, Milika and Sai. They and Judy (John C.'s wife) helped me organize a Pumpkin pie making training for the sogosogo vaka marama (women's group). Before we started with the mixing and baking I talked a bit about Thanksgiving and why it is celebrated in the US (goal 2 of PC!). The training was a success, not just because a good number of women attended but more so because women are now making the pies on their own and asking for more cooking trainings. It is great to see Fijian women excited about trying new things with the foods they grow and I love helping them find their creative sides. Recently Ruci started a small business in the village selling "fudge". I taught her to make peanut butter-chocolate-oatmeal, no-bake cookies....a personal favorite...and no need for an oven. About a week into making and selling the "fudge" Ruci said to me, "Hey Leslie, you know what I have realized? I have realized, that business is just about being creative." I think I will always remember that moment.

Pumpkin Pie training group (minus a few women)

John's Donu (Salmon Cod)

John has been spending the majority of his time fishing with his friend Utom. Utom is married to the women's group president, Sai. He is the only Indo-Fijian living in the village. He is a great fisherman and he is teaching John a lot. They usually go out to fish early in the morning and come back at mid-day. John almost always comes back with a bag of fish....he takes the ones Utom cannot sell. Fish was John's contribution to the Peace Corps Thanksgiving. He has also been spending a lot of time in the Dadaculaci, exploring the reefs (always with his life jacket). It is usually one of the village youth who accompanies him but sometimes I get to go too. We found a great little beach really close to the village that we paddle to sometimes. It is great to have an escape when things get to loud or rowdy in the village (or when there is a church function!) John has also started building smokeless stoves for the women in the village. Joe (third year PCV) taught John to make the stoves. They are great because they use less wood and produce a lot less smoke, making cooking with wood healthier and easier for women. The women who have started using them love them, we hope the new design will catch on and spread through the village.

At the end of November we went down to Suva for Thanksgiving. Julie (a first year PCV) hosted an awesome Thanksgiving dinner at her amazing house. I made two pumpkin pies with Nuper....they were a hit! I also made Tara's broccoli/cheese casserole....it was the first dish finished at dinner! Almost every volunteer on Viti Levu was present and it was great to see everyone. There was so much food that we ate leftovers for lunch the next day....even after that there was still food left! We went dancing every night too.....keeping those holiday pounds off :)

December and January should be equally busy months (if we can help it) so that we don't miss our families too much.

86km sea kayaking trip

Leslie and I just finished a 4 day, 86km sea kayaking trip with John Caldeira and Nuper. We started in our village (which must, of course, go nameless on this blog) and paddled east, visiting two other volunteers along the way, and then turned around and headed back. The wind in Fiji blows almost constantly from the southeast, so we started the voyage going directly into the wind. We had to get up very early during those first days since the strong winds generally start at around 9am. Despite getting up as early as 4:30am we still found ourselves battling 25knot winds for several hours at a time. Day two was the hardest part of the trip by far. We covered 25km, paddling directly upwind for 10 hours straight. We had to tie ropes between the kayaks to prevent ourselves from being separated. We struggled with all our might to make even the slowest progress upwind. Our boats were constantly being filled with water by the massive waves. The way back, on the other hand, was a breeze. The wind did most of the work for us. We spent a good part of the trip back relaxing in the boats, letting the wind move us to the west. We got to practice a kayaking technique called surfing where you paddle hard to stay between wave troughs and then ride the force of the wave forward. It is a good way to go fast in a kayak without using too much energy. Day three was probably the most fun I've ever had in Fiji. Considering the difficulty of the trip I think we all did an amazing job.

Now the pictures...

Choney is always touching things.

Christmas tree coral (this is as close as we will get in Fiji)

Puffer fish (sokisoki)

Boobie!

Me on Choney's boat

Just a little update and some pictures

It has been so long since I have posted anything on our blog that I hardly know where to start. I am not going to back-track, instead I will just bring you up to speed on the last few weeks.

We, the FRE-6 Peace Corps volunteers, just completed our Mid-Service training in Nadi. It was so great to see all of my fellow volunteers. Training focused on project reporting, tracking and sustainability. I think most of us came away with the feeling that we need to do more to make our projects sustainable. I know that I am guilty of letting the aggressive, American side come out a bit too much. I take control of many of the projects I am working on instead of allowing a host-country-national the opportunity to lead and manage a project. This is because I believe that I can do it better and faster. So my goal for the remainder of my service is to slow down and give up control a bit. Anyone who knows me will understand the struggle this will be for me :)

After training ended John and I planned to do the Beqa Shark dive but instead ended up in Suva for a week with boils! Yuck! I do not wish boils on my worst enemy, they are truly awful. John and I both got them on our faces. I had three small ones (praise Jisu they will not leave scars!) and John had one huge one on his lip. John's was far worse than any of mine and much more painful. He had to take antibiotics via IV it was so bad. There is no way of knowing how we got the infections. The bacteria that causes boils is always living on our skin and in our bodies. There are many triggers that bring about boils, not the least of which is weather and overall humidity of the tropics. It is my opinion that lack of sleep,"moderate" drinking, and being around 26 other volunteers all played a part in the formation of our boils. We are not dirty people (I feel like I have to say that for my own dignity). That is enough about boils.

We hope to return to the village by Tuesday at the latest. John is looking forward to continuing his work on the village MPA (Marine Protected Area) and I am looking forward to a new round of beekeeper trainings and getting back to my business class at the vocational school.

The New Boat!!!

Those of you who have been following this blog for awhile may remember that in my old village I had a small outrigger canoe built out of corrugated roofing iron. The name of that boat was the Saga and it was truly a piece of crap. Don't get me wrong; I loved that boat, but struggling to paddle it only short distances only made me really want to build a truly seaworthy boat. Luckily for me, Leslie and I are good friends with an expat named John Caldeira who builds beautiful wooden kayaks. His friend Gary Dierking, who is visiting Fiji for a few months, happens to be an expert at building outrigger canoes and has even written a book on it. The two of them agreed to help me build the boat pictured above. It is 16ft long, has an outrigger made out of bamboo, and is made out of only three sheets of marine grade plywood. It's name is the Dadakulaci. There is an earlier post on this blog explaining the significance of this name. I have already been on several large trips with it, having crossed the bay even in strong winds. This boat has completely changed my experience here. It really is nice to be able to go out to sea any time I want. I think Leslie has posted some more pictures on Facebook. I'll try to post some pictures of the Australia trip.

Australia

Leslie and I just returned from a two-week trip to Australia. We flew in and out of Sydey and spent all of our time in New South Wales. Unfortunately I am using such a crappy internet connection that I won't be able to upload any pictures today. Leslie has a bunch of photos posted on her facebook page.
Since Australia is a very expensive place to travel we decided to try something called "couchsurfing" so save money. Couchsurfing.org is a nonprofit organization that basically functions as a social networking site for people looking for a place to stay while traveling. You sign up, establish a profile, and then browse for people offering up their couches in the places you want to travel to. We used this website to find Chase and Natasha Johnson, a really nice couple in Sydney. We stayed at their place the first 3 nights of our vacation and then the last two nights of our vacation. Chase took us for a walk around the beaches of Sydney.
Being in the first world was quite a shock after being in Fiji for so long. The one thing we noticed was how different the fashion was. In Sydney there were literally hordes of beautiful people wearing the trendiest and most expensive clothing. Leslie and I felt like a couple of unsophisticated grungy backpackers (which is exactly what we are).
In Sydney, we did the walk from Cudgee beach to Bondi, took the ferry to Manley Beach, and took some pictures of the Opera House. Other than that, we didn't do too many touristy things in Sydney- just walked around and stared at things.
After a few days in Sydney we headed north to the Ku-ring Gai Chase national park. This park is just north of Sydney, but getting there using public transport takes half a day. We only spent one night here, at the Pittwater YHA. This was, by far, my favorite place on the trip. My only regret is not staying here longer. At the YHA we saw several wallabies and a few kookaburras. We borrowed the hostel's kayaks for an afternoon and ended up kayaking with dolphins! At one point we were within five feet of them.
After Ku-ring Gai Chase we headed north to Newcastle. Newcastle itself was not too impressive, but we intended to use it as a jumping off point to visit the Hunter Valley. We again couch surfed in Newcastle with Ellie Hammond and her roommates. We again had a great experience couchsurfing. Her roommates were a lot of fun and we enjoyed the bohemian vibe of the place.
Next we went to Cessnock where we did a tour of the Hunter Valley wineries. Not much to talk about here other than we got to taste a lot of good wine and developed a nice midday buzz.
After Cessnock we took the overnight train up to Byron Bay. The train ride, like all overnight train rides, sucked. We managed to get a bit of sleep but we still had to take a nap once we arrived in Byron Bay.
Byron Bay is a major tourist town. The weather happened to be great while we were there and we arrived on a Saturday so the town was absolutely packed. After taking our nap we went for a long walk on Belongil beach, avoiding the naked old people sprawled our like elephant seals on the beach. It was a beautiful place with a lot to do.
After going on a short day trip to Nimbin we headed to Murwillambah to climb Mt. Warning. Mt. Warning is a popular climb in northern New South Wales. Due to its height and proximity to the ocean, it is the first place in Australia to see the sunrise each day. Because of this, some people get up at 3am to climb it in time for the sunrise. There was no way in hell we were doing this. We climbed it a 10am like normal people. It was a pretty nice climb- not too extreme but very pretty. See Leslie's blog for pictures.
On our way back to Sydney we stopped in Bellingen, another picturesque town. We did another hike here in nearby Dorrigo National Park. Bellingen isn't famous for much, but the owner of the youth hostel told us that the movie "Danny Deckchair" was filmed here. Also, the musician that the movie "Shine" is based on lives here.
Not much else to report. We are back in Fiji now. Our village has started building the new pipeline, and Leslie's PCPP funding request has been approved and posted online. If anyone wants to help her (and the people of Ra) out you can visit https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=411-142 and make a donation.

Busy as a bee

It is August! That means so many things for John and me: 1.) We have been at our site for a full year, 2.) I have completed phase 2 of my Beekeeping Development Project focused on Small Business training for beekeepers, 3.) my water projects in the Indo-Fijian settlements are finished 4.) John and I have received funding for a water project in our village (funded by Rotary Pacific Water for Life) and construction of the new pipeline begins this month, 5.) and finally, we are taking our first real vacation.....we are going to AUSTRALIA!!!



I am excited to have finished my business trainings. This was a first for me; I had never before taught adults. The trainings were organized by the Business Incubation Center in Rakiraki town. I facilitated the training with John Caldeira, a friend and retired Peace Corps Volunteer who lives here in Fiji. My role in the training was to teach the "Managing Your Money" portion of the training. This section of training focused on personal finance, goal setting, prioritising, and saving. Day two of the business training focused on Business Finance. John taught the majority of this training section. John and I planned the training to be as interactive as possible. Participants completed income and expense worksheets, wrote up a personal savings plan, put together a financial plan for a business and participated in a few small games. In total the training reached six communities (5 villages and 1 settlement) in six different tikinas (districts) and over 120 participants. I like to think that the participants enjoyed the training and learned something useful.



The water project in our village was a surprise. We did not think that it would ever happen due to lack of funding. The issue in the village is that many faucets are broken and constantly leak causing low pressure for the village. In addition, the pipe bringing water to our village is shared by three other villages, one of which operates a fish pond. As a result, very few houses in the village are allowed to have taps, while the ones that do have inadequate pressure. There are no shower heads in the village and no sinks. All taps are low to the the ground so dish washing, clothes washing and showering is done using a series of buckets while in the squat position. The village planned a soli (fundraiser) for new piping, only serving our village, and to fix the broken taps. As we guessed, the soli had a low turn-out and did not raise the required funds. John and I were very disappointed by this but not surprised. The only fundraisers that raise significant funds in the village are for the Methodist Church. Well, the day after the soli I attended the grand opening of my water project in the Volivoli settlement. After the ceremony, trying my luck, I asked the director of Rotary Pacific Water for Life if she could help us, telling here that we are about 6K short of our goal. To my delight and surprise, she answered that she would be happy fund the remainder of the project. Construction is set to begin in the next few weeks and should be complete upon our return from Australia.



These last few months have been busy with visitors and projects. Now, it is time for a break, Australia here we come!!!

Leonards visit

Just about a month after Leslie's parents returned to America, my parents along with Kelly, my sister, arrived in Fiji. They stayed at Volivoli Beach Resort most of the time and did some diving. Kelly actually completed her scuba certification here, so she got to go on her first dives in Fiji. The weather literally couldn't have been better the whole time they were here. The wind which had been blowing nonstop for the past few months let up a bit while they were here. We went on some great dives. On one of the dives we managed to see six sharks!
We left the Ra area for a few days to see a few other parts of Fiji. My parents, Leslie, Kelly and I all piled into the Rav-4 rental and headed down to the Suva area for a few days. We spent the first night at Raintree Lodge and went for a long hike in Colo i' Suva park the next day. I had been to Colo i' Suva park before but had not managed to find the pool with the famous ropeswing. This time we did manage to find that pool and spend some time swing off the rope into the water. At around noontime we headed to Suva for lunch, had some fish and chips, and then headed toward Pacific Harbour to do the zip line. The zip line was a lot of fun. The guys running it were really friendly to us and let us go down all the lines twice. My parents got some great pictures from it that I will have to post at some point. Both Leslie and I were sad when they left. Hopefully my brothers and her brother can save up some money and come here at some point!

Random Stories

Man, we are really bad about posting. I'm in the Peace Corps Office right now so I guess I can make this a long post. A few funny things have happened this past month. None of them really have anything to do with each other, hence the title "Random Stories".

1) Vinaka Dadakulaci

So I finally went fishing at our new village. I went out all night with two other guys: Gavota and Jeremia. We motored just a couple of kilometers or so offshore, into Viti Levu bay, and dropped anchor. The last time I had been night fishing we had gone out much farther offshore. We started off fishing for salala or striped mackrel, a fairly common fish that isn't worth very much in the market but makes good bait. Once we had a few of these guys we baited the bigger hooks and waited for the big guys to bite. While I was still struggling to set my hook on time and getting my bait stolen constantly, Gavota had hauled in two massive Walu or spanish mackrel. These are some of the most sought after fish in Fiji. They have lots of meat and taste great. He had to bear hug one of them to prevent it from flopping around the boat and biting us, and jammed a knife into its brain. By about 10pm that night I had caught a good number of salala, saqa (trevally), silasila (barracuda), and qitawa (cresent banded grunter). At this point I would have been happy to head back to shore, shower off and get a good night's sleep. This is, of course, not how things are done in Fiji. Night fishing means all night. We didn't return to shore until about 7am the next day. By about 2am I was really struggling to stay awake. As my bait fell to the water I would start to doze off, only to be awakened by a fish tugging at my line. The burst of adrenelin caused by having a fish on my line would wake me up and I would pull it into the boat and repeat the process. After a while I started to realize how truly disgusting fishing can be. When you see pictures of guys on boats holding massive fish it certainly looks appealing. But the one thing you miss out on with the pictures is the smell. Fishing boats reek. By this time of night the boat was drenched in fish blood. Luckily it was a cool night otherwise the stench would have been horrendous. Towards 3 or 4am the fishing started to slow. At this time we noticed a black banded sea snake swimming towards the boat. These snakes are one of the few things Fijians do not eat. In fact, they respect them and have all sorts of superstitions about them. " Oh this is a good sign." said Jeremia "Seeing a dadakulaci like this means we'll catch lots of fish." From that point on, both Gavota and Jeremia were offering prayers to the snake to deliver us lots of fish. Sure enough, we started catching some saqa. With each fish caught, Jeremia would proclaim, " Vinaka, Dadakulaci! Vinaka na ika!" (Thank you black banded sea snake! Thank you for the fish!) Eventually the catch slowed again, but Jeremia still persisted in pleading with the snake to send us more fish: " Kerekere, Dadakulaci. Dua na Walu!" At some point Gavota let out a righteous fart to which Jeremia responded " Vinaka Dadakulaci! Vinaka na cagi!" (Thank you black banded sea snake! Thank you for the wind!)
Fijians love inside jokes, so every time Jeremia sees me he shouts, " Hey, bula Dadakulaci!" It never gets old.

2) Goosebumps

Leslie and I are doing some work with a nearby primary school. The school has a library which is in total disarray, so we volunteer once a week to help organize it. We are trying to create a system so that kids can actually check out books and take them home. I was at the school one particular wednesday, with a couple of Fijian kids helping me organize books. One of the kids, a boy also named Choney (my yaca), was alphabetizing books and came up to me with a look of terror in his eyes. He showed me the inside cover of a Goosebumps book. Inside was a warning that said "Warning: Do not under any circumstances read this book from front to back. Doing so will produce extreme terror..." or something like that. This warning, of course, is a joke merely meant to entice kids to read the entire book by giving them the idea that they are doing something dangerous or illicit. To Fijian kids, who have the utmost respect for authority, the warning label is truly terrifying. I explained the joke to the kid, but he still seemed eager to get the cursed book out of his hands as soon as possible.

3) A Ghost Story

An old man died in our village last week. We had the funeral on Saturday. On Monday Leslie and I were trying to sleep but the freaking dogs would not shut up. They were howling away like crazy that night. The best thing anyone could do for Fiji is to exterminate all the dogs. They are a horrible nuisance. Any visitor to Fiji who stays in a village or settlement will not get a minute's sleep because of these repulsive creatures. So anyway, I couldn't sleep so I grabbed my machete and headed outside to chase them away. I wasn't really planning on killing them, I just wanted to throw my machete at them. That scares them more than throwing rocks. Since it was the middle of the night I didn't feel any need to put on pants. I managed to scare away a few of them, running around in my underwear, throwing my machete at them. I noticed a few flashlights moving around. Some other people were also chasing away the dogs. When they approached me I recognized them as some of the village youth. They asked me what I was doing. I said I was trying to scare away the dogs because they were making so much noise. Marika, one of the guys whispered to me, " The dogs are barking so much because of the death last week." I remembered then that Fijians have all sorts of superstitions about ghosts and figured out that the villagers were probably attributing the dog's behavior to the presence of ghosts. " Have you been to the burial site?" he asked me. " Yeah, I was there during the funeral." " The youth are standing watch there right now." he said, " Come, we go now." Really, I thought, do we really have to go right now? Can't I put on some pants first? Something about his tone told me it would be best not to argue and to just go with him. When we got to the burial site I saw virtually every male youth from the village solemly sitting next to the grave, with a bonfire going. There was a bowl of kava on the mat beside them but nobody was drinking it. When they saw me several of them stood up and folded their arms. I glanced down at myself. There I was in my boxers with a machete in my hands. I felt ridiculous. Marika explained that I was out that night because I was trying to scare the dogs away. The guys seemed satisfied with this explanation and sat back down. On the way back Marika explained to me that when a person in a village dies the young men of that village will keep watch over the grave for five nights to make sure that no evil spirits steal the person's soul. Marika's concern, evidently, was that the ghosts would either harm me or that I would be mistaken for a ghost- running around in my underpants waving a machete around. As I went back into our house where Leslie was sleeping Marika told me, " If the dogs bark again, don't leave your house. Wait until tomorrow morning when they are sleeping and then kill them."

Leslie's Parents

Leslie's parents recently came to Fiji for a two week vacation. They spent most of their time here at Volivoli Beach Resort, with a short, 4-day trip to Taveuni. It rained non-stop in Taveuni, but it was cool to see Niko, a volunteer working in an undisclosed location on the island. We really enjoyed having them here, as it gave us an escuse to spend practically every day at the beach. Leslie's dad did a couple of dives. Unfortunately he didn't see any sharks. Interestingly enough, while he was diving, I was snorkeling above him and I saw a shark! I guess they'll have to come back to Fiji now.
Not a whole lot else has been going on lately. Our work in the village has been blocked by the 1 week (3 weeks Fiji time) Methodist extravaganza going on in our village. Now that eternal salvation has been secured for every man, woman and child in the village I am hoping that we can focus a bit on more earthly matters, like sending kids to school, properly disposing of rubbish, making money etc.
I am really looking forward to seeing the new group of volunteers that will be coming in on Thursday. My request to help with training has sadly been rejected by the powers that be in Suva. It is really strange to think that my group of volunteers are now the "experienced" ones. Ha! We still don't really have this whole thing figured out. I feel I should warn any single males in the incoming Fre 7 group that the girls in my group have been scouring the internet looking for pictures of them and licking their chops lustfully. You see, my group has a high girl to guy ratio, and after a year in the bush you can imagine how desperate they can get for some fresh meat.

(Once again, this post reflects the opinions only of John Leonard and or Leslie Currie and not the U.S. government)

Work and Play

I recently returned from a week-long trip to Suva for a Financial Literacy Training of Trainers. I was able to bring a counterpart from my village. Milika has come with me to other Peace Corps workshops but I think this by far was her favorite. Peace Corps staff and volunteer facilitators did a great job organizing and presenting the material. We practiced listing income and expenses and then moved onto setting savings goals by using a "savings calculator". After the test-run we counseled real clients from a local women's group. Thanks to the workshop Milika and I feel confident that we can help couples in our village set budgets and savings plans. We are currently working with the Chief to schedule workshops for the village.

Last week was a slow but loud week in the village due to a huge Methodist conference that was taking place. Amps were out and the talatalas were passionate. We did not get anything done .....we also got little sleep. To get away from the noise we went for a dive on Saturday morning. This was by far the best dive we have been on. We went out to the Vatu i' Ra passage. We saw six sharks and the most beautiful soft coral ever. It was wonderful! That evening we stayed with Tara and enjoyed the company of other Peace Corps volunteers.

My parents arrived on Monday, May 4th at 5 a.m. Updates on their visit coming soon.

Nananu again

Some of you may be aware that there is a bit of a political situation here in Fiji right now. I probably shouldn't say exactly what the situation is- you can read all about it online- but I just wanted to let everyone know we are fine. Everything is normal in the village and we don't feel threatened in any way.

Leslie and I celebrated Easter weekend with a trip outside our village to Nananu i Ra island, our favorite nearby getaway. This is probably the third time we've been to the island. I guess we should start trying to see some other places, but it's just such a fun and laid-back place that we keep coming back.

About 13 of us met on the island, bringing all our own food and, of course, beer. Everything on the island is expensive so bringing your own is a good idea if you're on a Peace Corps budget. We went out snorkeling and fishing with our good friends John and Judy the first day there. That night we had a good time, eating Tara's and Sylvia's excellent cooking and my excellent home brew. It's called "Dr. Choney's Elixer of Love". I'm working on patenting the recipe.

The next day we all woke up a little late and a little hung-over. It didn't take long for us to rally, and before noon the entire group of us was marching through head-level grass on a cross-island trek. Leslie and I had done a similar hike with Ahndree and Nuper during the dry season. It required quite a bit of bush wacking. This time, however, it was all bush wacking. It dumped rain on us during part of the hike, we had to all cross over a barb-wire fence, and the final hike down to the beach involved plowing through a thick tangle of trees. The real element of danger was introduced when Leslie stumbled into a wasp nest and was stung 10 times. I was stung once on the leg. We scattered into the bush when this happened and very slowly made our way around the wasp nest. We were expecting to come out at a secluded beach on the North side of the island. It turned out that in walking through the woods we had veered a little to far to the South and ended up on "mile long beach". The developed beach on the island where our hotel was located. We were literally 5 minutes from the hotel.

Pictures

Here is the inside of our house in the village. The picture was taken in the doorway. In the foreground is our living/dining room and behind the curtain is our bedroom. The floor is a layer of sand, covered by a layer of coconut branches, covered again by mats or ibes. Thanks to the Leonards for stocking our bookshelf! Thanks to the village maramas for ALL of the bula material.....it covers every bit of our walls!

This is the back of our house. John is the the garden doin some teitei. We planted tomatoes, beans, cucumber, mellon, cilantro and the basil that my parents sent.

This is a vasua or giant clam. I think they look funny.


These are Threadfin Cardinalfish.....according to Choney. I call them Precious Blue-Eyed Cutiefish! There are tons of these little guys!

John caught a Squirrelfish. It is so pretty......and delicious.....and filling! Doesn't Natalie look like a character from a Dr. Seuss book?

So much going on...

So it is official, John and I are village volunteers. We moved into a village in Ra (the name we cannot disclose to the public) on Saturday, March 14th. We live in a small tin house. It is one room with a curtain room divider that separates our "bedroom" from our "living/dinning" room. We have an outdoor area for the kitchen, toilet and shower. The water pressure is very low in our village so we take bucket showers. In order to really feel clean, I lather up the soap and let it sit for a while before I dump water on myself. It is a very different life than the one we were living in Rakiraki town. Our house is dead-center in the village and is right next to the church. Hooray, we get to hear 5 a.m. prayer every day! Our new family is really wonderful and have made us feel very welcome. The children in the village are relatively well-behaved, though exhausting. They are just so many of them! I have befriended most of the pre-teen and teenage girls and they come to the house most nights for help with homework. The packs of half-naked 4-5 year-olds are the only children that scare me.....they truly run wild and do whatever they want. As Amy (another volunteer) warned us recently, they seem to throw rocks for no apparent reason. You can just tell, as they pass by, sticky and covered in sand, that they are up to no good. The village has been wonderful at respecting our space and giving us "alone time". This is something that many of the other volunteers have struggled with. I don't know if it is because John and I are married, but our village seems to understand our need for privacy.....to some extent......there are a few exceptions.

On a different note, I am finding myself very busy with work lately. I have started teaching a business class once a week at the Penang Sangam Vocational School. I am teaching a class of 14-19 year-old Fijian and Indo-Fijian boys. I am so thankful for my experience with Young Audiences of North Texas.....thanks to the Creative Solutions program I know how to work with adolescent boys. I really enjoy teaching. I have aligned myself with the BIC (Business Incubation Center) and NECSMED (National Center for Small and Micro Enterprise Development) so that at the end of the year each of the boys will receive a recognized certificate of "Business Training Completion". This is significant because with the certificate and the business plan I will help them write, some of the boys may be eligible for a small business loan. Aside from my teaching, I am also gearing up for my water projects in Volivoli and Nanuku. They will start in April. Additionally, in June I will be teaching Financial Management skills in various villages around Ra with honey farms. This is a program that I am doing with the BIC. I have been attending technical beekeeping trainings in the villages to get to know the people. The Financial Management portion of the training will coincide with the first honey harvest of the season. The idea is to strengthen Ra beekeepers so that their honey farms can perform as successful businesses.

John is working with FLMA (Fiji Locally Managed Marie Areas) to set up a Marine Protected area around our new village. Right now the struggle has been to get everyone involved and in favor of the idea.....this is very difficult to do in Fiji! John is also working on fixing the water pressure in the village and getting ready to organize a village trash pick-up and recycling program.

That the update for now. We will post house pictures as soon as possible. We are waiting for a sunny day (it has been dumping rain lately).

Here is Taveuni....

Okay, here are our pictures from the Garden Island of Fiji. Hopefully we will have pictures from the reef monitoring workshop soon.

This is a killer reef off of the coast of Vanua Levu. I wanna get up in that!

John walking through volcanic rocks on the Costal Walk from Lavena.

Swimming to the falls outside of Lavena Village.

In the upper right-hand corner of this picture you can see me jumping off of this HUGE waterfall. It must have been at least 50 ft. high. To the left are John and Natalie.

The clouds over Viti Levu....amazing!

The Update

This is going to be short.....pressed for time. John and I are back from our trip to Taviuni Island for the Reef Monitoring workshop we participated in. We had a great time with Grace, Rachel, Natalie, Nic and the local volunteers. In total we spent four days in the water practicing various reef monitoring techniques. We spent an additional day at Nic's village checking out the village-based tourism project he working on. We jumped off of a 50 ft waterfall. In fact, I was the first FRE-6 Peace Corps volunteer to take the plunge :) I still hurt from the jump. I am pretty sure Natalie will never be the same. Expect pictures and maybe even a video soon.

The big news is that we are moving to a new site. I will not go into the details of why; it is a long story. The village we are moving to is in the same province we are in now so our address will remain the same. We are still Ra Volunteers. We expect to move by the end of the month. We are excited for the move to the new village but plan to still work with our original communities until our commitments are fulfilled. John plans to complete a compost piggery for his previous village and I will complete my two water projects in the settlements.

More recent pictures

These pictures are much more recent than the last batch. They range from mid November to December. This first picture was taken right before my birthday.

Woo hoo, I am now scuba certified! Not my best look, but hey, it was a good day. I finished my certification on this final dive. No sharks but still a ton of fun!

These two pictures are from two of the Indo-Fijian communities that I work with. I worked with the Social Welfare office in Rakiraki to organize a workshop for the International Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse. These pictures are from the workshop.

Our Thanksgiving feast. From front: dark-chocolate brownies, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes and fried fish. Ahndree and Nuper celebrated with us.

This picture is just funny. John is grating onions for our salsa (we don't have a blender) and his solution to watery eyes was to wear his scuba mask. This IS a good look for him :)

Picture Time!

Okay, first of all, sorry for taking so long to get these up. It is practically impossible to upload pictures in Rakiraki, the connection is just too slow. These pictures go all the way back to October!

This is a picture of John's friend Sikeli. During most of the year Sikeli is in the Lau group but he returned to Vitawa for the holidays! He, his wife Una and two of their sons lead us on a climb of Ulu ni' Vatu, the peak that separates Narewa and Vitawa. The hike was a lot of fun and was more like rock-scrambling than walking. In this picture Sikeli is marking our accent to the top with a nice red sulu! Vinaka Sikeli! In the distance you can see Milake Island.

This is the view of Vitawa from the top of Ulu ni' Vatu. In the distance you can see the Nakovadra range. We hope to tackle those peaks next :)

The day of Diwali Nuper, John and I went to the beach. I got super sun burned, as you can see in the picture! We spent the evening of Diwali in Nagoro, a neighborhood near Rakiraki town. My friend Sandiya invited us over for fireworks and yummy Indian treats!

To walk off all of the Fiji Gold we consumed the previous night, a group of us decided to check out Colo i' Suva Park. It was great and we would recommend that anyone passing through Suva make time for a quick hike through the park. There are multiple water-holes, waterfalls and trails to explore. There is also a rope swing somewhere.....we never found it....isa! Pictured (from the left): Amy, Nuper, Sarah, Heath, Grace and me.

This is the previous night :) Before Heath left us for the States we took him out to karaoke and dancing in Suva. I have no idea what we were singing but I can tell from this picture that it must have sounded AWESOME! Pictured (from left): Heath, Nuper, me, Sarah, and Ashley (aka Gashley)

A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall

Rain, rain go away.......no wait.....come back we still don't have water! Ahh! This was our mantra during the four days we were without water or electricity in Rakiraki. A big-fat tropical depression hit Fiji on Thursday and did not let up until Sunday. I have not seen or heard rain like that in my whole life and I am from one the the rainiest states in the US. John, Natalie (aka Nuper) and I were stuck in the house during the storm. We did not even step outside the house unless we needed to take the daily rain bath. It was raining too hard to leave cover in anything other than a bathing suit. For now the rain, wind, thunder and lightening have stopped and we are in town stocking up. Another system is expected to hit on Wednesday. Peace Corps has issued a "Stand Fast" for all volunteers in Fiji. This means, stay where you are until notified that is again safe to travel. We have heard from the locals in town that this is the worst weather in over 30 years. It seems like record breaking weather is following me around the world. In Oregon we were hit with the worst snow storm since 1938.

Christmas and New Years

First of all, sorry everyone for not posting in over a month. A lot of things have been going on lately, and it has been a while since we've made it to the internet cafe.
Leslie had to travel back to the states for Christmas because her grandmother recently passed away. She is sad, but told me she was happy to see her family and friends in Oregon. I am looking forward to her returning to Fiji tomorrow. As you can imagine I miss her a lot.
Since Leslie was in the U.S. for Christmas, I ended up traveling with Peace Corps volunteer Nuper, our adopted daughter in Fiji. We left on Dec. 24th on a ship called the Westerland, sailing overnight from Lautoka to Savusavu. Remembering the Peace Corps motto "Be Prepared" (or is that the boy scouts?), we smuggled a 5th of Bounty Rum onboard with us. The boat ride was 12 hours long, getting into Savusavu at 5am Christmas Day. We did not have anywhere to sleep on the boat, so we found a nice spot on the deck, poured the Bounty into a Gatorade bottle, and did our best to make the journey fun. We did a pretty good job having a good time until about midnight when we were just too damn tired. We made friends with some locals (not at all hard to do in this country), drank some kava, played a guy's guitar, and made a drinking game out of a video game on our cellphones called "snake". In the end, fatigue got us and we had to pass out on the deck along with everybody else. We probably got about 2 hours of sleep.
When we arrived in Savusavu we headed to the house of some other Peace Corps friends who agreed to put us up for a couple of nights. We spent two days in Savusavu, snorkeling at least 5 hours both days, and then headed to Taveuni. The nearshore snorkeling in Savusavu was impressive. I saw a lot of fish species that I only see on offshore reefs in Rakiraki. Savusavu itself is a very nice and tidy town. A lot of yachties come here and never leave.
Savusavu was nice but Taveuni was amazing. The first place we headed was a small village on the eastern side of Taveuni whose name I probably can't mention on this blog because of Peace Corps' policy. The village name literally means "forbidden water" (look it up if you have a fijian dictionary) and they have one of the oldest and best managed marine protected areas in Fiji. The difference we saw when snorkeling between the village fishing grounds and the Marine Protected Area was stark. The fish inside the protected area were enormous! We saw massive schools of harlequin sweetlips, giant sweetlips, bluefin trevally, peacock grouper etc. We also saw several sea snakes and two hawksbill sea turtles. The villagers were very welcoming and did not charge us to use the MPA since we were staying with a volunteer and therefore entered the village as guests rather than tourists.
From the village we also did the Tavoro waterfalls hike, taking time to swim in each of the three waterfalls. The water was cool and clean. I spend so much time swimming in the ocean that I was surprised at how much less bouyant my body was in fresh water. I had to tread water to stay afloat.
After three nights in the unnamed village we headed to a camp ground in the touristy northern part of Taveuni to celebrate the New Years with a bunch of other Peace Corps volunteers. We had a very wild, but safe, time. There must have been about 20 volunteers staying in the camp ground. It really was a lot of fun, and the only thing that could have made it better would be if Leslie had been there.
I am now back in Savusavu and will be heading back to Viti Levu on Sunday. Leslie will be back in Fiji at that point. Well, that pretty much sums it up. I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year.