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).