Wawa Mada

One of the things John and I have mastered in this country is the art of waiting. We are smart to wait for all sorts of things: buses, the water to come back on, the electricity to come back on, the tide to rise, mail, meetings to start, meetings to be rescheduled, night to fall, etc. Currently we are waiting for life to start moving again. Everything stops during the Christmas/New Year's season, meaning that life in Fiji is even slower than usual. No meetings are taking place, many offices are still closed and school is still out.

Villagers spend this time visiting with family and friends. Kids are sent to visit grandparents and other relatives. There are always new faces in the village now. As these faces are new to John and me, so too are our faces new to the visitors. As a result, almost every day there is a pack of children in front of our house staring in at us. Usually one of the kids from our village is their escort. I imagine that the kids from our village are saying to their cousins, "Hey, come check-out our white people!" I thought we were passed this! 

There are many other behavior changes that I have observed in the village during this holiday season (side note: we did not live in the village at this time last year). 1. Villagers are allowed to make noise, a lot of it! Every night since Christmas the youth have been shooting bamboo guns (same concept as the potato gun, except the point is just to make a loud noise). I was telling one of them about how in America we have the potato gun. He was shocked that we would shoot a potato out of pvc pipe instead of eat it....."Americans are wasteful" was my response. 2. Young people in the village openly drink alcohol and roam around the village drunk. They drink methylated spirits, i.e. rubbing alcohol (for the poor youth this is the preferred alcoholic beverage). John has explained the health risks of drinking rubbing alcohol. The argument he gets back is...."yes, yes, but Jone it is the holiday and we are young". 3. The village is one big water fight! Maramas, turagas, gones, and youth alike wield make-shift water guns (usually just pots filled with water) and are allowed to soak anyone in their path!  

I have enjoyed being in the village for all of this, it is very different from our experience last year. However, I am ready for life to go back to normal. John and I only have six months left in Fiji and we still have so many things we (and the village) would like to accomplish.

While this may seem contradictory to what I just mentioned in terms of getting stuff accomplished in the village, John and I just bought tickets to New Zealand!!! We will be there from Feb 15 - Mar 6. It turns out three other PCV's will be there for part of that time as well. We are all going to meet up at SPLORE, an outdoor arts and music festival near Auckland. In addition to SPLORE, John and I have made reservations for a three-day 60 km hike in the South island.