Advanced Open Water in Leleluvia

So Leslie's brother, Matt, and his girlfriend, Kristen, are in Fiji right now. They arrived May 1. We had been looking forward to their visit for a while since they are the last visitors we anticipate having before leaving the country. Matt, Kristen and I just returned from a trip to Leleluvia island for a PADI Advanced Open Water Course. Leslie was planning on coming as well but she was stricken by a horrible illness, the details of which I probably shouldn't post on this blog. So Leslie was stuck in Suva while the three of us were enjoying fantastic diving off Leleluvia. The Advanced Open Water course was, in my opinion, a bit of a joke since we really didn't learn any new skills, but the dives were a lot of fun. The best dive, by far, was a site known as "The Market". We saw at least 6 or 7 white tipped reef sharks, a grey reef shark, a hawksbill sea turtle, and a group of about 5 massive bumphead parrotfish. This was the first time I had seen bumphead parrotfish as they are highly endangered. Matt an Kristen seemed to really enjoy the dives.
I am hoping to take Matt out on the Dadakulaci (my boat) but the wind has picked up considerably in the past week so we may not be able to.
I don't know if Leslie mentioned this in her last post, but we have a definite date for Close of Service (July 14) and have already bought our tickets to Southeast Asia. The plan is to travel for about 4 months to Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Indonesia before heading back home. We are going to visit Phoenix, Portland, and Dallas when we return to the U.S. so we should be able to visit most of our friends and family.
Here are a few fish pictures I took during the dives:




Freckled Hawkfish

Regal Anglefish

White spotted Grouper

Close of service and things to come

April is quickly coming to a close. It is amazing how fast time is flying! My bro will be here in one week!!!

Early in the month I started my dance classes with the women in the village. I originally planned to run one session a week, thinking that would be what the women would want, but it turns out they want to dance every day. So, as a compromise, because I have other commitments in town, we train three days a week. The average turn out for the dance classes is about 12 women (plus way too many children). The average age of the women who participate is 35 (we have a few teenagers and a few grandmas who really skew the average). It is great to see the young women and the older, distinguished, maramas come together and have such a good time. It is hard to hear the music above all of the laughing. The men in the village thank me on a regular basis, saying that their wives and mothers are feeling better. I cannot take credit for the success of this project. The women in my village asked me to start a class because Lydia (a volunteer across the bay) had started a class in her village. She started a trend in Ra. Natalie (aka Nuper) is starting a training class in her village on Monday. Also, the two villages that neighbor ours want me to come and give classes with them. Lydia should be super proud of herself and her village for setting such a positive example!

Yoga to help stretch before dancing.

Tae Bo kicks.

John and I recently spent a week in Pacific Harbor for our COS training. The training focused on preparing volunteers for life back in the States. We fine-tuned our resumes, received our exit dates, gave organizational feedback, and talked about dealing with reverse culture shock. The conference was full of very useful information. The most exhausting session was the feedback session. Our group has been very unhappy with the office for a while now so there was a lot of feedback and requests for clarifications and policy changes. The session was handled professionally but it took two hours. When we were not in session we enjoyed the luxury of The Pearl Resort. We swam in the pool, did beach-side yoga, dressed as pirates at a bonfire and used the media room as our own private Rubrics Cube party location. It was a bittersweet week: hanging out as a group again was wonderful but saying goodbye (for good in many situations) was very difficult. I did not realise what great friends John and I would make in these two years.

Peace Corps Fiji 2008 -2010

The day after arriving back from Pacific Harbor I started the final round of beekeeping and small business sessions for my service. The trainings are two days long with a mix of technical beekeeping skills, personal finance, business finance and basic concepts in small business. The first two trainings went really well, in fact we had over 40 participants at the Namara training....our biggest group yet! The first training was in Narewa village, on the Western side of Ra. The training came at the perfect time as our beekeeping equipment, purchased with the PCPP funds, arrived from America on Monday! The potential beekeepers of Narewa village were the first to use the bee suits on Monday afternoon. The handing over ceremony for the equipment is this next Monday, April, 26th.

Me teaching personal finance in Namara village in the interior of Ra.

Finally, John and I have confirmed our schedule for our travels after we complete our Peace Corps service. We are going to spend four months in South East Asia: Hong Kong, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysian Borneo, and Bali. We plan to return to Oregon on November 12, 2010. From there we will visit John's family in Phoenix for Christmas and our Dallas friends for New Years. Mark your calendars.....the 2010 holidays are going to ROCK!

Booty Shakin' Good Time

So this post is a long time coming. There was not much to report after returning from New Zealand. Other than cyclone Thomas that spared most of Fiji and my mysterious sickness. The first half of March was pretty uneventful.

Update on the sickness: I am pretty sure my respiratory issues were caused by a food allergy. I have now been on a restricted diet for two weeks (of six total). I cannot eat wheat, dairy, meat, sugar or salt. I have been devouring beans, nuts, fruits and veggies. Thank goodness it is avocado season! The diet is not as restrictive as it sounds and the best part is that I feel much better. I have a family history of wheat allergies so I am pretty sure that wheat is the culprit.

Now onto more interesting news. At the end of March John and I traveled to Leleuvia Island off the Eastern coast of Viti Levu. Since our last trip to Leleuvia management has let things go a bit. The food was not as good as I remembered (could have been the diet) and the dorms seemed run down. The weather did not want to cooperate either, it rained every day. We still had a great time though. Four of the Suva volunteers joined us on Saturday. Mid-morning on Saturday we went for a SWEET dive and saw 12 sharks, 3 turtles, a Napoleon Wrasse, and beautiful Gargonian Fans. It was one of my favorite dives in Fiji. The dive totally made up for what the resort lacked. The snorkeling is also great just off the beach. John saw a bunch of Eagle Rays and some huge fish while snorkeling. We are planning to return to Leleuvia in May to complete our Advanced Diver Certification.

I have started a Dance/Jazzercise/Tae Bo/Yoga fusion class with the women in the village. Last night was the first class and it was a big hit. There were about 15 - 20 women and girls in attendance (even my Bubu came!). By the end of class everyone was sweaty and happy...yay for endorphins! I used my American Heart Association donated pedometers so the women could count their steps and figure out how many calories then spent (roughly). Before each class I present five foods and their nutritional content so that the women can also see how many calories they consume.

Yesterday was a busy day. In addition to dance fusion, I also went to Lautoka with my counterpart from the Business Incubation Center to pick up our beekeeping training equipment from customs. To our disappointment we were not able to pick up the equipment. Turns out there is a TON of paperwork you have to fill out in order to clear $4,000 FJD in goods from customs. Peace Corps is currently helping me process that paperwork so I don't have to pay import duties. We should receive the equipment by next week. This is perfect timing as we start the final round of beekeeping trainings on April 19th.

Finally, our village has an "official" marine tabu (MPA). It took a year-and-a-half to get to this point but it finally happened. We had a bose va koro (village meeting) on Tuesday and the tabu was voted in unanimously. John is excited to bring out FLEMA and the Ministry of Fisheries to train the village. Hopefully the UNDP grant will also come through to help with the tabu. John is crossing his fingers on that one.

Next week is our Close of Service Conference (COS) in Pacific Harbor. All of the FRE 6 volunteers will be there. I am really looking forward to seeing everyone. We are planning some fun, after session activities including the Rubrics Cube game and Pirate dress up.

New Zealand in Picutres

On the ferry to Waiheke Island.

Crazy dancing skeleton at SPLORE.

Dancing at the mainstage.

Craters of the Moon.

Cliffs near Napier.

Excited to Luge in Queenstown.

Miter Peak in Milfor Sound.

Snow and rocks.

Looking up at the mountains.

The valley crated by the Fiordland glaciers.

Kiwi Adventure

We are on our third and final week in New Zealand. Leslie and I just finished a three day hike on the famous Kepler track in Fiordland National Park. The hike started just outside of the town of Te Anau before circling Te Anau Lake and climbing high into the mountains. The weather was colder and wetter than we expected. It is, after all, the hottest month of the year in New Zealand, but we were still shivering at various points along the trail. We had planned on spending three nights in the wilderness but ended up booking it yesterday in order to make it back to the trailhead a day early. We are currently waiting out a rainstorm in Te Anau.

Before coming down to the South Island Leslie and I spent about a week and a half traveling around the North Island. We rented a car along with Lydia and Natalie, two other Peace Corps volunteers. Our first stop was Taupo, located on a massive lake right in the middle of the North Island. We ended up staying with a couple of really cool guys, Chris and Mike, who frequently host travelers through the Couchsurfing site. In Taupo we did a bit of hiking, hit some golf balls into the lake- a tourist activity, you win $10,000 if you make a hole in one, and browsed through the many outdoor stores. About one in every three shops in New Zealand is an outdoor supply store, and they are all extremely expensive.

After Taupo we headed to Napier where we did some wine tasting and a bit of hiking. It was significantly drier on that side of the island, which makes sense for a wine-growing region. After Napier we drove all day to make it back to the north part of the island where a music festival was about to start. We stopped again just outside of Taupo to hike Craters of the Moon national monument, a park full of boiling mud holes, geysers, and all sorts of geothermal activity. We spent the night in Thames on the Coromandel penninsula. The next day we arrived SPLORE, the three day music festival that was being held just outside the town of Orere. Everyone attending the event had to camp, so a massive grassy field turned into tent city in a matter of hours. It was a bit chaotic, all these tents literally inches from each other. The atmosphere was extremely relaxed and friendly, though, and we all had a good time. The music was mostly electronic- some rap and some techno. It wasn't exactly the sort of music I would choose to listen too on my own, but it was exciting to feel the energy of the crowd at the mainstage. At the end of the festival we were all pretty tired and dusty. Natalie and Lydia flew back to Fiji after the festival was over, but Leslie and I still had two weeks of travel time. We took the ferry to Waiheke island where Graeme, a friend of ours whom we randomly met in our village in Fiji, was living. We spent a couple of very chill days hanging out on the island, doing some fishing, eating some great Argentinian food courtesy of his roomates, and even skinny dipping at a nude beach! The weather was warm and dry, just what we needed before heading down to cold rainy Fiordland National Park.

We've got about another week here before returning to Fiji. I'll post some pictures when I get the chance. Leslie is currently posting some photos on Facebook.

Talking Business (and Coral)

John and I just returned from a very busy and productive week in Suva.

John participated in a free workshop on Coral Identification at the University of the South Pacific. The workshop was four days long and included two snorkeling sessions. The training was designed to test a new scientific manual focused on coral identification. John's fellow trainees were Marine Biology professionals, students, and independent researchers....so he got to meet a lot of people just like him!

I was in Suva to co-facilitate an Alternative Livelihood training for Peace Corps volunteers and their community partners. There were twenty four participants from all over Fiji. John Caldeira and I designed the training based on our experiences in Ra. We incorporated a lot of the same materials and lessons that we have used to train beekeepers in business management. The first day of the training covered brainstorming and developing business ideas into financially viable business opportunities. The second day focused on business plan development, while the third covered basic bookkeeping. Each of the participant groups left the training with a financial plan and business plan for their communities. The businesses developed in the training ranged from bread kitchens and piggeries to coffin boxes and virgin coconut oil. John C. and I had a great time facilitating the training and learned a lot about the different Peace Corps projects going on in Fiji. To unwind after the training I joined the rest of the volunteers in Suva for a night of dancing. I had a little trouble getting into to one of our favorite dance clubs because the bouncer decided to be mean to me - he wouldn't let me bring my empty water bottle in! As an apology the manager gave me a pitcher of pink-colored booze! Score! All-in-all a pretty good week :)

Tomorrow John and I leave for New Zealand for a three-week vacation. Updates and pictures to come.

Making History

So according to the Fijians in Ra, the Peace Corps Volunteers (+ one visitor) in this region made history last month by swimming across Viti Levu bay! The swim was exactly two miles. We paddled John's outrigger to a small beach on the other side of the bay where five of the volunteers met us. Once we were all assembled we swam to the other side. We swam in two groups of three. Each group had a boat spotter, the boats carried life jackets, water and sunscreen....better safe than sorry. Lydia and I made the swim in one hour and thirty minutes, with John coming in just behind us. The other three volunteers finished in two hours and forty minutes as they decided to chat for most of the swim :)

Here are a few pictures from the swim.

The Ra Group (from Left: Joe/spotter, Lisa/spotter, Victoria/spotter, Natalie/swimmer, Lydia/swimmer, Me/swimmer, Kara/swimmer, Choney/swimmer, John/spotter. The low, grassy hill across the bay was the point we swam to.

Still got the form :)

John spotting me from his kayak (note the extra life jackets strapped to his kayak).

I have started writing the Fiji Beekeeper's Handbook. I have finished the first draft of part one. I am hoping to have the book finished in a few months. John (Caldeira, not husband) and I are preparing for the Alternative Livelihood training we are leading for Peace Corps next week. We are using the same format for this training that we used in April for the beekeepers. Hopefully the Peace Corps Volunteers and their community partners will find the information useful and at least remotely interesting. It is hard to make bookkeeping fun....but John and I are sure going to try. While we are facilitating the business training John (husband) will be attending a workshop at USP (University of the South Pacific) on Coral Identification. He is attending the advanced session. He is really excited because the training includes a free dive. I am a bit jealous.

Two days after our respective trainings John and I head to New Zealand for a 20 day adventure. I can't wait to get out of this heat!