The winds a blowin'

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Wow, last night was a scary site. My bure is covered in dust, posters, all kinds of things that I threw around before leaving, and very moist. Today is going to be the longest cleaning day ever.


My house is on the left. This is the yard I got to pick up.

First thing is first, picking up hundreds of mangoes from the tree above my house. I would have staying inside my bure if it hadn’t have been for this huge mango tree hanging off the side of the cliff waiting to fall on top of my house, oh, and Peace Corps would not approve. Given that it is made out of straw, the Three Little Pigs should have copied the Fijian Bure design. Yeah, they would have been cleaning dust 5 times a day, but that little wolf of theirs would never have blown down their house. I am amazed at how well it is constructed. There were just a few branches out of place from the roof. No leaks, no shifts in the frame, just lots of wind must have circulated inside.

I spent the entire day picking up mangoes, kura, leaves, branches, and tin, raking, cutting grass, pulling weeds, plus sunning my mats, cleaning everything off like there was a fire, and washing clothes and dishes (between the spurts of water). If I did not have the kids’ help there is no way I would have ever finished my yard. Thank goodness the children are disciplined in this country and are more than willing to help cook, clean, cut grass, do laundry, etc. Wonderful Fiji!

Anyways, today was the most work I think I have ever done in one day and I am ready to rest, maybe even beg for a massage! Goodnight.

Monday, December 14, 2009



The day of Cyclone Mick.

Wooo eeee! Today was exciting! There were torrential downpours, hurricane force winds, things flying everywhere, and overall happy people!

For some reason around noon the boys of the village decided to walk to a nearby settlement to go crab fishing. What? There is a cyclone coming in a few hours! Well, they went, had a great time, and played in the ocean more than they fished. I don’t think they even caught one crab. Boys will be boys. The wind was a good 35 km/hour at this point with the rain slapping your face if you turned the wrong direction, but still enjoyable for them.


A friends' kitchen after the cyclone.

The cyclone hit around 3:30 PM and brought an amazing show. The men in the village were worried about their boats and kept going down to the coast to haul water out and re-anchor. It was definitely something to see. I left the original house I was staying at because there were about 10 kids from 5 months to 8 years old crowding me every second of the day. I wanted to pull my hair out. The next house had a great view of the bay, but was very windy inside and leaking water. Not really a safe haven in a cyclone. So, the third house was just right. You know, just like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I would be Goldilocks today. The third house offered me tea, pineapple, cassava, plantains, plus socks, a blanket, and a pillow. There were two Bubu, two Na, one Ta, and four good kids. The house felt very secure, no leaks, no wind, and even had a fireplace (well, the kitchen for making tea, but it was set up just like a fireplace without smoke)! I was able to get comfortable enough to take a nap, I read lots of The Odyssey, wrote my sister a letter, enjoyed telling stories, and played with the kids. They also had one of the doors open that faced the bay so we could see the storm rolling in. Perfect! The trees were blowing like you see on the news when a hurricane is hitting Florida. Actually being there instead of watching the screen is so much more fun! Again, thank goodness my village is on the side of a hill, I feel for the other volunteer near me who is one foot above the high tide mark. I want to know how she faired, along with all of her belongings.

Cyclone Mika did not do lasting damage to the village. My bure on the other hand is a disaster waiting to be discovered. I know with all of this wind as soon as I walk inside I will want to begin cleaning. Ugh, I do not want to see it.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Oh Sigatabu… Sunday in Fijian means the day where everything is forbidden. When I say everything, I pretty much mean it. Absolutely no fun: no games, no laughing loudly, no skipping church, no walking around, no playing in the water, well, nothing… Absolutely no work: no laundry, no cleaning, no cutting grass, no pulling weeds, no planting cassava, no picking flowers (ok, an exaggeration, they pick flowers to put in their ears for church, but soon it might be banned as well). Most Sundays, they even cook the day before so that there is no cooking on Sunday. So, what is there to do on Sundays in a village in Fiji? Break all that’s forbidden! Well, I have stopped going to church, I go on walks, and the other day, my Bubu next door reminding me that it was Sunday and that I was not allowed to pull weeds. Oops! I can’t just sleep all day like they expect me to do. Crazy! Anyways, I wasted away the entire morning talking to the Turaga Ni Koro in my house. We had hot chocolate and peanut m&ms for breakfast, I cooked him some amazing vegetable stir fry for lunch, plus we shared lots of heart to hearts. I think at some point today I ended up falling asleep for an hour. The good part is “the phone call”.

While I was I cooking dinner I was alerted that Peace Corps was trying to get in touch with me. Apparently they had already called four or five phone numbers in the village. I rushed down to where the last phone call was. I rang them back and received a frantic voice on the other end. She was surprised that I had not heard about the cyclone that was headed our way. She said we were on steadfast and needed to be inside our designated, safe location, with fresh water, food rations, and important personal information. Just a side note, this call was given 24 hours before the cyclone was to hit. What was I going to do at someone else’s house for over 24 hours? Well, play lots of games, read, sleep, and eat.

Back at my house, I packed a bag, and headed over to my Nana’s house. The weather looked quite normal, and honestly was all through the night.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Lots and lots of rain. My garden is in a two inch flood zone apparently, so my seeds will probably float to the top before long. I slept in until about 8 AM, which a month ago would have been 7 AM so I don’t feel the least bit guilty. This time change thing is ridiculous for a country that only fluctuates from 12 to 13 hour days.



Today was a blast. On a whim, a friend and I took off to one of the settlements nearby for a visit. It of course was pouring down rain the entire time. We walked through the woods, the mangroves, the white-sand beaches, and of course waded through waist deep sea water. Upon arrival at the settlement nobody came outside. So we called our “Mai Na Vaka Yadua”. Still no answer. Oops, we ended up waking up my Bubu. He told us to check out the boys’ house and see if they were home. Only one of the boys, and we happen to wake him up too. We let them both go back to sleep and headed off to the most beautiful beach around. Through mangroves, the woods, and white sand beaches again, we arrived to find two women fishing, a man snorkeling, and several youth hanging out waiting on a boat. Now, this is quite an odd site, because the beach is at least 3 miles away from the village. Lucky for us we were able to catch a boat back around 3 PM (I was complaining of starvation at this point).
Back at the village I was able to cook and eat until my stomach was content. Later in the afternoon I went up to my namesake’s house and hung out the rest of the evening talking about the virgin coconut oil business plan and joking around. Good day!

Friday, December 11, 2009

I woke up at 5:55 AM today, wondering what time it was. At 6 AM there was a light tapping at my door. My Bubu Vesi had brought me a papaya and 8 bananas. How sweet and caring of him! This is what Fiji is made of! I immediately got to work on my garden. The friend that I stayed with Tuesday night gave me some basil, so I was excited to plant it! I got out my machete and baby shovel and began digging up dirt off of my hill and replacing it in front of my bure. Soon I had four kids helping me. They went and got their father’s machetes and were cutting the grass on the hill and beside my house. It was all done in about an hour. Of course I rewarded them for their help with chocolate and then began planting other seeds. I planted the basil, some butter beans, long beans, carrots, and cucumbers. We will see if any of them make it.

As I was taking my grass clippings to the designated dump site, my Bubu Paula called me over. He gave me 10 plantains, all ripe! Oh my goodness, I am a weakling when it comes to ripe plantains. They taste like big, sweet and sour bananas. They can be cooked all sorts of ways, or eaten raw.

For lunch I made the fresh vegetable wraps, but this time I cooked the veggies on the stove with soy sauce, my favorite dish in Birmingham, AL. Oh my goodness, it was heavenly. I want people back home to try cooking some zucchini, squash, onions, and tomatoes in soy sauce, like sauté, and then place them in a tortilla. Wow! I shared with the Turaga Ni Koro and he loved it! After lunch I promised Bubu Paula that I would make him something with his plantains. I made chocolate bananas foster, with Bounty Rum and all. It was amazing if I must say so myself. I think I like it better without the rum, but it was the idea of true bananas foster (Is bananas foster even made with rum, or something else?).

Next it was shower time, read book time, and make spinach noodle and tomato mac n’ cheese (with parmesan cheese). Pretty dank.

Tonight it was raining. I think the rainy season is here, so not many people were out and about. I stayed at home reading The Odyssey and fell asleep early.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Upon arrival at our docking village there was a newly built house! The provincial office in Rakiraki gave it to us as a waiting house for buses, but honestly our village and the surrounding villages wanted it as a waiting house for the boats. We have a new Boat House! I should name it. I am definitely going to decorate it with Alcohol Effects, Tobacco Effects, Marijuana Effects, Food Fish of Fiji, and HIV/AIDS posters. It will be a stylin’, educational waiting house! Very exciting!

I got a letter from my friend in Peru today. She has been having a rough time with Peace Corps. I am totally bummed that she has had to experience a few awful events. Hopefully she is recovering and turning to friends and family for support. I admire her courage and persistence. I think I would have already quit. She also sent me this beautiful cloth coin purse full of Peruvian chocolates! The cloth is used in the southern parts of Peru as a baby hammock and in their clothing. Thank you!

Today was a relaxing day in town. I talked to Mom on Skype, ate lunch with the volunteers, shopped a little, and bought veggies. The exciting part came while we were on the carrier back to the boat house. John C. had asked me to stop at his road to pick up a counter for my kitchen and a book shelf for the kindergarten. We stopped the carrier and I jumped out to help. The bookshelf is beautiful and the countertop is perfect! He is such an amazing handy man (along with all sorts of other talents!)! The bookshelf ended up in my house until the kindergarten starts again because it fit so perfectly under a shelf next to my bed. I always have junk on the floor so I threw it all on the shelves! I may have to beg him to help me make another one. I feel so bad, but his talents must be utilized! Hehe. Thank you so much John for your generous gifts! The kindergarten teacher might not know about it until the start of the next school year, so there will be a thank you note from her next year.

We finally reached the boat house, but the waves were pretty wild today. We waited until 5 PM to set sail, reaching my village without any trouble!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

What a gorgeous day! Her house is covered in mosquitoes unlike mine, but we burned a sandalwood mosquito coil all night and day. When we woke up we ate yogurt with plantains then we headed to the provincial office. Wow, Alfred, the man I spoke to, has so much hope and support for us! He said that there was a Fijian man that came to the office the week before for a training and that him and his wife had quit their jobs (in Suva and at Fiji Water) to make Virgin Coconut Oil in their village in Vanua Levu (the other big island of Fiji)! He was telling Alafareti (Alfred) that my district (plus Lydia’s) should be producing VCO and that he was more than willing to come help us get started. He and his wife in Vanua Levu are selling their oil at $80/Liter to Thailand. Honestly, this price sounds outrageous and impossible, so hopefully soon I will be able to speak to the man directly. Plus Alfred said that he would write us a letter supporting our project. Score!

We left the Provincial Office and headed to a nearby village to buy eggs. They didn’t have any. Then we headed to the Ministry of Agriculture. They weren’t present. So we headed back home and I started to write the business plan for our village. It turned into an eight page, full-blown professional business plan with a few details from the budget missing. When I get back to my village later today I will ask Sio about the budget so that it will be finalized when I go to town next week! This project took me most of the day.

For lunch we had fresh vegetable wraps and chocolate bananas for dessert. Dinner was a chaana/Indian meal with garlic bread. I have never been a fan of Indian food, but the North Indian dishes really grow on me. This particular one was delicious, so I included the recipe below:
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Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Today I got two more Christmas gifts in the mail, and I am done shopping for Christmas! Sorry if you did not get a gift, money is tight, and there is not really anything worth buying in these stores. Mostly the things Australia didn’t want. I ended up doing all of my shopping at a place called Jack’s of Fiji which is the most popular tourist shop. I will start working on getting real Fijian handicrafts for birthdays. I got to eat my amazing hamburger at Hook and Chook today! I also went to see NEW MOON! I loved it. People gave me mixed reviews, so I was nervous to go, but because I had read the books I was determined to see all of the movies! It followed the book almost exactly. The characters were similar to what I had imagined, but the Cullens’ house in Forks was not what the book described, or at least what I expected. The acting wasn’t right on, but good story overall. It’s a good thing Jacob got cuter towards the end. His looks in the beginning were disappointing!

I got a helmet from the Peace Corps office! So, it turns out I am supposed to wear a helmet on a horse. I do not remember this rule from training, but apparently it says so in the Policies and Procedures Handbook. So I signed out a helmet for riding the horses in the village. I also got 35 toothbrushes from the office for teaching a Colgate seminar on tooth care! The people of my village know to brush their teeth, but they do not know how often, how to stroke the teeth, or to floss. So I feel like a seminar will be short and sweet and teach the kids the proper way as well!

Since my boat is not leaving until tomorrow I thought I would stay in Suva the entire time. When I talked to IHRDP and they told me to speak to my local Provincial Office I decided to head back towards my village so that I could pop my head in and speak to the Provincial Administrator. I caught a bus at 5:15 PM and arrived at a friends’ house at 8:30 PM. We stayed up about 2 hours talking! It was so good to catch up with her!

Monday, December 7, 2009

The original plan was that I was going to be going back to the village yesterday or today. Well, never plan on things to go the way they are supposed to here in Fiji. I am relying on some friends from the village, who are staying in Nausori, for a boat back to my village. So, they decided to stay through Wednesday, so I stay through Wednesday. No problem.

Today I headed to IHRDP at 10 AM for a meeting with the Virgin Coconut Oil executives (lol, a Peace Corps volunteer and his boss). My namesake came too with a sample of our oil from our village. IHRDP was very impressed that we had already begun to produce it without any training. I explained to them that we are very determined and that a lot of research has been done to start our business. They said that they work with the village for 2 years, do all of the training, business management, buy machinery, bottles, find the market, make labels, etc. What an incredible job they are doing to help Fijians get a business going. I admire their job. We are on their list for possible projects, so now what we need to do is go to our local provincial office, and then write a letter to the commissioner. As soon as I left their building I headed to the Peace Corps office to write the letter, print, and make plans to bring it to the Provincial Office.

At the Peace Corps office I made fliers for different workshops, including: HIV/AIDS, Noncommunicable Diseases, Waste Management, Money Management, Business Management, Smoking/Alcohol, and Virgin Coconut Oil Training. I feel like if they have a piece of paper in front of them with the time, date, and meeting place they are more likely to remember and show up. We will see how that goes. Also at the office I printed off my Virgin Coconut Oil Diagram and Instructions so that there would be a copy for most of the women and coconut plantation owners in the village. Everyone is so interested in the possibility!

Well, I couldn’t resist, I went to another movie! Armored. Not so good, but I was in a familiar place with a coffee dipped cone in hand. It was somewhat of an action movie, but at the same time you could predict what was going to happen, too many people die, and it is a typical movie where the characters had so many other options, but they take the stupid route. Like having a police car 10 yards away, but for some reason you never utilize it to escape. De De Dee. Oh well, Hollywood directors are running out of topics I guess. I am pretty excited about Avatar and Sherlock Holmes! I think Avatar will even be in 3D!

After the movie a few PCVs and I got things to make pineapple pizza and spaghetti. So, I bought my supplies and headed back to the house.

Sunday, December 6, 2009


Boats in the harbor.

Not a lot to do on a Sunday in the city. Slept in, played on the internet, made a Skype date with Mom at 4 PM, and headed to town at 2:30 PM. Lisa and I found the coolest food court known to man! Ok, the coolest known to man in Fiji. There are about 10 kiosks/restaurants, but each one serves something from a different part of the world. There was Meditteranean, Chinese, South Indian, North Indian (Maya Dhaba – YUM), Fijian, what they call American, Japanese, and an upscale bakery. The food looked fresh and different. I will have to go back and try a few dishes. At 4 PM I talked to Mom for about 30 minutes and then Charter cut her off so I left to walk around Suva until Lisa was done with the internet. It was such a relaxing feeling to walk around the city without hundreds of people pushing through you. There were no thoughts of anyone picket-pocketing me, I wasn’t running over little kids, and the shoe shiners weren’t stopping me every 5 steps (when I am wearing flip-flops). Very pleasant. Lisa and I had a dinner date, supposed to be at Hook and Chook, they were closed, so we ended up at Pizza Hut. Of course an American owned restaurant is open on Sunday. The chicken supreme is supreme! The Pizza Huts here are so much better than the US, but maybe that is because my expectations have been lowered.

On our way home we decided to pass our turn and check out a new restaurant down the road from our friends’ houses. It was a beautiful place on the water, with the first salt water aquarium I have seen in Fiji! Plus the bar owner supplied us with free beer for the rest of the night (we only had two each). He said they would be playing new release movies on the big flat screen as well as Utube videos. What a fantastic idea! I have never been to a bar with Utube videos! Plus there will be game nights and karyoke. Neat new place! He says that when people throw trash over the back deck he will give them a warning, the second time they throw trash they will be kicked out of the restaurant/bar. I hope he holds true to that! Trying to teach one person at a time that they need to change their ways is difficult. If you grew up throwing trash on the ground and thinking it was ok, you would do it the rest of your life too. It is hard to change someone’s habits since birth.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Most of the volunteers in Suva headed to the trash pick-up/tree planting event. It was pouring down rain, I didn’t sign up to help with any of it, and I figured playing on the internet would be more productive.

At 11 AM Catherine asked me if I wanted to go with her and her friend to Pure Fiji to shop at their outlet! Of course! I was planning on going there on Monday for a tour, but maybe just talking to them in person would answer my questions. Her friend came and picked us up and we went shopping! Wow, Pure Fiji really has a monopoly. They have so many more products than I see on the shelves of stores. Their factory is immaculate, their sales team is right on key, and their owners have been in the business for 12 years. So they pretty much control the virgin coconut oil products of Fiji. I asked the manager if they needed any more oil and where do they get theirs. He said they buy 4 tons from Taveuni each month, plus 2 tons of Class B oil from Lautoka each month. I asked further about the cost of transportation from Taveuni and if it is a village or factory. Low and behold it is cheap, but coming from a factory. I am disturbed by this fact because most likely that factory is owned by an American, Australian, or New Zealander. Hardly any of the profits are being kept in Fijian hands. I think my village will have to see how much they can produce and to what quality, then head over to Pure Fiji and make an offer.

Later today I went to see 2012 at one of the only two movie theaters in Fiji! It felt like home. The Village 6 is kept in new condition with a Bose sign next to the entrance (I highly doubt they put Bose in the theater, but it’s the thought that counts). A movie costs 5.50 F$ which is like $2.75 USD, cheap! Plus they sell ice cream cones (this weekend it was coffee flavored) dipped in chocolate, like Dairy Queen! I do not know of anywhere else in Fiji that has dipped cones! A special treat! The movie itself, not so great, a new spin on Armageddon.