Vanua Levu, Here I Come!

We just found out where our two-year sites are going to be, and I’m both excited and nervous. I can’t post the name of my specific village on this blog, but I can tell you that it’s on the Southeast coast of Vanua Levu, the second-largest island in Fiji, just North of Viti Levu.

The village is approximately two-hours by bus from Savusavu, a medium-sized town with a supermarket, some internet access, a post office and a bank (none of these will be available closer for me). My site is a small fishing community with approximately 131 people (25 families--all of the same clan, which should be interesting in terms of the “coconut wireless” [aka the gossip]), and my initial contact person is the village nurse (I’m very happy to hear that we have one!).

My house is the old “radio tower,” which means it’s a wooden house up on a hill right in the middle of everything. Apparently, the site almost always has running water… and it’s powered by solar, rooftop panels (I’m not sure what this means for the rainy season…). On their last visit, the Peace Corps even requested that my village build a veranda onto my house, and I will have an indoor shower and toilet! I’m also very happy to hear that my closest neighbors (literally a stone’s throw away) are the Turaga (the highly-respected village Chief), and the Turaganikoro (the Mayor-type guy and who makes and enforces all village policies). This means that I should be pretty safe--and that’s a huge relief!

The job description I’ve received with my information packet is pretty vague. But essentially it sounds like I’ll be working on three main projects:
- Sexual health and gender issue stuff with the village youth group.
- Upgrading village sanitation and establishing a “Healthy Village Setting” (which is the project I’m working on in my host family village and which I will write about in my next blog entry).
- Expanding the women’s group existing small business project (selling pies and other baked goods roadside to passing buses).

Initially, I’m slightly concerned that I’ll be two hours from the nearest amenities and it sounds likely I won’t have cell phone service in my village. Also, there are only seven people from my training class on Vanua Levu (19 are on Viti Levu) and I’m pretty far away from most of them, so the isolation piece of it is a little daunting. However, I am the closest Peace Corps Volunteer in my training class to Taveuni Island, which is the prime destination point in Fiji (!), and Savusavu is a “tourist town” with an airport (only $100 FD to fly there from Suva or Nadi according to my source) which makes it less than an hour from Viti Levu (if you travel by boat it’s usually 14 hours+).

Next weekend I will meet my initial contact person for a two-day conference and then she and I will travel to the village for a long weekend visit. I will be sure to post pictures and stories from that trip as soon as they are available.

For now, my site is basically just a piece of paper. But it already seems pretty real. This is my life for the next two years, you guys. Wish me luck!

Moce Vakalailai
Melissa