The Holiday Season in Fiji

I know it's been a million years since my last post. My only excuse is that I'm in village land; not posting on the blog is only one of the many things neglected when I don't leave the village.

I promise to post commentary soon on how everything's going over here. In the meantime (and while I have a decent internet connection at the Peace Corps office in Suva), here are some highlights from my first Fijian Holiday Season.

Enjoy!


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I just thought I'd warm you all up with some pictures of what Summer looks like over here in Fiji...

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HOLIDAY VISITORS



Risa and Jaron, in their traditional Fijian outfits, prepare to try their first bilo of yaqona (kava/grog).

Jaron and I in our Kala Vata (matching "bula" print clothes) getting ready to leave for the Kindergarten graduation party. In the background (to the left of me) is my cute little house.

Among the fun activities Risa, Jaron and I did were fishing and snorkeling on the village reef with my best friend Mareani and her husband Apimeleki (aka "Papa").

Stuffing my face (in a very ladylike manner) with yogurt covered raisens brought by Risa and Jaron.

Although I've always wanted dreadlocks and was convinced they would be easier to manage than the afro I'd been sporting in Fiji, it turns out that they are VERY hot. It's like having a wool blanket on your head on the time. Thank goodness that when I finally came to this realization, it wasn't too late. Now, I sport braids instead (see below).

After leaving the village, "Risa and Jay" (as the village called them), took me to Taveuni Island for a little birthday R&R. We also did some great diving.

"Fancy" dinner for our final night together.

Here you can see my father, pounding the yaqona root with some of the village men.




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MY MENORAH

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NOT ALL WORK STOPS DURING THE HOLIDAYS...

RUBBISH PICKUP/WASTE SEPARATION PROJECT

The kids and I tally up all the categories of rubbish they've collected, and the winning team (with the most rubbish separated correctly) is given two silver coins that can be traded in for prizes (provided by you all at home). Everyone else gets a single "coin" (round piece of cardboard covered in tin foil) for their participation.

WATER PROJECT

For our final (!) water usage test (measured for an hour around midnight so that we could measure leakage-only at a time when nobody would be using their water or toilets), Ilimo and I brought a bunch of the youth girls and my ipod speakers to the water tank to lighten the mood.

In December, the Rotary Club guys made one last site visit to the village water tank to meet with, Turaganikoro (Village Mayor), Ilimo, and myself and finalize the filter design.

COMPOSTING TOILETS PROJECT

not surprisingly, the compost toilets are still in the same phase of construction as they were a few months ago. I guess that's what they meant when they told us Fiji "stops" entirely for the whole holiday season...

YOUTH PROJECTS

January 2010 "Life Skills" Peace Corps Training Workshop on Viti Levu Island (the main island) with Mareani, the new assistant village nurse and my best village friend (who hadn't left our island in 10 years)

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BOXING DAY VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT

The "tabu" on playing volleyball in the village is lifted during every school holiday (right now it's Summer). Since the "tabu" on dancing in the village (a Methodist Christian taboo) is also lifted during the holiday season, my village holds an annual Volleyball Tournament on Boxing Day complete with refreshments, snacks of sugar cane, and a Fijian pie as a prize for the winning team. Also, since everyone chipped in for fuel, we moved one of the generators and a loud stereo down to the courside so we could include some dancing in the festivities...

A bunch of maramas (ladies) watch the tournament from above.

I mostly hung out with the kids and enjoyed watching the festivities. Over are the days that I try to play volleyball with the extremely athletic (and sometimes VERY competitive village boys)...

Of course, what would a Boxing Day tournament be without a litle dancing on the sidelines.

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THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL


The celebration for the last day of school gives a chance for all the kids to dress up and put on "items" which can range from little plays to songs and dances. The above lefthand picture shows a bunch of the kindergarden graduates in costume (except for their masks) to perform a rousing rendition of "16 little monkeys jumping on the bed." On the right, two of the girls from my village wear homemade salusalu necklaces over their hot pink school uniforms.

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HOLIDAY FEAST: ONE OF MANY

After a funeral, many men from the closely related family of the deceased show their respect by refraining from drinking yaqona (kava/grog) for 100 days. Naturally, when the 100 days are up, they celebrate hardily.

Since my entire village is made up of one family clan (that includes three immediately related family lines), 1/3 of our men had something big to celebrate this holiday season...

The feast shed / dance hall that was built earlier that day for the celebration.

Some of the youth girls dressed up in their jiaba sulu and in charge of faning flies away from the food. (two pigs and a cow were killed for the event)

Sinate, my 17-year-old half-ethic Fijian, half-Kioan nextdoor neighbor performed a traditional dance after dinner. It is customary to smear performers with baby powder (face and hair) and shove candies into their mouths as they perform.

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CYCLONE MICK

Although this has been the dryest "wet season" on record in Fiji in God knows how long, we did have some excitement when the summer kicked off in early November...

Luckily (for my village), Cyclone Mick changed directions at the last minute and hit only the main island of Fiji. We still experienced some pretty intense wind and rain, though. In fact, one house lost it's entire veranda to wind, and another lost it's outdoor, detached, tin cooking shed.

My village wasn't going to let a little flooding get in the way of afternoon Rugby practice, though..

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MY CAT, "S.K."

A VERY pregnant S.K.

4 tiny kittens: the best New Years supprise ever!

Sooo, let me explain why I allowed my cat to have four kittens…

You see, the problem in Fiji, is that there is no Veterinary doctor, and no veterinary operating equipment on my entire island. Apparently when the Vanua Levu vets sent the stuff in for servicing a few years ago, it was learned that they didn’t have enough educational qualifications to be using it in the first place, so it never got sent back. Typical.

So, I had a grand plan. I would take the 12-hour, overnight ferry down to the main island with my cat (in a cage I constructed from two plastic laundry baskets tied together with string and with a cut up old mosquito net as bedding on the bottom). When we arrived at 6am in the capital city, I would take her to SPCA (Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), which is just a short walk from the wharf. They agreed to do the operation right away and have her back to me by 2pm, and we would board the boat again at 4pm (for a 6pm launch) and arrive back on my island early in the morning in time to catch the 7am bus back to the village.

Needless to say, in Fiji, it’s very difficult to make plans that count on schedules being followed and timetables running smoothly.

Anyway, there was a funeral in the village the week that I planned to leave. This delayed my departure greatly. Then, I found out that my Peace Corps Staff bosses were coming to visit me on the following Thursday. After they left, I would have to leave the next day for a week-long training on the north of my island, and two days after that Risa and Jaron would be visiting. Since I was fairly certain that my cat was already at least a week pregnant (gestation is only 63 days with cats), and since the boat only runs every two to three days, I had one option: leave Sunday night, have the operation Monday, return Monday night and arrive in the village Tuesday morning.

So, I packed up the cat, embarked on the 2.5 hour dusty and bumpy bus ride to town. Waited 6+ hours at a friend’s house (who is allergic to cats, so I had to leave mine in her cage and outside to be tormented by the neighborhood cats the whole time), and around 6pm I headed to the wharf for boarding. The boat should have departed at 8pm…

Well after waiting four hours (and making lots of friends who just love to see a Kai Valagi, white person, who can speak Fijian), we got news that the boat was going to be late (you think?!). First, we heard that boarding would happen at midnight. Now, since the “wharf” is really just a concrete platform with no lights, no seats, and certainly no cover from rain, I decided to walk back to my friend’s house and wait there. Since it wasn’t safe to walk back at midnight alone, I caught a taxi back to the wharf. Of course, the boat still wasn’t there at midnight. So, being the nice (read: creepy and sketchy) man that he was, the taxi driver offered to turn off the meter and wait with me. Although he was persistent in his requests to “just go pick up a bottle of rum and take a scenic drive” somewhere, we waited at the wharf, together with my cat, until he finally wanted to go home and sleep around 3:30am. Not knowing what to do if I didn’t get the cat spayed (because there’s only one cat in my village to date, a male, and I did NOT want to be responsible for an infestation that would lead to a similar situation to the literally 60+ starving and mange-infected dogs we have in the 112 person, 19 house community), I persisted. Instead of waiting in the dark by myself (with the cat, of course), I sought out an abandoned looking charter bus from a town on my island that had about 20 sleeping indo-fijians inside. I asked permission to wait with them, climbed inside, and tried to sleep. Of course, this was the point when my cat decided to start FREAKING OUT for no apparent reason. Literally, I’ve never heard her make such loud noises before. So, in probably one of the cruelest acts I’ve ever committed against an animal, I poured my entire water bottle into the cage and onto the cat so she would shut up and work on cleaning herself for the next few hours. Luckily it worked…

During all this waiting time I had some time to think. Lots of time. And, I had devised a back-up plan that included taking a 5am Tuesday morning boat back to the other end of my island and then traveling 10+ hours on the bus back to my village so I could still have the procedure done. Well, long story short (sort of), by 6am it was going to be impossible to make it to Suva during Monday business hours of the SPCA clinic. So, due to the boat schedules (which would surely be thrown off and running late anyways for weeks to come), I gave up and trudged back to my friend’s house for a small siesta and some coffee before heading back to the village with my cat.

3 months later, here we are. Four kittens live on my veranda. Two girls, two boys. I have found homes for all of them (three in the village and one in the neighboring settlement), and since everyone fought over the girl kitten (the white one), I guess all’s well that ends well.

I do NOT, however, want more kittens in my house ever again. Although they’re super cute, they can be smelly (until they learn to use the litter box), and I don’t want my cat showing them how to get in through the gap between my walls and the ceiling when I’m not home. I don’t need more than one cat coming in and out of my house freely.

So, this week I am going back to Suva to attend another training with my village mayor. A Peace Corps Volunteer friend who lives there has offered to host S.K. for the week. So, I’m going to attempt to take her down on the boat again, and I have asked someone in the village to look after the kittens, making sure they stay in the veranda so the dogs don’t eat them and feeding them tinned tuna every day so they don’t starve…

S.K. and her brood (age: 4 weeks), one week before planned second attempt at spaying in Suva...

Wish me luck!


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