Bula Vinaka everyone.
You will all be happy to know that I am back in Fiji safe and sound and VERY hot this southern-hemisphere Summer season!
After a 6-week trip to America (see last post) and some much-needed R&R I made it back to my little village in Fiji. Everyone welcomed me back joyfully, and the kids even remembered me! In fact, many people had no idea I was away for longer than 3 weeks at all--it just goes to show you how time is perceived differently here in the islands...
So, life has settled down and I'm back into the routine of things. The kids and I still brush our teeth together every morning, I lead 40 minute aerobics/stretching classes with the young ladies about 4 days a week, and I am still consumed by the water filtration project!
Here are some pictures and a few quick stories I've collected over the past month.
On my way back from America, the Pacific Sun airline routed my tiny little plane from the main island to my island through a remote-area-stop to let off one passenger. This meant that I got a chance to fly directly over my village! The picture above was taken out the window of the 6-seater plane. I know it's hard to tell, but you can see all the houses (including my own), and even the water filter structure (if you know where to look) in the top left quadrant. Pretty cool, huh?
When I was stuck in America and the weeks started to fly by, my major concern was for my garden in Fiji. As it turns out, my concerns were founded. Weeks upon weeks of rainy weather combined with no caretaker to weed and look after my garden, means that my plot looked like this (above) when I returned!
But, the silver lining is that all that rain brought many of my flowers into bloom for the first time!
And, even though my former cat, "S.K." has permanently abandoned me for good (she now lives at another house in the village where there are fish scraps almost every day) I have hijacked one of the kittens, "Meleni" from my friend Ilimo, and she now lives in my house. And unlike S.K., Meleni even stays with me at night and climbs into my mosquito net to sleep in my bed with me. It's almost like living with a roommate!
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For the holiday, all of the PCVs on my island (about 19 of us) got together and rented out two vacation homes at a resort outside my stock-up town. We spent three days and two nights cooking, working out, watching movies, playing guitar, watching football at a local bar, and of course, drinking Wai Ni Valagi together.
Because I had been so recently in America and was able to bring back some "stove-top" ready-made goodies, we had a pretty traditional feast.
This is my plate, minus the piece of steak that I added soon after this picture was taken.
Chilling out and eating our tropical Thanksgiving Dinner.
And, what would Thanksgiving be without lots of dessert!? Thankfully, Peace Corps Volunteers are really good at figuring out how to bake things on stovetop. The spread was AMAZING.
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KEITOU SA BARASI TIKO
Back to brushing our teeth...
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HAPPY (belated) HANNUKAH as well!
For my menorah this year, I filled a small plastic basin of sand to stick candles up in. I found the Diwali (the Hindi religion "festival of lights" candles in town, and so I was able to use those as Hannukah candles--and I bought them at a bargain price! In this picture, Mareani, Timima, and her daughter Tema came over to help me light the candles and sing the prayers on the 7th night.
The wanted me to send their regards to all of you this holiday season.
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Finally, what would a blog post of mine be if it made no mention of the WATER PROJECT?
As I mentioned above, it is now Summer in the Southern Hemisphere. What this means for the tropics, is temperatures in the 90s and 100 degrees with sporadic violent rainstorms interspersed. This picture shows what a perfectly clear and sunny day can look like right before a massive rain storm.
And, of course, preventing all the sediment that washes into our river water source was the main reason we built the water filtration system in my village. Here, you can see all the dirt that the roughing filter sand caught before the water passed through the micro-filters. This, of course, would have colored our drinking water in the past.
In fact, the water coming into our filter is so dirty, that the pressure build-up from the first-stage screen (designed to keep leaves and twigs and prawns out of the roughing filter) combined with the force of the water was so strong that the very expensive unit cracked right down the middle.
Finally, the dirtier the water, the harder the filters have to work to clean it. And when we only make the trek up to clean the filters once a day, that means that substantially lower amounts of clean water make it into our pipelines to the village. This is a major water abundance/conservation issue.
In order to deal with consumption issues, the Rotary Club of Savusavu has loaned the village a sophisticated water meter that can track exact, per-liter, consumption in the village in real time. Ilimo and I try to take readings every day so we can know how much water the village uses in any given day.
Especially in times of rain, the number of liters we use in the village exceeds the number that the filters can produce, and so we experience shortages.
The Water Committee and I have met several times over the past few weeks to develop a "game-plan" for water conservation in the village. Above is a picture of Mesi, the Committee's only female member, writing out some information so we could post it up outside my house.
Here we are posing with a poster that gives information about how much water is used during different activities (i.e. a leaking tap that leaks 1 drop per second uses 20 liters in a day, and running the tap while you brush your teeth wastes 5 liters, as opposed to 1/2 liter if you use a cup and turn off the tap). The poster went up yesterday...
... and so far, people seem to be taking the information well.
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Ok, well, that's all for now. I hope you are all having a great holiday season. Stay warm this winter, I know I will!
xx
Melissa
