The end of my Peace Corps service is near, and I am filled with mixed emotions. Although I will be sad to leave everything I have become so familiar with here in Fiji--my very first house, the children I've literally watched grow up, the gorgeous beach just beyond my doorstep, fresh seafood meals whenever I want them, and constantly eye-opening encounters with fellow villagers who have become my extended family over the last two years--I am so EXCITED to come home!
I can hardly believe that it has been more than two years since my first blog entry (from the multi-media room of some random airport hotel in LA the day before departure). And my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer is rapidly coming to an end. On June 20 (just two weeks away!) I will be saying my final farewells to the village, and on June 23 I will officially "COS" (Close of Service) and will officially become an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer). Here's what the busy final weeks will look like:
June 5-10: Assist PC Staff with new PCVs training (water usage, waste management, expectations of money in the village)
June 11: Back to Nanuca Village
June 13: Farewell at the local primary school (Tie Dye Activity)
June 14: Farewell to the Village Water Committee (Tea)
June 15: "Breakup" party for the Tomitomi rubbish collection activity (Certificates Awarded)
June 17: Official Farewell Party in Nanuca Village (feast, presentation of gifts, all night kava drinking, etc)
June 19: last day in church (!!!)
June 20: depart
So, as things come to a grinding halt, I am feeling nostalgic for my day-to-day routine of the past two years. Recently, Tait came to visit the village and help me with some final projects, and he took pictures throughout several days. Below are a sequence of photos that show what my life here in Fiji has been like...
On the bumpy, 2-hour bus from Savusavu to Nanuca Village.
If I was alone, I would never listen to my iPod (therefore drawing attention to myself), but since Tait was with me (and because I'm caring less and less lately about what other people think of me), I've been listening to my NPR podcasts almost non-stop!
Gorgeous sunset as seen through my "kitchen" window.
A typical night-time activity as of late: organizing all my notes and project materials for my replacement volunteer's use. (As of now, I am planning on being replaced by one of the new PCVs who arrived in Fiji last month, but I do not know yet who that will be. Furthermore, I will not be overlapping with them in the village at all, and so I am being especially careful to note down everything I can think of that might be useful information for their two-year service. It has been a big job!)
After I wake up around 7am and have my morning coffee, I usually attach a hosepipe to my outdoor tap and give the garden a once-over to help protect it from the scorching day's sun.
Then it's off to gather the children for a group teeth brushing session back at my house...
On the way to pick up the kids, I pass by this little tin house that has a "responsible water use" poster nailed up to the front door. I am so happy that I didn't lug these posters back from Suva (the capital city) for nothing!
Once I have almost reached the first child's house, I pass one of the village's several "kopra" dryers. Families go out into their coconut plantations in the jungle to collect mature coconuts, husk them, cut out the flesh in a few large pieces, and bring them back to the village for drying. After a few days on top of one of these ovens, they are bagged up and sent into Savusavu for sale to wholesale manufacturers of coconut oil products. This is the main source of income in most of the villages in my area of Fiji. On this particular morning, I scared a dog off of the "kopra" deck where it was feasting on the tasty nuts.
Kopra
Another source of income in Fiji is floor mats that are woven by women. They can fetch up to $70USD for a large mat, and as they are labor intensive crafts, I think that's a fair price. There are two types of mats in Fiji: Kuta (see the blog posts concerning preparations before Risa's wedding to see pictures of these reeds, how to harvest and prepare them, and for pictures of the ladies weaving them), and Voivoi. Voivoi reeds grow as huge trees, and they are cut, de-spiked, cooked, and then dried in the sun before being cut into strips and woven. In this picture one lady is spending her morning cooking and rolling up her Voivoi for later use.
First stop on my morning tour is usually a hello to my little namesake. Etuate Goldman Bari was born in mid-January, and he is know as "Mr. Goldman" or "Small G" in the village. Isn't he just getting adorable?!
Once we all make it back to the house, I distribute toothbrushes and toothpaste to the children.
Then, we brush our teeth together. Amazingly, after about a year-and-a-half of doing this projects, the kids are finally getting so good at brushing their teeth that they can do it by themselves! I only have to help with some of the hard-to-reach areas on the very young children. This is a huge improvement from the skill set in place when I first arrived in Nanuca: most of the kids have obviously never held a toothbrush before, and many ate the toothpaste right off the brush before I could have a chance to even try to get it onto their teeth!
After I got home from teeth brushing on the day pictured in this blog, I was delighted to be called over to a neighbors house to give advice on some impromptu Virgin Coconut Oil (VCO) that was going on there. (This is a small business initiative I am hoping to get started before the new PCV moves to Nanuca. Although it is more labor intensive than Kopra, the villagers can get almost 5x the income per nut with VCO--certainly worth a shot!
Then, I always do a spot of laundry before starting the rest of my day. As long as it's hung in the morning, it's usually always dry by mid-day (and before the afternoon rain-showers that are becoming more frequent this time of year). I have taken to doing laundry every day for sanity's sake. It is much easier to wash a few things at a time than to spend 4 hours crouched down in my little shower stall.
Then, whenever the young women are free, we do some dance aerobics (aka jazzercise) on the veranda of one of the village houses. I choreograph simple routines to about 40 minutes worth of music (including a yoga warm up, stretching, cardio, strength, cool down, abs, and a stretching routine). The ladies seem to like it, but my favorite participant is little Dulaki!
Abs. Dulaki doesn't appear to be handling it.
After working out and taking a shower, I had some prep work to do before heading to the local primary school for their afternoon classes.
Tait was in the village in order to help me start a World Map Mural project with the Class 7&8 kids at Kasavu Primary School. We weren't sure that there would be enough time to start and finish "gridding" a mural and painting it in my last two village weeks, so the teacher and I decided that it would be best for me to come and teach some fundamental skills during afternoon class sessions. Tait and I taught classes on enlarging drawings using the "grid" method, world geography, and mixing colors. In order to teach the color mixing class we needed little paint dishes--that's what seashells are good for!
So, Tait and I headed down to the Beach directly in front of the village to collect shells for classroom use.
When we reached the shore, we found this village woman line fishing for her family's dinner.
This is the view looking up from the beach to the village...
After a rushed lunch and walk/run to the school (which is about a mile down the shoreline from Nanuca village), Tait and I were ready to teach class...
Our first lesson was on the "grid" method of enlarging drawings.
The second lesson Tait and I taught was about mixing colors. We plan to use primary colors (and white) to mix all eight colors for the World Map Mural (in order to save money), and the kids (and teacher) were all thoroughly impressed by the straightforward rules of mixing colors.
Tait and I teaching a lesson about the color wheel... I'm not sure why we're pointing at different colors in this picture...
On days when I'm not teaching in the classroom, I usually come to school for the Class 7&8 2-3pm "Sports Hour" and play kickball with the kids. After two years they are getting pretty good at this typically American game!
Usually I'm the first base umpire during Kickball games, but since Tait and I are so competitive we decided to pitch for opposing teams and play to win...
As I was in charge of setting up the bases while Tait oversaw the team division, it turned out that his team was stacked with athletic kids. They seriously kicked our butts!
After my final kickball game here in Fiji we took a group photo.
Walking the kids home from school is my favorite part of going to the school at all. The beach is so beautiful, and the kids and their little uniforms are precious.
On this particular day the kids were really energetic. They were begging me to skip home from school. We, of course, couldn't make it a mile, but we did skip for large portions of the trip home--we got there in record time, too!
Finally, when I come home from school (or whatever my after-lunch work was), I usually take advantage of the cool late afternoon to work in the garden. Right now I've got fruiting cucumbers, green beans, lettuce, cabbage, and tomatoes. The new volunteer will be so lucky!
* * * * * *
Finally, as it is getting close to my COS date, I have started to pack up my house (and scrub it down--floors, walls, and ceilings alike). Before I started the clean-up process, I took one last series of pictures to commemorate my first home...
"Kitchen"/ front room
huge spider hiding on one of my cooking lids.
view from the doorway between my kitchen and the bedroom
my bed and "closet"
The bookshelf and windows into the 3-part bathroom. (behind the American Flag is a storage closet)
Shower stall /sink room. Flush toilet stall.
* * * * * *
As my remaining "Sundays" in the village are becoming few in number (and believe me: I have been keeping a countdown since I first moved to the village), I finally decided to bring my camera over to the house where I usually have an after-church lunch.
Upon first entering the house, it is not unusual to find Peceli (age 2) and Viwa (4) stuffing their faces (totally unsupervised). In this picture they are eating Lairo (land crab).
Here is what the "table" looks like on any typical day. The "top" of the table where the more honored people sit (like the priest, church manager, oldest man of the house) sit is the part furthest from the front door. I usually sit near the top of the table while the other ladies I usually serving from the bottom.
The spread on this particular Sunday was land crab in coconut cream, boiled taro leaves and fish in coconut cream, and wild fern in coconut cream with a side of boiled taro root.
After lunch we took a family photo.
[from left to right (top:) Tevita, Mesi, (bottom:) Keva, Leone, Peceli, Viwa, Me ("Milika") and Amania.]
Then, it is customary to take a long nap after Sunday lunch (as it is unacceptable to do pretty much anything besides go to church, eat, and sleep on this "day of rest"). This picture is Tait, passed out on my kitchen floor with my cat Meleni keeping him company.
* * * * * *
My final dive in Fiji had to be with Tait since he got scuba certified while he was staying with me in the village (commuting 1.5 hours each way for three days to the dive shop at Koro Sun Resort).
This is the "Namena-lai-lai" Marine Reserve dive site (located approximately 3 hours by fiber boat--each way--from Koro Sun). Although the weather was terrible and the boat ride left much to be desired, Namena could never fail to impress...
* * * * * *
For the last story of this blog post I would like to give an update on Mareani, my best village friend who became very suddenly ill back in February (see that blog post for details). Four months later, she had still not been back to Nanuca and we had all but fallen out of touch, so I decided to travel to her village (approximately 5 hours by two busses from my village) and stay the weekend with her and her extended family there.
Before making the trip, I was extremely nervous. I hadn't stayed with a family in their Fijian home since PST (pre-service training), and that wasn't the greatest experience of my life. But, I was pleasantly surprised. Mareani's family is wonderful!
She lives with her parents (Dad was in the Fijian army and served in Afghanistan in 2007 and Mom sells food at the bus stand in town), her younger sister, the husband, and their three kids (Filomena 7, Pio 4, and Maria 1), another one of her sisters (Lusiana, age 11) and Mareani's two kids (Akuino 9, and Savulili 7). The family, of course, stuffed me full of delicious food, kept me entertained with kava all night long, and I even got to sleep in my own, very clean, bed with a mosquito net and all. I also had some first-time experiences while I spent the weekend in Vakativa Village (I was starting to think I had been here so long there wasn't much left to learn): the famiy has an outdoor, waterseal toilet, with no toilet seat (so I had to learn how to squat above a stinky hole to do all my business), and since they don't have any water taps inside the house, I had to go to the outdoor, uncovered neighbor's shower tap to take a shower wrapped in my sulu and all (this was kind of cool because I always see Fijians in my village taking showers in the open and washing their clothes at the same time). On Sunday, we all went to her Catholic church (3 hours of services!) and everyone besides Mareani then spent the afternoon swimming and playing in the village's river.
This brings me to Mareani's condition...
As can be seen from this picture, Mareani is still in a wheelchair. She has regained some tingling sensation and sensitivity to touch in her legs, and she is able to use the toilet without any tubes, but she still can't move her legs or even stand (let alone walk!). The house that Mareani lives in is raised about three feet off the ground, and she must be carried in and out by her father. Inside the house, Mareani has become very adept at pulling herself up into the wheelchair, crawling (and dragging her legs behind her) to move around when she's not in the chair, and she has taught herself to get dressed, have bucket baths, and use a bucket in her bedroom as a toilet all by herself.
Still, Fiji is not a wheelchair-friendly country, and the village is an especially helpless environment for someone who can't even stand. Mareani basically spends all day inside the house staring out the window (no electricity = no TV or internet for entertainment), and she can barely help with any chores (such as collecting food, cooking, and cleaning). Unfortunately, her husband has been less than supportive, and she had not had any villagers from my village (where she was living and serving as the Women's Group leader for the last 3 or 4 years) except the husband until I came.
Although she' slowly improving every day, Mareani has changed a lot over the last few months of her mysterious illness. She now talks less, she smiles less, and it is clear that she is in a lot of pain (her back and hips are constantly sore from the awkward positions she sits and lays in all day and night). But, Mareani will always be the person I know and love, and I am SO happy that I got to spend some time with her and the family last weekend!
Mareani and the family having dinner on my first night in Vakativa.
Me and Mareani in our kala vata (matching) sulu jiaba (fancy outfits) after church.
Mareani, her son (left) and daughter (right) with her niece standing at the back.
Mareani's daughter Savulili, and nieces Maria and Filomena find ways to play in her vacant wheelchair when Mareani is sitting on the floor.
Family photo (using the self timer on my digital camera) on my last day visiting Mareani.
* * * * * * * * *
Well, that's all for now. The next post I write will probably be after I've left the village for good. (Can you believe it?!)
As always, Vinaka Vakalevu Sara (thank you very much) for reading my blog. I love and miss you all, and I can't wait to see everyone soon!
xx
Milika
Holy crap, that spider!
ReplyDelete