Sunday, February 13, 2011

No, I don't smoke unborn babies

Ahhh okay, no excuses, my sincere apologies for not blogging in forever… isa 2 months!
So first before I get into my life I want to tell you a little story about something that happened to a good friend.

One night my friend (a PCV) was sitting around drinking grog and smoking with some of the men in his village. The men asked him for a cigarette. He obliged and passed them his carton. Immediately they scoffed at his cigarettes and told him that they do not smoke his cigarettes (there is exactly one kind of cigs sold everywhere in Fiji named Benson and Hedges). Confused, my friend asked why and the man replied, “no, no we don’t smoke ‘unborn babies’ only ‘lung cancer’ and ‘heart disease’” (no joke, this conversation actually happened). Now completely perplexed and slightly disturbed he looked down at the box to try to figure out what they could possibly be talking about. Then, he saw it…

On the B&H cartons the government has placed one of three lovely different warning labels: “smoking causes lung cancer” “smoking causes heart diseases”, and “smoking will cause harm to unborn babies”. Apparently the men don’t exactly interpret these labels as warnings but in fact see them as different flavors. I kid you not. Their favorite is “lung cancer”… it’s stronger they say. My friend tried to these men that are all the same they just laughed and told him he was obviously wrong/misinformed/crazy.
I decided to ask around to see what people thought about the different “flavors” near me and got the same response from a bunch of people...
Fact: All B&H cigarettes sold here are the sameeeee. Isa Fiji!

All right so onto my life now. First and foremost an extremely belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to everyone! I had a wonderful holiday myself hanging out with other volunteers on this beautifulllll island called Taveuni (if anyone ever plans on going to Fiji, I HIGHLY recommend making the extra trip out to this island). It was a ton of fun but it just didn’t feel like the holiday season… I mean, it was just so gosh darn hot outside. Contrary to popular belief, Florida does get somewhat cold during the winter and I found that I really missed that this year. However, I know I shouldn’t complain; I’ve heard the weather has been pretty rough throughout the US.

Work has been going pretty well. It was nice to come back from holiday and look forward to getting started again at work. I’ve helped out with a bunch of forums/ meetings/events etc but by far two of my favorite things thus far have been tutoring math (they call it “mats” here) at a local high school and doing an aerobics class of some sort after hours at work. Yes, you read that correct… years of working at various gyms have paid off. .. aerobics … SO. FUN. As most of you know I have little no rhythm, but apparently I am a pretty decent aerobics instructor… enough so to at least provide entertainment for 45 minutes. What exactly does one do? Well ultimately it ends up being a little bit of everything... kickboxing, zumba, soccer (well kinda)…

I hope everything is going well back home! A giant THANK YOU to those of you who have sent me letters. I can’t even begin to describe how much they make my day!! I love them!!!

Miss you guys

2 comments:

  1. I love that you teach aerobics classes. You need to come back and instruct me so I move my big booty. Love you!

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  2. Are you paying more than $5 / pack of cigarettes? I'm buying all my cigs over at Duty Free Depot and this saves me over 50% from cigs.

    ReplyDelete