So you're super tan, right?

So the most common question I have received lately is “what exactly have you been doing.” Haha well, not too much yet. Let me explain.

I am the new person. I am clearly younger than everyone at work and very much fall in the category of “youth” here (please refer back to the Lets Talk about Sex Baby post). And even though I have a college degree (which I now have a copy of… thanks mom!), I cannot just jump right in and start working on a project. It takes sitting with coworkers during morning tea and talking to anyone who comes into our lobby and meeting everyone I can. Relationships here take time and can’t be rushed. Even if I somehow had a Doctorate and knew the cure for AIDS and cancer I couldn’t just jump right into a project it and assume they will embrace it (okay, well maybe if I had that sort of credentials then maybe, but you know what I mean). Essentially what I am saying is respect and trust must be earned first before even thinking about a project regardless of your background or education.

So it’s been seven weeks that I have been at my site (over 3 months in Fiji… time where did you go?). I have finally started to develop a routine. Wake up around 6am (that’s when our neighbors children wake up so in turn that’s when I wake up) , make a hearty breakfast/watch the sunrise over the mountains, take a shower, then head down to work around 8:30. I live on the top of a gigantic hill so the walk into town every morning is really nice but whewwwww… that walk up in the afternoon is a dooooozie. During the day I do everything from helping out around the office to working on my project. What project you might ask? That will be answered in a later blog once it is more solid. After work I usually stop by our fabulous market followed by a few laps at a local pool or some yoga with another volunteer in Lautoka who happens yoga teacher (quite convenient eh?). It gets dark by 6:30 so I spend the evening cooking/reading/occasionally a movie.

Okay and now to answer a few other life questions I get:

Is Lautoka big? Well… it’s big in Fiji standards. I think in there are about 60 000 people that live in the area. It is one of two “cities” in Fiji and we do have a 4 theater movie theater here… so its super big and fancy to me coming from 2 months in a village.

Do I live in a hut (traditionally called a bure here)? Nope, I live in rather nice flat outside of town with another volunteer.

Do you have electricity? Yep and I love it mainly because that means I can have a fridge.

Is it hot there? Yes it is, but right now its “winter”( fyi we are located below the equator). According to older PCVs, winter in Fiji just means it gets slightly cooler at night and its less humid during the day. Its funny to me when people walk around in the morning wearing a scarf and jacket… its like 78 degrees outside. But apparently it is unbelievably hot here during the summer… we’ll see how it compares to July in Florida… I’ll keep y’all updated.

Air Conditioning? Ha. Aircon?... Here? I’m so fortunate to have it at work we but at home… no way José. I do, however have a trusty fan! To anyone who has ever lived with me, yes I sleep with it every night and love it.

Do you have hot water? Well… not really. Our house actually does have a small hot water tank (which is super fancy) but water out here is a precious commodity. So every day our water is only on from around 4 am to 8 am and 4pm to around 6:30pm. So that hot water tank ultimately gets used after the city water shuts off.

How will you watch gator games? Ah I don’t know!!! Sore subject… still trying to figure that out. Not that we have cable tv or anything but Fiji has exactly 3 channels and I’m banking on them not televising American football… super sad.

You must be so tan!? Not at all actually… Fiji is super conservative even the cities. I wear skirts past my knees and wear non-revealing tops everyday. When I swim (with exception to that lap pool) I wear long shorts and t shirt over my bathing suit… so hot, I know.

Do you get homesick? Yes and no… some days are better than others. With recruitment (yes, I missed those sleepless recruitment nights dearly) and school starting back home, these last 2 weeks have been kinda rough. (If any PC 10 happens to stumble upon this… ROCK. OUT. KAPPA. And 07s,08s, and 09s… I hear y’all did a fabulous job!) But wonderful cards and packages from friends and family back home make those harder days so much better!!!! I really really love them.

Alright guys… gotta run. I am sorry about the long break in between posts… I promise to be better about them. Miss y’all. Go Gators!!!!

Oh Fiji...

Things I perceive as different/fun/awesome about Fiji and Fijians

-Doors open in. You know when you go to stores and restaurants the doors open out, not here, everything opens in. I always forget this and look like a fool.

-Tang. Fijians love Tang. I know what most of you are thinking: “I didn’t even think Tang was around anymore”. But nooo my little Americans friends, Tang is very much alive and well. I’m pretty sure I drink enough Tang here to go to outer space.

-Time is relative. The pace of life here is much much slower. When you want to be on time somewhere, show up an hour late. When you want to be fashionably late… show at least 3 hours after the specified time. Ironically, the only thing that shows up early and leaves early is the bus. How people get anywhere sometimes amazes me.

-Pirated movies are a part of life. Apparently they are now regulated… I have yet to see this happen. I know its wrong… but movies, for $2.00… hard to pass up especially on a Peace Corps budget. I just watched Inception at home last night (ridiculous by the way… wow).

- So in the states I ate chicken and turkey and occasional red meat but I just never loved the taste, I’m weird I know… Now I am almost entirely vegetarian BUT, it’s not because it’s different here, it’s because they don’t debone anything. Take a bite into any piece of meat in a soup, or rice, or chop suey and you run the risk of being stabbed by a rogue bone in your mouth… terrifying really.

-So when an American runs into someone they know, whether it is a friend, an acquaintance, or even someone they aren’t particularly fond of, a common first question is “how are you?” But in Fiji they say “where are you going?” It totally catches you off guard at first and kind of comes across as abrupt and nosey but it’s just there where of saying hi!… so hello world.. Where are you going ????

-Supermarkets are everywhere. Seriously, on every corner there is a supermarket… they compete like CVS and Walgreens,. Supermarkets here are about 5 isles wide so you’d think they would specialize in different items, but they all sell the same things. There are two nicer supermarkets: RB Patel and MH. They are nothing compared to Publix but they are still pretty good. I live in an area where there is a bunch of expats so these stores occasionally have more western items… but for a price. I could buy a Cosmo here... for a whopping $22 or an 8 pack of Kraft singles for like $12.

-Fiji Rule of thumb: if food is on sale then there is a good chance it has expired or it will it expire tomorrow. Tricky tricky tricky… Always check labels!

-In general, Fijians don’t like cheese that much… I know. Ridiculous. The only time cheese is really consumed is on pizza. Here there are exactly three kinds of cheese: Rewa mild cheddar, Rewa tasty cheese, and Rewa pizza cheese… As you can see they got real creative with the names. Actually, tasty and pizza cheese aren’t bad and I have made a banging Mac and Cheese out of them.

-Okay so this is going to sound weird… You know when you tell someone your hone number you say the first three numbers and then the second four i.e. 867 (pause) 5309. In Fiji it’s not like that! They say four then three or five then two or whatever makes sense to them… ah this may seem like such a minor thing but it can really get complicated. 87-75309, 8775-309, 87753-09…. madness. After this rant, I know that you are thinking the whole blonde hair thing is proving quite true… judge away.

All right everyone. That’s all for now. Miss you all!!!

New Address

Some people have asked and yes I have a new address. Here it is! Miss y'all!

PO Box 4166
Lautoka, Fiji Islands

Big News....

Bula y’all. I know its been a while... sorry. SO. Big things have been happening.

1. I passed my language test… woo hoo! I was worried there for a bit. Fijian= not easy. There are a lot of vowels and a lot of words that just have the word vaka in front of it. Oh and “c”= th, “b”= mb, “d”= nd, “q”= g, “g”=ng.

2. I’m officially a Peace Corps Volunteer. Woo Hoo! I was sworn last week and moved straight to my new home in… da da da da daaaa…

3…. Lautoka! Lautoka is a city (one of two in Fiji) on Vitu Levu. It’s beautiful here… we’re located in between the ocean and foothills of the mountains. Seriously, it’s amazing! Oh also Lautoka is home to the only lap pool in Fiji and one of the two movie theaters… yep I totally saw Eclipse last week. Robert Pattininson is still hot in Fiji. I live in a really nice flat with another awesome volunteer that has a deck that overlooks the mountains. It’s a bit different for us than it is for most Fijian PCVs. I am a Fijian version of city girl. We don’t live in a village so we don’t have a chief or Turange ni Koro (like a mayor) or in general as many cultural rules to follow (don’t get me wrong we still have a bunch living in the city). I will definitely miss living in my village in Rewa but I’m also super excited to be living in the city.

So yeah, life is pretty sweet. I’m missing the rest of the FRE 8s a bunch right now but we have a conference in October where we will all be reunited. Ah leaving friends three times in 3 months is brutal! First college friends, then family/roommates/friends from home/people I have known forever, then new Fiji friends. Ah!!!! Don't get me wrong, I am doing fabulous, but man this can be exhausting.

So I decided to go for a swim last night...

So currently my host village is on a small little island next to one of the big islands…. Right? Right. To get from my village to the bus stop and to civilization in general, I have to get on a little boat and cross the 50ft river. Oh and a big Peace Corps rule is I have to wear a PFD every time I cross water…. Nothing like a big yellow neon sign pointing to the non-Fijian. So the other night I was coming home with a bunch of groceries, my backpack, my purse, my PFD ect…. It was around 7pm so it was super dark here (well maybe not super dark but I think you all know where this story is going and I’m needing all the decent excuses I can get). So. I’m walking down the steps into the boat and go to take the last step… FAIL. Apparently I had already taken the last step and instead I went splashing into the water. It was so amazingly graceful that you all would have been proud. As I was falling I managed to throw the groceries into the boat. And then apparently my purse was waterproof and my backpack had a plastic grocery bag of fabric in the bottom hence keeping everything dry and safe…. Skillz, I know…. I got them.

So now I am surrounded by these giant Fijian men… all attempting to yank me out of the water. I was laughing hysterically, they were trying not to laugh, the other volunteer was still in shock that that had actually happened… all in all… it was awesome. Oh and I’m pretty sure I mooned them as I was trying to get out because my skirt now weighed approximately 10 thousand pounds. Good times in Fiji.

And by popular demand... here is the meke dance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwIhiw2mrw8

So my 4 years of Dance Marathon has paid off...

Last week we were invited to dance a meke at Rewa Day. Time for some definitions/explanations. So a meke is like a Fijian line dance. Currently I live in the province of Rewa. A province is kinda sorta loosely like a state but we are run by a Chief. The Chief of Rewa is a woman… that’s a BIG DEAL here in Fiji. Rewa Day (days actually, it lasted over a Friday and a Saturday) was a whole celebration of Fijian Tradition within the Rewa Province.

Got all that? Gooood… back to the meke. Twelve of the us learned this traditional dance in 5 days. Truth be told, after 4 years of DM line dances… this seemed like the Macarena. So we get there on Friday after the open ceremony dressed in our traditional Fijian attire ready to make our debut. There were a few things we did not realize. 1. We would be performing this in front of a few hundred people directly in front of the Chief and 2. apparently we were the highlight of the entire day. And by highlight I mean we made the paper, the national paper, the next day! I figured out what my true calling in life is… A meke dancer! I’ll be signing autographs all day…

But in all seriousness it was an awesome experience. Actually few unexpected reactions resulted from our dance.

The people of Fiji were shocked that we learned the dance in a week… I guess they spend weeks and months working on them. So they now think we are all actual pretty smart.

The Fijians people have an amazing culture riddled with tradition. Unfortunately we were told that in some places the tradition of Meke is dying out with the younger generations. So the fact that these Americans could come in and perform for them further gave them a reason to rejuvenate this tradition.

So yeah it was a ton of funnnn. The video may or may not be on YouTube… still debating over whether I should put that gem on here for your viewing pleasure…..

Lets Talk about Sex Baby….

In church? Okay so here’s the story… last week we were invited to a youth group meeting at the local Methodist church. So cool…. go meet the youth, chat for a bit, call it a night. Simple right? Well there were a few things not mentioned to us.

1. The youth in Fiji are comprised of people from the ages 17ish-40ish or until you get married… whatever comes first. In church youth groups, the age range is 15ish-25ish … so yes I am very much a youth here… oh super. Nothing like being clumped in the same category as hormone infested teens.

2. Youth groups here are apparently not like youth groups in the states. Back there we used to just hang out, talk about life, maybe a Bible verse or two, and call it day… Always very casual. But here… not the case. It was a formal church service…. All two hours of one.

3. Here’s where the sex part comes in. So we get there. The priest greets us outside and then informs us that she really wants us to focus on sex and other related issues. Okay… well…. Okay? Since I have the only health education background I was nominated to talk (I eventually convinced another person to stand up with me since I am a “youth”). An hour and half into the service I got up introduced us and said we were welcome to questions. So they did… about everything from sex to drugs. So we all just answered the best we could. I’m pretty sure some of the males were trying to embarrass me sometimes or they thought I was too shy to answer some questions… pshhht proved them wrong. Everyone who knew me through college knew us HEB kiddies had to take Sex Ed and Drug Ed… not many things phase me these days….

As much as I joke about the situation… it was actually really cool that: 1 they trusted us and 2 they were interested so much in that topic.

So life here is still going well. Fiji is a great… still beautiful and full of culture. Speaking of culture… Americana is evvveerrrywhere. Currently “Down” Jay Sean is playing in the background. The Glee version “Like a Prayer” is always on the radio… totally NOT upset about that at all. However I think some people think that is the original version of that song. Don’t worry Madonna, I am trying to set them straight.

Well I hope all is well in Merika… Last I heard Evan and Erin were in the DWTS finally… and is Lost over? I’m assuming they were found. And how are my fave shows Greys and Top Chef? I was sick over the weekend and I started watching the second season of Greys (thank you Nicole!!!)… Izzie just met Denny, George is still alive, Meridith just met McVet, Burke hasn’t been shot (yet)… madnessss!

Miss you all!!!