October Events

Bula everyone!

Things have been getting really busy as I head towards the end of my stay in Vanuadina Village so here’s a recap on the last couple of weeks.

Fiji Day:

October 10^th was Fiji Day, which is the equivalent to the Fourth of July.  Vanuadina and five other villages near us had a big festival and rugby tournament at the local elementary school.   Rugby is a huge deal here in Fiji and it is the biggest national sport that people support so a village rugby tournament turned out to be a wild scene with screaming and shouting and banging on tin roofs.  The best part is that Vanuadina won the tournament!  This was a pretty big deal because Vanuadina is by far the smallest village that competed and other villages had two sometimes three teams.  This win obviously called for some massive partying in our village where the rugby boys were celebrated like kings with kava and seluselu’s (traditional celebratory lei/necklaces made out of plants). 

Team Vanuadina at the rugby tournament. 

Team Vanuadina + Vanuadina.

Some of my family and I with the trophy!

Fiji Day!

World Food Day:

Last Thursday we celebrated World Food Day at one of the nearby schools.  Each village group of trainees prepared a booth on a specific health topic.  Some of the topics were dental health, healthy plate, exercise, and the Vanuadina group did Diabetes (Mate ni Suka in Fijian).  The kids then all came around to each booth to listen to our talks and participate in some activities.  At our booth we had two people talking about the facts and statistics of Diabetes in Fiji, two people doing a sugar demonstration where we measured out the amount of sugar in some common snacks and drinks, and finally my partner and I coordinated a physical activity.  We had the kids do a one-legged race where we also blindfolded one of their eyes.  This was supposed to simulate some of the worst effects of Diabetes, which are loss of vision and amputation.  All in all it was an awesome day where I finally got to get a feel for what it might be like to do some health education while working here in Fiji. 

All the Vanuadina trainees ready to teach some kids about Diabetes!

Trainees in Action!

Jungle-based Learning:

So last Monday we finally took our LPI (Language I don’t know what the P stands for Interview).  This is kind of like the equivalent to a Pre-Service Training final exam where you have a conversation in Fijian and the interviewer determines your language competency level.  Once this was over we could relax on the language training a little bit and we got to do what our village calls ‘Jungle-based learning’.  Our families thought it was important for us to learn some basic Fijian survival skills so twice this week they’ve taken us out into the bush for “school.”  The first day was based in the jungle where we collected coconuts, husked them, opened them, and scraped them.  We also learned how to open green coconuts to get water, which is an extremely useful skill.  We had to collect foods around us and make lunch from it so we made rourou (dalo leaves in coconut cream) and ota (a fern plant).  The second day was river based so our families took us down to the river took us fishing and prawn-catching.  The two jungle-based learning sessions have easily been some of my favorite classes during training and were probably the most useful thing we’ve learned in Fiji so far. 

Just hanging out in the Jungle.

Diwali:

Last Thursday was Diwali, which is the Hindu festival of lights.  I had never celebrated Diwali before in America, but since there is such a significant Indo-Fijian Hindu population in Fiji it’s a pretty big holiday here.  Diwali for those of us who don’t participate in the religious part consists of walking around being invited into houses of all the Indian families and getting sweets while hundreds and hundreds of fireworks are being set off in every direction. 

Family:

So this isn’t really an event or anything but I just want to talk a little bit about what I’ve been doing at home and how family works in Fiji.  Every weekend we have these village social nights where we all go to the community hall and sit around the kava bowl, listen to music, dance, and sing some songs.  Last weekends social night was a fundraiser for our winning rugby team which meant it was a bigger celebration than some of the others and we all got baby-powdered and seluselu-ed.  I’m not entirely sure what the meaning of the baby powder is but whenever celebrations like this happen people come up to you and put it on your face and dump some on your head… hence the picture below where I look like Santa Claus.  I’ve also started playing volleyball with a bunch of people from my village almost every afternoon.  This is one of my new favorite things to do in the village, we have so much fun just hitting the ball around and it’s become one of the things that really keeps me grounded while here in Vanuadina. 

Baby Powdered and Seluselu-ed. 

Last night our families all threw us a HUGE going away dinner that had at least 40 people there.  We all said some thank you’s to our families and the village in general for welcoming us and being so kind to us.  We all cried including a lot of our families and it’s been making me think about how hard it is going to be to actually move out of Vanuadina on November 3^rd. 

This is Tuni, he is my 2 year old nephew and we have become really good friends.  He calls me Na (mom) and I can't even think about how sad I'm going to be when I have to say goodbye to him.  

Bugs of Fiji

Rocking my shades.

Here he is riding one of our dogs

Wearing my life jacket. Also this is my living room!

Ok now I want to talk a little about family dynamics here in Fiji.  First of all, in Fijian there are no specific words for sister or brother, instead there are only words for sibling of the same sex (tuakaqu for me) and sibling of the opposite sex (ganequ for me).  This has been very confusing for me because for me the word sister is the same as the word for a brother to the boys.  One of the most interesting things about Fijian family in my opinion is that there are people who are called your brothers and sisters who are actually what we would call cousins in America.  My dad’s brother’s children are called my siblings the same way that my mom’s sister’s children are my siblings.  BUT my dad’s sister’s children are my cousins (tavale), same with my mom’s brother’s children.  So for those at home reading this that means that Lydia and Nancy, all your kids are my siblings, and on my dad’s side Pat, Kevin, and John all your kids are my siblings according to Fijian culture.  To add some strange-ness, the tavale, or cousin, relationship is supposed to be one where you’re always poking fun at each other so cousins here are always being mean to each other.  Also, tavale can marry each other here in Fiji… so that’s different.

Quick shot of the view from the steps of my house. 

So there’s a recap on some of the stuff that’s been going on in here in Fiji.  This next week is my last week in the village and then I’ll be heading to Suva (the capital) for our swearing in ceremony.  Unfortunately, I know I’ve been saying that I’ll find out my placement on Halloween but it got moved back and site announcements won’t be until the 3^rd now.  Can’t wait to find out!