Bula everyone! First
of all, I am sorry to have kept you all waiting, the last two weeks have just
been really crazy and so much has happened!
At the beginning of November my Pre-Service Training finally
came to an end. The last weekend in my
training village was an awesome one. It
was Halloween, so the other Vanuadina trainees and I planned a little
celebration for the kids in the village.
We got some supplies and helped them make masks out of paper plates and
crayons. We also had some face paint that
we used to make some kids into butterflies, dogs, spidermen, cats, and anything
else we were capable of drawing on a face.
We then set up a makeshift photobooth and had the kids take pictures in
their costumes. Needless to say it was
one of my favorite days in the village and from now on when I think about
Halloween I will probably go back to that day in Vanuadina messing around with
the kids.
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| Making Halloween Masks! |
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| Face Paint |
The rest of the last weekend was filled with emotional
goodbyes, tons of fakawela (gifting), and some really fun kava sessions until
Monday morning when the bus came to pick us up and take us to Suva. Leaving my host family was really hard, I
wasn’t expecting it to be that way and I did manage to hold it together until I
had to say goodbye to my two-year-old host nephew, Tuni. The people in Vanuadina were the first people
I met in Fiji, and they treated me like family.
Vanuadina truly is my home here in Fiji and leaving it without knowing
when I’d be back was really difficult.
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| Going away feast with the entire village! |
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| My host family's goodbye dinner and grog session for me. |
As sad as that Monday was, it was also filled with immense
anticipation because it was finally the day for site announcements! So here’s how this worked, they brought us
all into a room and one by one we’d go to the front of the room. As your standing up there shaking about to
pee your pants with excitement, a picture of your face pops up on the screen
and then an arrow pointing to somewhere on the map of Fiji. For me, it pointed to the northern edge of
the second biggest island in Fiji, Vanua Levu (this is a different island than
the one I had been living on). I was and
am extremely excited about this placement and I’ll talk about it more
below.
This is what the placement screen looked like for me!
The next two days were extremely hectic with celebrating the
end of PST, preparing to swear in, and shopping for our new houses. On Thursday we had the long anticipated
Swearing-In ceremony. This is the
ceremony that takes us from Peace Corps ‘Trainees’ to full-fledged Peace Corps
Volunteers. The US Ambassador to Fiji gave
us the oath (which is essentially the same as the presidential oath) and
announced your work site to the entire Peace Corps community in Fiji as well as
our host families. Following the
ceremony we got to take part in a pretty awesome cultural show where all the
recently sworn in volunteers performed a traditional Fijian ‘meke’ (dance) in
full costume. For the meke we separated
into boys and girls, and although the boys’ meke was way cooler (it’s a
warrior’s dance), it was still really awesome to learn and perform a
traditional Fijian dance.
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| On the bus headed for Swearing In - this is the nicest we've looked in two months. |
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| This is me walking up when they announced my site! |
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| I'm officially a PCV! |
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| The men doing their meke! |
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| All the ladies after doing our meke. |
The swearing in ceremony as followed by a fun night of
celebration with all the volunteers in Fiji, group 90 and group 91 (my group) which
of course led to an awful morning of catching the 4:30 am ferry to Vanua
Levu.
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| Some of my best Peace Corps friends celebrating a huge accomplishment. I'm going to miss you guys! |
The next day I was dropped off at my new home for the next
two years. I live in government quarters
on the Department of Forestry compound in the small town of Dreketi. The compound has 4 houses and a police post
and the rest of Dreketi is pretty much made up of two shops, a small market,
the health center, three schools, and a post office.
So here’s my site in every way you could imagine:
Where am I:
Dreketi is on the northern side of Vanua Levu. There are currently 10 PCV’s living on Vanua
Levu, 5 in my group and 5 in group 90 (they have 1 year left). I am about a 1.5-2 hour bus ride away from a
big city (either Labasa or Savusavu).
The next closest volunteer is in Seaqaqa, which is about 45 minute bus
ride away. Dreketi has been a Peace
Corps site for a long time so I’m not the first volunteer to come here. I live right on the Dreketi River (the
deepest river in Fiji) and distance wise I’m about three miles from the ocean
but if I wanted to take a bus there it would be longer. Dreketi is situated in a valley with hills
all around it, which makes for some unbelievable scenery.
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| The island of Vanua Levu. |
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| These are mostly for my Dad, I know he was having trouble figuring out where in the world I actually am. |
House:
My house is about a 5 minute walk down the road from the
health center where I work, and it’s right across the street from the shops and
market. My house is a three bedroom
wooden house with a shower, toilet, washroom and kitchen. It has running water and 24/7 electricity
(yahtzee!). The only problem is that it
is completely 100% empty so it’s going to take me some time to really make it
feel like home. My house was pretty dirty when I first moved
in so cleaning it has been an ongoing process but the cleaner it gets the less
pests there are so that’s good. In terms
of pests I have a TON of ants, a few cockroaches, lots of spiders (I dare you
to google Cane Spider), one mouse, and FROGS.
I never expected frogs to the be the most annoying pest in my house but
they are. They don’t bother me except at
night they get stuck in the house and I can hear them throwing themselves
against the walls trying to get out.
Plus sometimes they die in my shower, which really grosses me out.
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| My house from the front! |
I am officially stationed at the Dreketi Health Center and
I’ve been working there for a little over a week now. I’m still trying to figure out how I can be
most useful but I think I’m really going to find my niche doing outreach in the
surrounding villages and doing health visits in the schools in Dreketi. As for right now, I’m just hanging around the
health center helping out in whatever way I can. For example, last Thursday we had our Special
Out Patient Clinic, which is the day all the diabetic, high blood pressure, and
hypertension patients come. As you can
imagine, its one of the busiest days at the health center and the nurses were
feeling overwhelmed so they asked me to go in the waiting room and teach the
patients some exercises that they can easily do while sitting or waiting in
line. PCV’s in Fiji generally determine
their own work, so it’s mostly going to be up to me to figure out what sorts of
projects I can do.
Food:
In terms of food there are some things locally available but
I am by no means living with abundant options.
Eggplant is in season so you can always get that in the market. Okra is available as well but they don’t sell
it in the market you have to ask an Indian family to get it for you. For right now, that’s it in terms of
vegetables until other things come into season. Onions and garlic are here year
round and I can always get eggs. Lucky
for me there are a ton of available fruits this time of year. Right now I can get mango, papaya, pineapple,
banana, and jackfruit all in the market.
Most dry goods I can get in the stores here such as flour, rice, sugar,
etc. Tonight I am eating red rice (not
quite brown rice but not quite white rice) and sautéed eggplant with
onions. In the mornings I’ll usually eat
fruit and for lunch I’ll either have leftovers, make oatmeal, or go to one of
the nurses’ houses (this is the most likely option).
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| Me getting mangoes from the tree behind my house. |
Entertainment:
So Dreketi is a small town, there isn’t really a lot to do
for fun, and I’ve learned that since being in Fiji my definition of a fun night
has changed a lot. During the day on the
weekends I’ll usually hang out at the shop and chat with people then go watch
rugby at the local school. At night
there’s always grog circles. This Fijian
pastime involves sitting around the kava bowl, drinking grog, listening to
music, and just telling stories and laughing.
They say that being a Peace Corps Volunteer is a 24/7 job,
and this past week and a half at site I’ve really felt that way. If it were up to me, I would just spend a few
days dedicated to getting settled and working on my house, but instead I’m at
the health center working and trying my hardest to integrate into the
community. Even walking home or going
through the market is work because I am meeting tons of new people, explaining
who I am and why I am here, and having a conversation with everyone I
meet. Even when I am absolutely
exhausted and want to just relax in my house, if someone invites me to come
over for dinner or come have tea I say yes because it’s an opportunity to
integrate, and right now integration is the name of the game.
Some more pictures of Dreketi!
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| on my running route |
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| Gorgeous view of the valley that Dreketi is in from the top of the hill I run to. |
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| Another view |
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| More shots of my running route. |
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| Here is Dreketi! The two shops are on the right and the small market is behind the trees on the left. |
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| Another view of my house and the Forestry Compound. Mine is the closest one. |
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| The view of Dreketi from my front steps! |
Moving to site is an extremely overwhelming process; imagine
getting dropped off in the middle of some island you’ve never been to before
where you don’t know a single person or speak the language. That being said, so far I love it here and I
think over time it’ll start to feel more and more like home. I am very lucky to be placed in the north
(‘the north’ refers to the northern district of Fiji which is mostly Vanua Levu)
because the community of PCV’s up here is really awesome. They are a very tight knit group that gets
together a lot and is really supportive of each other. They are going to become my unofficial family
for the next two years. For example,
next week is Thanksgiving and we are all getting together at one PCV’s house on
Vanua Levu to celebrate!
That’s all from me for now, I’ll be sure not to wait as long
with the next post!
