Wow - I'm so happy that I FINALLY have been able to sign into my own dang blog account. Believe me, it's so frustrating to want to communicate to the US whilst having to pay for a 1 hour session of internet that will NOT let you do half of the stuff you'd like (posting pics, blogging, IMing, etc). Anyhow, momentary success! OK, so, let's get down to brass tax here. About a month ago, I moved from my first site in the Yasawas. Probably the most difficult 3 months I've ever experienced in my life. Will not go into too much detail other then scarce water and food, combined with weird people combined with total isolation was not sustainable for 2 years. A couple weeks in, I started feeling ill - namely in the GI tract - and this lasted the whole 3 months. Ultimately, illness was the big reason for a site change. Moving from the Yasawas was quite the ordeal moving a small household's worth of crap from little boat to little boat to big boat to public bus to taxi, to porch, to storage room, to office, etc. WHEW. But, it all went surprisingly easy after I resigned myself to NOT get stressed out about it. Stress and anxiety was not an option. A day after my move, all of the FRE-8's (my "class" of PCVs) began a 2 week training where my pet parasite, deemed Lemiwinks (if you have NOT seen this episode of Southpark, do so stat), decided to take over my whole person. The first night, Claudia lovingly place a little plastic trashbin beside my bed. I thought that was a nice gesture albeit a little over the top, I thought. Well, after writhing in the most bizarre pain for hours, I bolted upright in bed around 2 am and grabbed the bin just in time to start ralphing. Of course, this was in a room with 3 other people sleeping in it and with 3 doors barracading me in!!! So, I'm holding the bucket with one arm, like a football player running for a touchdown, barfing into it, and clawing at the door locks with such haste and lack of control, that it would have been more effective to just break the damn doors down. Infact, I did finally wrench open the last door as I stumbled out into the fresh air. I heaved a little more and then started crying. The bathroom you see was a good 40 ft away via a rocky footpath. And I'm barefoot and weepy and oh so pathetic. After cleaning up a bit, I come back into our dorm area and find my BFFFF (best f'n friend forever fiji) groggy-eyed coming out to check on me. She says in a whisper, dude, I had a bizarro dream that you were puking. HAHA
Anyway, I try to sleep this illness off and wind up going to the hospital to get 2 L's of IV fluid and anti-nausea shots and meds to torture and murder Lemiwinks. Gratuitous. A week after treatment I feel nice. Finally, after 3 months of sickness. What a relief.
Time and things go on, and I get to move to my brand new village. It's called Rukuruku. It's on the island of Ovalau and I'm in love. Life is still challenging and about 3 times a day I get so angry at nothing in particular that I have to put myself in time-out in my house. It's part of the integration phase... I think. My house is large and awesome with a view of the silvery sea and an hazy island in the distance. I can the mainland if I poke my head out of the front door and peer left. I have a family in this village that is always looking out for me and asking how I am doing and what I need. I feel terribly needy these days .... but that's just because settling into a village is rough for us "kavalagi" (foreigners). For instance, my first night there, my roof was leaking in 8 different spots. And, I noticed that water comes out of the tap brown - like choc milk (I'm not complaining, so stoked for water!) There were no shelves or storage areas... I didn't know how to unpack!!! But, with every concern I had, my family were there to help me in whatever ways I needed. Things are coming along nicely and I hope that my attempts yesterday to patch up the last few leaks in my roof were successful!
My family consists of my Ta, Na, 3 sisters (Oni, Nau, Vika), and my little bro Tachi. Maybe it's because I grew up with little brothers, but I definitely favor Tachi. This sucks, because boys are favored here anyway. He gets all the nice stuff while the poor sisters are left in the dust. YIKES.
Everyday I'm laughing a lot --- mostly with my Na, as she loves to laugh about as much as me. And, I'm convinced she has the best laugh in Fiji. One funny thing my Ta said to me the morning after I drank 5 bilos of grog and woke up late was, "we have saying fo that (something in Fijian), means: yo head stuck to the pillow." Yup. Another time, I was laughing at this one kid named Waisea - 4 years old and with teeth already rotting out of his little mouth - because he was wide-eyed staring at me with a gaping smile for about 20 mins straight. My Ta then said dead-pan, "yeah, like a hippopotamus." My siblings have since referred to Waisea as "Golden Teeth." Cute kid though. I'm giving him a toothbrush soon.
Hour is up! Gotta run. Much love to you all. Special shout out to Laura Vance for giving me the ipod that has saved me here. To Gonza for writing the best messages, and again to Christina for that awesome post card. Be in touch! xoxo - Z
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