hurry up and wait

So that meeting I was really excited about didn't happen. Our new committee (the one that includes youth and is motivated to start new projects in the village like our ecotourism project) was supposed to meet with the chief and the old development committee last Saturday. Our chief was going to ask the old committee to step aside and let our new committee run the development projects in the village. This is really important because the last time our committee tried to do something (the Serua Day fundraiser), the old committee came and took over. So now we're afraid to start any new projects because they might shut us down. That's why it's good that the chief supports us because he has the final say in everything so the old committee should listen to him. But the old committee didn't show up for the meeting on Saturday. So I guess we just have to wait until they decide to come. What I really want is to have the support of the old committee. I hate to think that I'm part of something that will divide the village into two sides. But this process was started before I even came to the village so I'll just have to wait and hope everything ends up ok. Wait, wait, wait. That's what I spend most of my time doing...waiting.

meet the youth

Youth Day at church

small success

We got our small committee back! Our first meeting is December 6th. My counterpart and I went to a project design workshop put on by the Peace Corps and together we wrote a nice proposal for the ecotourism project we want to start. So we'll present it at the meeting and see if we can make this happen. My vision is to use this small committee, consisting of representatives from all groups in the village (each family group, the women, youth, Turaga ni Koro, etc.), to start and then manage the ecotourism business together as a team. The money that we make would then go towards helping parents pay their children's school fees and maybe some other education promotion projects. But that's just my vision, and I know some other people share it with me, but some have different visions so our challenge will be to put all the visions together. But I'm happy that we've made this important step. That is starting the committee and setting the date for the first meeting. We'll see how it goes...

Bringing the Peace Corps into the 21st Century

I actually wrote this on Friday, November 21, 2008

This blog entry is going to be somewhat critical so I think I'm supposed to say something like: The views expressed here are my own and don't necessarily reflect the views of the United States Government, the Peace Corps, or anyone else you might blame. Ok, now that's out of the way.

I just received the latest issue of Worldview magazine (worldviewmagazine.com) which is the National Peace Corps Association's quarterly magazine. This issue was focused on what is wrong with the Peace Corps as an organization and what it could do to improve and become more effective in the future. It's heartening and frustrating at the same time to read the articles written by past volunteers and staff that served in countries all around the world and to hear that they've faced the exact same problems as I have, not with their country of service or the members of their community, but with the Peace Corps management and resources available to them. Everyone that submitted critical articles to the magazine agrees that the mission and goals of the Peace Corps are sound and it could and should be the most effective development organization in the world. But it's not and there are many reasons. I agree with most of the writers that call for change in management structure, policies, and training. But I feel that most of those things are out of my control so I'll leave them to the next president and the returned PCVs in congress that are currently pushing for change. But there was one thing that was mentioned in the magazine that I can directly relate and particularly frustrates me. We live in the 21^st century and as difficult as it may be for some people to believe, there is high speed internet on this tiny little piece of land in the middle of the pacific ocean. I see no reason why we as Peace Corps Fiji aren't taking advantage of it. The biggest problem I've faced with the Peace Corps and trying to start projects is just a lack of information. One person in the magazine wrote that it's as if each new volunteer has to re-invent the wheel, because there is surprising little information available to us about what past volunteers have done in our area and how they did it. For example, the two projects that I've started to focus on are getting a school house built for our kindergarten and starting a small eco-tourism business on the island. You'd think there would be plenty of information out there about those two projects since every village in Fiji either has a kindergarten or wants one, and tourism is now the largest industry in Fiji and business advising and good environmental stewardship are two of Peace Corps Fiji's goals. But I have not been able to get any information on past volunteers that have successfully or unsuccessfully worked on these two projects. All of us volunteers are required to report trimesterly on all projects we've worked on include organizations we've collaborated with and gotten funding from. So the office has all the information. It would be extremely valuable if they would then put that information into an online database that all current volunteers could access. I see no reason why this hasn't already been done. If there's some privacy/security/bureaucratic reason why this can't be done, I'm starting to think that we should just do it ourselves. Start a Peace Corps Fiji wiki that volunteers can use to share their project information. We wouldn't even have to start a new wiki, we could just develop the Fiji page of peacecorpswiki.org. But this might too much extra work since we all already have to compile all this information on our trimester reports, it'd be even more time (=money) spent at internet cafes. That's why I wish the office would just do it for us, but the wiki might be worth trying. All of you tech-minded people out there that read this blog, I'd appreciate any advice.

By the way, though actually somewhat relate to everything I've discussed, we just had the first volunteer in our group (FRE-6, remember the acronyms?) decide to go home or ET (early termination) and we're all very sad to see her leave though we all understand her reasons. So our group is down now to 30 I think. We lost one a few weeks ago to medical reasons (not lost as in he died but as in Washington headquarters told him he had to leave though he really wanted to stay). This is the longest any Peace Corps Fiji group as gone without someone ET-ing (actually, no group before even made it all the way to swearing-in). Even though this is quite an accomplishment (the staff credits themselves for the good training, we credit ourselves with just being too stubborn), it's still sad to see our friend leave and we'll all miss her.

Obama wins!

I'm pretty sure that every Peace Corps volunteer in Fiji is celebrating Barack Obama's win tonight. A group of us watched CNN on the satellite TV at one of the resorts. Someone should call him and let him know that Peace Corps Fiji voted for him.

chickens are racist

All the white hens in my village follow the white rooster. And all the brown hens follow the brown rooster. Or maybe the white rooster only lets white hens follow him. Or the brown rooster only wants to mate with brown hens. Maybe this is common knowledge, but I've never lived in a place that had chickens roaming around freely so I've never noticed this segregation before. Now I'm pretty sure that ancestral chickens weren't white, so where did the preference for white roosters (or white hens) come from? Maybe there's something else going on that I haven't noticed. Maybe the people that own the chickens have somehow convinced them to stay segregated, so in that case it's not really the chickens' choice. I'll let you all know if I find out more.

frustration setting in

The frustration that's apparently common amongst all Peace Corps volunteers is starting to set in. I've been at my sight now for three months, which means I should start working on projects. We just had a week of training in Nadi where I got more ideas about projects from other volunteers and learned how to write grants and look for money. I came back my village really excited to start working on some of the ideas I've been discussing with people in my village. A few weeks ago I was invited to join a new committee in our village, the Fundraising Committee, which is a subcommittee of the development committee. The Development Committee is run by the elders and they've never invited me to their meetings, but this new committee seemed like to perfect way for me to get some work done. It was made up of mostly youth (remember "youth" in Fiji means anyone over 18 that isn't married yet) living in the village. There was one person representing each of the nine bito (group of families, each mataqali is divided into several bito), two people representing people from the village that now live and work in other places in Fiji, one person representing the church, and one person representing the Peace Corps (that was me). They set up a bank account and made it so that there was one person from each mataqali that could deposit and withdraw money. We elected a chairman, treasurer, and secretary. We met every two weeks. The notes from the last meeting were typed, printed, and distributed at the next meeting. All this might not seem like a big deal, but this is not usually how meetings are held and decisions made in the village. The committee was well organized and everyone from the village was fairly represented. The only problem was that I was the only woman. But one of our goals was to include more women in the future. Our meetings went really well. They always explained to me what they were talking about since my Fijian is still coming along (in other meetings I've been to it's usually a struggle to get someone to explain to me what's going on.) They always wanted to hear what I had to say, and they let me lead them in brainstorming future project ideas. Then I helped us to prioritize the project ideas and write a summary of the projects to show the rest of the village on Serua Day. Serua Day is the annual fundraiser in the village, and this year it was organized by the new Fundraising Committee. This year every woman from the village had to raise $50 (last year each of the men had to raise $100).

So all of this was great. All of us on the committee were really looking forward to Serua Day, and I was happy to have a good group of people to work with for my two years here. Then Serua Day came, and as the money started coming in, something happened. Two women (who don't live in the village) who were the old committee that used to organize Serua Day just took over. They started collecting the money, and didn't want to have anything to do with the new committee. And for reasons that I don't fully understand (something about age, and respect, and those parts of Fijian culture that I'm still getting used to), our committee couldn't do anything about it. So after all the hard work, the Fundraising Committee is over, and all the money is with the two women in Suva and nobody knows what's going to happen to it.

Now I wasn't around when the new committee was started so maybe they didn't communicate well enough with the old committee, but I don't really know. I know that some people in the village were really excited about our new committee and were looking forward to new ideas and a new way of doing things. But there were also people that didn't like the idea of the youth being involved wanted to keep the old committee (the two older women living in Suva). It' s not my place to say who was right and who was wrong, but I can say that for me the new committee was perfect. And now that it's over, I have no idea how I'm going to get any work done in this village. Because I'm not here to do projects for the village, I'm here to work WITH people on projects, especially people that actually live in the village. I just don't know where to go from here.

So that's one frustrating experience I wanted to share. Now for the next one. My village started a kindergarten just a couple weeks after I arrived. One of the mothers volunteered to be the teacher, and I worked with her to figure out what to teach and to make posters and decorate the community hall and things like that. Then, a couple weeks after the kindergarten started, the elders decided that we couldn't use the community hall anymore (there are various reasons and theories for why they made that decision but I'm still baffled.) But everything was okay because a woman that has a house in the village but doesn't live in it anymore said it was okay to use it for the kindergarten.

So things were going great. Before the kids to young to go to primary school would spend all day running around the village. Now they spend half the day in kindergarten and the other half running around the village singing the ABCs. Then yesterday, the woman who owns the house came to the village and said she heard a rumor that we were going to change her house (expand it, add a toilet, etc.) and she wasn't happy. So she made us move everything out and doesn't want the kindergarten there anymore. Nobody knows who started that rumor, and it's definately not true, but she wants to lock her house anyway. So now the kindergarten is over. There's no other house that we could have it in, and the elders said we can't use the community hall. So for now we're going to wait for the next community meeting and ask for hall again and hope the elders change their mind. But everyone knows that the real solution is to build a new house just for the kindergarten. But of course that would involve more fundraising and our fundraising committee is gone. All the mothers are really upset, I saw some crying yesterday, and once again, I'm feeling frustrated. So today here I am, sitting at the nearby resort, using the free wireless internet surrounded by a bunch of tourists that just got off a cruise ship. Two of them just came up to me and asked me why my computer isn't an Apple. I didn't know what to say.

levulevu

After laying in bed until 10 am because for some unknown reason I just couldn't make myself get up, I decided that I needed to rearrange my bedroom. Not only because I wanted a change, but also to make space for me to do my “Yoga for Weight Loss” routine. I just picked up the DVD from the post office yesterday, along with a “natural rubber yoga mat,” a “sustainably harvested cork block,” and a “natural hemp strap.” You might be asking yourself, why does she need to lose weight? And if so, why yoga instead of just walking? And if she's going to do yoga, why do it in her small bedroom instead of in the spacious living room of her big house? All good questions, and here are the answers: In the village, I spend the majority of my time in my house or in someone else's house, sitting on the floor. I try not to eat too much, but with no physical activity, I think I've started to gain weight. So why not start walking instead of sitting around? Because as you've seen now from the pictures, I live on tiny little island! Sure, it's not that hard to get to the mainland, but try explaining to my Turaga ni koro that I want to go to the mainland and walk down the road by myself. “Not safe,” he would say, and he'd tell me I'd have to take someone with me. And who would go with me? Not any of the boys, because there would be way too much gossip if any of them were seen alone with me. And what about the women? None of them are interested in any kind of physical activity. So my dad sent me the “Yoga for weight loss” dvd, but why do I have to do yoga in the bedroom? Because in the bedroom I can close all the windows and nobody will see me. If I do it in the living room, people will see me through the door, which stays open all day because it's rude to close your door cause it means you don't want people to visit (not that they would visit because most are still afraid to come into my house). Why don't I want anyone to see me? Because nobody does yoga in the village! I would get so many questions, everyone would talk about it. And in the village, gaining weight isn't seen as a bad thing. People tell me all the time “Sai, o iko levulevu,” which means “Monica, your getting fat.” That's not an insult here. It would actually be an insult if I was losing weight because it would mean that they're not feeding me enough. It's one of those hospitality things. So here I am, rearranging the furniture in my bedroom so that I can secretly do yoga and lose weight. I actually really like the new arrangement:

The new way

The old way

a tour of my village

yup, that's my village out there on that island

sunset over the mainland

the view from the top of the hill

same hill

rugby team practicing at low tide

yeah, it's always that windy

my kitchen

my house, way too big for just one person!

sunset over the mainland

tide going out

our community hall

our church (yes, I go every Sunday), and the Pastor's house

Werelevu (big house) - the Chief's house
This is where we have village meetings, and where you go if you want to see the chief. He and his family live in the house to the right. This is also where we get our drinking water. That pipe to the left leads from the roof of werelevu to a cement water tank where we fill up our bottles

Some houses along the seawall.

the view down the footpath through the middle of the village

my neighbor's laundry

nap time

fijian lesson

This is something i wrote about a week ago but couldn't post until now:


It's time for a short lesson on traditional Fijian village structure. Hopefully this will help you to better understand what it's like for me to live here since my village is more traditional than some. If this isn't interesting to you, I won't be offended if you don't read it.

The country of Fiji is divided into 12 provinces (Yasana). These could could be compared to states in the U.S. Each province is divided into districts (Tikina), which would be like our counties. Then there are any number of villages (koro) in each district. Each village has a chief. One village in each district is a chiefly village so that the chief of that particular village is also the chief of the district. Then each province has a chiefly village where the chief of that village is the chief of the his/her district and chief of the whole province. The position of chief is inherited and he/she has the last say in all decisions made in the village.

Also an inherited position is the mata ni vanua or the chief's spokesman. He's the connection between the chief and the people. He can speak directly to the chief, and during ceremonies he speaks for the chief and accepts offerings (sevusevu) made to him.

Another important person in the village is the Turaga ni koro. He is sometimes elected and sometimes chosen by the chief depending on the village. He's like the village mayor. While the chief is the traditional leader of the village, the Turaga ni koro is more like a political leader. He's the connection between the village and the government. He goes to district and provincial council meetings and all projects in the village must be approved by him.

Then there are the elders who advise the chief and the Turaga ni koro. They're the ones that do most of the talking at village meetings.

There could be anywhere from 50 to 1000 people living in a single village. They say the people of a village are all descendants of a common ancestor who was one of the original Melanesian colonizers of the islands maybe 3000 years ago. The people of each village are divided into clans called mataqali. You inherit your father's mataqali and when women marry, they join their husbands mataqali. What's interesting about Fiji is that the mataqali is the land-owning unit, not the individual. 83% of the land in Fiji is still owned by mataqali (compare that with how much land in the U.S. is still owned by Native Americans). This land can never be bought or sold but it can be leased. So most of the resorts and hotels in Fiji don't own the land they're on, they pay rent to the mataqali that owns the land. For many families this rent is a significant source of income.

I hope all of this is somewhat interesting. Now I can better explain my village. My village has about 130 people and 4 mataqali. I've been adopted by the chief's mataqali which is called Raralevu. My village is a chiefly village. So my chief is the chief of this village, this district, and this province. His title is Vunivalu which means war chief. The Turaga ni koro is my counterpart, so he's the person I'm supposed to be working closely with on any projects I do in the village.

Integrating

I've been in my village for three weeks now and I'm going to try to write about everything that's happened. I started with the last day of our training. Early in the morning we packed our things and had to say goodbye to our host village. It was very emotional as we loaded our things onto the truck. Almost the whole village came to say goodbye to us and there was a lot of crying by the women and the men. I never expected it to be so difficult to leave, but I had made a lot of friends. After that they took us to Suva where we had one afternoon and $400 to buy everything we would need for our new houses. After such an emotional morning it was really hard to focus on stoves and pots when all I wanted to do was go back to my village. The next morning we went to our swearing in ceremony where all 32 of us Fre-6(that's what this years group is called, since we're the sixth group since the peace corps came back to fiji) trainees swore in and became official Peace Corps Volunteers (until this point we were only "trainees"). Then we were packed onto a bus with all of our things to be driven to our new villages. There was another emotional goodbye as all of us volunteers who had been together for two months had to say goodbye and go our seperate ways.

The bus dropped me off in Navua, a town near the island where I was supposed to be picked up by someone from the village. But when I called him, he said he couldn't come that day and that he'd come the next day. So I spent the night with Sarah, a volunteer in Navua. The next day I waited for him to come, but he never did and didn't answer his phone. Since this kind of thing isn't that unusual for Fiji, I tried not to worry. But when the next day came and I waited all morning, I couldn't help feeling like maybe they didn't want me anymore. He finally came in the afternoon, he said he lost his phone. So this was the beginning of my two years in the village and it didn't seem to going very. The first few days were very hard. I really missed Naimalavau, and the people in my new village weren't talking to me very much. I would spend all day sitting in my house by myself. In my training village, when if I walked around everyone would greet me and invite into their house to drink tea. But in my new village everyone was very shy. Nobody invited me over. At night they'd invite me to drink yaqona, but even when I'd be sitting in a room full of people, nobody would talk to me. I felt so lonely and really just wanted to go back to Naimalavau. And I got sick, which made me feel even worse.

So that's how it started. Things have slowly been getting better and I've found out some of the reasons why eveyone was acting that way. First of all they speak a different dialect than the one I had learned. So in the beginning all of my conversations with people had to be in English. Well a lot of people don't speak English very well. Also, in Fiji, being able to speak English well is a sign of being well educated, and I was told that a lot of people in my village were ashamed to talk to me because they weren't as educated as I am. Also I think people are maybe ashamed to invite me into their houses because they think they're not nice enough for a white person. Another issue is my own house. The house I'm staying belongs to the chiefs family, so before everyone in the village had to respect that house and the people in it, so most people never go in that house. In Fiji, you show your respect for someone by not talking to them, or only talking to them very formally. For example, traditionally in Fijian culture, brothers and sisters are supposed to respect each other, meaning that they don't talk directly to each other. If they have to sit in the same room, they'll sit as far away from each other as possible. So people were showing there respect for me and house by not coming over and talking to me. Another issue is the village gossip. Us volunteers refer to it as the "coconut wireless." In Fijian villages, people seem to spend the majority of their time talking about everyone else. Anywhere I go, anything I say or do is quickly known by the whole village. This has been a problem for me and the youth. The word "youth" in Fiji is different than in the US. A youth is someone who isn't married yet. So someone can be 40 years old and still be considered a youth. In my village almost all of the youth are men. Most of the young women from the island either get married and move to their husband's village, or they move to the mainland to get a job or go to school. This means that all the people my age in the village are men. And because of the coconut wireless, if any of them are seen talking to me, especially if we're alone talking, the whole village will find out and the rumors will start spreading. So most of them are afraid to be seen coming to my house.

In Fijian culture, while brothers and sisters respect each other and don't talk, cousins and cousin-brothers are required to tease each other and they're constantly joking around making fun of eachother. For me it means that if one of the boys tries to talk to me and his English messes up a word or something, his cousins and brothers will make fun of him. So even the boys that do speak English are afraid to talk to me in front of the other boys.

So these are the challenges I've been facing as I try to integrate into my new community. Things have slowly been getting better. More and more people are starting to talk to me and few people have even come to visit me at my house. What I really want are friends in the village, people I can talk to when I'm lonely. The women are always very talkative and I really like the women in my village, but they're all older than me and sometimes I want to be able to talk with people my age. Things are getting much better with the boys my age, but the coconut wireless is always going to be a challenge. Sometimes girls from the island that have moved away come back to visit on weekends and holidays and I get so excited to talk to another woman my age. And I'm always more comfortable with the boys and them with me when there's another woman around too.

So that's how things have been going in my village. I haven't started any projects yet. The peace corps recomends that spen the first 3-4 months just integrating: learning the dialect, getting to know everyone, identifying the leaders in community and the people that seem the most motivated to get things done. I think it's a really good idea to wait before starting projects, but sometimes it's hard to explain to people. In the past, there've been foreigners that have come to the village to work on projects. Usually they come with a lot of money, do their project, and then leave. That's what the village is used to, white people come and do things for them. That's not the Peace Corps' approach. The Peace Corps is about integrating into the community and helping them help themselves. So my challenge right now is to show them that I'm not like all the other white people they've met and try to become a part of the community.

New Address

My new mailing address is:

Monica Papp
P.O. Box 490
Pacific Harbor, Fiji

I'm leaving my training village tomorrow and I'll be at my new site on Thursday. I'll be even further from an internet cafe there so I might not be able to write as often.

Serua Island

I've just returned from my sight visit. I'll be spending my next two years on Serua Island. The island is very small, only about 30 houses, and almost everyone fishes for a living. It's a chiefly island so the chief of the village is also the chief of Serua Province. Since there're only 14 provinces in Fiji, he's a pretty high ranked chief. It's very different from my training village where the chief is a woman and she's one of the poorest people in the village. In Serua, the chief and his family are very well off for Fiji standards. They even have a car that they keep on the mainland. The village is more traditional than my training village so I'm going to have to get used to that.

My counterpart is the person that I'm supposed to be working closely with on any projects that I do, but he doesn't really talk to me much and I'm not sure why. Luckily I met some other people in the village that are very excited to have me there and seem very motivated to get some projects going. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to be working on. I was supposed to meet with the NGO that has been working with the village, but the meeting never happened. There's a women's group and a youth group that I'm hoping to get involved with. I also visited the school on the mainland that the kids go to and they're very excited to have me work with them.

The Peace Corps tells us that for the first three or four months we should just focus on integrating into the community and try to sit in on as many meetings as possible. They speak a different dialect than the one I've been learning, so my first task will be to learn the language. Luckily it's not too different than Bauan.

I have my own house on the island and it's way too big for just one person. The owners now live in the capital and they said I could stay there for the two years of my service. It's already furnished, but I'm gonna have to buy a stove and a few other things for the kitchen.

Oh yeah and they changed my name. I'm now Saivora, named after the chief's wife. In Fiji, if someone is named after you, it makes you kind of like a godparent and your supposed to give your namesake gifts and treats.

Another interesting thing about the village is that since it's a small island, a lot of people have moved to the mainland. Either because there's no more room on the island to build houses or to be closer to jobs and schools. Some of the people from the island now live together in a settlement nearby on the mainland so it's kind of like the village is split in two. Most of the younger women move the settlement because there's no work for them on the island and so their kids can get to school more easily. The young men can stay on the island and fish until they get married. Then they have to decide if they want to bring their wife to the island or move to the mainland. In Fiji, if you ask someone where their from, even if they live in the capital, they'll tell you the name of their father's village, even if they've never lived there themselves. Most people go back to their villages for holidays, weddings, and funerals. In Serua, some people from the settlement come back to the island every weekend. So family and the village are very important to the people here in Fiji. People are very surprised when I tell them about my family in the U.S. and how we all live in different places.

I really enjoyed my visit to the Serua, but it felt really good to come back to Naimalavau yesterday. I actually found that I missed the village and the people and I was only gone for 6 days. It's going to be hard when we have to leave for good next week. Me and the other trainees are already talking about going back for Christmas.

So has anyone figured out yet how to call me from the U.S? I have gotten any calls or messages. My service provider is Vodafone and they say that to call you just have to dial the country code (679) and then my number, but I haven't gotten any calls. Text messages might be different. It only costs me 20 cents to text the US so it'd be a nice way to stay in contact with each other. Let me know if anyone figures it out.

Moce mada

Site Announcement

Yesterday was what people here in Fiji call "America Day" (4th of July) and it was also the day of our site announcement. They made a big map of Fiji out of rope on the ground and called our names one by one and walked us to our site. All of our host families cried as they called out our names. They're going to miss us and even though my host family can be very challenging at times, I'm definately going to miss my village. I can only hope that my new village will be as cool as Naimalavau. I've also gotten pretty close to the other trainees in my village and soon we'll have to move far away from each other. They're my best friends here so I hope that we'll be able to visit eachother after we move to our sites. I'll also miss all of our Fijian training staff and hopefully we'll be able to hang out sometimes after training is over.

So here's what I've been waiting for! I've been assigned to Serua Island. We're all leaving tomorrow to go visit our sites so I'll have more to say about it when I get back next weekend. What I know so far is that it's a small island off the southern coast of Viti Levu (the main island that I'm on now) near the town of Navua if you're trying to find it on a map. There's only one village on the island and there're about 250 people. The island is close enough to the mainland that you can walk to it at low tide. It has 24/7 electricity and running water. There's supposedly a house there ready for me. My assignment is pretty vague and we've all been told that most people don't actually do what there assignment said. I do know that there's an environmental NGO already working with my island and I'm supposed to have a meeting with them on Tuesday. It's a chiefly island so the chief of my village is also the chief of the province I think. Everyone says that it's beautiful and I can't wait to go see it. My counterpart is the Turaga ni Koro (the village spokesman) and I'll meet him tomorrow and we'll go together to the island. I'll be back in my training village on Friday. Then we have two more weeks of training before we move to our sites. I'll try to get on the internet next weekend to tell you more about my site.

letters and phone calls

I just got my first letter a couple of days ago from my grandparents and it was so nice so please keep the letters coming! Also, I was unable to "unlock" my cell phone from the states so I bought a new mobile (that's what they call cell phones here). It turns out that The US is one of the only countries in the world that charges you to receive calls and text messages. In Fiji I only have to pay to make a call or send a message. Also, it costs the same to send a message to the states as it does to send a message in Fiji, 20 cents a message. So feel free to call me or text me if you can figure out the international code system. My number is 8353 763. Everyone says Fiji has really good cell phone coverage and so far it's been true. Dad, I never received your text so try again. Oh yeah and Mom, I payed my credit card online so don't worry about that bill.

We find out our sites next Friday and we're all so excited. We've all been trying to get hints and clues from the staff to try and figure it out on our own. I did find out that I am one of the 5 trainees who will be getting marine assignments so that's good to know. However, the two islands that I really wanted to go to (Kadavu and Taveuni) are off limits to female volunteers for "safety and security" reasons. So I'm a little disappointed, but only a little because there are so many great places in Fiji. Once we get our site assignments, then we'll meet our counterpart (a member of the community that we'll be working closely with for our project) and the two of us will travel to the site to check it out for one week. Then we'll come back to our training villages.

I have to go so sorry no culture lessons this time. Also, pictures will probably have to wait until I leave my training village. My computer is out of power and my family only has one outlet and it's in the main room of the house and I really don't like using my computer in front of them. Sota tale (until we meet again).

More about Fiji

Sorry I got cut off last time. I'm back in town today for a little while today. Still no pictures. I think the pictures will have to wait till the end of training because I don't like getting my computer out in front of my family.

Food

The traditional Fijian food is pretty bland. Mostly starches: dalo (also known as taro) and tavioka (also known as cassava, yuka, tapioca, etc.). They also eat a lot of fish and chicken when they can afford it. Vegetables aren't usually a part of meals except for rourou which is the cooked leaf of the dalo plant. Luckily, I was able to explain to my host family that I prefer to eat vegetarian food. They have a pretty good understanding of what that is because there are plenty of Indo-Fijians that are vegetarian. Actually, my family decided that they would become vegetarian too while I'm staying with them. They understand that vegetables are healthy and they've even told me that they feel healthier since they started eating them. Also because of the Indo-Fijian population, they know how to make curry and roti other good Indian foods so I've been eating really well.

Dress

Since I live in the village, I have to dress very conservatively. This means a wearing a skirt that goes below my knees and a shirt that covers my shoulders. I often wear a sulu (in other parts of the pacific it's called a sarong) and for special occasions I wear a flowery sulu with a matching shirt called a jaba (pronounced "chamba"). Men often wear sulus too, and when they dress up they wear "pocket sulus" which are tailored to look like dress pants that men in the US wear. When I'm in town, women are allowed to wear jeans and tank tops just like in the US.

Church

Fiji has definately been changed by the missionaries. Most native Fijians are Methodists with some Assembly of God, Seventh Day, Catholic, and a few other denominations. My village only has the one Methodist church which has services every day and three times on Sundays. Also, many families have devotion in their homes twice a day at four in the morning and at seven at night. All of this was very scary to me when I first got to the village. Especially because the only white people that have ever stayed in this village before were Methodist missionaries from Australia and New Zealand that come a couple times of year to give money to the church. So natrually everyone thought we were missionaries too and I think some people were trying to impress us with how religious they are. It took some time and lots of explaing but I think most people in the village understand who we are now and since then my family doesn't act nearly as religious as they did when I got here. I go with them to church once on Sundays and we pray before each meal and that's about it. It's really not too bad.

Traditions

Well, it looks like I have to go again so I'll continue next time I'm in town. Please send me messages and don't forget about snail mail! Other people have gotten letters from home and they've all taken about one to two weeks to get here which isn't that bad so don't be afraid to send those letters! I'll definately write you back! Until next time...

Ni Sa Bula Vinaka!

Sorry for making everyone wait so long for this post! I'm in Fiji, and I'm safe and healthy and everything like that so stop worrying! This post is going to be difficult to write because I've been here for almost four weeks now and so much has happened. I didn't know until the last minute that I'd be coming in to town today so I didn't bring any pictures to post, sorry. Where to begin?

Nadave (pronounced "nandavay")

After arriving in Fiji, all 32 of us stayed at a small college in Nadave for the first week. We all lived together in cabin-like dorms called "bure"s. We spent most of our days listening to various peace corps staff talk on and on and on about PC policies, rules, safety, security, culture adjustment, etc. We started to learn a little language, but we didn't know at the time if we were going to be learning Hindi or Bauan (the most common dialect of Fijian), so everyone learned a tiny bit of both. At the end of the week, we were finally told which language we would be learning and in which village we would spend the next 8 weeks of training. I found out that I will be learning Fijian and my training village is called Naimalavau.

Training village

There are five Peace Corps trainees (PCTs) in Naimalavau and one Language and Culture Facilitator (LCF) named Josefa (or JT). Each of us lives with a different host family in the village. Every weekday morning, we have language and cross-culture training with JT. Then we have lunch with our families. In the afternoon, we have technical training. There are 3 types of volunteers in Fiji: environment, health, and business. So every afternoon we're divided into these three groups for tech training. Then we go home to our families for the rest of the evening. On Saturdays, we usually go into town with our families and Sunday is a day of rest and church. So that's an overview of my daily life.

My family

There are six people in my host family:

My Qei (pronounced "ngay" and means mom) Matalita
My Tamanqu Paula
My three brothers: Epeli (4), Taione (7), and Asaeli (15)
And my sister Ilikaci (13)

I also have a 21 year old brother who lives in capital with his wife. They just had a baby last week and guess what her name is: Nansi Monika Saurara. That's right, my new baby niece was named after me.

Village life

For those of you who thought that I would be coming to a tropical paradise, let me describe my village a bit. It's not near the ocean. The ocean isn't even within walking distance. Actually, yesterday was the first time we got to go swimming and it was raining and we had to do "water safety training." I haven't gotten tan at all for two reasons. 1. It rains all the time, I hardly ever see the sun. And 2. I have stay covered from my shoulders to my ankles whenever I'm in the village, which is always. Our village does have electricity and running water that comes from Suva (the capital of Fiji) so it's safe to drink. However, the water pressure isn't ever high enough for the shower to work so I take bucket baths. If you've never done this before, it's actually not as bad as it sounds. I fill up a bucket of water in the shower room and use a bowl to pour the water on me. You get used to it pretty quick. The village pays for electricity a little differently than we do. It's prepaid. So you go into town and buy however many units of electricity you can afford and you're given a number. Each house has a box on the wall where you type in your number and it tells you how much electricity you have left. If you run out of units, your electricity switches off. Because of this and other costs, not everyone can afford refrigerator or other electric appliances. Though everyone seems to find enough money to buy a tv and dvd player.

I have so much more to write but I have to go. Hopefully I'll be able to use the internet again soon so I can finish writing. Since I can't email very often, I would love to get snail mail! Here's the address is you don't have it yet:

Monica Papp
Peace Corps Fiji
Private Mail Bag
Suva, Fiji

Much love.

I'm in New Zealand

Me and my new baby cousin Declan

We just arrived in Aukland, New Zealand after two grueling days of orientation in LA. I'm definitely ready to stop talking about my Peace Corps service and actually do it. We leave for Nadi, Fiji tonight and tomorrow we drive to Nadeve where we'll spend our first 9 weeks in training. They told us that internet and phones might not be as available during training, but I'm not sure what that means. So I guess just don't be suprised if you don't here from me much until July. But you can still mail me letters! Here's my address:

Monica Papp - PCT
Peace Corps Fiji
Private Mail Bag
Suva, Fiji

Me and Great-Grandma in Florida

Pictures from Ohio

My brother Cameron with my cousins Tim and Steve

My mom and cousin Tim

Cameron and Aunt Jo

Me and cousin Elayne

Me and my brother

Me and Bob

Grandma and Grandpa

Walk with Bob

Pictures from Denver

My Aunt Nikki and I

My cousin Joseph

My cousin Christina

by the way...

I'm in Arizona right now visiting my Dad. Here's my itinerary for anyone who's interested:

April 28-May 2 -- Scottsdale, AZ
May 2-5 -- Denver, CO
May 5-11 -- Cincinnati, OH
May 11-14 -- Bradenton, FL
May 14-18 -- Long Island, NY
May 18-19 -- Peace Corps staging in LA
May 19 -- Fly to Fiji!

I love Santa Cruz!

I had a perfect last night in Santa Cruz. Me and all my friends met a the the Irish pub (the Poet and the Patriot) for darts and beer, and to say good-bye. I have some wonderful friends that I'll really miss.

Leaving Santa Cruz

Today is my last day in Santa Cruz. I really should be packing instead of writing this blog entry but....
I've had a great last couple weeks. Activities included: hanging out with old friends, selling my bike, a going away party, a random road trip to Lake Tahoe for a bluegrass show, giving away huge piles of clothes I don't need, and of course my last day of work. I've lived in Santa Cruz for 5 and a half years now and it really is my home. It's strange to think that I may never live here again. Even if I do come back in 2 years, probably most of my friends will have left too. Most are leaving this summer. Everyone has to move on with their lives eventually. Two of my housemates just got engaged. I guess we're all growing up.

I'm back

Sorry this is going to be quick. I got back to California yesterday and went back to work today. I'm working again tomorrow, but then I promise I'll sit down and write about the end of my trip and post more pictures.

fun in Baños

Baños

someone´s pet tortoise

and me with the tortoise

fern leaf

artesans selling their jewelry

and the view from the other side of the table

Baños

My plan was to stay in Baños for a couple days, and then head south. Well I got here on Sunday and now it´s Friday and I´m still here. I actually didn´t like this town at first, but now I feel like I could live here. I´m not sure what it is about it. It´s a small town that covers a valley at the base of Volcán Tungurahua. The volcano is definately active. I´ve felt three earthquakes since I´ve been here and there´s constantly a cloud of ash rising from the crater at the summit. Unfortunately it´s almost always cloudy and I haven´t had a really good view of the volcano yet. There´s a lot to do here. I´ve been hiking and horseback riding on some of the trails around here. The other day I rented a bike and road 60 kilometers from Baños (about 2000m) to Puyo (900m) and watched the ecology change from mountain forest to flat Amazonian rainforest. They call it the `route of the waterfalls´ because there´s about a dozen along the road. I´ve met a lot of great people here, locals and other travelers, and I´m staying at a really fun hostal. My plan now is to stay for the weekend, then head north to Mindo on Sunday. Then I fly home on Thursday. So I´ll see some of you pretty soon. Hasta luego.

Pictures from Chugchilán

in the clouds at almost 4000m

sheep

waterfall in the cloud forest

me at Laguna Quilotoa

ice cream truck

So I kept on hearing what sounded like an ice cream truck driving through town. Well yesterday I finally saw what it really was. It´s the garbage truck. It drives through the streets playing music like you´d hear on an ice cream truck, and when people here the song, they bring their garbage out to the street.

Chugchilán

I´ll try to post pictures later. The computer I´m on now doesn´t have very high resolution. I spent three nights at a permaculture farm/hostel in the tiny town of Chugchilán. Getting there was an adventure. The town is high in the Andes (at almost 4000m) so the road is very winding and narrow. Also, it had been raining a lot resently so the already scary road was even scarier. I would never have guessed that a bus could have made it up that road, but the drivers here are amazing. My first day there me and two other travellers hired a guide (14 year old kid from the village) and hiked 7 miles from an old crater that´s now a lake. At 4000m elevation, 7 miles took us 5 hours! The next day, we hired another guide with some mules and rode through the countryside and up to a cloud forest reserve. To me, riding a mule through fields of corn and beans, passing indigenous women women with their children strapped to their backs, was a true Andean experience.

The next day I met a group of Germans who had met someone with a pickup truck who was driving out of town. After weighing the risks and benefits of riding in the back of the truck versus taking the bus again, I jumped into the truck with the four Germans. The ride was pretty uncomfortable and uneventful, until the driver decided it was time his daughter started learning how to drive. She did very well for a 11 year old!

Now I´m in Baños, and I´ll write more about this town later.

wow

It was really hard to choose which pictures to post. There are more that I´d like to show you, but some need a little editing and the computer I´m on now doesn´t have the software. So obviously I just got back from an AMAZING trip to the Galapagos Islands. I was on a boat for 11 days with 15 passengers (including my dad), a naturalist guide, a tour leader, and the ship´s crew. I have to admit that I was a little nervous about this trip. I´ve never been on "cruise," so I didn´t know how that would work out. Also, the way it works in the Galapagos National Park is that you can´t set foot on the islands without a certified naturalist guide. Not all the islands are open to visitors and the ones that are have marked trails that you have to follow. Those of you that know me know that comfortable yaughts and guided tours are not my normal mode of travel. Well I have to tell you that I was pleasently suprised and very impressed. Our naturalist guide (Martin Loyola) was wonderful and I can´t imagine the trip without him. He was incredibly knowledgable about the animals (terrestrial and marine), plants, and geology of the Galapagos. The islands by far exceeded my expectations. It´s hard to describe just how close we could get to the wildlife. Because of the lack of predators and the constant presence of visitors, the animals aren´t afraid of people at all. It was a wildlife photographer´s dream. Here´s a list of some of the highlights from the trip:

• baby birds everywhere
• swimming with hammerhead sharks
• seeing giant tortoises in the wild
• not getting sick when everyone else on the boat did
• swimming with a pod of false killer whales
• floating in the middle of a pelican/boobie/penguin feeding frenzie
• Martin´s stories
• swimming with a flock of penguins
• always getting to the islands before all the other tourists, just after sunrise
• breaching manta rays
• stargazing at the ecuator from the top deck
• pretending to be a sea lion in the water

lotsa pictures!

mangroves in the morning

lava heron with a yummy sally-light-foot crab

flirting nazca boobies

baby boobie

mmmm... cactus

flightless cormorant

flamingo lagoon

marine iguanas and mangroves

male lava lizard

penguins and blue-footed boobies

bathing giant tortoise

hungry marine iguana

giant tortoise

frigate birds