My ipod broke. I got the little man with the x's for eyes and an exclamation mark. DAMNIT! For those of you who know me well, you can probably picture my reaction when i got the little man of death on my ipod screen. I cried myslef to sleep that night. cheesy, pathetic maybe, but true. Anyhow- it's like my dad says.. I'm down to the basics now... I came into town today to try and find a discman... $160 fijian dollars! hell no, not on a PC salary. So it looks like I'll be drowining in my silence until I can find a small (and cheap) plug in AM/FM radio to listen to... At least they play a lot of reggae/ island music, so i'll be fine for a while.
On a different, more important note: I'm starting to get adjusted to my new host family, although sometimes I feel like I'm more of an income-generating project as opposed to "a part of the family". Being in Fiji and living with an Indo-Fijian family is a strange but unique experience. According to my host mom Fijians are to blame for everything. There is so much resentment there, i guess i can understand why, Indo-Fijians make up 45% of the population in Fiji and still, they are not allowed to own land. Even if at one point they owned land, like in Shobna's (my host mom) case- they owned the house and sugarcane plantation around their house for 55 years, but after the coup they had to hand over the land to the fijians and start a lease, in which they pay a monthly stipend to their Fijian landlord. They have a lease for 45 more years. Many Indo-Fijians are emigrating and moving to Australia and New Zealand in search of better lives. Scholarships are also not given to Indo Fijian students and are only available for Fijian students. I went off on a tangent there- anyway.. yes, Shobna always warns me to stay away from the Fijians, and then we have the Fijians who blame the Indo-Fijians for everything. It's a lose-lose situation. I don't take sides, nor would I ever want to. People are people and so far I've met some pretty wonderful individuals here in fiji, despite their race or creed.
We had water safety day yesterday. It was the first time i was in the ocean in Fiji. The water was like bath water. 80 degrees, under the blaring sun... it was so great to be out at sea. We took a boat out into the ocean and swam around for a bit too. The tricky part is trying to get back on the boat when you're way out in the ocean. The water definatley helped my spirits, it was as if i was literally washing away my anxieties and frustrations. I slept like a baby last night. No music to fall asleep to, but had some beers with a couple of volunteers who live nearby, that definately contributed to a great night's sleep.
Today i made brakfast for my host family. Tuna sandwiches and coffee... not much else in the pantry. Shobna, the girls and I went to cut some sugarcane with a machete... Shobna's pretty tough, she was out there whacking away. We sat under the mango tree in front of their house and ate some sugarcane and mangos... yummmm... Tomorrow I'm going fishing with another volunteer and her host family, I'm really looking forward to another day out by the sea.

note: It's really hard to upload photos on these computers. I've been on this computer for two hours now and I was only able to upload the one photo. Still on the lookout for a faster connection.