The past few weeks have been eventful, which is very unusual for Fiji. I’ve been keeping myself busy with class and preparing for fundraising events. Also- had a ‘professional exchange’ on AIDS/HIV and STI awareness with Rob, my best good Peace Corps friend. He was visiting with his lovely family from Rhode Island and I got the opportunity to meet them all and listen to their awesome accent. I love to hear them say words like: idea = “idear”, apart = “apaht”, Danica = “Dawnica”. It reminds me of Jill and her mom, “Hey Dawni, I lawve youwah apahtment. Get in tha fuckin cawh!” Translation: “Hey Dani, I love your apartment, get in the fucking car!” Hahahaha. Oh, the good old days.

Anyhow, our first fundraising event for Earth Day went really well, despite the unrelenting rain and getting shafted by town council. Town Council gave us a shed behind the market and away from the main road and therefore hidden from view… I felt like we had been ostracized from society! It’s a shame too because we had our environment friendly art projects made out of recycled materials on display. But after an hour of just hoping that someone would walk by our shed, we took it to the streets! We packed up all our greeting cards and went on a mission to sell them all. I made Taki, one of my students, wear a sign with the recycling arrows on it. He was walking barefoot through town yelling at the top pf his lungs “REDUCE! RE-USE! RECYCLE!” It was hilarious! Needless to say, Taki attracted a lot of attention and we used that to our full advantage, selling as many cards as we could. I don’t think my students realized they could actually make money by selling these greeting cards. They were so surprised when I tallied up the amount of cards we sold and showed them the grand total they made on their very first day. Yesterday we made a list of the things they want to see improved or changed with the money we make. The first things on their list were: a brush cutter (they cut their grass with machetes, arduous work!) and new desks for the classroom. It just made me appreciate the comforts I was granted while growing up, like having a desk with a smooth surface to write on… it’s the little things we take for granted.

We have two fundraisers this week before the end of the term, so hopefully we will double our profit and be able to get started on achieving their needs. And after that, a two week vacation!

This is Ropate presenting to my students ...
"And this foamy secretion in and around the penis area is called..."

Learning how to put on a condom...

Earth day.
"There's a kaivalagi! Go get em!"

These are Wati and Suli.
They made an ibe (a Fijian mat) from wrappers

This is Taki.
The curtain behind him is made out of beer bottle caps.


Superman!

Vaka Cegu.

Here are some photos from my class
NAQELEKULA

wood burning bread oven.

Suli Making paper

Wati rolling out moisture from our paper

Stencilling with banana leaves

“Life comes in clusters. Clusters of solitude, then a cluster when there is hardly time to breathe.” – May Sarton

Well, honeymoon in Savusavu is over. I am officially a local. I try to avoid going into town as much as possible, but when I do, it is impossible not to run into people I know or have met at least once. On market day, I buy my vegetables from my regular market lady (caserita), except my fruit, that I get from the cutest little old man who occasionally gives me an extra papaya or a throws in a couple extra bananas… The people at the bread shop who give me the usual, one loaf of medium whole meal and one banana muffin.

I have stopped romanticizing about the beauty of this place. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Savusavu is beautiful, but living here…and living as a local, let me tell you, it is hardly paradise. The water goes out when it rains, [not that I’m complaining, at least I have running water most of the time]. My clothes smell like mildew because of this damn rain too… This time of year, it never stays sunny long enough to hang out clothes to dry…. And the bugs, don’t even get me started on the bugs. I have managed to get a weird tropical fungus thing that comes and goes as it pleases…

Which by the way, my students are… well, they are the reason my head hurts, my feet ache and the reason why I can’t wait to go back tomorrow. I have been working with ‘Naqelekula’, a Methodist boarding school that was developed for school dropouts. The mission of the school is to promote youth development through pastoral, technical, and vocational training. Most of the students who attend the school are kids ranging from ages 16-25. It’s funny even calling them kids, some of them are my age and yet they still call me madam. They’ll say… “Good afternoon madam”, “yes madam”, “no madam”. It used to make me kind of uncomfortable, but then again, comfortable isn’t exactly how I would describe most situations in this experience thus far.

Before I arrived, the students focused on farming and baking as a means of earning money to keep the school running. As an alternative way of making money, I have introduced an income-generating project that involves making greeting cards and bookmarks with local designs. It’s hard working with little to no materials, but we work with what we have until we are able to make enough money to purchase materials and then really kick ass. I have taught them how to make recycled paper and I am teaching them basic printmaking methods, mostly stenciling from whatever materials we can get our hands on… banana stems, paper, even used x-ray film that mysteriously made its way to our classroom from the hospital (this one works best).


One day I was talking to the students about the importance of recycling and explaining to them how long it takes for materials to decompose and thought to myself, why not make art from garbage? There’s plenty of it everywhere, so why not use it and have a small exhibit in town to raise awareness for the environment and at the same time use this day as an excuse to sell our greeting cards and bookmarks made from recycled paper? Environment Day happens to fall on the very same day as Youth Day, April 22nd. My students and I have been busy making art projects out of rubbish, paper and bookmarks and cards, cards, cards… and in between, I’ve been writing letters, proposals, all the not so fun stuff to raise money for my class. I’m working harder as a volunteer than I ever did when I was actually getting paid!

And so, I hope you understand the reason for my delay in updating you all on what’s happening on this end of the world. (Even though most of you are past due on your letters to me!) Besides the Cyclone warning and the flash floods and teh skin conditions, not much new around here… except I’m reading this really great book, it’s called “The Poisonwood Bible” by Barbara Kingsolver. It’s a really great read, about an evangelical Baptist who takes his family to the Congo on his mission during the 50’s. I highly recommend it, daddy- especially you, I think you’d get a kick out of it, and I don’t want to hear: “I never have time to read…” Give yourself some time for you, take a load off annie!