Monday, March 24, 2008

Almost two months of being away, I’m back to the humidity and the moldy jungle. My house wasn’t as bad as I expected to find it. Of course there was that mildew smell permeating the walls, and a thick film of grimy dust covered the floor, and spider webs had taken up residence in every corner of every room, but upon my return, I was thrilled to see only two dead cockroaches on my floor. The bad news is a mouse moved into my kitchen and I can’t seem to get it out. I was going to buy a mouse trap, but I couldn’t decide which one to get, the one that snaps, (like in the cartoons) or the ones that have a sticky surface which super-glues the mouse’s feet onto it. I have bad, bad, bad visuals of both. I can’t decide what’s worse, having to clean up dead mouse guts and blood splatter from the mouse trap or have to remove a live squealing, screeching, struggling mouse with its little paws super-glued to a little cardboard surface. Um… neither. So now, in addition to my daily cleaning up of gecko poop off my kitchen counter before I have my coffee, I have to clean the mouse poop as well. In response to my mouse problem Fijians simply say, “What you need is one pussy.” A pussy cat, that is….

I visited my beautiful Fijian family yesterday. The kids ran out to greet me, yelling out my name, climbing up my legs and hugging me tight. “Danica! Danica! Danica’s here!” It was a wonderful welcome. Lucy, their mama just hugged me tight and sniffed me. “Oi le, Danica! us gang, we think you never coming back!” I had a huge duffel bag full of stuff for them. Toys for the kids, gifts from my mom to them, clothes, shoes… stuff to make s’mores. I had been promising the kids I’d show them how to make s’mores for the longest time. They had seen a cartoon once with kids roasting marshmallows and were so mystified by this… I don’t think the kids had ever seen so many toys at once. (thank you to my sister taco, and her first grade class at Paul Revere who donated them!) They were quiet and concentrated in amazement, and I was happy just watching their expressions. I played with the baby who hated the vibrating stuffed animal I got him, but really loved the box it came in. Then we went out and Nem, their father built us a bond fire and there we were, my Fijian family and me, roasting marshmallows to make s’mores. It felt good to see them again, to witness their innocence and sheer joy of taking part in something as simple as roasting marshmallows. I hugged the kids goodbye and they said thank you and hung themselves around my neck. I’m not entirely sure, but I think I may have scabies. My body is itchy… my ankles, my elbows especially. I noticed some open scabs on the kids as they held my hand and hugged me, what was I to do? Not hug them back? Scabies…greaaaat.

Happy, happy kids







3 comments:

megcb said...

Hmmmm... do you have those snap sort of mouse traps up there? In the west if you want to get rid of someone (kaivalangi) for a whole day you send them out to buy a sleeping bag and some plain (non poison) mousetraps. there aren't any! I got my mum to bring some over as we can't have cats on the island.

(NB my son's mate has had school sores. very messy. T didn't get them luckily). worse than boils can you imagine!

Wilson said...

Hey,

just dropping a note to let you know that i've featured your blog in my somewhat bi-weekly (fiji time of course) local blogsphere roundup.

http://failedparadise.blogspot.com/2008/04/local-blogsphere-bi-weekly-report.html

Cheers!

PS: I always choose the glue rat trap, since you get to see the little buggers squirm before you dispose of them.

Unknown said...

Hola Bolivian

Hope you are well. I just came across your page. Cool stuff! My partner and I are launching a website with cultural information about every country in the world. We will be looking to the web community to help do this with all the information being available for free. I was wondering if you may be able to help us out with the Fiji pages. We would love your input. Let me know if you and/or the members of the community would be open to this and I will send along a questionnaire. Please free to check out the website, become a member (it’s free!) and add to the guide.

http://www.culturecrossing.net/

Best,

Michael

Michael Landers
Director - Culture Crossing
Email: michael@culturecrossing.net
www.culturecrossing.net