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.