The Milk

I know it has been much too long since I have posted, and there are probably a million other things I could update you on, but today I chose the story of the milk. I was finishing church and decided today was the day I was finally going to splurge and buy real Oreo cookies and cold milk! I have been dreaming of cookies and milk for several months now so this was a long awaited craving. As many of you know, I have no fridge, so this would be my first time having cold (not powdered) milk. REAL MILK! In town most shops are closed because it is Sunday, but I went to the one that was open to buy the cookies. I decided I would go to the shop near my house to get the cold milk. My fijian friend told me it was the best milk in a bottle for only $1.00 (the other shops sell tiny milk cartons for $1.50-$2.50). So I went to grab the cookies really quick before I took the bus from town to the other shop by my house. Walking on my way back to the bus stand, I watched as my bus left without me. Unfortunately, there is very limited transport on Sundays, so I walked 35 minutes to the other shop with my cookies. I went in to buy the milk, and I didn't see it! So I asked the shop keeper and he said they had it but only the bigger bottle for $2.50. So I bought the $2.50 bottle, expecting him to go in the back and get it from the other fridge since I did not see any milk in the front one. But no, he turned around opened the fridge and turned back to me revealing a large bottle containing a bright pink liquid. This was the milk... sweet milk... with dye... and added sugar .... this is what I had been looking forward to for months. Pink Milk! Then, of course, it started pouring rain. So I walked home wet, with now slightly cool, pink sweet milk (that tasted as bad as it sounds). Although this probably sounds very trivial to you, it was quite depressing for me today. All I wanted was some damn cookies and cold milk! haha
Anyways, everything else is fine. I will be going back to my Fijian village home in Tailevu for Easter next Thursday, So I am very excited for that!

In Fiji

In Fiji it is perfectly normal to…

1. Go swimming fully clothed

2. Take a rain bath or bath in the river… wearing clothes 

3. Have teatime a half-hour before your lunch break…

4.  … And then again a couple hours after lunch break

5. Inform your co-worker/friend/family how fat they are getting

6. Walk around town without any shoes

7. Drink kava/washdown through the night into the next morning

8. Take naps in the middle of the day during a workweek

9. Take naps after any meal

10. Lie down while eating

11. Scrape the inner eyelid with a blade of grass to “cleanse the eye”

12. Offer to share your food to anyone whenever you are eating

13. Ask anyone where he or she is going

14. Yell out to people in passing vehicles

15. Have a silent conversation across the street with someone involving a lot of pointing

16. Call a gay or feminine man a “poofta” and a black person (not Fijian) the “N” word.

17. Bundle an infant in layers of clothing, booties, cap, and large blanket when it is boiling hot outside.

18. Cure any pain with a coconut oil massage

19. Drink beer with a group of people out of a single shot glass

20. Offer the shirt off your back to help someone in need… or if they just like your shirt

Cyclone & Xmas

I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a while; it’s been pretty crazy over here between Cyclone Evan and then the holidays. I have never experienced a cyclone before, so that was interesting. Now that I have done it, I feel no need to do it again. It hit the west pretty hard and lasted an entire day for us…  I might have been just a bit scared to be honest ;) Evan claimed our door (still waiting to have that repaired) and did some damages to the rain gutter, roof, and our ceiling needs to be re-nailed in the dining area, but our house was very stable. The house did get quite a lot of water in it because of the crazy winds, so we had to do plenty of clean up the next day. We lost water for a little bit and power for a week or so… not too bad.

After the cyclone I headed back to my village Tailevu to spend Christmas with my host family. I had such a great time and did not want to come back to my home! I love my host family so much; I’m always laughing and smiling when I’m with them. I have missed seeing the kids L I spent the trip swimming in the river, helping my brother’s wife Selai with the household chores like collecting firewood and laundry, and drinking grog/washdown with fiji friends. It might possibly have been the best Christmas I have ever had… stripped of the materialism of an American Christmas. I was with a family, a village, so welcoming and loving, whose only concern was having a good time with one another. America definitely has a thing or two to learn from Fiji. After Christmas I went back to my town for the New Year… celebrating with (yup, you guessed it) more grog, washdown, and dancing. We also did the traditional water and baby powder fight, which was a first for me.

Now it’s back to life as usual, work and hanging out with family and friends. We had a Typhoid outbreak in my town after the cyclone, so I’ve been working with the disaster response team for the past week. I am also going to start some Fijian language lessons this week … let’s see how that goes! 

Epic Fail in the Kitchen

So last night I decided it was time to put down the instant noodles and peanut butter and get out the Fiji peace corps cookbook. I thought, “It can’t be that hard to follow a recipe, can it?” In case you do not know me well, let me brief you on my history in the kitchen. I have set my hair on fire … I have set the oven on fire … I have melted a plastic plate on the stovetop. I am capable of making scrambled eggs, peanut butter sandwiches, and noodles (the necessities). Needless to say, I suppose it’s time for me to learn a few more things. So I picked up my ingredients at the fresh market: carrots, eggplant, onion, ginger, pineapple, soy sauce, rice and garlic. I was following the recipe when it called for 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of salt. I didn’t have a tablespoon measurer so I used my coffee scoop (which I thought was a tablespoon… wrong!). I finished preparing my meal and was excited to eat it because it didn’t look half bad. I took one bite and nearly spit it out. It was WAY too salty. So clearly the scoop was 2 tablespoons, not one. I was left with a disaster in the kitchen and an empty stomach. This is why I don’t cook. 

November 7th

I know I haven’t posted very much during training, but that is because I barely had a spare minute and I only accessed the Internet once. Needless to say, I had a wonderful experience. I loved my host family so much and it was very sad to leave them. Even though I spent every day adjusting to Fiji culture and the language, it was so much easier to do with the support of a caring family. I lived with my host mother, father, brother, his wife, their four children, and my mother’s granddaughter. The ages of the children were 1, 3, 6, 6 (twin girls), and 12. I adored all of the children and was so thankful to have them in the house with me. I was able to play and hug them whenever I wanted. I had a hard time adjusting to a culture that does not hug or kiss. I felt affection starved after not being able to hug the people I began to care so much about…which is why I hugged the kids so often.

Right when I began to feel comfortable and happy, it was time to be sworn in as an actual volunteer and be sent of to my permanent site. I live in the North western part of Viti Levu, one of the hottest parts of Fiji (boo). I have been placed right outside of a primarily indo-fijian town. I live on the second floor of a flat with a roommate (in the flood-zone). I was a bit sad about my new site for a few reasons; I really wanted to live in a village to gain a sense of community and protection, I wanted to live alone, and I know nothing about indo-fijian culture since all of my training was on Fijian culture.  However, I like my roommate so far and I have been meeting up with the extended relatives of my host family who live down the road from me. I am also using church as a form of integration…

…Hello, my name is Kalesi Dreu and I am a Methodist who sings in the church choir on Sundays… anyone who knows me is laughing their butt off right now. 

I just started my actual work this week. I work for the Sub-Divisional hospital in my area, but I will spend most of my time working with the local Health Center to do more outreach work at the grassroots level. I am also planning on working with the local peer educator and the School Health Sister to do community and youth health education. This week I have been traveling with the Health Inspectors to different villages to investigate current Typhoid cases. It has been interesting to watch the process. Getting to the villages nearly killed me, the roads are so bad and the drivers go so fast. However, it was a gorgeous drive on the interior of the island.

I still have not quite figured out the bus system or how to properly buy my groceries at the fresh market, which has led to me eating crackers for breakfast and instant noodles for the past three dinners. My house is pretty big but it has no furniture except my bed, which is about ¾ the size of a twin bed…I’m terrified of rolling off it during the night! 

September 21st

 I'm finally on the internet for the first time. I traveled in the back of a pickup truck for $1 to get here. Well it's been two weeks and it feels like it's been 2 months. Everything is so different in good and bad ways. I am missing home but I'm also happy to be here in Fiji. I am currently taking antibiotics because I had bad stomach cramping and diarrhea for 5 days. The good news is, my healthcare here is awesome. I texted my Peace Corps doctor my symptoms, she told me to call her, then sh asked me more questions over the phone. The next day she had someone bring me the medication. I am feeling 100 times better now. I have been in 8 hours of intense training monday through friday. 4 hours of language lessons and 4 hours of technical sessions. We get informed about safety and security every friday by our safety and security coordinator. He is also awesome. They have really amped up their safety and security measures within the last year. It sounds like everything will be taken care of for me if there is ever an incident. He is also informing us of a bunch of preventative measures to take. The PC (peace corps) Fiji  has an awesome support network for us and so far I am totally impressed with all of the staff. I feel like I am in really good hands. It also sounds like most of us will be stationed in government housing in Suva since we will be working for hospitals and only a couple people will actually live in villages.

 

Needless to say, I am still completely in culture shock. We didn't have water for three days, so that was interesting. And the ants are eating holes into all of my clothes. I'm not talking about 20 aunts, I'm talking about like 1000 ants. Plus I have giant cockroaches in my room and the house, giant spiders, toads, lizards, fleas, and I'm sure even more things that I don't even know about. I am covered in red bumps from mosquito bites. But other than that and the diarrhea, my health has been pretty good. I am always exhausted and I wake up every morning thinking I am at home. It's also an adjustment being sweaty all the time... yuck. But overall things are good. I just gave a presentation on Protein Energy Malnutrition (partly in Fijian) and it went pretty well. We are starting garbage pickup Mondays and Wednesdays in the village with the children. I have learned how to start the fire and how to cut vegetables with a giant knife. It's amazing I didn't chop off a finger with my lack of coordination and skill in the kitchen!

Staging

I can't believe the day has finally come! I checked in for staging at the Radisson next to LAX at 6pm tonight and I will be leaving for Fiji tomorrow night at 11:30 pm. My parents dropped me off and I had to say goodbye to Kyle (my boyfriend), but overall I am very excited! We have a day of meetings and getting to know one another tomorrow, so I will be heading off to bed soon. The flight is 11 hours long and then we have a 3 hour bus ride from Nadi to Suva.. it will be a very long next two days.