My last days in Draubuta!

Okay, I have mixed feelings. I am excited pre-service training is about to be over, but I don't want to leave my host village. I love it here. The people are great and so nice and now I feel like I have to start all over again. I have to learn a whole new dialect and new people. I am excited to start my service though. I talked to the programing staff and they made some changes at my site yesterday! So, there are mesh wiring on all the windows and bolt locks on all the doors and they are fixing my shower door and building a bamboo cage around the walk way to the outhouse. So that makes me feel better. I have contacted the police post in the area and have explained my situation and got contact numbers. I am feeling much better about the safety of my site. So please don't worry I am okay and I will be fine! First impressions were very bad and it will take a while to get used to of this big change. Just when I thought I was starting to feel comfortable my life gets all messed up again and I will be happy to finally get comfortable in my own space. I am excited though for the first night I get to stay the night with Kendall and Kiva in Lautoka the second largest city in Fiji. At least I get one hot shower in the light before I go into the bush. I will be able to get all the stuff I will need there too like laterns and a keorisine stove. And they have some great second hand stores there too and pizza! So i will have a good time before I have to stay at my site in the middle of no where. There have been some changes so I am not sure if Sophia will be able to come with me or not to my village but I sure hope so she will make me happy and occupied.

Culture not was really fun last night and I finally got a henna tattoo on my left hand. It's very interesting and it's really funny when Fijians see it in the village because they think its really funny. Anyways, I really don't have mush to say about this week. I am just excited to spend my last couple of days with my friends before I go off to my village. From there I don't know what I will do but I will figure it out I hope. Oh, yeah I forgot to mention last night i tried a little thing called bat hunting. that's right mom and dad bat hunting! I am all about killing bats. Last night was the most beautiful night ever. The moon was so bright that we didn't even need a flashlight (torch) to find your way. The moon was so bright that there was a shadow when we walked. It was the craziest thing I have ever seen. I felt like I was walking in a movie. But anyways, back to the bats. So you go with a torch and gather a bunch of thick sticks and you have to go to a certain fruit tree that bats eat at night. You stand underneath the tree and shine the torch up into the tree and look for the bats eyes to shine and then when you find one you throw the stick very hard at the bat and knock it down and it falls to te ground and you then kill it. This is very hard and I'm not completely convinced it works, but I love watching others try. I usually just wait for a bat to fly by at night and throw a bunch a rocks into the sky and hope one hits the bat. It is kind of like snype hunting in West Virginia. Those of you who know what that is knows what i am talking about.

Language is going well I guess. We have our final test this Monday, so I'm sure it will be fine. Oh, yeah we had our last HUB day in Draubuta last Monday. it went really well and our meke (Fijian dance) was a big hit. I guess this was the first time in 5 years that anyone in Draubuta has performed a meke in public because a lay preacher from another village came in and said that meke was not allowed. So that was interesting to break that tabu (taboo). I have video of it but I am not sure how to get it on my blog. I also have video of the trainees in the Indian Settlement doing a dance. Take notice of my new address on the left of this page. My address has changed to my site village. When packages come in I will get a slip at my home and I will go to town and pick it up. Please don't send anymore mail to the old address because I probably won't get it for a very long time cause the Peace Corps will hold it forever in their office. And it will take me a while to get to Suva again from my village. And don't forget I have my cellphone I have been trying to send text messages to some people so let me know if they are going through. I think for someone to call me that they have to buy an international phone card and my cell phone # is 927-8982 but you have to dial the Fiji country code 679 and sometimes you might have to dial 011 before that so just play with it and see what works. I do love it when I get text messages and calls on my cell though its not very reliable. I will try to answer your call! thank you! I hope everyone is doing fine and I hope I hear from everyone. Thank you for all the packages everyone!