Keepin it current...

Though I have been able to get to a computer often lately. I always have so much to say cause I experience stuff so fast on a daily basis that is blog worthy. So, I write it down in my lil notebook to talk about it when I get to town. I know that I have mentioned our rugby team before, but I am not sure that I talked about how good they are. We didn't win the tournament but they are a very good team. They aren't has big as the other teams, but they can hit hard and they are very fast. So they just fly past people. But the same team that won last year won this year too.

Also when I was in Nadala (the village past mine) I met a woman named Flora. She was very nice and the weird thing was she was white, but Fijian at the same time. Her father is a Frenchman and her mother is Fijian and she was raised in a Fijian village her whole life. She looks just like a white woman but speaks Fijian. She was to go to France a couple of years ago to meet her father who is a very rich man (an engineer in France). She had the plane ticket and everything and the day before she was to leave she got randomly married to a Fijian man. Which means she can't leave and she was stuck in that man's village for the rest of her life. But she seems so happy, but after meeting her I couldn't help but to think how much her life could have changed. She could have had a completely different life for herself and I wonder if she would have been as happy. It is just so remarkable how by one decision a person makes can change their life forever. She has a little son named Kali who I absolutely love and he was drawn to me (most kids are not) because me and his mother looked so much the same with our light skin. it was so cute he would run up to me and say you look like my mommy and that made him so happy to see another person look like his mom whom he adored. It was just a great relief to meet someone that puts up with the harassments of looking different in a Fijian village. Cause it is hard people don't have a buffer they will say whatever they want. Hurtful or not. So it was good to see another surviving "European" in a village.

Oh yeah I have a very serious rat problem in my house now and I have purchased rat poison and placed it fabulously throughout the house but I don't think it's working. So i will need to come up with other tactics to kill! They are so loud at night I wake up from them running around the house at night. And have to clean up their poo every morning.

So last week there was a Kindergarden meeting that actually happened. The kindergarden hasn't been happening because the current teacher had a baby and now school is about to start up again and they want the kindergarden back in place in the village. But people have a problem with the current teacher saying that she is not turning in the reports to the committee to turn into the Ministry of Education to fund the Kinder. But she is and she is complaining that the committee are the ones that are not turning in the reports. It's like sometimes I feel like I was dropped right in the middle of a Jerry Springer show. The village drama and politics will blow your mind. So the parents that didn't like the current teacher didn't attend the meeting. Which doesn't make sense so we were going on the fact that they hard people didn't like her. But she is the only one that has experience and qualifications to teach the kinder. But Kelera my counterpart is also qualified but doesn't want to do it because she is already apart of another organization and dealing with me and the Peace Corps so she has too much on her plate. So the only other person is the President on the Kinder's wife. She went and received 6 weeks of training to be the new teacher but it is against the Kinder rules because she is the President's wife and that could be a way of them getting extra money cause the President is bias because his wife is the new teacher. So basically we have no teacher and can't decide . I say have the old teacher but she got tired of people accusing her of things and resigned right there in the meeting which was funny to me because they people there was for her and not against her. So i said screw the parents who don't like the teacher don't send your kid to Kinder then. That's the end no more to talk about. But now they are going to have a village meeting Tuesday to decide what teacher , but there isn't any options because Kelera doesn't want to do it and the other teacher isn't allowed. So that meeting should be very interesting. I can't wait for them to be like why don't the Peace Corps volunteer do it and I am going to laugh in their face because one I hate kids and two I am NOT qualified by any means and just because I am from American doesn't make me qualified to teach a Kindergarden. So we will see, I will keep you updated on the Fijian village drama.

So the preacher's wife (asembly of God) keeps inviting me to dinner and breakfast and I love it! They food is so good! One someone invites you to dinner or over to their house you are to bring something so for lunch I brought apples and for dinner I brought cooked sausages. Which just so happen to be what we were eating for dinner so we had alot of sausages. Sausages here are like my pizza in the U.S. I look forward to the sausages which is sad. She goes back this week to being a teacher up in Nadala and I am sad cause she is so cool and talks to me in really good English and makes me feel welcomed and treats me the same as everyone else. And gives me cooking tips and very important information about people in the village.

Also since the kids have been out of school for 2 weeks the worst 2 weeks in the village and I can't wait for the kids to go back. They have been coming over to my house asking for help on their English homework. Which I am all about helping them. This one little girl comes over who is in grade 6 I spent like 2 hours on her homework and then it went into Math. Which I felt really bad cause I was not much help at all. But she has got her English down. (A+)

So since the kids are home all day I don't get anytime by myself. When I go to bed at night I am telling people to leave my house so I can sleep. Then as soon as I open my doors in the morning kids are just sitting there to come in and hang out. I hate it because I want to eat and it is so rude to eat in from of someone without offering food and trust me these kids will eat my food they don't care but I don't have alot of food for these Fijian kids to eat me out of the house cause I just have enough for little ol me. So i have to wait to get to a point where I am so hungry I dont care anymore I just sit there and ask permission to eat and go. I don't offer or nothing it is getting to the point where I am to break those culture norms and be myself be reasonable because I have to eat I don't care anymore leave my freakin house for 5 secs to i can have a life. Like one morning I woke up and turned on my radio to try to get some descent news and make breakfast and I get the Methodist Preacher at my door asking to look at his daughter's foot that was cut last night and needs help. and i was like oh my god it's going to be so bad with blood everywhere and I won't be able to eat my breakfast. I know that is bad to think but I don't have a strong stomach for this stuff especially where I have people at my door before i wake up at 6:30 in the morning. Before I pick the crust out of my eyes I have already having my name called. So I go over their with my little medical kid and pretty much her last two toes on her foot are almost completely cut off cause she stepped on a knife. She probably needed stitches but of course I can't do that. So i just clean up the dry blood wash out with soap and water and then warm salt water and rumbing alcohol and then put ointment on use butterfly band aids to keep her toes on and wrap it up so it will heal not deformed. That is the best I could do. And I should them how they need to clean it out like 2 times a day and do this stuff and don't walk around with flip flops on and don't put smashed green leaves thinking the Fijian magic medicine will work it will get worse. That is the best I can do.

So Nat and mark guys on the rugby team and good friends of mine came over one night to hang out. They brought over lemon juice which would be their beer or grog but they are 7th day so they keep it clean which it fine with me. I feel safer. But they were talking about how they want to come to America so bad and meet some American girls to marry. It was so funny the stuff they were saying. Like they were going to bring their loli's (blow pops) and cream buns (they greatest things on earth that I want to make popular in America) and ask a girl to marry them. I was explaining to them that is not how that works back in the states. But it was a very funny night to hear them talk about getting a wife in America and what they want to do in life. But in the back on my mind I was thinking they are never going to get out of the life they are in right now. I that makes me so sad cause they have so much potential to become a successful person in life. But they can't wait to meet Chris at the end of October because they are "Brothers in color" Yes those are the same words he used which cracks me up cause they concept of African-Americans is hard for them to wrap their minds around that everyone is not white. They are really excited to play rugby with him because they saw the pictures of him ans notice that he his big and athletic and played American football for college. So they wanted to see if he was going to be around to be in one of their rugby tournaments. It's very funny I can't wait for Chris to experience this too!

So remember Tomasi (little boy with infected toe) his parents now are so grateful and nice to me that I have taken him the hospital for two days in the a row for his injections. Tomasi's dad is the chairman of the village so he pretty much runs they place and always comes over to my house before I go to sleep and walks around to check if everything is okay. Cause lately I have been by myself living without kelera cause she has had some family stuff to take care of at the farm on the outskirts of the village. So one night people didn't leave my house til 12:30 at night and he came over checking and asking if I am okay and so on. I said yes I am fine all the doors are locked and I am alone. So then 5 minutes later i hear someone outside my door and I am who the crap is that. And it's him again but this time with his wife whom I really like cause she really does care about her son and his toe. So she came and asked too if I was okay and needed anything. I was thinking you guys care more about me than you do your own son. I don't understand. Though it can get really annoying to be treated like 4 year old as if I have never lived on my own before I know they are asking to be nice and they really do care about my safety in the village. SO that is nice to know.

So we had our first death in the village. It was Kelera's father's cousin (don't ask about the relation they don't even know everyone is related in Fiji) died riding a sugar cane tractor and fell through and one of the tires ran over him slicing his body in half. He was only in his 40's which is sad and had a wife and 3 kids (1 daughter and 2 sons). So people are very upset about it obviously and the funeral will be sometime this week. They were telling me that every school vacation the kids have someone always dies in the village. That it is a curse or something. And they were telling me who died everytime vacation happened. So that is kind a scary.

Finally, I have thought of another thing on th wish list. French vanilla cappuccino mix. That would be so good in the morning than coffee all the time and it's instant coffee so it sucks. So i would appreciate that very much thank you! That's all I have for now I hope everyone is still enjoying this blog and I am trying to keep it updated the best I can. Let me know if there is anything else I can do. I was to put up more pictures this time around but left my camera at the village so I will have to try next week. But I only have about 30 or so it shouldn't take long. I need to take more pictures of people that I am talking about in my blog so you guys can put faces to names and people I talk to and play with everyday! Sorry I have been slacking in my picture taking but if you know me well that is to be expected. Miss everyone so please keep updating me on your life too!