REally hoping this works...

May 18, 2009
Bula Vinaka!
This past week has been lonnngg and productive and amazing. Fiji is in fact the hottest place on this earth (worse than Africa, don’t argue, I would know..bahaha) and I just sweat all day long. Literally, dripping dripping dripping. The local businessman was concerned for me and kept insisting I buy a fan because of the constant overwhelming sweat that was dripping on him. I’m so cool. Don’t even worry. Yesterday I remembered that Urs and Noel had bought me a little portable, battery operated fan that I can carry around. (It’s hot pink and hot green, don’t be confused with something that could easily blend in..) So today I implemented it into my daily life and used it while at the internet café. Let’s discuss the internet. Slow. But also, more importantly--No airflow. Once I am in there I have so many emails and different sites I need to visit that I usually spend about an hour in there. Did I mention no air flow? Did I also mention it was over 100 degrees.? Without airflow. So, since my body does really well in the heat (as most of you have witnessed personally), every single pore was actually in fact profusely sweating and I wasn’t sure if I had wet myself? Inappropriate? Sure. Not as inappropriate as me carrying around a hot pink fan probably. In other news, I’ll start my update from last Monday so you can literally feel that you are on this journey with me. Be excited.
Sunday May 10, 2009—Church at 8am. Conducted all the music in young womens (RS is in Fijian so we went to YW) then also conducted in Sunday school. Church was great and very enjoyable. Later we came home anddddd I literally have no recollection of what we did. I’m sure we had a couple meetings to discuss projects and decide what we were interested in and what projects we wanted to be leads for,etc. SO. I am the project lead for women’s groups and specifically for this one settlement of women called Youladrou…(pronounced Yowe laNdro). More about that later….
Monday May 11, 2009- The hospital team went to the hospital to meet with the head doctor, Dr. Dasi. I got assigned to work with the peer educator, Mare as well as the health inspector, Dip. We got to know them pretty well and the projects they are in charge of. I am especially excited to work with the peer educator because she teaches the youth in the community which is EXACTLY WHAT I WANT TO DO WITH MY LIFE. She said I could go with her and teach lessons to local groups and at the high school. So I will most likely be teaching about prevention, non-communicable diseases, Sexually transmitted infections, goal setting/ peer pressure/good decision making. Very excited. Then dip talked to us about health inspections. Not as excited about that because I am not sure what I’ll be doing with him. Our big project for the hospital this past week other than volunteering in different units is square foot gardening. Well, it started off as the idea that we would teach them SFG but instead they turned it into a landscaping escapade. If I were them and a bunch of Americans came to volunteers I would make them do hard labor for two days too. SO, we literally, very very literally cleared JUNGLE. FLIPPING JUNGLE BUSH. PROBABLY AROUND 1500 -2000 SQUARE FEET OF DIGGING UP ROOTS AND TREES AND DRAGGING THEM ACROSS THE WAY AND ALSO DIGGING UP ROCKS AND CLEANING UP ALL THE LITTER AND GLASS. It was good hard labor and cool for the most part. I only got really frustrated when Dip started a bunch of fires to burn the grass and trash. Lets discuss this: 8 fires in a confined space that was burning medical supplies and trash. Um, bad for the environment Mr. Health inspector? Yes. Um, bad for our eyes? Yes. Um bad for our lungs? Yessssssssss. We teach adobe stoves that the women will have better health and not inhale smoke or hurt their eyes. Mr. Health Inspector frustrated me at that point. When we mentioned it to him he rebutted with something about not seeing the blue sky in America. Whatever Dip.
Tuesday: Met with Youladrou women and learned their life stories and how they came to live on the government land/ settlement. Loved them. They loved me. Worked out great. Then we worked more on clearing the land for the hospital. Long day, but good.
Wed: Best day ever. Piper and I went with the nurses (sheri and some others) up into the MOUNTAINS TO VISIT THE VILLAGES. AMAZING. ONE OF MY FAVORITE DAYS THUS FAR. (I know I have only been here for a week..) So we were in this relatively nice truck the Ministry of Health uses to go into the mountains to visit each village and bring medicine and the doctor there once a week. First off, it takes about an hour and a half to just reach the little medical center in the middle of the mountains and that is going about 40 or 50mph up the mountain very similar to an intense roller coaster ride. I enjoyed it a lot because it was just like being on a roller coaster ride from 9am to 7pm. Cool, eh? Good thing piper and I don’t get car sick, or roller coaster ride sick for that matter. Anyways, I loved meeting Dr. Ronald because what he does in the mountains is all public health stuff. They inspect some homes up there a couple times a year and then he and the nurses deal with any problems. On Monday he performed 3 or 4 circumcisions so the village has a week long celebration. The boys were 11 0r 12…uh, ouch. Anyways, while we were zooming through the hills and cliffs we came upon a group of boys and men chasing a wild bull. I guess they catch and kill a while bull for the circumcision feast the next day so I got to witness that. Cool, eh? Then, Piper and I decided to ride in the back of the truck and she just about plopped out and I had to save her at the last second. Pretty intense. We then wandered to this one nurses station to each lunch…which I was hoping we wouldn’t have to do, but we did in fact eat quite a bit of some stufffffffffff. Root Crops. Africa friends: remember cassava? Well, in Fiji they have HUGE HUGE cassava. (I hate cassava.) So we had huge pieces of cassava and TARO. (also, gross). We then had taro leaves (which looks like cooked spinach( not so great). Hot chilis. And of course, fish. Talapia to be exact. And the whole entire fish to be very specific. Bones, eyeballs, head, etc. For those of you who know me, I hate fish. I ate it all, no worries. Luckily they do have bread in this country and she brought out bread after we had eaten everything so I downed a couple pieces to top off the meal. I also ate dried peas that were pretty good and something else that look literally like cat food. Tasted like it too I bet. So that day was awesome. I met with some chiefs and had my first and (LAST) taste of KAVA. Gross. Gross. Gross. Felt sick afterwards and made my tongue and throat feel weird. Literally muddy water with some other weird taste. But, felt that it was part of the cultural experience. Also, when you do a Sevu Sevu (getting introduced to a village) you have to have it as part of the ceremony. Also, in this particular village they were thanking the doctor and me I guess for our work in their village that day. However, apparently Elder Scott (church leader of LDS faith) came here a week ago and said no more kava. Good to know. Won’t be doing that again. ..So to end the day (oh yeah it gets dark here at 6pm.) we were cruising down the mountain at 6:30pm and we got a flat tire. So that was exciting but our driver Manasa and Dr. Ronald fixed it . Manasa was awesome too because he lived in Chicago for a couple years and we bonded over that. This is getting longgggggggggggg, sorry. OH YEAH, best part: it was 25 degrees colder in the mountains and beautiful and overcast and I DIDN’T SWEAT ONE TIME. AMAZING . AMAZING.
Thurs: Stove. Adobe stove. Stove. Clay digging. Sand collecting. Clay and sand mixing. Dirty. Not enough clay. Stressful. Mud digging. Problems. Issues. Stress. Ruining the stove. Fixing the stove. Darkness. Had to leave the stove. But literally that is what we did allllllllllllll day longgggggggggg. Also, Natalie and I went with the peer educator to observe a lesson because she wanted us to teach the lesson the next day.
Friday: GREAT DAY. Rained a bit in the morning but we still trekked out Youladrou to teach the women square foot gardening. The women were so adorable and we taught them a lesson and then they fed us some pretty intense Indian food. …spicy. Then we headed down to check out the stove at youlandrou. Don’t worry we found some more clay, but it also started pouring pouring rain and we had to cover the stove, but we all were completely drenched and completely filthy with clay and mud sooooooooooo we obviously had to have a huge mud fight in the pouring rain. SO, we did that then we all ran to the bridge/railroad and jumped from that into the river. It was hilarious and all the little kids were with us. We swam in the river for a while and then realized that we now had to literally walk all the way across town completely drenched and very dirty. Not to mention Natalie and I were supposed to teach a lesson in 20 minutes. SO. We rushed to the hospital to make sure it was still going on and wasn’t cancelled because of the rain (it wasn’t) and then ran home (LITERALLY, NATALIE MADE ME RUN.), changed and taught out lesson. We taught the kids about non-communicable diseases (diabetes, hypertension, obesity, heart disease). I thought it went really well. Our demonstration didn’t go over as well as anticipated, but we did get to watch Natalie roll around on the floor. Bahahahah. Hilarious. SO, culturally appropriate. In her dress by the way. . .Then we came home and David said that we were peacing out for the weekend to a secluded Island and we had to go asap.SO, we did.

WEEKEND: We all got onto a bus and headed out for a great weekend. We had a really long good work week so we were very excited. The bus ride rocked. (oh yeah, happy birthday Ashley!!!) The driver had a rockin assortment of tunes from Shania Twain to Justin Timberlake to Lollipop. We obviously danced the whole way . THEN, we got to the end of the island and off the bus (it was pitch black) and it started pouring again and there were no boat to be found that was supposed to take us across the ocean…Scared. But, no worries two little boats came to get us and we started our journey across the sea. (literally) . As most of you know I am not the best swimmer nor do I enjoy swimming or deep water or deep dark water. Quite interesting experience. BUT, I survived and it as hilarious. Then we got to our spot, also known as paradise and ate some more normal food and chatted and made fun of one another and stayed up realitively late and even slept in the next day.

SATURDAY: Woke up at 8:50am…SLEPT IN! Washed my hair, that was probably a good thing since I hadn’t showered since swimming in the river. WE chilled out a lot and ate some. I started reading a book a little and then we went for a walk around the island. What I anticipated being a little stroll became a more intense. Instead of sand there were rocks. OUC H. For like 45 minutes we were cutting our feet and Nat even tried to just swim because it was so bad. But, then finally we hit sand again and saw a random dock in the middle of the ocean and every one decided to swim to it. (Me, swimming in the middle of the vast ocean??) YEAH. Scared? Terrified. Did it? Done. We all got on the small dock that was anchored in the middle of the sea ( 6 by 8 ft) . It was cool until Ashley fell through the wood and it started breaking…SO, we swam back to the island. It was pretty cool. Ate some more and read some more and enjoyed life in paradise some more. Then went back to the main island and got back to town around five and then went to the first year birthday party of this lady in our ward. Apparently Fijians only celebrate 1st, 16, 21st birthdays. SO it was pretty epic. We got there and ate some () and then we started dancing and they made me get in the middle of everyone and dance. I enjoyed it and the kids were going crazy so it was really funny and fun.
I am now tired of writing.
Uhhhhhhhhhh, Sunday was church. The members are amazing and I love being there.
I spent Sunday doing laundry which was dumbbb.
I also read a whole book. Love that.
Sunday was relaxing and wonderful.
Today( MONDAY) we had many meetings with villages and I loved working with the youth and the women. Today was a great day.
A couple things:
Oh yeahhhh, number one reason to make fun of me today. Completely sunburned except for the circle of white from my African coin necklace. Dedicated to my Africa peeps of course. Never taking it off.
My skin is not sure what to do with itself here in FIJI. I have numerous amounts of cuts and bruises all over my legs and really really bad on my arms. Also, my cut on my arm now turned into a rash slash infected a bit. Not to mention the awesome mosquito bites that arise daily. Cooooooool. Also, I got really burned but that immediately turned into an irritated rash that is not doing great things for me. So dumb. My skin is really unsure about its existence. It is not doing well here. I am not sure how to deal with this. Ooooooh well.
Its clean here. The people are wonderful. THERE IS BREAD HERE. ENOUGH SAID.
Also, cut my foot on some rocks. No big deal. But maria wanted me to share that I am wrapping it in pink w/ purple hearts wrap/tape stuff.
K it’s Maria! Tori and I had to clean the bathrooms today- She was worried about “BUTT DISEASES”. Between the two of us we came up with the line “Come out of the closet if you have butt diseases!” Needless to say Tori cleaned a whole lot better than me. I offered $50 for someone to clean for me if I had to clean the shower and promised Tori the job if I got it! I must say that’s a pretty good deal. This is all we have for now! You know you love me. XOXO Gossip Girl.
Moce Mada! (goodbye~!)
Vinaka vaka Levue,
Victorina