Fiji update

Bula Vinaka,
Wow, I am sorry for the month that has passed by without a report! I will have to get some thoughts together and some pictures to upload. This past month has been quite the adventure and I am truly loving my life here. I have found myself lately becoming a little emotional as I realize the love I have for these people and the love and respect they have for me. It's been quite humbling and quite rewarding. I have a week or so left and it is a busy one! Our country directors are on a much needed and deserved vacation so Natalie and I are the CDs for the week. I hope everyone is doing well back in america! Life is beautiful here, and I am doing my best to work hard all the way to the end. Thank you for all or your prayers and support! WE need it.

loloma,
Victoria

Is this real life?

what day is it????
where am i?

often, i'm not completely positive what day it is, and most days i have no concept of the time. . . even worse, its cold and overcast and i realized that i'm in new zealand in the dead of winter. WHAT? So, when I wake, before i put on my make upppppppppp.....i have to register where i am, what day it is, and figure out the time. Seriously though, I slept in a room with no window last night and woke up not knowing which side of the world i was in. Kinda cool, in a twilight sort of way, perhaps.

Okay,so currently I am in New Zealand. Whangeri, in fact. Pronounced Fawn-ger-I. I get nervous when I try to pronounce it because a) I always say it wrong. B) I feel like i'm about to slip and say the EFF word or something.

Anyways, New Zealand happens to be beautiful and amazing. It also happens to be wonderfully chilly weather and makes me fall in love with it even more.

In other news...WHERE DID JUNE GO???? I thought I was doing so well with updating my blog and adding pictures and stuff. Now it happens to be July? OH! Its July 4th in America isn't it?!?!? Happy INDEPENDENCE DAY! NAT, BRE, AND I have been discussing our july 4th traditions continuously all day. I am sad I am not there. I love July 4th in B-town. Good food, good friends, great fireworks show. Wow, hope everyone enjoys it!

OH! Also, I think a majority of my family is in OHIO for Big Rigg's baby blessing. (also known as Maguire Riggs Kirkham, my new nephew)....So, thats another great BLonquist reunion i am missing. Shoot. Eat some of Ursula's baked beans and potato salad for me! And a hot dog AND HAMBURGER. maybe some bbq chicken too while you're at it. . .I'm sorry did this turn into a food tangent? Per usual.

Speaking of food. Turns out New Zealand has great food. What kind of food? Only my favorite ever ever everrrrrrrrrrrr. BREAD. CHEESE. MILK. ohhhkay. Also, we strolled upon a cheese cellar store and they let me eat all the free samples i could manage! Can you imagine!?! Also, the lady had me try honeycomb on "subtle blue cheese." yeah, okay. Turns out she was 100% correct when she stated that i would love it. Also, turns out they have delicious icecream that tastes very similar to NUTELLA, but BETTER. Did I just type that? YES, cause its a fact. BEcca, believe it. An icecream that is similar to nutella, but better, and an icecream shop that gives you A LOT of it b/c they obviously see your poor self strutting through their shop with your backpackers pack and two dollar coins.

COOL.

OH yeah, FIJI.
The reason I haven't updated IS BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN SO BLOODY BUSY OVER HERE. BUSIER THAN BEFORE when i wrote an email about what i do on most days. Got more intense and I spent the last two weeks up late and rising early. Thats the life though.

Natalie and I traveled to suva to check up on the food dryer situation.
Many, many lessons, many many great successes.
It's been wonderful.
I will try and write an email later to describe the business if possible. But for now, I earned these vacations days, So i'm off to enjoy them!

GOD BLESS AMERICA! HAPPY FOURTH!!

moce,
Victoria

Hungry? WHY WAIT.

..grab a taro root....or ten. (also, random pic of some people from our team when we did our talent show for eachother.)

okay i'll try and upload some pics

SO, I wrote that rockin savu savu update with pictures and all, but it wouldn't upload and then the pictures would n't upload to the right part of the update, so i'm just going to try and upload a bunch of pictures and probably without captions. enjoy!

savu savu update

SAVU SAVU WEEK:
417

(Waiting at the airport..Me, piper, maria)
So, I went on a separate project with 6 others to a different island called, Vanua Levua, to a smaller town called Savu Savu. This place happens to be gorgeous. I guess tavua (the place were we live) is sort of like the nebraska of fiji….it’s still pretty of course, but there are many other places that are just breathtaking and Savu Savu happens to be one of them. I went with Bryce and Jacob (the 2 rm who served here), val, piper, libbie, maria. The boys had set up this whole project with their former mission president who was funding all the money for the construction aspect of these projects. It was pretty cool because we flew to this island specifically to help members of the church which isn’t something I have ever necessarily done. So our plan was to knock down this lady’s house (Sister Low), because she was being evicted. We were going to knock it down so that they could move it to a different location. We also planned to build 2 kitchens, bench for some business, teach health, education, and business lessons, and bring supplies to a village up in the mountains that was 4 hours away by bus. We also were supplying some things for a septic tank. We had 4 days to do all of these projects and lessons so it was pretty busy.
Project one: Sister Low’s house~ Saturday, May 30, 2009
pictures at top
Brcye, Jacob, Tori, Val, Maria, Lib, Pipes travel up the mountain and find the dirt path up the hill to sister low’s home. Slick, muddy path, but we made it. Her house is bigger and made of sheet metal and wood. Turns out sheet metal is really strong and hard to knock down. Often harder than the rotting wood. We spent a lot of time and a LOT of sweat knocking that place down. The Fijians helped of course and we could not have done it without them. It started raining which I appreciated, but I’m not sure others did as much.
We got a large portion of the house knocked down, but not all when Jacob decided he wanted to travel to Tukavesi village to see exactly what materials were needed there. I decided to go with him and we got on the 2pm bus.

Project two: This bus ride was just like a roller coaster, except dirtier, no seat belts, and lacking the fun down hill feeling. Mostly just jerky and bumpy and intense. It was 3 ½ hours long. We got to tukavesi and the sister who’s house we were building met us at the bus stop. We walked to the branch presidents land and he showed us where we were sleeping. Turns out to be a small hut/home this one lady gave up for us. Two double beds with mosquito nets. It looked very comfortable and I was excited about that. Here’s a pic:



We stayed in this lady’s house. I dunno how to put pictures on this thing, turns out......

It gets dark here around 6 so it was already pitch black, but we then walked a couple feet to the branch president’s home where we ate tin fish and dalo leaves for dinner with a lot of dalo and cassava roots. We then talked and played with the kids for a bit and then went back to our hut around 7:30pm. We were exhausted. Jacob and I talked for a bit and then I realized I had to go to the bathroom so bad because I had had 5 glasses of water at dinner…Turns out tin fish and dalo leaves aren’t my favorite dish ever…I went outside next to the house and went to the bathroom. Got back inside and into bed when we heard 3 dogs barking and running straight towards our hut. (luckily our huts are elevated) they ran over barking and started digging up the spot where I had just gone to the bathroom. They were furious that I had just marked on their territory I spose. They then marked their territory again and ran away. Weird. Anways, we fell asleep probably around 8:30 or 9. The branch president came and woke us up at 6am. Jacob showered and I got up at 6:30. Church was at 7am.
Sacrament meeting in the BUSH:
We walked to the local primary school with the branch president and his family. There we set up the room for church and a few others strolled in. Probably ten adults total, Jacob and I included. These people know English, but are too shy to speak it, so everything was in Fijian. The lesson was on agency and adam and eve and the branch president taught it. Next, Jacob was asked to teach gospel doctrine. Then sacrament meeting was last and Jacob and I were asked to be the speakers. It went really well and I really enjoyed being with those people and even talking for a little bit in their sacrament meeting. By 10am it was extremely hot and we walked down to the spot of land where we were supposed to build the house for this sister who was currently living with the branch president and his family. Jacob talked to them about the supplies they needed and got everything set for that project. We then walked back, changed, and had HOT tea and scones/Fijian pancakes for breakfast…..it was already 100 degrees with 100% humidity and I was drinking hot tea. Needless to say, I was dripping dripping drippppping sweat at the table. Embarressing. We then went to our hut to take a nap and I was so hot and uncomfortable I was in physical pain and couldn’t fall asleep for 30 minutes. Frustrating. Then I dreamed about telling Urs how I needed surgery to stop all this sweat because it was so embarrassing and the Fijians didn’t know what to do with someone like me… Oh wait, that part is true. We then had lunch (spinach leaves in coconut milk/cream) which always makes me feel like I am having an allergic reaction. The dalo leaves are intense. We then played with the kids for a while and hung out with the families. I loved that. We hopped on a bus and had a 4 hour long roller coaster ride home.
We got back to Sister Low’s where the gang was watching a pirated version of “Twilight” and eating bananas and having lemon tea. We then headed back to our new hotel which had Air CONDITIONING AND WARM WATER FOR SHOWERS. Amazing. And breakfast was included. All for $10 american dollars a night.

Projects 3 &4: Monday the girls went to sister Low’s to finish knocking her house down. The local elders came as well. One of them was Fijian and literally took a tree trunk and bashed down the walls in 2 seconds that we had been trying to get down for like 2 hours. Awesome. We then headed to our separate projects. Bryce, Me, and Libs went to a separate village to focuse on building a kitchen for a women who had some type of palsy and couldn’t speak. She also was paralyzed on one side of her body. Libbie and I were in charge of cutting out an opening for the door which meant cutting the sheet metal that was already on her house. Turns out that took about two hours. That stuff is intense. A man called Pwata helped us. The lady was so cute and funny. She would just giggle and laugh and slap your back.
I noticed that the stairs going into her house were rotting and had large spaces between the slabs. I was helping her up the stairs and she fell through them, and so did I. It was awful. I thought why were we building her a kitchen when she can’t even get into her house? I talked to Libs and we decided we wanted to build her a new set of stairs. So that became our project while bryce worked on building the kitchen with the Fijians, Libbie, me ripped the old stairs out and built new stairs with Pwata. It was pretty difficult to communicate how we wanted them, and it was hard work actually building them, but we did it! My camera was dead, so I’ll have to get some pictures from Libs. It was so awesome! I was so happy we got to do that. The others were building a kitchen for another family as well as building and teaching some things for a separate home. We did these projects for a few days as well as taught health: basic health, first aid, sanitation/hygiene, business, and importance of education lessons.

Back to Tukavesi:
Wednesday I took Libs, Pie, and Maria to Tukavesi. We left around 10:30 and didn’t get there til about 3pm. The bus wasn’t that full until we got about 20min away from where we were supposed to get off. It became jammed pack and we were of course, in the very very back. People loaded corn and huge bags in the middle of the bus and we couldn’t get out. The three girls threw their stuff out the window and then they jumped out the windows as well while I was literally climbing ontop of bags, corn, and people to get to the front. IT was quite funny and embarrassing. It then started to rain so we hung out at a random house for a while and I practiced my Fijian. The branch president came and met us and we went back to his house for some juice and cookies. I then taught basic health and sanitation/hygiene lessons for over an hour and it went really well. I also taught about stoves and we went on an adventure to find some clay. They have easy access to clay so that was exciting for them! The girls went back to the hut for a while and I played with all the kids (10 or more) for an hour and a half. I got so buff swinging them all around and playing all their crazy games. Bryce, Val, and Jacob arrived around dark and we had a business lesson and then dinner. Fish, fish , and more fish. Usually they have a bucket of water for you to rinse before you eat, but they brought out soap with it! It made me happy that they were implementing what they had learned in my health lessons. We talked some more about health and education and had some great discussions with the people. There is this one little boy, Michael who is Fijian but has blond curly hair (his dad is Australian I think)..and was absolutely adorable.


I played with the kids for a long while and started dancing with them. Fijians think it is the best and most hilarious thing in the world when Palangis dance. It was really fun. The little kids also love my long hair and were playing with it and braided it. I looked like Madusa, but it was cute. Around 9 I went to bed with the rest of us in that same hut Jacob and I had stayed in on Saturday.

This one lady, Rita really stood out to me. She was very helpful in all the lessons and finding clay. I talked to her for over an hour about her life. She wasn’t a member of the church yet, but her husband was. She called her husband, “my honeybee” and they have been married for 7 years. She grew up in Suva, but came to this village with her parents when her uncle had died. She realized then that she wanted to live a village life, and soon after met her now husband, Rafeal. They got married, but the pastor didn’t get it legally recognized. Their marriage certificate was also misplaced so now they have to pay to get transport to town ( 4 hours, $10 each) and then get re-married, and pay for a marriage license ($20+). They do not have those funds. She talked about how she could not join the church until their marriage was legally recognized. It was fascinating and devastating. It probably costs $50 total to get the license, but they haven’t been able to save that money in the recent years. Wednesday I said goodnight and went to bed, but I didn’t specifically say goodbye to her. That is my biggest regret. I wish I could have given her a gift and said goodbye properly. She was amazing and I miss her already.

Thursday we woke up at 7,and ran to the bus. We then got off and got on a boat that took us to Tavueni…known as the “Garden Island” of fiji. I’ll write more about that rockin vacation later!

Hope you enjoyed the very long update!

Savu Savu and Tukavesi were beautiful:

Vacations and much more...

Yondra (good morning!)
Right now i am literally steps from the beach in a place called ," the uprising." This weekend has been wonderful. We took a 5 1/2 hour bus ride from Tavua to Suva and once we dropped our bags off at the place we were staying at (for free) we hopped on a taxi and headed to McDonalds. MCDONALDS. IT HAD AIR CONDITIONING AND CHICKEN NUGGETS! SO, needless to say, I ordered 12 chicken nuggets and some fries. YUM. This place is much different than Africa that is for sure. You can get pizza hut and mcdonalds in the city! Granted it is a 6 hour bus ride, but it was well worth it.
We then walked to the Holiday Inn for the YSA dance. Pretty much every ysa on the main island was there. It was pretty fun actually and there was karaoke and dancing. I met Vito's sister, Suka and Apenisa's brother. I also made a new friend, Charlie and danced and talked to him for a while. He was really nice and I discovered that he plays rugby for the province. That was cool. We stayed there for quite a while and I was quite sweaty . Rusila (our cook for dinner and friend in the ward) kept telling me I was sweaty. good thing she told me because I wasn't sure...not. She is sassy and I love her. We then went and saw, Angels and Demons which I was actually impressed with and thoroughly frightened for some reason. It was a late night for us. we were up until 2:30. We then headed back home and hit up the 24 hour bakery and got some cream rolls. YUM. HAve I mentioned that they have bread here?!?! BEST thing in the world. Then we headed back up the hill to the house we were staying at for the night. Jacob, one of the volunteers here, served a mission in FIJI and we were staying at the same flat he lived in while he was on his mission. So that was pretty fun and we just laid a bunch of random mats on the floor and all 12 of us sprawled out. I literally can sleep anywhere and have a magnificent ninght sleep, which i did.
Saturday we woke up around 9am and headed to the Suva temple. Beautiful. The poor fijian man who was doing baptisms could NOT figure out my name even though I kept telling him each time. Sister Fawnkeest is what came out of his mouth. We got to shower in WARM AMAZING WATER at the temple which was my first warm shower in weeks and probably my only warm shower until i come back to suva in a month or so..

We then headed straight to the market and I got a bag made out of bamboon or something great. And I got adorable wallet/ coin purse. I then proceeded to spend $20 at the local pizza hut. TOTALLY WORTH IT. Then we all headed to the coral coast, aka, the uprising. we stayed in a cute little hut which I loved. I also swam in the ocean for an hour and body surfed with nat and some others. I then got an hour full body massage which was enjoyable for the most part, except for when she was cutting open my stomach or something.

In other news, life is great here. I had a great, busy week and taught some health lessons. I also tutored some high school aged kids and loved that so much. I love working with the youth and enjoy it probably more than anything else. I think they had a blast too. This coming week is NO TOBACCO DAY in the town so our team is really involved with that. I may or may not have to do some embarrassing skit. we'll see.

OH ALSO! BIG NEWS! The two boys that served their mission here planned a very specific trip up to some island to do construction and teach business. They are only allowed to take four of us volunteers and it is a pretty sweet project and also apparentely in the most beautiful part of FIJI. It's a big deal and all of us wanted to go. Well, they could only pick four of the people from our team and I just found out that I get to go! I literally will be living in some bush I think and we have to fly there and its going to be a little intense and crazy. I will keep you all posted on what goes down over there. I will be gone for a week or so in the jungle. So keep me in your thoughts and prayers pleasee!
Life is wonderful and I love working with the people here and learning about their goals and desires that sometimes they didn't even realize they had.

Let me know how life is for you too!
Moce,

Victoria

and some more

Bula vinaka na noqu itokani kei na noqu matavuvale (Hello my friends and family)~ (YES, those are real words .)
I hope America is treating everyone greaaaaaaat and you all are enjoying air conditioning and pizza and hamburgers and cpk salads for me and raspberry lemonade with ice cubes….just saying, enjoy that..mmmm, pizza.. 
Fiji is wonderful. The projects seem to be really coming along and I am enjoying working with the kids, youth, and women especially.
The women of Youladrou and the surrounding villages are amazing and very proactive, though often they do not have the opportunities to gain knowledge or have tasks that are empowering or uplifting. Often we don’t think about the various opportunities we have as humans in our culture to set goals and how good we feel when we accomplish them. Often we don’t recognize how important it is to encourage one another, to endure projects that are difficult, and to feel proud and successful. As humans we need self-esteem, empowerment, and a sense of pride. These are basic needs that are often limited in struggling third world countries. And even more often we find that the women suffer the most in this area. I remember last year in Africa I didn’t work with women groups as much as I had hoped because I was busy doing other things that I loved. This year I decided I wanted to work with women primarily as well as the youth and public health issues. SO, I am the project lead for women’s group ( and emergency preparedness..) and so far it has been really quite enjoyable.
In case you want to know more:
Problem: The women of FIJI work hard and have great potential but they are often stereotyped and not given the opportunity to learn new skills or gain knowledge. They do not know how to help their children or one another in regards to first aid, prevention, and good health. Often the men are considered the leaders and the women’s opinion are not as important which is detrimental to self-esteem and motivation.
Short-term Objectives: Build relationships with the women and include them in projects that will build self-esteem and empowerment with one another.
Long-term Objectives: Women will be empowered and confident enough to teach others the skills they have learned and continue to be motivated to find new opportunities to gain knowledge. The women will have stoves that are better for their health and gardens that they can attend to so that they might be more independent and live healthier lives.
Project Summary: We will meet with the women’s groups once a week (or whatever they feel necessary) and teach them the skills they want to learn such as gardening, stoves, health, and perhaps sewing. These skills and knowledge will be sustainable and helpful for the women’s lives as well as their family and community. Self-esteem and empowerment will be a main objective throughout the lessons and projects.
Partner Organization (Describe partner and history of HELP’s involvement with them):
• Name- Women Groups in surrounding villages: Tavua, Youladro, Korovo, Ruku Ruku, Nabuna
• Address-
• Phone Number-Youladrou,Ashu 9726432
• Email-
• Description-
• History-All new villages and settlements we have met and established relationships with the women.

Project challenges and limitations (Include how these might be overcome): Challenges include: communication. Often English is a second or third language for many of the women. Usually we are able to communicate by gestures and the English they know and the little Fijian we are learning. It is harder with the Hindi women, but so far we have had translators at our meetings so it has turned out well. Sensitivity to culture: We want to empower and support the women without being demeaning towards the men or insensitive towards the culture. (Aka, we don’t want to start a revolution.)yikes!
Impact on Stakeholders (Include possible positive and negative outcomes):
• Community-positive: opening of small businesses could improve local economy, women’s self-esteem could be improved thus making community happier. Negative: opening of small businesses could be detrimental to existing businesses.
• Partner Organization-
• Volunteers-positive: women empowerment.
• HELP International-

Financial and Work Responsibilities (Community/partner must provide at least 5% of monetary needs):
• Community-women attend classes
• Partner Organization-translate
• HELP Team-teach classes, provide teaching materials

Sustainability (Explain the steps you are taking to make projects sustainable): Each lesson with these women will impart knowledge and skills that will allow new opportunities for them to grow intellectually as well as address physical needs and concerns. Skills such as square foot gardening and adobe stove building both support better health and more effective ways of growing and cooking food. These tangible projects will encourage self esteem as well as empowerment and goal setting as they accomplish each task. As the women become more confident they will teach other women or men in the local village. As teachers they will become leaders and only increase the feeling of empowerment and encourage good self esteem for themselves and others. Through the health classes we will teach good nutrition, exercise and physical therapy, prevention for non-communicable diseases, hygiene, sanitation, and first aid. This new health knowledge will be useful for their entire lives as they adjust to a healthier, better way of living. By participating in these lessons they will learn healthy decisions they can make for their own personal lives as well as their family and community. It has become obvious that these women are excited to learn and that this new health knowledge will only motivate them to teach their loved ones and friends. All of the lessons taught will include visual aids or a type of pamphlet and notes that the women can keep and refer to for years to come.
Timeline:teach classes once (or more) a week.
First Lesson: Gardening
Second Lesson: Check up on Gardening, teaching or preparing Stoves
Third Lesson: stoves
Fourth Lesson: Health—non communicable diseases and prevention
Fifth Lesson: Health—mind/body/health, goal setting and empowerment
Six Lesson: Health-hygiene
Seventh Lesson: Health-nutrition
Eighth Lesson: Health-exercise
Nineth Lesson: Health-(piping for Youladrou) sanitation
Tenth Lesson: women’s health
Eleventh Lesson: Health-first Aid, first part
Twelve Lesson: Health-first aid, second part
Additional Information: There are many different women’s groups we will be teaching throughout Tavua town and the villages surrounding it. Depending on the needs of the women and the skills they want to learn, each project may be different. However, we have found a consistent desire for health classes, stoves, and gardening.

Yesterday we did a project with the women of Ruku Ruku. We did an adobe stove which is a project we did a lot in Uganda last summer and we were not anticipating doing AT ALL here. However, ALL the women want to learn how to make these stoves and today we had our first one. We taught the women first and had an overview of the benefits of the stove. (better health for lungs and eyes and safer for their children as well.) It was amazing. The women were so excited and participated in getting the clay and sand and mixing it and pounding all the adobe mixture into the frame. The really understood the concept and were excited that they could build it independently of the men.
OKAY! MOce!
gotta go to work!
heart,
tor