I've been around

A few more pictures to post. The first I had to put up because we look like such huge dorks; the village dressed us all up in matching outfits. The second is from the USP bookstore in Suva. The third is our little running group from training on the beach one morning. The third one here is from the recent EC conference in Nadi; these two ladies live pretty close to me up here in the north.

It's funny, i was just complaining the other day that I felt I was missing out on a bit of the cultural experience of being in Fiji because i was in a relatively urban area and not a true community...... well, ask and you shall receive. I just got back this week from a whirlwind tour of 21 villages that fall under the jurisdiction of the committee I am working for. We did this in five days, it was pretty crazy. It was a very welcomed repreive from being stuck here in the town for a bit. The purpose of the trip was to go around and ensure that all of the villages knew that the MPAs were again closed (some of them were opened for use during the Methodist Conference that was up here at the end of August), to inform them of the upsoming rugby tournament that our committee is holding to raise money for future projects, and to do some other surveying of several of the villages with the WWF. There were seven of us in the motely crew that made the trip: a driver (whom we hired to take us around in this pick-up truck with a covered bed), two gentelmen from WWF in Suva, two village headmen from the area, another volunteer, and I. The long and short of the deal was: I got to see a lot of beautiful places I hadn't yet made it to, drank plenty kava, ate some sometimes good sometimes awful village food, and met some extremely hospitable people whom I hope to revisit as soon as i can make it back out.

When I returned to Labasa, I was granted the oppurtunity to see a good juxtaposition of the two cultures that dominate Fiji. The night I returned I ended up, through a series of "people who know people," having drinks at the house of and later dinner (at Labasa's "finest" resturant) with one of the more successful indo-fijian lawyers in the area. Coming from all these villages where many do not have electricity or running water to having a cold beer in a beautiful house with satalite, HD TV and proper couches was a bit of a switch. After a relatively interesting evening I was awoken the next morning at 6:30 by the 16 year old neighbor boy, who was over inviting me to come over in an hour for his brothers engagement ceremony. This turned out to be relatively interesting, as I spent the majority of the day attending a traditional hindu engagement ceremony (they have a cermony when the couple is engaged, then the families decide when it is they can get married, from what i gather it is usually around a year), with all the music and food and the like....it was great.

Thats about all thats been going on recently. I am heading down to Savusavu tomorrow, which is supposed to be a beautiful place, so will hopefull have some good stories to post after. Hope all is well with everyone, and if you get a chance drop me an email or something to let me know what's up.

one more thing

I was thinking about it, and i should include this photo; which is the beard competition guys before we styled for the event.

That is all

So, it's been a few weeks again..... i swear I will work harder to put a bit more up. But, hopefully the addition of some new pictures will make it up a little bit (the first is from this past weekend in lautoka, the next two are from the beard competition during training[the winner is on the left], and the third is sunrise from the beach next to my train village that I would run on every morning). I just got back from an emergency coordinator training in Nadi (they apparently feel that I am responsible enough to be in charge of other people in an emergency, wait until they figure out that mistake...), which was really great. They flew all those attending out there, and it was really nice to see several of the people I hadn't since we all split up in July. The training was Tues-Thurs, so on friday several of us spend the next day and evening in Lautoka, about an hour north of Nadi. The next day I went up to Malake(an island off the coast of Rakiraki, a city on the northern side of

Viti Levu), where on of the other volunteers is stationed. I spent most of Saturday and Sunday there and had a amazing time. I am a bit envious of her site, as she is on this beautiful island in, this great village, and has the opportunity to spend everyday in the ocean. It makes the days I spend in the dusty city a bit more drab...but alas, I have to remind myself that I have a assignment that works best for me, I'll just have to start making more of an effort to get out on the ocean. Anyway, it was great to get out of the city for awhile, spend some time in a village, and see one of the best friends I have made here.

Speaking of work, when I got back on Monday I was scheduled to begin a 6 day, 37 village tour with the WWF and the committee I am working with. In classic island style, it was postponed at the last minute (leaving several of us waiting at a bus stop for several hours...) due someone being sick. I am a bit bummed, as I was looking forward to the trip, but they tell me it is to be rescheduled for one of the next upcoming weeks. This being the case, I have a bit of a void at work this week (as I was supposed to be gone until next Saturday or so), and am struggling to generate some work to do in the office. So it's been a bit of a boring last few days....

Otherwise, all is well up here in sunny Labasa. The weather is starting to turn (as "winter" here is almost over), and it is beginning to get quite hot and rainy. The five of us that live here have planned an event for the Fiji Day weekend (fiji day is Oct 8th this year) that I am pretty excited about. Just about all of the volunteers here in the north are going to attend (about 16 of us) in teams of two in a two day competition (think the olympics, fiji style, with a few oat sodas thrown in the mix). I should be all kinds of fun, and the first time for many of these people to come up to the city. We have even organized prizes....it'll be great, hopefully i'll have some pictures to share.

Thanks again to everyone that has sent me something recently. Dave in particularly, as i just received a package from him and have yet to get a hold of him to extend my proper thanks. I hope all is well with everyone, if you get a chance shoot me an email and give me an update on what is going on with your lives.... i would hate to come back in a couple years and have no idea what anyone has been doing.

I'll do my best to post back up here soon.....

Sorry folks....

Ok, so I've been an awful blogger the past several weeks, and I apologize. I have been a bit busy getting used to the new job schedule and traveling a bit. I started work at the provincial office here at the begginning of August, and so far everything has been going pretty well. Most of the work I will be doing is in the field, and as such the few trips I have made out into the field so far have been really great. A couple weeks ago I began trips out into the province to generally introduce myself to the villages in the surrounding area. These trips have been good, and there is quite a bit of work to be done. Several of the villages have wonderful ideas for projects that I really hope can get off the ground; there is one that is very interested in doing some small scale prawn aquaculture, another village has plans for some pearl farming off it's coast, and another wants to start a diving/kayaking/surfing ecotourism venture. I also made a trip up to the Namuka tikina (a tikina is a group of between 4 and 10 villages that work together for governing purposes, the equivilent in the states would be something like a county) for the opening of one of their marine protectect areas. They have had their MPA in place for three years now, but are openning it to fishing for a week to help prepare for the national Methodist Conference that will be held in our province this year (methodist is the predominent religion in fiji, and the conference is easily one of the largest events held in fiji each year; they are expecting over a 1000 people this year and the hosting province is expected to provide food for all the participants for the entire week in which it is held). The trip was great, and it was really nice to finally get out on the water for a little bit up here.
So, as I said before, the field work has been really good so far, but unfortunately the office work has left a bit to be desired. With the conference looming on the horizon the office has been quite busy, and I think a bit unprepared for my arrival. Since most of my work outlined in my assignment is out in the field, there is a bit of a gap in what is expected of me in the office; which has led to a lot of workless days sitting around my desk when I'm not out traveling somewhere. On the bright side, the office downtime has helped me a bit with my language, and I am optomistic that as I spend more time there that I will find my niche.
Otherwise, everything else has been going very well. My expectations for Peace Corps service have been quite a bit different than the reality of my assignement, in both good and bad ways. I certainly did not expect to be living in a semi-urban environment with running water and electricity 24/7. I also did not expect to be living around so many other volunteers. There are 5 of us specifically stationed in Labasa, and 6 or 7 in the outlying area (1-2 of which are usually in each weekend); so I have quite a bit of contact with other Americans on a regular basis.... which has been great socially, but is going to make my continued cultural and language education a bit more dfficult (compared to those volunteers that are in a community of all natives, which is the case with the majority of the volunteers here).
Thanks to everyone who has sent letters and things/called or emailed me. It is really nice to hear from all of you, and makes the bit of homesickness that I feel from time to time much easier to get through. A special thanks goes out to Jason Hilton, who was the first person to send me something to hang on the walls in my house; I greatly look forward to more letters of that nature. I hope all is well with everyone, and I will certainly post up here again very soon.

Quick note

I found a way that you can send me free text messages from your computer to my phone. For those interested, email me and i'll give you the details (aricbickel83@yahoo.com, and please identify yourself in the email....).

A better post will be on the way soon.

Sorry forgot...

I forgot when I was on here the other day to say that I got a cell phone a few days ago; making it quite easy to get a hold of me phone wise if you are so inclined. So, if you would like the number drop me an email/post and I will forward it on to you (sorry, posting my number on a public blog doesn't sound like a great idea to me....... also, if you email me please identify yourself as some of those email addresses out there are a bit cryptic). If you have scype you can call me for something ridiculously cheap like 10 cents a minute, and i hear that text rates aren't too bad (i'm working on a scam for people from the states to be able to text me for free, and hopefully i'll have more info on that by the end of the week).

cheers,

Aric

Bula sia from the friendly north

So, this is my first post from my permanent site, are you as excited as I am!?! I sure hope so, because most of the rest of these are going to be coming from here, and if you're going to start off with a bad attitude it's going to be a long 2 years. Anyway, I just arrived up here in Labasa a few days ago, and am working on settling in. (If you're wondering about the picture above, it is my new friend Steve [who is strangely Mo's cousin....what..] and I's entry into the facial hair contest of July 4th that we put on. Unfortunately I didn't win, but there wasn't a prize so no worries. I'll try to put up the pictures of all the entries at a later date).
The Past week has been pretty crazy. On Monday we had our final language exam to see if they were still going to let us into the peace corps (in case you were wondering I passed). Tuesday was our last night in the village, which was a huge ordeal with people eating, drinking kava, singing, and crying late into the evening (fortunately for me it was also my first recovery day from food poisoning, so the first thing I wanted to do with it was sit around and do the above all night). Wednesday we departed the village exorbitantly early in the morning (5:45 to be exact) for Suva, where we had our final training sessions; after which they turned us lose on the town. It was a great evening, about a third of us left the next day (thursday), so it was the last time I would see many people in the group for a few months. Being a family page and all, I can only say we had a fantastic time, Suva has some great bars, and I hope to take some of you who visit out there sometime. Thursday we were officially sworn in as volunteers, those going to viti levu left for their sites, and the rest of us going up north were given and extra day in Suva.
I left friday afternoon on the overnight boat to SavuSavu, and took a truck from there to Labasa (arriving early morning on Saturday. Since then I've been working on setting up my living quarters and getting ready for work.

So, my address here is:
Aric Bickel c/o Macuata Provincial Office
P.O. Box 1326
Labasa, Fiji Islands
South Pacific

and, I have a challenge for all you people out there feeling up to it. I have an excess amount of blank, white wall space..... and I would like you to fill it. Send me whatever it is you want (within reason), and I will put it up on my wall. I think this could be a great way for me to feel more at home, and involve more of you in what is going on in my life over here. So, you have my address now, send me something fun to put on the wall. At some point I'll take a picture and post it. Maybe, if you're lucky, i'll even send you something fijian back to put on your own wall.......

alright, time is up here. I should be able to get back up here and post more in a few days.

cheers

Aric