Following the holiday...

Good times in Labasa

After the long four day Easter holiday, things are working back towards normalcy. The weekend was good though, and it was nice to have the time to settle into the house and get a few out-of-work things taken care of. A local friend of mine got married over the weekend, so most of my evenings were taken up by those ceremonies (Hindi weddings have three days/nights worth of ceremonies around the wedding day). I unfortunately missed the actual wedding ceremony, but the other three nights were a pretty good time.

It should be an interesting week. There are supposed to be several interested parties coming to see me at the office to go over some of the IGP projects I am working on, but we’ll see who actually shows up. This Friday and Saturday is also the big meet for the track team I have been helping to coach, which I am greatly looking forward to. One of the other volunteers works at a school up here, and he is coming with his school’s team, so there may have to be some under-the-table wagers on the outcome. Hopefully, some or all of the team will do well and qualify for the national meet in Suva at the end of April, which I would really like to make it out to. There are also several people up from the Peace Corps office in Suva doing some future site development visits for the incoming group (they arrive in May), so I should have a pretty full house of visitors this week.

Coming up I should be able to get some traveling in. My office is going to be visiting every village in the province over the first three weeks of April, and I am hoping to catch rides out with them to visit some of the villages I haven’t made it out to yet. So, hopefully I hear back from some of these communities this week so that I can use these visits to do some of my own work around the province here. Again, we’ll see how that goes.

Just as a reminder, this Saturday is Earth Hour sponsored by WWF. They are attempting to get as many people as possible around the world to turn off all their electricity between the hours of 8 and 9 on the 29^th. Unfortunately, the only city in the U.S. to sign up for the project was Chicago; but that doesn’t mean we can’t all do our part individually. Fiji did sign up for it and will be the first country to turn their electricity out on the 29^th (because of our time zone), so I’ll get her started here and I expect all of you back in the States to follow suit a few hours later.

Otherwise, everything is going pretty well, nothing more to report this week. Depending on possible village visits, I may not be able to make it back up here next week, but I’ll post again as soon as I am able. Hope all is well…

The Last Couple Weeks

I’ve been a bit derelict on posting up here the last couple weeks, but they have been busy and it has been difficult to find the time to write something up. Bill left early last week and, as such, the week before last was a bit busy with preparations for his departure and various goodbye celebrations. This was compounded a bit by me now moving into their house. They were living in a kind of “hub” house that contains the library, a bunch of Peace Corps resource materials, and in which volunteers from my province tend to stay at when they are in town; so they wanted someone to continue living in this house, and I was asked to move. I had to make the move before the beginning of last week, as I was in Suva the majority of it, so between all of this and work I did not have a whole lot of time for other endeavors. The move went well, and a proper send-off was given, and I now find myself at a new residence.

The week before last I started pitching my IGP project to the tikinas. I believe it went pretty well, although I would be lying if I did not admit to some discomfort in speaking to these large groups of people in my own special combination of Fijian and English, but all in all I was happy with how it went. There were a few interested parties, and most said they would contact me after the Easter holiday, so hopefully I will start to hear back from some interested communities around that time.

Last week Peace Corps had a conference in the Suva area, in which 13 of us attended with a youth from our community, to go through some project design and management training. I went with a 21 year old guy from here in Labasa that had been working for the Ministry of Youth and Sports. The conference went well, and we have worked out a plan to do some lifeskills workshops together (HIV awareness, reproductive health, STD education, etc.) with the youth groups in the province up here. I think it’s a great idea, and is certainly a need in many of the communities here. The only possible kink in the plan is finding a funding source. We have some leads, and some people to start talking to (of course after the holiday); so hopefully we can work something out.

The conference ended on Saturday morning, and afterwards a few of us went back out to our host villages for lunch and the afternoon. I was a little hesitant to go back, but I’m really glad that I did; it was wonderful to see some of those people again and it really made me feel like I had a family of sorts that I could visit there at any time. After spending the day out in the village, I met up with several other volunteers in Suva where we had a Fiji version of a St. Patrick’s Day celebration at a pseudo-Irish pub there. The following morning I returned to Labasa, and started the relatively painstaking process of putting the new house together (I’m just about finished).

It’s a short week this week (Monday was Prophet Mohammad’s observed birthday, and Friday is Good Friday), so there is not a whole lot going on. I had planned on maybe traveling over the long Easter weekend, but I have a few commitments here and a wedding invitation that may keep me at home. My best to everyone, and I should be able to get up here next week.

Some new work

Pravine, Rachel, and I out in Suva

Well, it's been a busy week or so. The trip down to Savusavu last weekend went pretty well. I am going to try and work with a pearl farm down there to start spat collection(collection of pearl bearing oyster youth) in some of the villages up here. It has the possibility to work really well, as there is a large, unfilled market for them at the moment and the waters up here could support the endeavor well. It will be a bit of a delayed gratification type project, as it will probably take a year or so before we can start actualy collecting; but i'm excited none-the-less.

I also started helping to coach a local highschool's track team this week. So far it's going pretty well, and it seems like it will be a nice way to finish my work days up here. It's nice to be working back with runner's again, and I am growing to better appreciate all the work my coach's put in when I was that age, as it's a bit harder than it looks.

We start our rounds of tikina meetings next week, and I am hoping to start getting my environmentally sustainable IGP project information out during these, and hopefully I can begin working with a few villages on the first ones here soon.

There was some bad new this week though. The married Peace Corps couple up here is going to be returning to the states a bit early. The wife has been stuck in the U.S. for almost two months now having some medical tests done, and Peace Corps has decided it would be best for her to stay there indefinetly to continue the tests (nothing serious thankfully). So, the husband will be leaving here most likely next week. This is a bit disappointing as we have now dwindled to two volunteers here in Labasa from the original 5 that were here in August.

Otherwise, everything is going well. I am thinking of heading back down to Savusavu for the weekend to see a few people and have a little good-bye weekend for Bill. Hope all is well.

Savusavu harbor

Last week went pretty well. I got some good work done concerning my IGP project that I am working on, I made it out to the beach up west of here for the first time, and xavier continues it's winning streak. It was nice to get out to the water again this weekend, I find I miss it a bit being stuck here in town for most of my weeks. While we were there, Bill (the married volunteer here in town) and I made friends with a group of FEA employee celebrating one of their birthdays. I'm not sure I've made this clear on the blog here, but some of the music that makes it across the pond to Fiji is pretty interesting; some of the bands that are huge here are what I would call a bit unexpected. For example, Shania Twain is big, as is UB40, Shawn Kingston, and Celine Dion. As we walk over to party a bit with these guys, several of them are up and dancing (a bit intoxicatedly) to Celine Dion, which of course was playing at full volume. It was hilarious. To see 10 grown Fijian men singing at the top of their lungs and dancing to a 60 minute celine dion mix CD is a sight to behold.

This past week I have also been able to start running again. If you didn't know, I strained a ligament in my ankle that has kept me down for the last several weeks. So, it's quite nice to be getting back out there and training again.

I leave tomorrow to go down to Savusavu to visit their pearl farms. Apparently the Ministry of Fisheries is offering a program that will allow rural villages to collect and sell Spate clam young to their pearl farms. It looks to be a relatively lucrative industry for some of the small communities and I am anxious to get down there and get the details.

Otherwise, it's life as usual here in Fiji. I should be able to get back up here next week. Hope all is well....

Hmmm

View from Raviravi coastline

Rain coming to residential area in Labasa

Not much going on this week. I was supposed to got to Lautoka with my office, but it kinda fell through at the last minute. So I have been working at the office the entire week so far. Things are going well, and there are some good projects is the works here. One of our volunteers is builting some composting toilets out on here island, and I may be going out with them to aid in that endevor tomorrow or maybe friday. Bit of a short post unfortunately this week, but I imagine more will be going on my this time next week. The rain has stopped it's incesent pounding the last few days allowing me to finally get some laundry done and possibly making transport easier, so we'll see what happens.

January Rains

Labasa bus stand

Rachel and I with Matt in his village

Morning on the coast

Road collapse due to rain near Seaqaqa

I just got back from a trip out to Kedra (pronounced Kendra) village up in Dogotuki, which if you know you fiji geography, is up near Udu point (the upper northeast of this island). The turaga ni koro (village headman) asked me to come out and look at a possible ecotourism site they are trying to develop up there. So, on Wen. last week I went up there and stayed with his family for a few days. They have a large waterfall that they are looking to built nature trails two and possiblily a few small camping huts for people to stay at. The site was beautiful, and they seem to be quite motivated to get this accomplished. During the visit, I also learned of their interest in some alternative means of electricity (solar and hydro, on very small scales of course) and some aquaculture. This all sounds great and will hopefully bring about quite a bit of work up in that area of the provence.

The only issue with the area is transportation, which, especially during the rainy season, is a bit dicey. The buses has stopped going out that way due to bad road conditions, so my transportation back and forth from there was the tikina's truck (which is a flatbed truck that a thin frame was built over, a tarp fasened around the frame, and a couple benches bolted to the bed). Being the only method of transport for the region, I rode in the back of this truck with about 25 other people trying to get up there. The trip was long, about 4 hours, and the road was a muddy mess (we had to get out and push the truck 3 or 4 times, one of which a dumptruck had to pull us up a hill). It should bea bit better come April, but during the rainy season here it is a difficult place to work it.

The last few weeks we have seen a ever increasing amount of rain. Even some of the paved roads have been made impassible due to mudslides and the such. A 100 meter section of the road between Labasa and Savusavu collapsed (pictured above), which halted mail, cargo, and personal travel by land to Labasa for a week or so. But this is supposed to be about the worst time of the year for these kind of things, and it will not be too long until things clear up a bit.

Thanks about it for the time being, I enjoy everyone's updates, so please keep those coming.

Holiday trip pics

Waterfall in Bouma Heritage park

I just got back this week from a trip to Suva for a workshop, and while there I was able to get my hands on the pictures from my Christmas/New Years trip. I didn't want to go over the trip until I got them, so i'm going to do a bit of time-traveling here and briefly go over my fabulous trip out in Taviuni. For most of the trip we were either camping of shacking up with other volunteers that live out that way. On our first day there we visited a volunteer friend of ours and went up to a "water slide" in the mountains surrounding his site. The term water slide is used loosely, as it is better described as 60meters of shallow rapids that you can rocket down like a slide. The locals are fantastic at it, going down head first and surfing their way down; my trips down weren't nearly as graceful, led to several bruises, and quite a few laughs for the fijian kids that were there. After spending the day there, we spend the night and the next couple days (including christmas) and a camp site towards the top of the island. The canadian dive instructor that had been living at the camp site for the last 6 weeks or so called it the best he had ever been to, and it difficult to argue with him. We made friends easily and had a peaceful christmas and boxing day there. We were able to finagle a decent discount, and went diving on Rainbow Reef while there, which was my first time diving in Fiji and was amazing(the picture below is from the dive trip). The following day we then went out to the west side of the island, hooked up with a volunteer living there and did the Bouma waterfall hike. The picture above is the lower falls (there are three).

On our way to Rainbow reef

The view from my campsite

Rope bridge on Lavena Coastal walk

Some of the Lavena youth posing

After a night in Waitabu village, we spend the evening in Lavena and went on the coastal walk to village has set up there. The walk takes you through the rainforest of the park there and end at a waterfall you can swim out to a dive off. After doing a bit of snorkeling out in the marine park on the westernside, we returned to the East. After spending the night in Somosomo village we got up early in the morning and hiked up the mountain to Lake Tacimocea. The Lake is surrounded by Fiji folk lore about it's origins, and is the only site where the Fiji national flower can be found (also called tacimocea). We spend the morning climbing the mountain (the picture directly below depicts one of the views on the hike up) and a couple hours searching for the flower and swimming in the lake.

The village boys and I looking out from atop the mountain

The Tacimocea flower

After the hike (which took 8 hours give or take), we headed back to our previous campsite where we spend a very low-key New Years Eve with a few other volunteers and some new friends

New Years in camp

We spend another day at camp snorkeling and enjoying a lazy New Years day. The following morning, on finding out our boat back to Vanua Levu had been canceled, we headed down to the Southern tip of the island (Vuna) for the night. There we did some pretty good snorkeling and such, then headed back home the following day.

One of the Orchid species native to Taviuni

Sunset in Vuna

All and all it was a great trip, can't wait to make it back out there.

Back to the present... My trip to Suva went well, the workshop I attended there was great. Now it's back to the grind here in Labasa for awhile. I have some meeting and a WWF workshop scheduled for the end of the week, so hopefully all goes well and I am able to generate some more work through this week.

As an aside, one of our volunteer's dogs in Savusavu had puppies last week, and I think I have been talked into taking one. Since my roommate left the old house has been a little empty, so it may be good to get another living thing hanging around.

Puppies!

Hope all is well with everyone, and I hope to get back on here in a week or so. Send me updates and any ideas you have for Dog names!