Fiji

So I got in around 6:30 last night, easily found my hostel shuttle driver, had some weird awkward airport conversation with aggressive taxi drivers while I was waiting for mine to come back with two British tourists, one of whom went to primary school with my good friend Dan in Bristol.

We got to the hostel, I threw my bag into a dorm room and took off in search of the Hindu temple to join the festivities for the first day of Navarathri, Festival of the Divine Mother. It turned out that the temple happened to be approximately 30 feet away from the hostel.

I got to the puja, slipped in at the back, and almost burst into tears of relief at the familiar sights, sounds and smells. In fact, I'm sure I would have if I wasn't made overly self-conscious by the 100 Indo-Fijeans staring at me blankly trying to figure out what the f*** this white woman was doing there.

Then we ate dinner after at the temple and people were impressed because I knew how to eat with my hands and I liked Indian food. Then I made a friend who gave me her cell phone number and said she would help me out...

Ooh - my sister just got back here! Yay!
Ok bye.

Ambae Workshop Update

This is the English version of what I submitted to the two newspapers here in Vanuatu:

Qatamele Village, North Ambae.

On Mon Sept 8, over 25 people from Qatamele village and surrounding areas on North Ambae came together for the opening of a four-day “Water, Hygiene, & Sanitation” workshop sponsored by the European Union through their Non-State Actors Programme and implemented by Peace Corps.

Each morning, participants learned how diseases spread and discovered how higher levels of hygiene for the individual, family, household and community can prevent illness at the village level.

Through drama, drawings, games and discussions, participants shared their perceptions of their community’s needs as well as the knowledge and resources already available in the village. They explored gender roles, division of labour and identified ways that men and women could work together to improve their family’s health. Each participant then began to develop a Family Action Plan to bring home.

Each afternoon, participants took the time to construct the first VIP (Ventiliated Improved Pit) toilet in the community, employing a technology that greatly reduces the number of flies spreading germs throughout the village.



Each evening, the entire community was invited to watch videos on various health issues and ask questions.

Every household in Qatamele was invited to send a representative to the workshop, with the hope that the tools given and skills developed would reach everyone in the community and each participant would serve as a Hygiene Leader for their family. Invitations were also sent to nearby villages in the Waluriki area to encourage neighbours to consider similar programs.

Children aged 1-12 attended their own program, Yumi Washem Hans!, an awareness campaign originally piloted on Tongoa earlier this year.






Workshop facilitators were Blake Stogner, a local Peace Corps Volunteer in Qatamele, and Amanda Prasow, a Peace Corps Community Health Volunteer on Tongoa.

According to Arthurvan Garae, Chairman of the Qatamele Council, “We are very glad to see something like this happen here. We are a ‘back-way’ community, we live in the bush…there are healthworkers on the other side of the island but never has one of them reached us. We’re taking seriously this chance to ask questions and clarify a lot we didn’t know or understand before. We are going to see how this really raises the standard of knowledge and health for this village…”

The workshop, as well as materials for the VIP toilet and an additional two new water tanks, was made possible through funding from the European Union/Peace Corps/VRDTCA’s Community-Initiated Water & Sanitation Programme. Any community interested in a similar project should contact VRDTCA or a nearby Peace Corps Volunteer.

Um...I intended to finish this blog properly but I happen to be co-housesitting in the flasest mansion ever and my friend just showed up with, I kid you not, a crew of single men. It's time to be a hostess!

And everything is wonderful again.

I just wanted you to know that.

The week from hell has turned around in almost every way imaginable...as these weeks are often wont to do in this country.

Everything is fabulous.

Details to come.

(Fiji on Tuesday)

Back.

So, um...Ambae was so amazing that I changed my whole crazy plan and stayed an extra week. I do intend to describe all the magic of it (with photographic evidence) and explain why that workshop was definitely the highlight of my Peace Corps service thus far...just as soon as I can muster up the enthusiasm.

Because right now I'm in a horrible mood, partly because Vila is always a stressful whirlpool of inexhaustible to-do lists, phone calls, errands, and malfunctioning technology wrapped in a generally suffocating environment of diesel fumes, rotting garbage, sexual harassment and oppressive heat.

But mostly I am in a horrible mood because I am currently missing the following items:
-my new cell phone
-my plane ticket to Fiji
-my glasses (I was wearing them before I went to bed last night, so they can't have gone far...)

Plus I just found out that 9 prisoners have escaped yet again, which means that instead of having to scurry home before the sun sets at 6 p.m. like usual, I am now supposed to hide behind locked doors and/or be with someone else every second of the day until further notice. This is so stupid...I'd punch something if I wouldn't hurt myself.

Oh, um...don't, like, worry or anything. Prisoners frequently escape here. This is either the third or fourth time I remember since I have been here...so we're looking at an average of a group of prisoners escaping every 4-6 months. I guess I could be scared but after my last mefloquine-inspired hallucination a year ago when I saw mutilated babies sneering in negative colour every time I closed my eyes, I kinda just purged all the fear I had available in the darkest recesses of my psyche.

I am frightened by very little these days. Just a few weeks ago on the island I got lost in the bush walking home alone in a storm, and I got so lost that I didn't find my way to the cow-fence (the landmark that I have about a thirty-minute downhill walk to get home) until it was pitch black. And then thankfully I had an umbrella because I used it as a walking stick, or more of a...pitchfork rather to dig into the ground that was sliding and crumbling underneath my feet at every step, and every few minutes I'd be trying to put the umbrella point in the ground and not feel anything, and then I'd be like, "Oh, there's nothing there - I guess that is the edge of this cliff and I shan't put my foot there."

And I got home safe and sound and everything. I have only the tiniest scar from tearing my leg on some barbed wire, but I think it will fade with time. Anyway, even then I wasn't really that scared. And as I was wringing out my soaking wet filthy clothes, I thought to myself, "After today, imagine being afraid of something like...credit card debt" Sometimes I collapse into giggles in the privacy of my own mind.

Anyway. I'm not giggling now. I want my phone and my stupid plane ticket. I'm hoping this is all a big hilarious misunderstanding involving someone accidentally taking these items out of my Peace Corps mailbox and, um, sending them to another volunteer or something...who, um, may have been surprised by the random cell phone in her mailbag but, um, thought it was a gift?

Perhaps I am too trusting. There are worse vices.

Yes, I've tried calling it.

I'll write again when I am feeling less violent.

No, I'm not "done" yet!

I am surprised by the number of people who, after noticing my sudden online presence the last week and a half, have assumed I was "home" or on my way out.

"Surely it's been a couple years already, hasn't it?"
"Um...are you still doing that Peacekeeper thing?"
"Do you still live in the jungle?"
etc, etc

For the record, as it stands now (despite recent rumours on the coconut)I officially COS (Close-of-service) in mid-June 2009.

Although it doesn't mean I won't be venturing out with some crazy cool projects/vacations over the next few months.

This itinerary entry is for the people that actually do want to keep tabs on me for the next little while. I don't expect those of you I am not in frequent contact with to be particularly interested, so, um, you could scroll...

Sept 5-12: VIP Toilet & Sanitation Workshop, West Ambae
Sept 12-15: Vila
Sept 15-22: home (Tongoa)
Sept 22-29: Vila
Sept 30-Oct 7: Fiji with my sister!
Oct 7-24: Vila, prepping, doing, and dealing with the aftermath of a leadership camp
a month or so: home (Tongoa)
Nov 25ish-Dec 8ish: Israel with my parents, probably through Australia, London, or Hong Kong so heads up if you live there, I'll be e-mailing you.

So that means I'm out tomorrow...but I'll be back in a week! Hopefully with good pictures.

Me

Musik

This place is seeping through my skin.

Nothing on my iPod satisfies me anymore.

There will, of course, always remain moments of emotional intensity where Western Music Infusion is the only and best therapy. When hearkening back to only the indiest of rock or the folkiest of guitar will pull me up from the floor or down from the clouds and remind me who I am and where I come from.

But when I think of Life on the Outside...

I just can't imagine listening to anything that ISN'T some kind of stringband-calypso-reggae-R&B-African pop-gospel-hip-hop. Like, why would you want to?

What's the point of music if there's no rhythm...no groove to it? No softness, no warmth, no...slide...?