Day to Day

Many of you have recently been asking us what we are doing with our last few months on the island. Of course we have been busy with projects, but our island life is so full of day to day chores that most people don't realize we even have. We thought we would give you a glimpse into our daily life and what we have been doing behind the scenes living on a tropical island for the last three years .

Every morning a truck rolls down our one island dirt road to the last village to pick up employees of the resort. This is the village's cue to rise and shine and start getting the kids ready for school. We usually take a wake-up jog down to the next village with our dogs, Tave and Qisa, to get us ready for the long days.

Running down the beach towards the sunrise.

Before hitting the bucket bath we try to get in a few chores like mowing the lawn or washing clothes. Washing clothes in a big basin and scrubbing them on a piece of plywood took some getting used to. It isn't all that bad unless it's your turn to wash the sheets. It is so hard to scrub every single inch in a small tub.

Drew using his machete, the typical Fiji lawn mower.

What makes it more challenging is you have to walk down the village a few hundred yards to get more water to rinse your clothes. After a good rinse you get to hang your undergarments high and proud for all to see with your other clothes and pray it doesn't rain or else mildew begins to set in.

After cleaning up and breakfast, Drew is off to the Teitei, his plantation to garden. After many months of hard work we are finally eating this season's harvest. He has beautiful yams and lettuce growing right now.

Drew and the Fijian yams, Uvi.

A box of his fresh picked COS lettuce.

Melissa’s off to work at the little health clinic down the road. She gets to help patch up munchkins all day and help out the health workers.

Hanging out with Tagitagivula, and Tai Malakai.

Usually Melissa and Drew meet at home for lunch, but Drew takes a longer lunch break to stay out of the hot sun and get some extra chores done.

He gets to go to the bush and cut down dead tree branches for our firewood and then prepare it for baking over the fire. He also gets to go to other side of the village to feed the pigs our left over food.

We both get home around 6pm and finish up our chores around the house. Everyone in the village makes their own brooms from coconut leave stems to keep their houses clean. Melissa sweeping with the local broom, a sasa.

We switch off washing dishes. We had to get a good system going with 2 basins all done in our little shower room. We usually have to do our dishes each night or else the food will attract more mice and cockroaches from the jungle behind our house.

Then we get to prepare our dinner which usually consists of a couple of fish either Drew has caught spearfishing or from our generous neighbors. Melissa loves her fish filleted so she can marinate it in one of her many homemade concoctions. Drew is a big fan of the local coconut milk cooked with fish. He usually scrapes the coconut with a grater then he squeezes out the fresh milk to boil with the fish.

Drew scraping coconut flesh in our kitchen.

After dinner we usually wind down by the lantern reading or playing with our pets. Then it's off to bed to dream about doing it all again tomorrow!

This is the latest progress on the four new latrines at the school. Hopefully, they will be done this week. We will be having a grand opening ceremony to commemorate all of the effort by our village and the school for completing them so quickly.

This is the latest picture of our namesake, Melissa. She is sporting a new dress from the Styles' Family, and mini tennis shoes from Z'aree Loganbill, Drew's cousin. This was taken after her baptism last Sunday.

Oso Oso....Busy!

Well, the last stretch is in sight and we are already beginning to pack up our tiny house! You would be amazed at how much you can get into a one room tin shack over the course of three years! Although, Melissa's pack-rat ability is highly exceptional on an international level, our goal is to give as much as we can to our villagers.

In the last month, we unfortunately learned that Peace Corps will not be replacing us with new volunteers. Although they equip us with state of the art GPS, a satellite phone, life jackets and a cell phone, after three years they've decided our unpredictable boat situation is too risky. At this point we agree with their decision, but of course the village is deeply disappointed.

The school compost latrine project coming along nicely.

We also celebrated Mother's Day in the village on May 18. Melissa was promoted this year to play the queen in the annual Mother's Day play in church. Although technically she was demoted because her previous part for the last 2 years as the King's servant actually had lines...2 to be exact.

All the mothers of Lomanikaya.

Melissa with Salote and Ana giving a performance of a lifetime :)

As our departure date is approaching the villagers have become more sentimental and we find visitor coming by more often for tea, chatting, and even dinner- We actually just introduced our chief to chicken tacos..His reaction " ooh, na tokoo is nice."

We also have been trying to teach computer lessons as often as we can. This year we are combining our efforts so one of us can focus on individual typing lessons while the other gives an environmental or heal

th lesson to the rest of the class.

Melissa with Talica and Jone, sixth graders.

The best surprise this last month was our associate pastor naming his daughter after us and bringing her home in May. Melissa Loganbill Naivau was born April 28, 2008 weighing 3.8 Kg. She is just beautiful and we are so honored.

Melissa, holding Melissa, with Drew.