Bring on 2008

Happy New Year! We hope everyone had a fabulous holiday season! We got back in Fiji just in time for Cyclone Daman to run its course through the northern group of islands. Peace Corps consolidated all the volunteers to the main 2 islands, so we were sent to Suva for 5 days waiting to see the cyclone’s course. From November- April its cyclone season in Fiji and with global warming they say to expect more cyclones than in the past. Besides dodging Daman, we have been enjoying the slow holiday season. Everything winds down during this time because it’s the “summer break” for all of the kids. Despite the indolent attitude towards working, Drew managed to get his water distribution project up and running before Christmas- just in time for all the visiting family members. All the villagers are so happy they don’t have to draw water from the well anymore. We spent Christmas day with our village family eating lots of roast pig, chicken, and fish, going to lots of church, and playing games on the beach with the kids. We decided to go to Taveuni Island- coined the garden island of Fiji- for New Years. We spent a few days surfing, hiking to waterfalls, snorkeling, and camping on the beach with a few other Peace Corps volunteers. It took us 26 hours by ferries and buses to get there, but the breathtaking scenery made it all worth the journey. Since the date line runs directly through Taveuni we were absolutely the first people to bring in the new year. We look forward to getting our last few projects finished up in the next few months. Drew will finish his water project in the village and help Liss with the construction of the new compost toilet project at the school. Our village is having an official ceremony this week to open our dispensary, so Liss can finally work in our village. All the best in 2008!

Taking a Break

We are coming to an end of our month long vacation back home in sunny California. The Peace Corps gave us 30 days break when we extended our contract an additional 12 months. We arrived at the end of October to be welcomed to LA engulfed in smoke from the Santa Ana wind fires that took over southern California. We have been enjoying every minute being back home with our friends and family. We can't tell you how nice it is to not have mosquitoes swarming, and dirt between our toes. We have been travelling quite a bit to see everyone this last month. We were able to be a part of Drew's longest friend's beautiful wedding: Congratulations Mike and Nika Starkey! We went up to San Francisco to see our brother Scott and friends in their band, Arcadio (See link to the right, for a sound clip). We also took a few days to go out to Arizona to see Melissa's Aunt Roxanne and check out potential dental schools. Phoenix was a definite highlight of our trip topped off with a Suns vs. Bulls basketball game with Roxanne and our grandma. For our third-year anniversary we stayed at a lodge in the Sequoia National Park to see the giant sequoia trees and take moment to ourselves between all the visiting. Thanksgiving was a whirlwind of family and the of course, scrumptious food. It was Drew's first time doing a double Thanksgiving in one day on Melissa's side and he didn't seem to have a problem devouring turkey dinners back to back. A day later we joined up with the Loganbill family in Cambria for another Thanksgiving at a beautiful house on the ocean. Now we are preparing for our return to Fiji and picking up on the projects we were working on before we left. Liss will continue to teach computer skills at the school, and Drew will begin the construction of his water distribution project. We also look forward to opening our village dispensary, and beginning the construction of a new compost latrine facility at the school which both were greatly supported by our friends the Massy-Greene family. We appreciate everything that all of our family and friends have done to support us over the last two and half years. We thank you so much for the time you have taken to spend with us this last month and we wish all of you a wonderful holiday season! We love you all!

Google Earth Tour

Hi Everyone!

We recently discovered that you can check out Fiji and our island if you visit Google earth. You can download Google Earth for free through http://www.earth.google.com/ or click link on the left.

Below are some images we copied so those of you who are computer challenged can see some satellite pictures of our island.

This is the Fiji Islands (minus a few small outer islands). The large circular island is called Viti Levu and this is the main island we travel back and forth from by boat.

This is Korolevu village on Viti Levu Island. This is the reef passage our boats travel into from Vatulele. It usually takes anywhere between 1 hour- 3 hours depending on the weather. Our boats are 20-25 foot fiber boats with one outboard engine. The open sea passage can get a bit rough, but don't worry because Peace Corps equips us with a gps, life jackets, and a satellite phone.

This is our island Vatulele. The whole island is about 7 miles long and at it's widest about 4 miles. There are 4 villages on the island with 4 separate chiefs. The chief in Ekubu Village (located in the North east, see picture below) is also the paramount chief, and he makes final decisions for all of Vatulele.

This is Lomanikaya Village which is located about half way down the island on the east side. Our village has about 75 people year round and around the holidays about 25 extra family members (mostly children who school on the main island.) You can see our church at the north end, our newly finished dispensary where the red cross is, our house just below, and even our old village boat (which was repossessed a few weeks before we left.) Our house is the only home located on the other side of the road so our backyard is all rain forest.

This is the north end of Vatulele Island where the school and health center are located. Liss rides her bike here everyday and Drew comes to work at the school about 2-3 times a week to paint his World Map with the children. You can see many houses because Ekubu village and Taunovo village blend together creating a small town with about 650 villagers.

This is the other side of our island (the same side as the infamous Vatulele Island Resort.) It takes us about 30 minutes to hike across to the white sandy beaches and turquoise water. We usually do a lot of fishing on this side because the coral reef is much closer to shore making it easier to catch fish. We try to hike across with our dogs about once every couple of weeks.

We hope to keep this post updated as Google earth updates their satellite photos, so stay tuned :)

Time for Family

It’s been a whirlwind the last few months filled with many memories and lots of family. In May we headed to Hawaii to see Randy (Drew’s eldest brother) and Kristy tie the knot in a beautiful wedding ceremony on Maui’s shore.

For two weeks we enjoyed time with the Loganbill family, and relaxed in the American comforts of home Hawaiian-island style. It was a special vacation especially for Drew’s dad when cousins, sons, and friends all shaved their heads on our last night in town to support Tom in his upcoming chemo treatment. Tom has such a great spirit and continues to be an inspiration to everyone.

Dana and Scott (Drew’s second oldest brother and sister-in-law) flew back with us to Fiji to begin the first leg of their 6-month around-the-world trip. We gave them the royal treatment on Vatulele and then to town for a complete “island experience.” Here we are all atop the lighthouse after an underground cave swim.

Between visitors we had our last Peace Corps conference with our group and said our good-byes to all of our friends and colleagues who will be leaving in the next few months. There is 24 left of our group out of 34 people. We were the 3^rd group to re-enter Fiji after they closed the post in the 90’s. For those of you who don’t know we are extending our contract for another 12 months and will be home in December 2008.

To celebrate our last occasion together, a big group of us went on 2 dives in the Beqa Lagoon. It was our first Scuba Diving experience, and we are hooked! Fiji has amazing coral reefs and it was unreal standing on the bottom of the ocean watching all kinds of sea life pass you by without taking notice of us.

Brandon and his friend came a few days later and we were able to do a little Island hopping to Nanu-I-ra, Caqalai, Viti Levu, and then to Vatulele. They both gave art and language lessons at the school and our Saturday Kid’s Club Class, and they also helped paint the World Map Mural with Drew.

It’s been so fun entertaining, it makes us a bit homesick, but we love it all the same. Our doors are always open for anyone willing to take a little pacific island adventure!

Swimming in the Rain

Wow! We’ve had just under 2 feet of rain on our little island last month, and we have learned that mold and mildew can grow on anything! Lucky for us with all the rainfall we now have a lake behind our house, only downside is that it is the perfect breeding ground for the mosquitos. You can actually hear them coming once the sun sets, it’s like the swarms of locusts from biblical times. Other than humidity and mosquitoes this place feels more like home all the time. H

Drew’s Marine Protected Area (MPA) or "tabu" (said tom-boo) area is absolutely amazing! February marked the one year of the MPA which was the orginal agreement with the village. After recently monitoring and comparing results from last year the village decided to keep the MPA for another eyar. The results were astonishing with all the fish quadrupling in numbers and size. The villagers are so excited now that there are species the elders say they haven’t seen since they were children and also lobsters, which no one has ever seen on our east coast side of Vatulele.

This last month was a new experience being involved in a village funeral. The village mayor who passed away was the first person we met from our island, and he was also Drew’s counterpart. His family took us in and fed us while our house was being finished, they gave us our first tapa cloth, and he helped Drew for the first year with all of his projects. He was only 56 and died from stomach cancer. The funeral began on a Friday when they brought him to be buried near his garden, and lasted 10 days. Hundreds of people from the main island and from the four villages of our island came to show their respect.

We helped cook every single day for the funeral party, Liss made all the flowers for the grave site that the children carry through out the day, and we spent many hours helping do things for the funeral party. The tradition with funerals is that for 100 nights the family wears black and does not cut their hair or shave their faces to honor the deceased. Then on the 100th night a big feast and ceremony is held and the family all cuts their hair and can get back into their colorful muumuus. It was a very difficult time for our whole village, but Joana the widow comes by often and seems to be coping.

Liss has been busy at work with all the humid season health problems. Lots of boils, skin infections, and dehydration. She also was able to assist an Australian dentist and complete a 2nd annual dental survey of the children. Again they found close to 500 cavtities, and they also discovered the children’s permanent molars are rotting within the first year of growing into their mouths. She has been trying to research fluoride tablets to be distributed in fiji, but it looks like she’ll have to get them imported from overseas. If anyone has any suggestions or can help her research that would be greatly appreciated.

eShe also had one of the best birthdays ever! For her big 26th, it started off as a stormy day and then turned into the perfect sunshine. We borrowed a bike from a villager and rode 1 ½ hours in the mud to the underground swimming cave, then had a picnic at the top of the abondaned light house. That night Drew baked her a chocolate cake with mocha frosting over the fire, and whipped up his special roasted eggplant pizzas on basil crust. Thank you again to everyone who sent their love to her on her special day.

Liss also got a new kitten and puppy for her birthday, not with complete permission from Drew, but they are both so cute that how can you say no. The kitten was abandoned behind our house, and the puppy followed Liss home one day when she was riding home from work and she was hooked. Tave, our first dog, is pretty jealous he has to share the house now, and he lets us know with growls when either newbie gets within 3 feet of him. We are official dirtballs now though, with all these pets, and we know the villagers are talking trash, especially since Qisa, the puppy, threw up on our chief last week when he was over. At least we’re holding our reputation as the nutty Americans :) Love to you all! Meow asleep on Qisa

Here's to 2007

Another Christmas season away from home, and we can’t tell you how much we really were dreaming of a white Christmas. This hot season is not messing around this year, and we have the prickly heat rashes to prove it. You know it’s really quite amazing how tin homes replicate the phenomena of a real oven. Thank goodness this season we invested in battery operated hand held fans, which if you turn them both on at the same time and close your eyes it’s almost like air conditioning. :)

The holiday season brings in all the children who school on the main island, Viti Levu, all year long. Most of them only get to see their families during this one month summer vacation, so everyone makes it extra special with lots of big teas and picnics. Drew and I helped out a lot making bread and scones over the fire and making the Fijian Lovo, an underground oven. We also had the chance to do some workshops with the youth on environment and AIDS. It's bizarre sometimes to have all teenagers missing from the island, but then again that 14-20 age can bring out the rebel in some. In the picture to the right, my village lady friends are buttering up breads for a big tea. With 2007 finally here, we can say confidently that we feel culturally adjusted in the village and quite comfortable with our island dialect. We can now slurp up fish head juice and octopus suction cups, we now too can pull up our shirts to compare our boils, and belt out church hymns while using our machete for every purpose possible from cleaning our nails, to chopping wood, to slicing papaya, and scratching our backs. We feel so Fijian at times it's scary. The left picture shows Liss is in her handsewn Fijian dress she made and Tave is showing off one of his tricks. We took a nice break over New Year’s Eve and treated Drew to a surfing excursion to one of Fiji’s best waves, Frigate’s Pass. It’s a beautiful consistent wave in the middle of the ocean that took about an hour by boat to get to. On the boat ride we also fished a bit and caught two yellow fin tuna, and a Spanish mackerel. Needless to say Drew was the happiest guy in Fiji that weekend.

We are working hard right now with about 8 grant proposals pending right now between the two of us for four different villages, the school, and the health center. It’s a very busy time, but we really feel like we have been making great progress with all of our work.

We are happier than ever right now. Surprisingly, it seems to be getting easier as we assimilate more and more.

Drew at the Covula (sacred red prawn pool) with Marica and Tukala

On vacation in Yanuca Island for New Years.

Top Ten Things We're Thankful for in Fiji

1. Tave, the koli ni vavalagi (foreigner's dog). A recent new father to four new puppies, they all have been keeping us entertained everyday. We love having him greet us on the beach after a long boat ride, sleep under our mosquito net with us at night, and having him use our kitchen window as a doggie door. Tave makes Vatulele feel like our home.

2. Completion of the first dry compost toilet on Vatulele. Drew, his counterpart Emori, and the carpenter, Joe, helped coordinate a grand opening complete with a ribbon cutting ceremony, a traditional kava ceremony, and a village wide BBQ. They invited a representative from the resort to stand in place of the Massy-Greene Family, the kind donators, who share our vision in improved quality of life and environmentally friendly practices on Vatulele.

3. Our Kids Club. Every Saturday we spend 3-4 hours with the 25 village kids teaching, reading, playing, and mentoring. We have found this to be our greatest accomplishment yet because every meeting we see them grow in leadership, creativity, and confidence. We feel like we are really shaping the next generation of Vatulele Island.

4. Our chickens. One mom hen, four chicks, and two adopted new borns we’ve had our hands full, and we are anxiously awaiting fresh eggs. We've been keeping the newbies in our house because the mom hen isn't accepting of other chicks- so we've become quite the barn with puppies, Tave, all the geckos, mice, and I think the giant spiders count if their bigger than the chicks.

5. Our TeiTei (garden). We have one giant plantation next to the red prawn sacred pool and another small one behind our little tin abode. Drew has become quite the farmer sowing tomatoes, squash, string beans, cassava, sweet potatoes, carrots, eggplant, plantains, basil, beautiful flowers and soon to come- watermelon, honeydew, and cantaloupe. We have found it is very satisfying and humbling trying to live off the land.

6. Beautiful scenery. We were crossing our fingers for a country with just a patch of green grass after our first invite to Niger, Africa. Fiji has been a dream come true and we feel so blessed with more lush greenery than we could have ever imagined.

7. Our first annual non-communicable disease awareness week. Liss helped get funding for a week of events and helped teach screening techniques to a new group of health workers she has been training since October. They screened about 400 adults more than 40 % of our population for diabetes, cardiac disease, hypertension, and cancer.

8. Our village community. We feel very blessed to experience this new sense of communal living in a new culture. We love laughing with our neighbors and sharing the fish we've caught for the day. We love eating and celebrating with our mataqali (our extended village family) for big events like a new baby coming home, or a church event. We love working together building new projects or just doing a village clean-up. It helps to give you a sense of love and support from your entire environment and a feel for the beautiful Fijian Culture.

9. Friends and Family. You all may not be physically with us, but all the letters, emails, calls, and love you send provide so much encouragement to support us so far away. We very much appreciate you all in our lives and we thank you for giving us this time to spread our wings and experience new worlds.

10. Each other. It's been two years married on November 20, 2006. We couldn’t be happier we made the decision to join Peace Corps together. Many of you know that we discussed our dreams the first day we met, and we knew we had something special with all the common passions we shared. Sometimes we have to pinch ourselves to believe that we are already living our most amazing dreams and we get so excited to think of all the adventures we have to look forward to in our life together.

We love you all so much! Happy Holidays! Here's to finding new love, adventure, and happiness in 2007!

My Grandpa

Hi everybody,

I hope you all don’t mind, but I wanted to say a little something about my Grandpa Styles. For those of you who don’t know, he passed away last week on Monday October 23^rd, peacefully in his home. He was 70 years old, and was still very young at heart. His last day was spent in Morro Bay at his recently rented beach house just ½ a block down from my parent’s house. He beat my dad in golf that morning, my brother took him and grandma out to a nice lunch, and he spent the evening helping my dad grade his hydrology and structural concrete class’s homework (two classes my grandpa took himself at Cal Poly almost 50 years ago).

My grandpa was a very special man. He taught me many things, like how to hip-check on a basketball court, and how to be a humble human being conscious of their values. He taught me family is the most important thing we have on earth, and it is very important to put them as a top priority in your life.

The last time I saw him was in the picture below. It was just 3 weeks ago now. He and grandma drove me from Morro Bay to Thousand Oaks so they could see Drew before we returned back to Fiji. We chatted the whole way down mostly about family history- Grandpa loved learning about our ancestry.

We are very blessed we got to spend time with him, and that we got to see most of you on our visit home. Because his departure was so sudden and unexpected it left many of us quite heart broken, but my grandpa could not have chosen a better way to go. He lived his life to the fullest until the last day. He really did have a beautiful life, and it should make us all realize how precious our time really is here together. I hope everyone is doing well, we send all of our love to you and your families.

Love,

Liss

Ena Ka Sewa- It’s the Little Things

Our little island of Vatulele, as we fly over by sea plane. Well there are so many details about our everyday life we feel we have yet to share with all of you, so we thought we'd dedicate this entry to all the small experiences of our life. *The beauty of the traditional art and the work that the whole island puts into producing the tapa cloth is just amazing. The men plant huge plantations of the mulberry trees, and harvest them after 9 months. The women and children peel the bark, and let it soak. Then the women spend countless hours beating it thin, letting sundry, and then printing it with paints made from other native trees. It is a long tedious process, but the most beautiful creations are made everyday. Keasi our neighbor is printing a 14 ft x 14 ft piece at 11pm at night in her home. *The solidarity of our new culture. Everyday having someone come over and ask to borrow our hammer, or some salt, and then asking them later if we can borrow some sugar or their bike- this is called the Kerekere system. Saying hello to every single person you pass down our one dirt road. Usually you ask where you are going and where you're coming from, but it's not a stopped conversation it's usually a yelled out "Mai Vei or Lai Vei" followed by a village name. *Our favorite past time activity is a game of cards. Great Grandma and Grandpa Barnes are smiling down on us, because we have taken over their friendly competition of cribbage. Here we play our favorite game, 'Shipwreck'.

*The fact that after you build a home you get to name it anything you want, usually after another village or city in Fiji. Instead of saying I'm going to Emori's house you say I'm going to Rakiraki. We named our house after our first hometown together, Ventura. *When your ideas and suggestions are put into action and projects actually get started. Here Drew helps our carpenter Jo, begin the framework of the compost latrine. Composting toilets have been a breakthrough in Fiji, stopping pollution into the ocean, and creating a cleaner, more hygienic living space. It has been very trying convincing them that they can reuse all their organic waste, but they are now excited to see what we have been talking about. *We have the most gorgeous bush roosters you have ever seen. They are fast little suckers and I'm still working on getting a picture. They are all different in colors, but my favorites are the brilliant spotted orange ones with teal green tail feathers. They start their crowing every morning at 3am. *Every morning all the children from the south end village, Bouwaqa, ride by on their new bikes. Our pastor recently had an Australian friend round up about 40 used bikes, from small kids bikes to classic cruisers, and ship them by barge to Fiji. Now the children can leave their homes at 7:00am instead of 6:00am (before dark) and even stop and have breakfast in our village. As they ride by in little groups, about every 10 minutes we get shouts of "Yadra Melissa, Yadra Adriu...Moce Melissa, Moce Adriu" (good morning and good bye). We love having our home right on the road to pass out ripe bananas or plastic bags when it starts to rain.

*We love having extra down time to perfect our cooking skills and try out new recipes. Everyday we cook at least one meal together in our little kitchen. Our favorite dishes at the moment our fresh tortilla chips, and aFijian variation of ceviche called Kokoda (marinated fish cooked in lime juice, onion, and coconut milk).

*We love exploring. Our island is small, but you can walk around the entire island through small plantation paths. Last week we hiked to the furthest point south and found two small islands about 10 meters through crystal clear shallow turquoise water.

It's amazing to be surrounded by the hustle and bustle of village life and have no privacy, and then hike about 2 hours and have an entire beach to ourselves that is so pristine we have to bring our machete to hack back overgrown vines and giant spider webs.

*Oh the mosquitoes! Definitely better than they were in the humid season, but still always buzzing. People tend to think the tropics are all warm sun, and beaches, but the mosquitoes can make you insane. Just thought we'd give you an idea of the giants we have to defend ourselves from every single day (notice the needle like mouth- and yes you feel them prick you!)

*Drew especially, appreciates the hard work it takes to garden everyday. Here is Kumala (sweet potato) planted in giant mounds, the sand on top is to deter island rodents.

*The Preschool Brigade as we affectionately call them: Mala 2yrs, Pita 3 yrs, Tagitagivula 3 yrs, and Bubu 4yrs. These are the ring leaders of a group of about 8 munchkins. We get them over practically everyday, just charging through our door curtain and starting up with a thousand questions "Where's your mom, where's your dad, where's Soxsan (Aunt Roxanne), where's Tave, What are you doing and between each question they ask Can we have a biscuit?) This particular day they were munching on raw sugar cane and we kicked them outside because they were spitting their fibers on our floor inside.

Break out the beanies

It's Wintertime in Fiji!

Believe it or not we have been so cold and we actually sleep with 2 blankets.

When we first arrived in Vatulele in August last year, we laughed at everyone in scarves and jackets, but now we are right there with them. We have definitely adjusted to the climate and we actually think 65 degrees is cold. We are going to die when we go back home. And just to think about the water in Cali makes us shiver. Aunt Roxanne paid us a visit in mid-May. She actually thought it was humid and as she was fanning herself, we were unpacking our long sleeves. We had a fabulous time entertaining her for 10 days.

Aunt Roxanne and Liss after a wet boat ride from Sigatoka

She got exclusive tours to Liku, our pristine beach on the other side and the limestone caves where we went for a nice swim in glowing candle light. She also helped us with our Saturday class, reading, blowing bubbles, and trying our first jump rope out. Everyone still thinks she was Drew's sister no matter how many times we try to explain. She was our savior stocking us up with some much needed goods and she was our lucky charm to get our electricity running again.

Aunt Roxanne reading to the village kids

We have been teaching like crazy these last few months. Luckily, Aunt Roxanne and Aunt Lynne's friend Marty from Australia gave us art supplies so the children have been having a blast painting and coloring. Titi and Mala are our biggest takers trying to come over everyday for more rokaroka (coloring). Drew played his first rugby game last week and fit right in except for his pale white skin. Even though he doesn't understand the rules all that much, they really encourage him to play. We think it may be a source of comedy for the fijians to watch the tall, clueless, white guy get creamed. We are finally going to be building some tangible projects next week, so the villagers are very excited. A wonderful family from Australia donated money and we will be putting it towards the village and a workshop. We love and miss you all. Until next time, stay healthy.

The kids after Saturday school with their ocean artwork.

Drew with our gang after a beach clean-up