Friday, August 26, 2005
Lomanikaya Life
We are officially Peace Corp Volunteers and we even made it on the six o'clock news. We are now living in our small house on the island of Vatulele in the smallest village called Lomanikaya. There are only 90 people in the village and about 1000 on the whole island. It is absolutlely beautiful and the people are so kind. They bring us food almost everyday ranging from banana scone to fresh octopus. Our house is surrounded by breadfruit and mango trees and we started a little garden with around 160 cabbage and 50 tomato seedlings from the mayor's garden. It's been two weeks and we already facing the issues concerning the villages. There is no running water and we have to fetch all of our water from the well. We get our drinking water from rain water collection. Melissa has been working in the health center with the only nurse on the island in the neighboring village. Drew has been scoping the out the island checking out the eco-tourism project and looking at the water situation. We are very happy here and living healthy with the large amounts of food we get from the villagers.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Thursday, July 21, 2005
We're going to Vatulele!
After weeks of antagonizing anxiousness, we finally found out where we will be spending the next two years! The Peace Corps staff set up a large map of Fiji on a big field with rope, and put little trees on each site where each of the trainees will be going. Slowly, one by one, they called our name and walked us to our little tree and gave us a sheet of paper that describes our job description, and village.
We were ecstatic when we found out we will be living on a small island called Vatulele, famous for its bright red prawns and beautiful tapa cloth. We will be the only volunteers living on this island in a small house recently built just for us. There are only 4 villages on the island, one resort, and roughly about 1000 people. The island is a one hour boat ride from Sigatoka town on the southwest side of Viti Levu the biggest island. Also, we found out that it is only $25 for family and friends to fly to this little island from Nadi (the international airport).
Drew will be working on an ecotourism project, monitoring the coral reef, and doing environmental education in the village. Melissa will be working in the only health center on the island with nurses promoting health, and also counseling single moms, teens, and people with long term diseases.
We will be arriving on site around the 14th of August after our official volunteer swear in date on August 12th. Congratulations Scott and Dana! Happy 25th Anniversary Mom and Dad Styles!
Friday, July 15, 2005
Back from Beqa
Think long sandy beaches, palm trees lining the sea, and a small village on the water front with beautiful green flora rising up the mountains. This is Bega, the island of the firewalkers. This last week we spent 3 days with a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) living in a beautiful two bedroom home on the western oceanfront of this small island. Beqa only has 9 villages, 4 resorts, and no cars in sight. The people live off of the land and the sea, and they truely seem to embrace the beauty that surrounds them. During our stay we got to visit the school that the PCV is a librarian at, we snorkeled the beautiful coral reef that surrounds her village, and we even got to hike up into the mountains to the villager's gardens. Drew also learned how to harvest cassava plant with the village pastor. This was truely the Fijian Peace Corp experience we imagined.
The visit was such a nice break from our host family and language classes everyday. It is becoming more of a challenge everyday to not have privacy, cook what we would like to eat, and to babysit several children all the time. We are truely looking forward to living on our own. Only 4 more weeks!
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Life in Vunivaivai
Well, we are officially villagers in the 'koro' of Vunivaivai. We are staying with our host family who has adopted us already as their own. We have a host grandma we call Bu Lo (bu is grandma in fijian and Lo is her name) and she has 7 grandchildren that live in our house with us and a smaller house next door. They range in ages 5 - 22. Ranuku, the youngest, is our best friend! He follows us everywhere and pretty much everyday Ranuku and Drew play touch rugby with all the boys. All the other children help out with cooking, cleaning up, and helping teach us fijian.
Our room is quaint, but we have electricty and cold running water. Brrrr, fijian morning showers are the worst. Fortunately Bu Lo is a fantastic cook, as she was a professional cook in a boarding school for 10 years. We spend most evenings with the family talking or playing cards- we just taught everybody "go fish" and they loved it!
During the day we go to language lessons in the village for 4 hours in the morning. After that we have community time which we learn cultural crafts and activities. Late afternoon we usually exercise with the rest of the kids and villagers. Melissa has been teaching yoga to the chief's wife and 6 daughters, when Drew has to teach 8th grade at the local school.
Today we learned how to make brooms out of palm leaves by braiding them between your toes :) We are really enjoying the village life so far. There is only about 200 people in our little village and they are all so welcoming. The first day we walked into our house they draped us with flowered lai's with long pieces of fabric tied on like capes. That night we had to eat dinner with the chief of the village, and drew had to spend the evening drinking kava with him.
We are so glad to hear about Dad Loganbill's news of being cancer-free! Good luck with everything and we love you all so much!
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Message from Drew and Liss--June 17th
Hi guys!
We just wanted to update you really quick on our current experience. We were supposed to move into our host family yesterday, but thursday evening liss got kicked in the head by a fellow trainee during a ultimate frisbee game. She had a concussion and even though she was fine the Peace Corp medical officer advised that all necessary precautions be taken. She had a catscan and everything looked good and they made us spend the night in the private hospital to monitor her over night. They also booked us a hotel in the city for the weekend just to relax before having to have to much excitement in the new adjustment with the family.
Everything is fine now, really it wasn't necessary for the whole ordeal, but always better safe than sorry. We are enjoying our city time with hot showers, tv, and a refrigerator :) (ahh cold drinks). We even got to see game four NBA in our room!
We are off to a movie now, but we were hoping somebody might be able to post a couple fo pics that we tried to send on our blog for us. We don't have enough time to download all of the software.
Pics are of our lovo night, our bure, our view from our bure, and the rest are from Colo i suva the rainforest reserve.
We love you so much and we will write again soon.
Love,
Drew and Liss
Our Bure
Originally uploaded by Susan & Tom.
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