Yesterday I bought myself a blue bucket. I will use this bucket for bathing and carrying water. My old bucket got a hole in it and I found myself racing against gravity’ pull on water to bathe myself before the water flowed out and into the banana trees. You wouldn’t believe the outcry when I strolled into the village from town with a brand new shiny blue bucket… “Oi! Veremo tiko dua na bukete vou!” (Graham has a new bucket!) “Rai rai vinaka nomu bukete!” (Your bucket looks great!) “Na cava kena yaga na bukete qori?” (What are you going to do with that bucket?) “E vica kena sau nomu bukete?” (How much did you pay for that bucket?). You would have thought I brought the circus into town.
Unsettling ride at a festival in Labasa
Water is scarce this time of year. I’ve had to do a lot of recycling. For example, rain falls from the roof into my bucket, where I use it to wash my dishes. Then I take that water to “flush” my pit toilet, where it flows into my banana trees which breaks it down and drinks it up. I haven’t bathed in a few days because our stream bed is dry.
My work still revolves around the crab farm and tree nursery and 8th grade teaching. My efforts for the next year will be focused on having the villagers take ownership of these to keep them sustainable.
Samu, Nei, Mere, and Na Levu working in the tree nursery
Drinking at the campgrounds in Savusavu, Kia at sunset, and view from the top of Kia Island
Recently I returned from some northern islands- Kia and Labasa and Savusavu on Vanua Levu. Kia is very isolated and beautiful. The people subsist on pretty much fishing only. We slept on a floor with rats and ate fish and drank kava. The island jets out of the water and climbs maybe 800 feet, is very green, and surrounded by fringing reefs. We did some hiking and snorkelling. The people of Kia are being pressured to open their island for commercial activity which will redirect the lifestyle of the people, for better or worse, forever. Salt factories, hotels, and diving and surfing ventures are among the prospectors. Some fellow PC’s and myself discussed at length with some elders the pros and cons (mainly cons) these businesses would bring and the impacts it would have. I think they appreciated our two cents. In Labasa we marched in the Friendly North Parade, representing Peace Corps well, and camped and snorkelled and talked to white people in Savusavu.
Marching in the Festival of the Friendly North Parade
Go Dawgs!
