free time

A lot of people here ask me, ‘so what do you do at home when youre alone and don’t have a t.v.’. So this December blog will be about my non-working non-chore time in Fiji

One of the biggest reasons I liked the idea of the peace corps was to have time, without distractions, to learn and do things that I have always wanted.  The biggest one is gardening and I’ve already talked about that a lot, but another big one is cooking.  I really want to know how to make everything I like to eat with raw materials and my own hands.  This started with just the basics like hummus, roti/tortillas, raita, juice and good tea made from local leaves. Now I’ve begun making bread and noodles and hopefully soon tomato sauce, yogurt, babaganush (spelling) and marmalade.  So far bread was the hardest, mainly because I don’t have an oven, but I’ve recently got it down and want to try different varieties soon.

Another thing that I’ve always wanted to do, and have failed at many times, is to play guitar.  I’ve started and can play chords and a couple basic songs but mostly I just make up my own little melody and try to be creative with what I know.  My voice is horrible so I’m trying to make songs that don’t involve me singing, but for a few special melodies I’ll sing along (oh sun oh sun oh suuuuuun, flowin’ with the river)

ART! My poetry writing is lacking, I haven’t really found a voice here, but I do color a lot. Here’s something I recently made.

Letter writing, even though I’m not nearly as good as some of you are to me. I try to write all my emails and letters once evening a week after I gain the courage to brave the internet café (you’d stress out too if you saw it), save all my e-mails into word documents then read and write back in my home.

I don’t read as much as I should or even could.  Its been really hard picking up a book and reading it all the way through, for some reason this is a common issue among a lot of volunteers.  But here’s a list of my favorites so far:  One the Road by Jack Keroac, 100 Best Poems of all time, Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan, Changing Woman and Her Sisters by Sheila Moon, Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, Poker Nation by Andy (…?), and Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut.

Photography happens at minimum because I’m really shy about taking my camera out.  But when I do, I have a lot of fun.  Most of Fiji is green green green green, but there are these tropical plants that have the most vibrant shades of red, yellow, pink and orange and I’m really drawn to them.  There are a bunch in my front yard and one day I took pictures so I could show you all.

Here’s couple pictures from a small tourist island we snorkeled at a few weeks ago.

Gathering with other volunteers.  There are a total of 7 volunteers within two hours of me and we meet up during evenings or weekends to barbeque, play poker (thanks American tax payers), fantasize about good beer, guacamole, pizza, ect and basically shoot the shit.  There’s always someone around to grab lunch or make dinner with so there’s no lack of people.  This is really different than what I thought Peace Corps was going to be.  When I first applied I thought I’d be in a hut hours away from anyone.  Here’s a picture of us gathering after a conference back in October

Random events, parties, dinners, projects….My friend Seli graduated from nursing school and here are some pictures from that 

And things that I still want to do

-make a solar oven

-become scuba certified

-speak fluently

-create something cool out of my old wine bottles

im going to a village to experience a traditional Fijian Christmas and then off to this island for the new year. I hope you all are having great holidays and have a happy new year!

All my love,

Monica

how and why i live like i do

my lifestyle, how and a bit of why

I try to plant all the fruits and vegetables that I will need to eat in my backyard. I’ve recently begun to harvest cucumber, kale, spinach, lettuce and okra. Soon I’ll have pumpkin, peanuts, long bean and hopefully carrots, tomato, and basil in December. I have a large mango tree in my backyard and papayas grow all around. There’s a lemon tree down the street that I pick lemons from and also use the leaves to make tea. The foods that I do not grow that I eat on a regular basis are rice, oatmeal, wheat, spices, garlic, and onion.

I love growing my own food. I love trying to be completely self sustaining.  I love thinking about what I’m going to have for dinner that night and know that all I have to do is walk into my yard and harvest whatever is ready or what needs to be eaten. I feel the best when i'm in tune with the surrounding environment and eating what is available in my yard is one of my favorite ways to do that.

I also feel that its really important for me to live how my surrounding community lives. My specific neighborhood is very educated but the people I work with in the public health sector don’t have much. So I don’t have refrigerator, I don’t have chairs (everyone sits on the floor in fiji), I have a mattress on the floor instead of a bed, I have a two burner stove (a lot of people here cook over fire, but its just me and I don’t have enough time with all my other chores, someday though), no t.v., and I take and wait for the bus instead of hiring taxi’s.

The hardest part is not having a refrigerator because I have to be very accurate with how much I cook, I have to cook every night, I can only buy cheese or milk if I’m going to finish it all in that day, and nothing cold (like ice cubes or beverages) for the hot season. But I’m learning so much more about cooking, food, myself and how the majority of the world lives. One of the reasons I joined peace corps to have the experience living this way.  If I bought a western style life I would never get the chance to learn these lessons that I think are really important that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

The most wonderful thing about gardening in Fiji is that it is summer all year long. I’ve already gotten a good feel for how long things take to grow and when I mess up I don’t have to wait for another year to replant, I just plant. After this I definitely want to go to a place with seasons though, I want a cycle, I also want to do this with a community rather than just myself.


Why garden? (worldwide)
-a source of local and organic food
- it saves money (transportation, market prices, other things you end up buying while on your trip to town/ the store)
-helps you eat a balanced diet
-its fun to watch things change and grow
-reduces waste (the food from your garden does not come in a plastic bag)
-harvest dinner parties… if too many vegetables are growing at one time and you’re worried you won’t be able to eat them all, no worries, it’s the perfect excuse to throw a party!
-is water efficient (planting a garden will end up using about the same amount of water as a lawn/grass, but produces a garden produces an economic reward)
-gardening is meditative and can be considered exercise.

The above list is all the reasons for gardening that I talk to the locals about when I go on my visits. If I go to villages I usually tell them that gardening can also be a great source of income and they can not only plant gardens for themselves which will save money, but they can also plant gardens to sell at the market which generates money. This is important for them because they can then use the money to buy other items like soaps and shoes or pay school fees for their children.

I also compost and reuse recycled material as much as possible. I used my first batch of compost today and i was so excited!  The neighbors think I’m a bit strange, but I’m okay with that. They always ask questions though and I really hope that if they see some young foreign girl come into their country and be almost completely self sufficient it’ll motivate them to do the same things as well.


Pictures

Starter pots from recycled materials

Compost, my bin was made out of wood scraps that i found and my covering is made out of palm and banana leaves.

cucumber, yum

AND! i'm the first official member of the Slow Food movement in fiji.  I'm going to start a group, hopefully of locals and not just other peace corps volunteers, but either way it'll be great.  i have ideas to have local food/harvest parties once a month and start a booth at the local market to give away free fruits and vegetables so people can try new foods that they can grow in their backyard and learn different ways to prepare them. maybe even start an earth market. no action yet this all just happened yesterday, i'll keep you updated!


Love and miss you all dearly
monica

diwali and a bit of work

Diwali was the best cultural experience I have been to thus far. I was invited to spend the day with a gardener that I work with at the Ministry of Health. It was raj, his wife and two daughters, david and I just spending the day visiting his extended family and then relaxing at his home, sharing stories and eating delicious Indian food.  This day was unlike any experience I’ve had in Fiji because his family was warm, open and extremely happy and grateful for everything they had to offer. 

Diwali is a celebration of lights.  It started as a celebration to welcome the Hindu God Ram back from exile. The best way I can describe the excitement around the holiday in Labasa was like a mixture of Christmas and Easter.  Christmas because of the lights and massive sales beforehand, and Easter because they’re celebrating the return/appearance, no gifts just good food and a day with family.

Here are some pictures

Project: Labasa Hospital Garden

I know in one of my previous blogs I talked about how I will be spending a lot/most of my time with  school gardens and canteens, well that didn’t really happen as predicted.  One really unique thing about being a peace corps volunteer is that you are given the most broad job ever and have to determine how you are going to tackle it with as little money/resources as possible.  After being at sight since july, I’ve only recently figured out how I’m going to get anything meaningful done here.  Its been a lot of ‘I want to do work so badly, but everything ends up at a dead end’.  I’ve learned that if I truly want to help, the effort must be two sided and has to be initiated by someone who is looking for help.  That might sound strange, but it’s the truth.   I recently had the most promising conversation about my work and I’ve started working on the Labasa Hospital Garden. 

The Labasa Hospital is the largest hospital on my island and has the most number of patients at any given time.  The Administrative Office and Dieticians approached me asking if I could give them advice and help them start a large scale garden on some of their open property.  They received $20,000 from AUSAID to create a large green house that can support their kitchen’s vegetable needs year round. 

Why does Labasa Hospital need a garden?  Simple, to provide patients with local, fresh, and healthy food and also cut down on rations cost.  I did a sample budget for the hospital and they spend over $70,000 yearly on vegetables that they could easily grow.   That money could be spent on better facilities, more wards, increased training, better technology, ect.  Im excited because I think all hospitals should feed their patients with foods from farms, but they’re really excited for budget reasons. If I were them I might feel the same considering I’m scared to death to have to be treated in any of these hospitals and more money to improve the hospital would be amazing.

Here is a picture where we are building the green house. I’ll take pictures every few weeks to show the progress.  The specific things I’ve done so far is designed a 20m x 20m plot of land to plant all vegetables that would be in the green house.  Since the land is rocky and the soil is horrible, we are going to make raised vegetable bed boxes and only place dirt inside of each box.  I’ve also started working on designing a schedule of when to plant, how often we need to plant, how much we need to plant, transplanting times, and harvest times.  I’m really excited because I know how to do this, but not really on a large scale (they don’t know this).  its going to be a great learning process and give me really wonderful work experience so someday I can have my own farm or something like that.

Other random things:

The hot/wet season has started. The days usually go from the sun being so hot that I feel like I burn instantly to torrential downpours almost every afternoon.  Its only been a few weeks and I’ve already told myself that I’m not allowed to say its hot.  At the beginning I asked people, “does it get hotter than this” and they all just laugh while nodding their head up and down. 

Its also mango season and I’ve been having to eat at least 2 mangos everyday to keep up with them falling in my backyard. I need mango recipes!

Life without a refrigerator has been great so far.  

art...

music in my ears!
gotan project
erykah badu
jay-z
ray lamontagne (always)

so much love to you all!

pictures

 the best feeling ever

my kitten, his name is sarso (mustard seed)

labasa town, this is the main road and it continues for about a mile and then that's the end, sometimes its very hard seeing the same thing day after day after day

this is the market. there is a larger market indoors behind me, but i took this on a saturday and this is the overflow section.  i love it and is by far one of my favorite things about living here

savusavu bay ( the hidden paradise)

me in savusavu

making my garden

germinating tomato plants

the neighborhood kids

the land

i sat here one saturday and wrote all afternoon

this is my kitchen. i don't have a refrigerator but i have a small stove and will hopefully make a solar oven soon so i can bake

the road leading to my home, you can see my house above the bushes on the right 

the view from our training site

life in fiji

 a lovo (earth oven)

oh life is so good

culture:

 “People in western civilization no longer have time for each other, they have no time together, they do not share the experience of time.  This explains why Westerners are incapable of understanding the psychology of sitting.  In villages all over the world sitting is an important social activity.  Sitting is not a ‘waste of time’, nor is it a manifestation of laziness.  Sitting is having time together to cultivate social relationships.”

-Andreas Fuglesang

Talanoa (story, tell a story, story time)

So it finally happened! Ive been waiting and waiting for this one moment since I arrived in Fiji (we were told it WOULD happen) and this is how it went down:

Gardener: Monica, you come here eevverrryy week, but there is something different about you this week.

Me: really? what is it? i haven’t changed anything about me.

Gardener: yes, I’m sure you are different.  you are looking reeaally fat now.

Me: haha ohhhh, I don’t feel any fatter

Gardener: well you look fatter, you are looking very fat since you came to fiji

Me: maybe I should start dieting.

Gardner: no lewa (young girl), you are supposed to be fat. You are looking very fat and it looks very nice

Me: but raj, I don’t want to be fat

Gardener: well then don’t want to be beautiful.

Me: haha you got me. Fijians do look very beautiful. but really, am I looking fatter?

Gardener: yes yes yes veeerrry fat. very very fat!

So being fat is the thing if your Fijian (Indians want to be super thin).  The word for beautiful or sexy in Fijian is uro and it is literally translated to big a fat.  Eating is a passion, there is no such thing as left overs, and you don’t eat until you are full, you eat until all the food has run out.  Everyone at work laughs at me when I bring my leftovers from the night before for lunch.  They say, ‘lewa, by the end of the two years you will know Fiji so well and be a kaiviti (local) but it makes me sad knowing that you will never start eating like a Fijian’. I usually respond with, ‘well see’ but just for play, I promise I won’t come back home huge.  Most volunteers have had something like my story above also happen to them, my good friend’s incident went like this:

Co-workers: ‘Lewa, have you been gaining weight?’

Volunteer: ‘umm no.’

Co-workers: ‘well, have you been running this week?’

Volunteer: ‘I was feeling sick so I only ran twice.”

Co-workers: ‘we can tell’

Even though we know that being called fat is a good thing, its still quite shocking to hear it from someone. Later that day I jokingly told my boss what they gardener had said to me. She responded by saying, ‘you are! you are looking much fatter since you arrived, it must be the Labasa hospitality and all that dhal soup’ (dhal soup is an Indian style bean soup that I love.  Its funny that she said that though because I would compare it to someone from the states saying that you are getting fat from eating garden salads).  They best way I can explain why they have no hesitation commenting on weight is because they use it as a measure of health, it means you are well fed and taking care of your body.  They also say it to throw in a little brag that you’re being treated better in Labasa than in Rewa (the area where our training was) or even the United States.  

work

-Non-Communicable Disease screening in villages (I go with the nurses to record height, weight, blood pressure and sugar and then calculate BMI.  After I give advice on what type of diet the person should have depending on if they have high blood sugar, diabetes, hypertension, or are obese/overweight).

-Visit Primary Schools and help change school canteens from selling only junk food to selling only healthy food.

-Visit Boarding Schools, promote vegetable gardens and give advice on menus for the boarding students.  Hopefully in the time I’m here I can create a system where the food being grown in the vegetable garden can feed the boarding students and provide fresh, local and healthy meals for the students

-I’ve sent in a proposal to start a vegetable garden at the local training center that can supply fresh and local fruits and vegetables to the hospital.

-Improve the structure, methods, crop choice, composting, and utilization of space in gardens at the hospitals.  This is intended to increase the amount of fruit and vegetables being served to staff and patients and reduce rations cost.

I’m super busy at work. I never thought I’d come to Fiji, live in a town and have a 8-5 job, but I love it and don’t really mind working 8-5 because I spend a lot of my time in the gardens.

Pictures!

closest beach to us

Painting ‘faces’ at the Friendly North Festival.  I painted about 50 snakes and scorpions on arms, afterwards I oddly felt that I had some how contributed to a 10 year old boy gang related tattooing ceremony. Don’t worry, it'll wash off. 

My street

My room

This is where I wash my clothes and hang them to dry while I’m at work, I have a place to hang them outside when I’m home. I enjoy watching my clothes blow on the line in the wind, but I really dislike washing my clothes by hand.  Washing is by far my least favorite thing about living slowly, I spend at least 3 hours per week washing clothes, towels, linens, ect. blahh

My art, music, writing, yoga room.  

only fresh and local food is allowed in my kitchen (minus chocolate and wine, which are necessary parts of life)!!! once my garden grows I’ll be growing my own food, preparing and cooking my own food, composting it and then using it to grow more food! I’m so excited.

view from my front door. come live with me

miss and love you all. are the trees changing color yet, can someone send me an autumn leaf?

Monica