exciting news!
Here is the specific job description: ‘the volunteer will be assisting the divisional dietician’s work in primary school nutrition programs, helping schools adopt healthier food choices in their school canteens, developing nutritional ICT ( I have no idea what that acronym means) materials catering towards diverse demographic factions.’
And here is what I want to jump into: school gardens, cooking workshops with food from the garden, fun agriculture lessons, food art, playfully exposing kids to new tastes and helping develop tastes for raw veggies, solar cooking and drying, and creating posters or other artsy things to promote nutritional health! Horray!
I will be based in labasa (also called ‘the friendly north’) on the northern island, Vanua Levu. Apparently its a hot and dry urban city, one volunteer described it as the wild west of fiji, but a 15 minute drive will get you into the thick of the jungle or to the ocean, perfect!
Another great thing is that some of my best friends from training are also going to the northern island so we get to stay together!
Other lovely things:
*this past weekend we met all the current volunteers. peace corps volunteers are a wild quirky funky bunch of people, these next two years are going to be amazing!
*here’s the link to the video of our meke dance
*one couple is documenting our training and putting up videos, here’s the link to their blog. I haven’t watched them yet, but I’m in there somewhere.
*i've never heard so much UB40 in my life. and i love it.
* I was voted by the other trainees to be on the peer support network (PSN). It’s a type of peer counseling thing for volunteers.
*im currently reading siddhartha by hermann hesse… how in the world did I not read this before? if you have yet to read it please go to the book store immediately.
*life without a cell phone is a good life. I love how I naturally run into everyone i “need” to run into. And it always makes me excited and surprised how things work out each time without all the extra effort. Its like following the flow of your environment makes life a lot smoother and much more magical.
thats me way out there! after i swam i found out it was named 'snake island' 
picking out fabric to make a sulu jaba
learning how to do bee keeping, so so so exciting! oh homemade honey!
A cultural story:
One day during the middle of an afternoon of eating traditional food, singing and dancing, an old woman was drug onto the dance floor. She was far older than any of the women in the village and about 40 years older than anyone else on the dance floor. At first she looked pretty upset about being drug to dance by one of us kaivulages (a american/european foreigner) but slowly gave into the rhythm. Soon after she not only proceeded to dance with the people surrounding her, but grab onto a pole and continue dance around it. We were struck. Everyone sitting on the ibe (a Fijian woven mat) went crazy with clapping, cheering, laughing and smiling. It was one of those rare moments where one person infected everyone with pure joy. And it gets better! The next thing we see is one of my teachers walking up to her, she was taking off her beautiful pearl necklace, earrings and bracelet and placed them in her hand. They laughed together, hugged, and then sat back down in their respective areas. On our way back home I talked to my teacher about the day and told her how affected we were to see her give away beautiful and expensive jewelry. She smiled and laughed and said, ‘oh my dear, I was just so happy, that old woman gave us all a good time and I wanted to give something in return’ Amazing right?
That was the most beautiful human interaction I have seen in a long time. And things like that happen all the time here. People don’t call before they come over, guests are welcome to stay for however long they please and live like its their own home, if I tell someone I like their dress they’d ask me if I want it, if I said yes theyd give it to me without hesitation. This culture is so giving, people don’t believe in possessing, its refreshing and im so happy I live here.
Off to class!
Love to all!
Hi Moni, we need an update. Sent some chocolate, hope it dosen't get eaten before it gets to you. Love you. Mom
ReplyDeletefor a second i thought you said, "an old woman was DRUGGED on the dance floor." PHEW!
ReplyDelete