ramayan

here are pictures of the ramayan i went to a few weeks ago. they are completely out of order, but a good and colorful representation of the day and night.



the women after the program



the men drinking grog and singing after the service

two girls wearing salwar kameez



archana and i



during the program (prayer service)

arti

cooking all day

all the poori

helping/learning how to make poori

everyone

shareen and i

the women taking a break from cooking and eating some lunch

david and i after i got all dolled up by shareen and archana

greta and i (my hair is drenched in coconut oil!)

cuties

and these aren't from the ramayan, but i thought i'd put them up anyway. they're my neighbor girls that come over a few days a week and hang out (and eat all my guavas!)

back row left to right: Va, Soko, Litia front row left to right: Merewailesi and Luciana

Luciana and Merewailesi (they have so much energy!)




 

The Labasa Hospital Garden

Sorry for not fully updating the last post.  This one will be much better. 

My main project is the Labasa Hospital Garden.  When I arrived at my site I was asked to do all sorts of things: monitor school canteens, start school, hospital, and health center gardens, promote gardening to villages and so forth.  I was excited, but had no direction.  I started doing a little bit of everything and got no where.  This lasted for two months, two very long and frustrating 'I really don't like it here' months. 

Then, one day I was called by the Labasa Hospital Dietitian and was asked if I had any experience with constructing nursery's.  I lied and said 'yes'.  I needed to get involved with something and this project seemed like an opportunity that I didn't want to escape me.  She was thrilled and asked me to come by sometime that week so we could discuss their ideas.

I went in and was told that the Minister of Health is requiring all Hospitals to have gardens.  She said that she wanted to start a garden, but didn't have any gardening experience, neither did any of the laborers. I told her I had some experience working on farms and said I could help with anything they needed.She asked me to start that month with the outside garden and as planning began with the nursery she would contact me. 

So my work with the outside garden started and we immediately started planting bele (a type of spinach leaf), eggplant, papaya trees and banana trees. I used down time to talk with the gardener about crop rotation, seasonal planting, organics, fertilizers, pesticides, trellising and all that stuff.  He's a really smart guy and picked it up pretty fast. 

In  late September I was asked to help plan the nursery garden.  They had a general idea of the size and structure but were unsure how to fill up the space.  I casually started offering different ideas about garden boxes, composting, maximizing space and how we should plant and they loved it all.  I was excited but very nervous because I had never done something.

But I just ran with it, did lots of research and proposed plans that I was confident would work, but not positive.  It was (and still is) important for me to make things as sustainable as possible so I made sure the gardener, carpenter and labor adviser knew exactly what we were doing and why we were doing it the entire step of the way.  I usually had the right ideas, but had, and still have no idea about carpentry, so a lot of my sizes and calculations were waay off.  They got a good laugh about it though and  things were adjusted as we went along.

At the start of November we were ready to begin.  All the materials were bought, tractors were rented and soil was brought it.  It seemed like magic because a lot of things here don't happen as scheduled. This is what the garden looked like before we began.

After the first week it looked like this

By the end of November we completed half the boxes and started putting up the surrounding structure

December went a little slower because people were  ready for vacation and we had a couple weeks of rain.  But we started sewing the shading cloth and put a few pieces on top so we could start germinating seeds before the holidays.

chandrika, manikam and eroni discussing filling the bed boxes

the hospitals administrative officer and i (he's very excited about the project)

chandrika and i on the first day of planting

And then January was soooo slow!  Most people didn't come back from holiday until the 20th and no real work started until the beginning of February.  But we finished the shading cloth covering and transplanted cabbage and lettuce. 

Within the first week of Feb we finished the outer structure (fencing, shading and doors), built a tool shed and moved around the boxes so we could build more than we originally planned. Here's what everything looks like as of now

We still have to finish up making the second row of boxes, building the compost bin and planting the rest of our crops. Currently we have two types of cabbages growing, lettuce and tomato. All are very delicate plants and couldn't normally be planted in the hot rainy season.
Soon we'll plant long bean and passion fruit to grow along the fences.

Why does the Labasa Hospital need a garden?

to provide local and fresh foods to patients and staff. 

to help the government save money. 

to promote gardening and show people how beneficial it is

because over 80% of the Fijian population is obese

almost 100% of the population (from a national survey) doesn't eat a single serving of fruit in a recorded week

and because its fun!

how much did it cost:

$20,000 Fijian Dollars which is around $10,000 US dollars.  The money was donated by Australian AID.

Challenges/funny stories 

I have had the most difficulty explaining composting.  Just this week I was told that they found two perfect crates for the compost bin, "we won't have to build a compost bin!" they said.  Yesterday I went to see these 'bins' and they turned out to be old rusty bathtubs taken from the wards.  I laughed so hard and tried to explain why they won't work.  I'm not sure if they fully understood, but hopefully when its up and running I can teach it rather than explain it. 

there were days when i thought that nothing would work out, but everything turned out okay. the outside garden ended up saving the hospital/government over $2,000 in the last two quarters and the nursery will be completed by April (hopefully). i'm really lucky to have fallen into this position, the opportunity to learn this was amazing and invaluable.

and while all this is happening i can't help but think about the future. i really want to continue doing gardening/farming, maybe do an apprenticeship on a farm or get a permaculture certificate...who knows though. i'm always getting the itch to go travel again, so maybe that will happen first.

random stuff about my life:

i have a new focus on life in Fiji: enjoy this experience, no expectations, just enjoy whatever i come across in my time here and try my best.

i'm reading Shantaram and absolutely love it. next stop india?

my kitten was murdered,  the neighbor boys threw him into the nearby pond. needless to say i was very upset. animal cruelty is rampant here.

i finally succumbed to the heat and bought my first fan 

i'm going to new zealand in April!

i had my first traditional fijian massage and was sore for a week

i'm going to a Ramayan this saturday and get to wear a sari for the first time!!!! i'll try to take photos

hope you are all super!

all my love
Monica

the holidays (just pictures for now)

on the boat to taveuni. greta's (right) parents came and they brought magazines! it was so exciting, i hadn't read a magazine in 8 months, so much is happening!

jumping off the Lavena waterfall, 45ft tall

the first part of the climb to the waterfall

sooooo scary, but so fun!

at maqai eco beach resort for new years

the swim to the fall. the most beautiful place i think i've ever been

come visit!

leaving to go back to reality

haha me in my christmas sulu jaba (the traditional fijian wear)

i'll write more about the adventures when i get online next. hope everyone had a great holiday!

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!