Fourth of July in Naila was quite an experience. We started off the
day in Nausori studying Tuvaluan at the Peace Corps office. We then
hurried home to prepare for the Gunu Sede. It is a fundraising event
where you pay to drink grog, dance, eat, etc… The concept follows
that someone pays $2 for you to dance and you can double it not to
dance. There are also several grog rounds going on while this happens
which cost from $2 to $.20 per bilo (cup). The fundraiser was for our
community project we are organizing while in the training village.
Each village of Peace Corps Trainees is responsible for organizing an
event to learn about capacity building and working with community
committees and leadership. Our project is reopening the village Co-op
store which has been dormant the past few years. We have learned a
great deal about the community through this project and found it very
fulfilling in preparing us to work within the typical Fijian village
framework. Hopefully the Tuvaluan framework is somewhat similar and
we can carry over lessons learned.