We gardened yesterday and I have two blisters and a sore
body to show for it.  The house has a
large area across the footpath that is mainly brush and a small garden.  Samalu said we could plant a garden anywhere
so I chose a place in the back away from the traffic of dogs and chickens.  The only problem is there was a landslide
several years back and now the area is mostly small rock.  This was only part of the problem in garden
creation process.

The other small issue was the 18” tall brush covering the
area.  Samalu recommended spraying the
area with weed killer and then burning in. 
I would love to say my organic traditional farming roots kicked in but
it was really a matter of laziness and cheapness that I chose the traditional
clearing method, more on that later.  You
see to get chemicals involves at least 2 hours on a small fiber boat and it
probably cost more than I am willing to pay on a Peace Corps budget.  Then there is the issue of where to get a
sprayer, and lastly, if I burned down the village I don’t think PC would let us
stay much longer.  So alas it was me and
a cane knife (machete) staring at a grove of weeds and vines.

It is pretty simple. 
You bend over, grab a bunch of grass, and wack away trying not to remove
any limbs or fingers.  The knife is very
sharp!  After about two hours you have a
small clearing.  Then the detail work
kicks in with a combination of raking with the pitchfork and wacking at the
remaining grass with the knife.  The soil
is much different here than in Naila.  In
Naila you could stick a pitchfork 10” into the ground with one hand.  Here it goes 10 mm with two hands and a
foot.  So cultivating the cleared area is
much more difficult.  I had to hack at it
to remove the small rocks and then work it over several times.  Then end result was about an inch of lose
soil.  I clumped these up while Kelly
poured water over them allowing me to break the soil up below with a garden spade.  I placed them about 18” apart giving us a
nice 4×5 grid. 

Neither of us really knows what we are doing when it comes
to gardening and the instructions on the seed packages were in Arabic. There
were pictures showing how deep the seeds are buried.  It was interesting, however, that the pictures
showed burying in increments of millimeters. 
Some were 5mm and others where 6mm. 
I never knew gardening was such an exact science!  Of course I was not that exact and placed
them all about ½” deep.  Kelly continued
the watering process and we finished our first garden after about 4 hours of
labor.

Samalu stopped by later and observed our progress.  He recommended building a shade and said we
should have planted a nursery of small seedlings first and then transplanted
the plants over.  Thankfully Kelly had
already started that process with some cardboard egg cartons we got at the
market on Friday. 

Samalu’s son, Foua, also called ‘Disney’ (nobody knows why),
showed me the ropes on harvesting good posts from the bush to build the shad
structure.  We went to the far end of the
village, Cikobia, and hiked up a steep trail. 
Foua wacked down a few small trees with straight trunks.  I followed suite and found a few suitable
victims.  We then searched for trunks
with a fork for the corner posts.  I
really enjoyed hacking things with the cane knife and now understand why all
males over the age of 15 are usually carrying one.  On the way back from our lumberjacking Foua
found a Kavika fruit and shared it with me. 
It has the consistency of a pear and shape of an apple.  The inside is white and the outside skink is
white with lavender spots.  It was very
tasty and I hope to find a few more.

We set the posts around the garden by making a hole with a
large crow bar, also used for pounding Kava. 
We placed the straight trunks around the sides to build the frame and
topped it all with coconut branches. During the branch retrieval process Foua
knocked down a green coconut from a tree in our lawn.  He held it in one hand and wacked it open
with the cane knife in about three blows. 
It really is an art form to be able to do that.  I would probably slice my wrist open and be
found dead lying on the beach with coconut juice all over me.  I guess there are worse ways to go!  I enjoyed the tasty treat while sitting on a
boulder overlooking the bay.  A great conclusion
to a hard days work!

-Matt

2009-07-12

It’s amazing what Enchiladas, TD Jakes, and Reckless Kelly can do for
my spirits. I have to say training is making everyone a little
crazy. It’s kinda like boot camp for everything but the muscles.
Your brain, attitude, health, and sanity are all put to the test.
Everyone is reaching their wits end and hoping for a little saving
grace to make it through the next 12 days.

We had “Iron Chef” yesterday which is basically an American free for
all food fest. Well, I say American. All the volunteers got
together and made Mexican, Mediterranean, and Italian food. The Peace
Corps gave us an awesome cookbook with a ton of great recipes. Each
team had the responsibility to make four of five dishes from the
book. Jules and me made Mexican Burgers from beans, garlic, onions,
not nearly enough chili powder, cumin, and a few secret ingredients.
The burgers where judged one of two top dishes from the Mexican side.
Yee haww.

After everyone finished cooking we all gorged ourselves on the several
varieties soaking in the savory treats. It was nice. After the fest
we had part two of our gunu sede raising funds for the co-op store. I
crashed at 8:00 and slept for 11 hours.

Today we brought out the Bishop, that is Bishop TD Jakes from a
vodcast Kelly downloaded right before we left. I forgot how much I
missed, and was missing, church in English. It was like dry sponge in
a bathtub. His message was on suffering and got us jumping and
hollerin’. Perhaps the best part was his observation on the current
economic woes, “In a correction, everything that can be shaken will be
shaken so that those things that cannot be shaken will remain.” Good
stuff…. Our Ta (father in Fijian) loves the Bishop and we hope to
somehow get, legally of course, some DVDs for him.

We went to Fijian Methodist church and made faces at all the kids
staring at us from the pews in front. We where sitting by the side
door and a small three year old approached the door from outside. As
soon as he saw us he yelled, “Kavalagi, Kavalangi!!” and ran away. It
was hilarious. Kavalangi means any white person to the Fijians and
the kids find us fascinating. Most kids in the village have never
seen a white person other than on TV or in the city. He came back and
we got him to smile. They’re not really scared of us, just excited.
Its great fun.

Now we are soaking in the do-nothing Sunday’s of Fiji. I love
Sunday’s in Fiji. Some volunteers despise them but I think I would go
insane without one day of doing nothing. It’s a great time to write,
read, study, and listen to good Texas music or just sleep. I prefer
the later but right now I’m enjoying some non-Christian music for a
change. The villagers pretty much blast KLTY cheesy Christian tunes
from the houses everyday of the week. It gets somewhat eerie after a
while.

If you get a chance, download Reckless Kelly’s new album Bulletproof.
They’re all good except “American Blood,” which makes my blood curl
and proud to be an American at the same time. Free speech is a
precious gift of which the value I will never again take for granted…..

On the language front, we are trukin’ along with Tuvaluan. I finally
memorized a prayer for meals:

Fakamolemole Talo,

Fakafetai te atua mo meakai mo meainu ko oti ne tuku mai ne koe. Koe
ke alofa ke fakamanuia mai ne koe. A latou kola ne fakatoka mai ne
latou. Ite igoa O Iesu ko talo atu iei matou. Emene

Translated:

Please pray,

Thank you Lord for the food and drink you have given us. We ask you
to bless the food and those who prepared the food for us. In Jesus
name we pray. Amen

Here’s a great Tuvaluan gem:

Se se se se se se se.

Translated: A mistake is not a mistake if it’s not wrong. Whew,
we’ve got our work cut out for us. Thankfully my favorite Fijian
word, Bulamakau (cow), is a close match in Tuvaluan, Pulamakau.

Lofa (goodbye),

Mataio

2009-07-12

It’s amazing what Enchiladas, TD Jakes, and Reckless Kelly can do for
my spirits. I have to say training is making everyone a little
crazy. It’s kinda like boot camp for everything but the muscles.
Your brain, attitude, health, and sanity are all put to the test.
Everyone is reaching their wits end and hoping for a little saving
grace to make it through the next 12 days.

We had “Iron Chef” yesterday which is basically an American free for
all food fest. Well, I say American. All the volunteers got
together and made Mexican, Mediterranean, and Italian food. The Peace
Corps gave us an awesome cookbook with a ton of great recipes. Each
team had the responsibility to make four of five dishes from the
book. Jules and me made Mexican Burgers from beans, garlic, onions,
not nearly enough chili powder, cumin, and a few secret ingredients.
The burgers where judged one of two top dishes from the Mexican side.
Yee haww.

After everyone finished cooking we all gorged ourselves on the several
varieties soaking in the savory treats. It was nice. After the fest
we had part two of our gunu sede raising funds for the co-op store. I
crashed at 8:00 and slept for 11 hours.

Today we brought out the Bishop, that is Bishop TD Jakes from a
vodcast Kelly downloaded right before we left. I forgot how much I
missed, and was missing, church in English. It was like dry sponge in
a bathtub. His message was on suffering and got us jumping and
hollerin’. Perhaps the best part was his observation on the current
economic woes, “In a correction, everything that can be shaken will be
shaken so that those things that cannot be shaken will remain.” Good
stuff…. Our Ta (father in Fijian) loves the Bishop and we hope to
somehow get, legally of course, some DVDs for him.

We went to Fijian Methodist church and made faces at all the kids
staring at us from the pews in front. We where sitting by the side
door and a small three year old approached the door from outside. As
soon as he saw us he yelled, “Kavalagi, Kavalangi!!” and ran away. It
was hilarious. Kavalangi means any white person to the Fijians and
the kids find us fascinating. Most kids in the village have never
seen a white person other than on TV or in the city. He came back and
we got him to smile. They’re not really scared of us, just excited.
Its great fun.

Now we are soaking in the do-nothing Sunday’s of Fiji. I love
Sunday’s in Fiji. Some volunteers despise them but I think I would go
insane without one day of doing nothing. It’s a great time to write,
read, study, and listen to good Texas music or just sleep. I prefer
the later but right now I’m enjoying some non-Christian music for a
change. The villagers pretty much blast KLTY cheesy Christian tunes
from the houses everyday of the week. It gets somewhat eerie after a
while.

If you get a chance, download Reckless Kelly’s new album Bulletproof.
They’re all good except “American Blood,” which makes my blood curl
and proud to be an American at the same time. Free speech is a
precious gift of which the value I will never again take for granted…..

On the language front, we are trukin’ along with Tuvaluan. I finally
memorized a prayer for meals:

Fakamolemole Talo,

Fakafetai te atua mo meakai mo meainu ko oti ne tuku mai ne koe. Koe
ke alofa ke fakamanuia mai ne koe. A latou kola ne fakatoka mai ne
latou. Ite igoa O Iesu ko talo atu iei matou. Emene

Translated:

Please pray,

Thank you Lord for the food and drink you have given us. We ask you
to bless the food and those who prepared the food for us. In Jesus
name we pray. Amen

Here’s a great Tuvaluan gem:

Se se se se se se se.

Translated: A mistake is not a mistake if it’s not wrong. Whew,
we’ve got our work cut out for us. Thankfully my favorite Fijian
word, Bulamakau (cow), is a close match in Tuvaluan, Pulamakau.

Lofa (goodbye),

Mataio

Current Home:

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.

We made it back from our site visit yesterday and are recouping from a
whirlwind travel experience. It is hard to recall everything as it
seemed like we experienced so much during the short time we where
there. It is all very exhausting trying to soak in the details of
your future home for the next two years in addition to learning the
logistics of how the heck to get there. That was an adventure in
itself.

If you have ever traversed a third world country using more than one
type of transportation you can probably relate. It all started with a
brisk van ride to Suva. In Suva we boarded the Suliven Ferry bound
for Vanua Levu. Vanua Levu is the other larger island in Fiji. It is
actually a bit smaller but the name means ‘big land’. It must be
because it has more mountains.

Most public transportation in Fiji is very old so I wasn’t expecting
much. I had been on a ferry one other time in Alaska, but other than
that my ferry riding experience is limited so I really didn’t know how
to prepare. We boarded the vehicle cargo hull, checked our large tin
boxes, and headed to ‘first’ class. Overall it wasn’t that bad.
First class was at the front of the boat, more to come on that later,
and consisted of a small canteen, the largest flat screen T.V. I’ve
seen in Fiji outside a department store, DVD player, lounge area, and
several double tier bunk beds. It is an open floor plan and there is
little privacy other than the bed sheet enclosing the beds. Reference
pictures below.

We ordered our lamb curry at the canteen and prepared for the
adventure. After eating the lamb neck bone curry the boat started
off. We where warned the weather may be a little choppy from the
captain and got our first whiff of ‘choppy’ when we immediately
started rocking once freed from the anchorage. Everyone looked at
each other hesitantly as the curry fermented. A couple of people
headed outside for fresh air and the other brave souls tried to ignore
the ominous feelings down below. Pete, a FRE-6 (Fiji Re-entry group
#6) gave us all motion sickness pills from Doctor Fina about 30
minutes before the launch so we had a relatively high confidence in
our resistance to motion sickness.

The first puker started about 30 minutes into the ride. It was pretty
much a free for all vomit fest from that point forward. If you didn’t
get sick from the 15’ surges, the smell soon got you. My strategy was
to walk the deck and soak in the fresh air but this was complicated by
sea sprays from the huge waves, blowing rain, upper balcony projectile
pukers, and roving life jacket boxes the size of small Volkswagens.

I went back to first class and everyone had scattered like flies to
the refuges of the bunks (this turned out to be the smartest move),
the deck railing, or toilets. Kelly had employed the technique of
watching a horrible Bollywood movie. I tried this but the rocking
motion of the boat made the DVD pause or skip every three-seconds.
This made everything much worse and I finally gave in and let ‘er
rip. After a couple of sessions I felt much better and curled up in
my bunk.

This was another adventure in itself as there where babies crying, men
snoring the boat rivets loose, and a few puking in the beds (the ship
ran out of puke bags halfway through the trip). I think I got a total
of two hours sleep. The waves got so bad you could hear the front end
of the boat coming out of the water and crashing down. It was pretty
intense, especially for a landlubber like me.

After the 10 hour voyage we landed in Savusavu searching for ground
transport. The bus had already left the station so we had the option
of waiting two hours for the next bus or hiring a compact truck. The
hire option made the most sense and 10 people stuffed their
possessions in the back of a compact truck. I road in the back with 7
others and Kelly was up front with two others. About 15 km of the 50
km road was paved. The other portion resembled a freshly plowed
cotton field. I’ve seen stock tanks smaller than a few of the
potholes we traversed. After 2.5 hours of this fun we boarded a small
fiber boat for about 30 minutes to our final destination. This wasn’t
too bad except for the sea sprays drenching us and our luggage. We
arrived battered, wet, tired, and somewhat delirious, but much smarter
than when we had left.

It was all worth it when we approached the bay of our island home for
the next two years. It is settled in a small valley with white sandy
beaches, huge Vesi trees on the hillside, and coconut trees scattered
among the coastline. The village was very clean and everyone we met
extremely friendly. The culture is totally different from Fijian and
they speak a Tuvaluan, much different from Fijian. The people are
very proud of their heritage and have a unique history filled with
tradition.

After arriving we quickly changed and headed to an outdoor eating
area, umu. It was a small bure elevated off the ground. The ceiling
was very low allowing you to only sit. The first meal was amazing
with the fish being the highlight. The English name for the fish is
King Fish and it melted like butter in my mouth. I have never had
fish so good. There was also a sweet bread that we haven’t had before
and a few other new dishes.

We then presented our sevusevu, grog, with our initial community
contact person (ICCP) Samalu. The grog had somehow made the trip
without getting wet, crushed, or traded for transport. After a few
bilos I was spent. I can’t remember ever being more exhausted.
Thankfully the council members are very musical and three of them
entertained use with guitars and up beat song. It was a good end to a
long day.

Our house is pretty basic but nice and clean. The only thing it
didn’t have was the kitchen sink, kinda ironic. It is about 50’ from
the ocean near a village canteen that has basic goods such as soap,
canned goods, etc. There is a garden across the footpath in our front
yard and the neighbors are very friendly. We are looking forward to
making it a home when we settle in but haven’t quite figured out how
to buy and transport a mattress, stove, gas cylinder, pots and pans,
kitchen sink, and all the other stuff you need to live in a fiberglass
boat across the strait of Somosomo. We will definitely send pictures
of that!

Talofa!

Fakafetai! Tofa!

Kelly Roy

gigglepic.com

vaportrail.typepad.com

mobile 011.679.937.5958

Matt, Samalu, and Loto with all our bags. After I took this pic 6 more Fijians jumped in for the 2.5 hour truck ride down a dirt road with potholes so big I could bathe in them!

Samalu and Mataio in front of our new home. The toilet and shower were added on and they decided to paint it pink???

Our backyard.

They still fish in the traditional canoe. The main compartment is a single piece of wood.

Bula vinaka!! We hope you are well and enjoying your summer!! … I am very jealous of those at Allaso Ranch right now!!! 

Kelly Roy

gigglepic.com

vaportrail.typepad.com

mobile 011.679.937.5958

She's got the moooves!!

Dee, our Fijian language instructor!

Laundry time!

Download Turani