First Visitor

I’d been eagerly awaiting the second half of October since I had found out Natalia, my girlfriend from the States, was coming for a two week visit.  The end of October found me at the five month mark and the effects of separation from friends and family was beginning to become a factor in my overall demeanor.  As excited as I was, I immediately started to fret about what could go wrong.  What if I got a giant boil that required surgery?  This has happened to other volunteers and usually results in an extended stay (a month or more in some cases) at the Peace Corps Infirmary, a small room at the back of Peace Corps Headquarters in Suva.  What if I got a minor cut that became grossly infected and required surgery?   This also has happened to other volunteers and usually results in an extended stay at the Peace Corps Infirmary.  What if I was stricken with dengue or some other tropical illness?  What if there was a cyclone or weather phenomenon?  One thing I’ve learned in Fiji is there’s an array of complications that can derail even the simplest of plans. 

Tony, looking Zen like at the tanoa

To lessen the chances of illness I played it safe.  I cooked almost entirely for myself, since I know my kitchen and cooking methods are more or less sanitary.  I also avoided yaqona sessions, the preparation of yaqona (i.e. someone’s dirty hands wringing a pounded root through a dirty cloth into a shared basin of water) and the shared drinking cups can occasionally result in some minor issues, usually lasting a day or two.  Typically I don’t mind these occurrences but with a special visitor coming I wasn’t taking any chances.  Despite my efforts, a week before her arrival, to my dismay, a skin outbreak which resembled chicken pox erupted from my abdomen. 

I didn’t think the itchy, ugly, unpleasant, and numerous stomach pimples would land me in the infirmary, but my mind did jump to the conclusion that I had scabies, a highly contagious skin infection rampant in Fijian villages.  I phoned the Peace Corps vuniwai (doctor) and in a mild panic said I thought I had scabies.  She replied, the symptoms described didn’t sound like scabies but advised me to go the hospital on Taveuni and let the vuniwai (doctor) there have a look.  I took the bus to Wayeivo, which is on the other side of the island, in a state of controlled panic and despair.  Going to the hospital in Fiji is easy, you just show up, put your name on a list and wait, no insurance forms to fill out, no hassles.  The Fijians tend not to utilize the hospital, usually turning to traditional remedies (massage, village healers, wearing socks to bed, etc.) and faith before modern medicine (I use the term loosely here).  This is a nationwide problem, as small medical problems often turn into major medical problems that exceed the capabilities of Fiji’s limited medical facilities, but on this day I was grateful to see a nearly empty waiting room. 

The vuniwai in Wayeivo agreed with the Peace Corps vuniwai and said the pink polka dots on my stomach did not look like scabies, but were more than likely the work of bed bugs.  The fact that my blanket, which I hardly used in the first place, had been mysteriously disintegrating gave merit to the vuniwai’s hypothesis.  Prior to arriving in Fiji I thought bed bugs were a fallacy, a fiction derived by parents to subtly scare their children before bed.  Bed bugs are indeed a reality in Fiji however, and children should heed caution when their parents say “don’t let the bed bugs bite” because they do bite and the bite is itchy and visually unappealing.  To be on the safe side the vuniwai prescribed me a scabies crème and penicillin pills, to avoid infection.  She also recommended I take my mattress outside and “sun it” to kill the bed bugs.  Sunning things is a common Fijian remedy, on a hot, sunny day in the village there will be assortment of items hanging on clotheslines letting the intensity of the tropical sun do its work.

 Unfortunately we’re going into summer here, which is the wet season and the sun isn’t around all that often, which isn’t to say it’s not hot.  The wet season and the hot season are the same and lately I’ve been surprised to find myself perspiring profusely under a gray sky.  To compensate for the lack of sun I went to the store and stocked up on bug spray.  When I got home I sprayed my mattress with enough Mortein (local bug spray manufacturer) to kill a cow and hopefully send all the bed bugs to hell, where they belong.  I worried briefly about the health ramifications my actions might bring upon myself but decided any risk was justified when dealing with bed bugs. 

The mosquito was my greatest nemesis in Fiji and I continue to hate them with a passion.  I don’t have a strong adverse reaction to mosquito bites but something about that buzz in my ear right as I step out of bed in the morning or looking down and seeing two of them sucking at my ankle drives me nuts.  I had thought nothing could be worse than the ever-present blood sucking pests but now it seemed they had a rival.  My bed was formerly the closest thing I had to a haven in Fiji, my mattress is somewhat comfortable (best you can hope for), my mosquito net is 99% effective, making my bed an almost mosquito free zone and providing a sense of security that here, on my lackluster double mattress, I was safe from the elements.  My bed had been a place to go at the end of the day to reflect on my successes and/or failures, listen to the ocean, and fall asleep with a book.  But now I didn’t even have that, when going to bed I was now contending with being eaten alive by bed bugs. They had to die, no matter what the cost. 

When I woke the next morning I was grateful, I survived the night on a mattress heavily laden with insecticide.  My quality of sleep that night however had been poor, I spent the night wondering if the little bastards were there, waiting to attack.  As to the whereabouts of the bedbugs, I was uncertain.  Resilient bed bugs may have survived the Mortein spray onslaught, possibly hiding deep in the mattress. The large number of bites on my abdomen made it difficult to determine whether or not I had been bitten anew during slumber.   

Maqai beach

 A week later Natalia arrived and it was very exciting.  The majority of my bed bug bites had healed, but there always seemed to be a few new ones popping up each morning.  The number of new bites was small, suggesting the majority of the bed bugs had been killed in the initial onslaught.  I was also able to give my mattress one quality day of sunning, aiding the cause.  I had booked the first couple nights of Natalia’s visit at an inexpensive, but nice guesthouse style lodge in Matei.  I was grateful to have a few nights away from my bed, of which I was still mildly frightened.  Staying in Matei was nice, Natalia had said she wanted to get an idea of what my day to day life was like but I thought it would be best to ease her into it, after telling the bed bug story and showing the bite marks I think she understood. 

After staying in the comfort of tourist and ex-pat dominated Matei, we made our way to the village which was more rugged but also more authentic and picturesque.  We stayed at my house in the village one night, before heading to Qamea Island to stay at Maqai, an inexpensive backpacker / surfing resort.  When we woke at my house we both had a few small bite marks suggesting the perseverance of a few bed bugs. 

Natalia, enjoying time away from the office

Maqai had been high on my to do list, since I knew this is where the quality surf in the area was.  The surf wasn’t great during our stay, but the perfect beach, abundant hammocks and comfortable lounging areas, and mostly good weather let me excuse the fact that I only got to surf one day.  While staying at Maqai I often couldn’t see Taveuni, the island I call home was lost in clouds and fog and I suspected we were avoiding heavy rain.  By our last day at Maqai the rain had found us however, and we had a wet boat ride home. 

I had heard about the effects of heavy rain on Bouma (the region I live in) but as of this time hadn’t experienced it.  That changed once I returned to Taveuni from Maqai.  After getting off the boat and onto the bus we were immediately delayed by a flooded bridge.  The bus waited for several hours, hoping the several feet of water rushing over the low concrete bridge would subside.  Eventually a few people crossed the bridge by foot and the bus driver who had been napping returned to the driver’s seat and put the bus in gear.  Natalia and I were a bit apprehensive, there was still a lot of water coming over the bridge, but all the villagers on the bus didn’t seem to be worried, and I figured they’d been through this before.  As the bus started to cross the bridge, I knew we would make it, the water’s flow was no match to the bus’s weight, although there was a slight sideways movement.

My lake house

Once back in the village I saw the area around my house was flooded, my house is elevated about three feet on a cement foundation and half the foundation was submerged.  I’d planned four days in the village and had made arrangements with the villagers (dinners, etc.) that obligated me to remain in the village all four days.  When I had made these plans the weather was good and I had yet to experience the relentless ferocity of the wet season.  These were a miserable four days, the rain never stopped and my little house isn’t 100% watertight so it was damp and musky.  On some days in the village we couldn’t hear the bus or any trucks on the road and knew the bridge must be out.  This led us to worry we may be stuck in the village for an indefinite period of time.  The weather eventually improved a bit, although light rain was constantly present.  The villagers threw us a big dinner on our last night and the next morning we were happily on our way to Matei.

Todranisiga, affordable and nice

It was great to be back in Matei, there was still rain but not as much as in Vidawa. We stayed at a different comfortable, inexpensive, bure style guest house which felt like the Ritz after being stuck in my house for four days.  We stayed in Matei four days before Natalia caught her flight home.  During these last days I wondered how the hell I was going to return to the village and how I’d made it as long as I did.  On the last day I took a boat to Vanua Levu (adjacent island) for a Peace Corps training and Natalia took her flight home.

Having a visitor was one of the most exciting moments of Peace Corps for me so far.  I got to share what I’d been experiencing, introduce Natalia to people in the village she had only heard about in phone conversations, take a break from village life and for a moment, remember what my life was like back home.  This last point, remembering what life was like back home, is a bit of a double edged sword.  I’d settled into a rhythm since arriving to Fiji, and having a visitor threw me way off the beat.  I’m still readjusting, which isn’t to say I don’t appreciate visitors.

R & R at Maqai

The Peace Corps training on Vanua Levu was in Labasa, a Hindi town that sprung up around the sugar cane industry.  Like many of the developed towns in Fiji, Labasa is a small in area, dirty, and crowded with people and buildings.  Suffice to say Labasa is not a popular tourist destination.  I was meeting Anna Maria, my formerly wayward but now returned Initial Community Contact Person there, and we were going to attend a class on how to execute specific village projects.  The project I had decided to present was finishing the village’s community hall in such a way that it could also double as an evacuation center for hurricanes.  I chose this project because it was a high priority on the village’s five year plan (goals decided on by the villagers) and because the goal was straight forward and obtainable.  The training lasted four days and on the last day we presented our plans to high ranking government officials who have their offices in Labasa.  Anna Maria and I did a simple presentation, with some pictures to demonstrate the flooding and the current sorry state of the community hall.

At the end of our presentation the highest government official present said he saw the need for our project and would help us with funding, we were the only group who received his instant approval for help.  All we had to do was provide him with a quote for costs of materials and so forth which we could get from Elia the village carpenter.  I left Labasa feeling accomplished, tangible results were on there way.

After returning to Vidawa the first week of November, we found that Elia, the village carpenter, had left for a neighboring island to build a house for a family member and wasn’t scheduled to return until after Christmas.  Anna Maria called Elia and he said he was familiar enough with the community hall to write up a list of materials and send it over on the boat, later Elia said he would return to Vidawa within a week.  It’s currently December 4^th and neither Elia nor the list of materials have arrived.  I don’t know Elia well, but he doesn’t seem to be a flake and I don’t want to portray him as such.  I can tell Elia’s a very sharp guy and he’s a strict taskmaster when it comes to me learning Fijian.  The problems I’m encountering are simply related to culture.  There are other carpenters on Taveuni but I’ve yet to have a good talk with them.  I also worry that if we wait too long, the government official who pledged to help us financially may forget his statement or doubt the village’s commitment to the project.

Perhaps it’s Natalia’s departure after a blissful two week visit (save the rainy days in the village), or maybe it’s the building frustration with the difficulty of accomplishing seemingly simple tasks, or possibly it’s the fact I’m daily assaulted by mosquitoes, unfavorable tropical weather conditions, and other challenges in an unfamiliar environment a long way from home but I’ve noticed as of late the luster is beginning to wear off.  My Fijian has reached a plateau if not digressed and I’m not eager to try to learn more.  The continual frustration I experience trying to communicate in a language and culture foreign to me has taken its toll.  Everyone is, as always, very friendly but I can’t deny the fact that I often feel grumpy and don’t feel the enthusiasm I used to when participating in social events.  One thing about living in a small village, on a small island, in a small country, is the social occasions always seem to be the same people, talking about the same things, telling the same jokes, and to those who are accustomed to such a lifestyle everything is fine and dandy but I often find myself bored, which isn’t to say my life in the States was particularly exciting.

Thanksgiving potluck

I found the phenomenon I was experiencing wasn’t unique to me while staying in Savu Savu, a touristy part of Vanua Levu, for a Northern Fiji Peace Corps Thanksgiving.  There were about twenty of the Vanua Levu volunteers attending the party, many who had arrived in Fiji a year before my group, but all seemed to be going through or had been through a similar experience.  To cope the Vanua Levu volunteers tend to socialize amongst themselves frequently.  Vanua Levu is a big island (by Fiji standards) but the large number of volunteers on the island means there is usually no more than an hour bus ride separation between adjacent volunteers.  This is a luxury I don’t have being the only volunteer on Taveuni, it takes me a total of seven hours by boat and bus to get to the closest volunteer on Vanua Levu.  This creates an entirely different dynamic as to the life of an isolated Peace Corps Volunteer to that of a volunteer who has peers nearby. Although it’s difficult at times, I prefer the isolation.  If I wanted to go to town and hang out with my friends all week I could have stayed in the States, which isn’t to say I don’t get jealous when I call someone to chat and find out they’re hanging out with so and so having an ice cream in town.

Kindergarten grads

I was running a slight fever during Thanksgiving and there was a tropical depression hanging off the coast of Viti Levu sending torrential rain which made all the tap water at the one houses we had rented brown, the second house we had rented had no water at all, can’t escape Fiji, not even at the resorts.  Furthermore, even though Savu Savu is the dubbed “The Hidden Paradise of Fiji”, I wasn’t impressed.  A crowded ex-pat dominated port town, Savu Savu has nothing on even mediocre parts of Taveuni. These factors also put me in a bad mood.  One thing I don’t think I’ve made clear in the blog as of yet is the mood swings.  Peace Corps is composed of highs and lows, and the lows can be tough especially when they persist and things aren’t going your way.

I had one thing to look forward to when I got back from Thanksgiving weekend and that was being the key note speaker at the graduation of Bouma Primary School (K-8).  I’d been invited by Filo, the school’s head teacher, and although I was a bit nervous about the engagement I was also excited.  Neither my academic nor professional accomplishments in the States would have qualified me to be a key note speaker for anything back home, but one thing that’s nice about living in a rural village is being American is usually enough.  I’d put together a speech that was about ten minutes and almost entirely in English except for the introduction and conclusion.  I wasn’t sure what the speech should be about so I talked the importance of education, picking a sustainable career path, the undisclosed perils of modern life, and the integration of traditional Fiji with encroaching modern society.  I tried to keep the English basic but poignant and the speech seemed to go well, however, I couldn’t tell by the small audience’s silence if they were transfixed by what I was saying or bored to tears.  The optimist in me believes the former, the realist in me believes the latter, in any event I thought the points made in my speech were important and I’d give the same speech again if given the chance.

After the diplomas were handed out (by me) the kids all did skits and dances that were far more entertaining than my speech and the crowd really got into it and showed the best of Fiji.  I’m going to start teaching a few classes at the school once the next term starts and am going to do computer classes for adults at the school’s quaint computer lab during the break, which I’m looking forward to.  I haven’t noticed any bite marks when I wake up lately so I think all the bed bugs are dead, although I still take my mattress, sheets, and pillow outside to be “sunned” whenever the weather permits.  We’re entering cyclone season and Taveuni is a popular cyclone destination, so that could be interesting.  Also, people seem to be getting motivated to vamp up the Vidawa Rainforest Hike.  The hike, an undiscovered gem of Taveuni tourism, gets high marks from those who embark on the full day journey.  A little TLC and increased village participation could unleash the hike’s potential and make it one of Taveuni’s benchmark village owned and operated tourist attractions.  It seems the powers that be within the village are putting more backing behind the hike and I’m going to try to get a lot done over the next 6 months, the slow tourist season.  By the village’s current level of commitment to the hike I see a lot of hope but you can never tell…..