Sereki
Rain has marked the end of the school break and the beginning of Term 2. Thus, I have regressed back into my house and therefore have time to update my loyal blog readers. Speaking of, is there anyone out there?
As I mentioned before, our Earth Day Celebration was a hit. It made the past 9 months of relative inactivity worthwhile…the whole event was on time (what? No “Fiji time”?) and about 85% of the village came out to participate. I believe it was so successful because the youth group in the village really took the idea and made it their own. We broke up the group into three teams and each team was responsible for presenting a topic to the village on the big day. We had presentations on composting, coral reef ecosystems and mangroves and the youth were able to field questions from the audience. It was clear that everyone learned something about the environment and how to protect it. After the presentations we had a meke competition. A meke is a traditional dance, so we essentially had a dance off…Fijian style. As if that weren’t enough, the kids and youth and even some older ladies went out to the village green to play games for the rest of the day. After 5 hours of playing a game called pani, where we throw tennis balls at rusty cans and then at each other, I still don’t get the rules. Everyone truly had a good time and the village wants to make Earth Day a yearly event. Even the old grumps who sat around the kava bowl all day complimented me, although I feel like this was a truly community event…I just got the ball rolling.
The second week of the school holiday I had two other volunteers come up to put on an HIV/AIDS workshop. After putting on a similar workshop on Mali Island, we talked to Korotubu’s youth group about STIs and safe sex. The PC office was worried about three kaivulagi (white people) coming into a village to talk about taboo topics, but I think it went really well. The youth weren’t bashful and asked honest questions. I really believe this is because I have formed a relationship with them and they trust me. Anyway, my job for both workshops was to translate what I could into our dialect of Fijian. It was nice traveling to a new island and meeting new people, but I what I think was my first experience with an intestinal parasite made me miserable for the whole week.
Since school is in session again I will start going back to the primary school to paint the world map…after the rain stops that is. Other than that I am just waiting for my footpath proposal to go through. Everything is moving right along…albeit according to Fiji time…and all is good. Well, except for the fact that my best friend in the village just left to live with her boyfriend. That was a bummer…and she isn’t allowed to come back to the village until his family makes an offering to her family. Oh, how different things are here! Right when I start to feel like I fit in there is always something to remind me I don’t really know what’s going on!
Learning about coral reef ecosystems.
Earth day fun!
As I mentioned before, our Earth Day Celebration was a hit. It made the past 9 months of relative inactivity worthwhile…the whole event was on time (what? No “Fiji time”?) and about 85% of the village came out to participate. I believe it was so successful because the youth group in the village really took the idea and made it their own. We broke up the group into three teams and each team was responsible for presenting a topic to the village on the big day. We had presentations on composting, coral reef ecosystems and mangroves and the youth were able to field questions from the audience. It was clear that everyone learned something about the environment and how to protect it. After the presentations we had a meke competition. A meke is a traditional dance, so we essentially had a dance off…Fijian style. As if that weren’t enough, the kids and youth and even some older ladies went out to the village green to play games for the rest of the day. After 5 hours of playing a game called pani, where we throw tennis balls at rusty cans and then at each other, I still don’t get the rules. Everyone truly had a good time and the village wants to make Earth Day a yearly event. Even the old grumps who sat around the kava bowl all day complimented me, although I feel like this was a truly community event…I just got the ball rolling.
The second week of the school holiday I had two other volunteers come up to put on an HIV/AIDS workshop. After putting on a similar workshop on Mali Island, we talked to Korotubu’s youth group about STIs and safe sex. The PC office was worried about three kaivulagi (white people) coming into a village to talk about taboo topics, but I think it went really well. The youth weren’t bashful and asked honest questions. I really believe this is because I have formed a relationship with them and they trust me. Anyway, my job for both workshops was to translate what I could into our dialect of Fijian. It was nice traveling to a new island and meeting new people, but I what I think was my first experience with an intestinal parasite made me miserable for the whole week.
Since school is in session again I will start going back to the primary school to paint the world map…after the rain stops that is. Other than that I am just waiting for my footpath proposal to go through. Everything is moving right along…albeit according to Fiji time…and all is good. Well, except for the fact that my best friend in the village just left to live with her boyfriend. That was a bummer…and she isn’t allowed to come back to the village until his family makes an offering to her family. Oh, how different things are here! Right when I start to feel like I fit in there is always something to remind me I don’t really know what’s going on!
Learning about coral reef ecosystems.
Earth day fun!
posted by MeghanKKelly at
1:16 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home