Suva City

Greetings from the big hopin' city of Suva! 

Matt and I have been on the main island, Viti Levu, for the past 9 days for 'Early Service Training' (EST).  To get here, we took a small plane that could hold about 20 passangers over the Pacific Ocean.  After narrowly escaping death, me using the 'sick bag' two times, a last minute layover in Nadi and a few sweltering hot bus/taxi rides, we arrived at a nice hotel to spend the night in Suva.  Since it was Matt's b-day (29 candles), we went to a nice bar/restaurant for dinner and watched two movies at the theatre.  'Hot Tub Time Machine' is not as terrible as I thought it would be...

The next day, both of us took the bus to Nadave (a technical training center for young Fijian males) and started the actual trainings.  We stayed in Nadave five days and it was splendid hanging out with all the other Volunteers we haven't seen in nearly three months and consuming tasty 'teas.'

After the time in Nadave, the two of us went to hang out with the majority of the other Volunteers at a beach resort/getaway in an area called Pacific Harbor.  We all stayed in the dorms and it only cost about $18 per day US and that included a bed, buffet breakfast and a lovely pool/oceanview.  Matt ended up going on a "Hash" with a bunch of people from New Zealand.  They went on a long hike and then came back and had unlimited pizza, beer and other food/drinks for $12 Fijian.  All that's wrapped up and I'm back in Suva and am in the Peace Corps office. 

Other than training, Matt and I have been up to the usual in the village...  I cook about 2 meals per day on the gas burner stove, walk up to the health center to talk with the nurses about future health workshops to do in the area, scrub laundry, try to run on the terrible gravel road, play with my dope of a cat, try pitifully to speak in Fijian with the women and younger girls...  Matt goes out to the garden and tries to keep it going with all the land crabs eating the stuff, he plays rugy with the young guys, goofs off with the kids, meets with the young males about projects that could generate money for the village, chokes down grog a couple nights a week...  Together we like to watch movies or shows on the computer after it gets dark at about 6 pm. 

Some interesting facts about Fiji:
-To say 'yes' non-verbally, simply raise your eyebrows in a much exaggerated manner.
-In the village, people eat fish, coconut milk, bele (a leafy green) and dalo or cassava (a starchy root crop) three meals a day and that is about 90% of their diet.
-At the nice department store here one can purchase Revlon make-up...  It only costs $40 for a tube of mascara or one small eyeshadow.  Nail polish is $20 and foundation is $55.  I gave myself a nice little makeover with the 'samplers' and left the rest for another customer.
-Justin Bieber is on the radio every other song and blasts through the speakers on the 30 year old buses.

That's all for now.  Matt will probably write the next entry and it will be a bit more crazy but this will suffice. 

Much love to you all,
Alyssa

PS- Mom and Becky, we didn't really almost die on the plane.

Quick and Painful

Ok well I know I have not done the best job of keeping this blog update or posting regularly.  I am going to keep this post short and just post a bunch of pictures.  Alyssa and I have now been in our site for a little over two months.  Things are going pretty well the only complaint we have are rats.  They chew through everything and they constantly pester us at night by hanging out in our rafters, so we got a cat to try and help with out the problem.
Other then that things are going pretty well here, Alyssa and I just spent the last few days in the wonderful city of Labasa in the north of Vanua Levu (wonderful is an exaggeration, it actually is a very dirty city) with a lot of other Peace Corps Volunteers so it was fun.  I found out that there is a bar here in Savusavu that plays ESPN so I get to watch any game on that channel.  I am pretty excited for Friday when the Saints and Vikes play I will be glued to the television set.

Our host 'Na' and 'Ta'.

Our host siblings- Joji, Lamiva and Tuiki.

Matt and Ta having a 'Fiji Gold'.

The Peace Corps group from our training village of Nukutubu.  Alyssa has 80's hair going on.

Alyssa with our host sister, Tavita.

Alyssa and Marie at the Swearing In Ceremony in July.

Alyssa and Greta at the Swearing In Ceremony.

Matt and Milo the first night we got her. 

Matt with some of the men at a soli (fundraiser).  The man on his immediate right is the chief of our village, Natuvu.

The ladies preparing lunch.

The guys sitting around drinking yagona (grog).

People sitting under a traditional Fijian 'shed' (open aired but has a roof made of tin).

Matt getting ready for his 'meke' (dance) with Alyssa's initial community partner (the village health worker).

Alyssa and Milo.  Alyssa in her 'married lady' sulu jaba outfit.

Matt doing his meke.  The fabric being tied around is a sign that he is doing a good job.

Matt and the Turaga ni Koro (basically the village mayor).

Our house and the bathroom/shower on the right.

The view from our house.

The village shed and church, which our directly outside our front door.

Milo after she got spade.

Dalo (the root crop) with octopus in lolo (coconut milk).  Surprisingly much better than it looks!

It's been such a long time...

Well we have neglected our blog for so very long and so much has happened since our last post that I don't want to post everything, but I will anyway. 
First off let me give a long over due congratulations to my good friends Jason and Angel Skluzacek (Yes spellcheck that is how you spell their last name) on their new baby boy.  Well it is not that new anymore I guess he was born July 2nd, I am just that late in posting.  His name is Liam Kenneth Skluzacek (Damn you spellcheck).  I heard he has his mother's good looks and his mother's brains (just kidding Jason your good looking too!).

O.k. on to the boring stuff I can't really remember where I left off but during training we had something called a Connect Conference which gave us the opportunity to get to meet Government organizations and Non-Government organizations alike as well as get to know the FRE-7 volunteers.  The FRE-7's are the group of volunteers that have been in country for a year and will be leaving in the summer of 2011.  The highlight of the conference was our lodging which was quite beautiful.  It is amazing to see that a country as impoverished as Fiji can have small pockets with so much money.  It was at this conference we learned our sites and where we would all be headed.  They had a huge map of Fiji and they put our pictures next our village we would be staying at:

  A very blurry picture of our hotel for the Connect Conference

Site announcements

From their Alyssa and I ran in a 10k on the last day of the conference to promote health put on by the Peace Corps staff.  Why you might ask, well because I didn't my knees have suffered enough from my years of overeating and playing high contact sports.  Fortunately I managed to make it through and almost managed to keep up with Alyssa the whole way (unfortunately no pictures to document the accomplishment).  

About two weeks after the conference we completed our training and had our swearing in ceremony.  All our host families were invited and it was there we officially went from Peace Corps Trainees to Peace Corps Volunteers.  This is also where we said goodbye to our host families we had been staying with in our villages and began preparation for our departure to our permanent sites for the next two years.

Setting the floor for our goodbye supper in our host village of Nukutubu

Me with Yoni and Billy at our goodbye gathering

All of the Peace Corps volunteers who were staying at Nukutubu about to leave for the final time

All right well I have a lot more things to talk about but I have run out of time for the day.  Everyone will just have to wait eagerly or not so eagerly for me to post again.  I promise it will be much sooner than my previous time.  One last parting note, a group of volunteers decided to have a mustache contest over the last two weeks or so of training.  I decided to go with a handlebar mustache so without any further ado here it is in all its glory

I know its hard to see but you probably didn't want to see it anyway (it was scary....beautiful!)

A few words from Alyssa...

Matt summed it up pretty well.  The other things I want to report:

• We now have a sink in our house (very exciting- there was no indoor running water before) and a garden with a hole bunch of American vegetables planted. 
• There's no refrigeration at our site but I like cooking all the vegetarian foods.  Matt kind of hates it.
• Our bus trip to town takes two hours each way, so trips to town will only happen about once per week (and internet access, too)
• I'm trying to learn Fijian and the new dialect where we are but it's very tough!
• We now have an address:

PO Box 691
Savusavu, Vanua Levu
Fiji 

Bye for now!!!
Alyssa

A Skirt?

Ok first off I am not wearing a skirt, it is a sulu or a sulu vakataga to be exact and damn do I make that look good.  Ok, maybe I don't unfortunately.  Secondly that is a picture of our new nephew, Reece Afatika, looks remarkably like his father.  I can't answer your questions Kayla because I am not quite sure on the weight and height or really anything else right now. 
I broke out the drumsticks that I brought along and had some fun with some of the kids in our house.  I have alot more to say but I don't have the time, OH!  We got our site announcements we will be going to Natuvu Village in Vanua Levu about an hour and half west of Savusavu city.  We will not have electricity and water is going to have to be boiled and filtered in order to drink but we have excellent cell phone coverage in our village.  No word on how to charge the cell phone, but this kind of sums up how Fiji works sometimes. 
I hope everyone is doing well have a good one, Matt.

We are all drummers at heart

Pictures! (Hopefully)

Greetings from Nausori, Fiji!  I (Alyssa) am finally taking a turn writing in our blog. 

First, the most exciting news- Kaity had the baby on June 9!  His name is Reese Chemway Afatika (I may have spelled his first or middle name wrong- I haven't seen it written anywhere).  We haven't seen any photos yet but have been told he looks just like Ernest. :)

Matt and I are about to head off to see a dance that some of the other Peace Corps volunteers are performing.  Below are some photos that we have taken thus far.  We'll try to start taking more- it's just been very busy and overwhelming (Matt doesn't stress as easily as me, so he may disagree on this point) thus far. 

I am off- much love to our family and friends. :)

Alyssa

The bure we stayed if for the first 4 days we were in Fiji, it was quite nice

 

The view from behind our bure

 

Our host Mom(Na) setting up the table for one of many good meals she prepared for us, just so everyone knows in Fiji you usually sit on the floor to eat.

Alyssa and I with our host Brother-in-law (Anania) and Sister (Tavita) before the Town Soli (otherwise know as a festival in the States).  As you can see our host mom made us all matching outfits and yes I am wearing a sulu, it is the traditional apparel for Fijian men. When in Rome!

Our "tent" at the town festival.  It was one of four, the town in split into four clans and each clan had its own "tent" (they were more so bamboo frames with tin roofs place on top).

Our bedroom for the 7 weeks we are in training.  We are one of the very lucky few who get a fan in our bedroom.

If you play with fire you're going to get burned!

Today is June 5th here and I was planning on posting our pictures today.....but we brought the wrong USB cord for our camera, so you will have to wait yet again for pictures to be posted. 

We got some exciting news from the home front though, apparently next week we are going to be an aunt and uncle.  Thus we are both hoping and praying everything goes well for Kaitlyn this week as she has what I am expecting to be a 12 lb baby boy, I think that was my guess this last christmas : ).
Also as for the title of my post, well I guess I have taught my brother so very little in the 20 years he's been alive.  I wish I could be there to call him an idiot but I will just have to hope that Goldade and Paul do it for me.

As for news from here, well their is alot I am sure people want to hear about but I don't know where to start.  Alyssa and I are living in the same host family in a small village right on the Rewa river.  In fact the first Saturday we were their they just opened up the very first road leading to the village ever.  Before that they were using water taxi's to get to a landing to take a bus.  Our host family consists of our Ta (dad), Na (mom), 23 year old daughter Tavita, 7 year old son (Tuki), 28 year old brother-in-law Ananeia, and 10 year old nephew Joji.  They very graciously have a allowed us to live in their master bedroom while we complete our 7 weeks of training and when I say master bedroom I don't mean what we think of in the states.  It is a 10x12 room with a toilet attached.  It is though the only house in our village with a master bedroom though.  As I am writing this we have been with our host family about 2 weeks and they are very helpful in learning the language.
One huge problem in Fiji is sanitation and as you drive around Fiji you see trash every where.  In fact our village tends to throw trash in the river and let the tide bring it out into the ocean.  It is something that Peace Corps is asking us to focus our attention on when we get to our host village were we will be staying for two years. 
I know there are a lot of questions that people want answered and really can't think of what they were, but Alyssa wants to go so we must go.  : )  Talk to you all soon and hopefully next time I post, I will post the few pictures we have taken.
-See Ya Matt

Paradise City

Bula or Yadra(depending on the time you are reading this)

Ok so I have 30 minutes to try to fit in as much information to everyone as I can, so excuse me if it is scrabbled.  I also unfortunately don't have any of the pictures we have taken here as of yet, sorry.

First of all let me take the time to thank, Michael Brady, my former boss at Allianz.  We got a great article on joining the peacecorps in the Hannon Security Newsletter thanks to him, so thanks again Michael.

Ok so on to Fiji, it has been great here so far, at least relatively speaking.  We landed on Thursday( Wednesday doesn't exsist for us)  from there we took a trip down the southern coast of Fiji by boat to a Christian children's center right on the ocean where we did our water safety courses.  For all the people that said Fiji weather is beautiful you were right (I never was really doubted you).  For the people who thought we should watch out for poisonous snakes, well their are not any to speak of in fact nothing on land here is poisonous.  Now in the water that is another kit and kaboddle.  From there on Friday we drove to Nadave.  We stayed there until Monday as one big group, which I forgot mention consisted of 35 people and only one other married couple besides Alyssa and myself.  While we were there we began to learn Fijian and everything about the culture we needed to know.  Let me tell you there are alot and most of them having to do with kava or krog or yoqouna (They are all the same thing, thats right three words).  Fijians tend to think of krog kind of like we think of alcohol except it has huge cultural signifcance here.  All though alcohol I suppose alcohol has a huge cultural significance in America except for completely different reasons.  I also can speak some basic Fijian:

Yandra, O iko moce vinaka? (Morning, Did you sleep well?)
Io, vinaka (Yes, thank you)

I know, I know, I am well on my way to being a fluent speaker.  Anyway I am running out of time they're are many more things I want to talk about but don't have the time.  I suppose I could write these on my computer and just copy and paste, my host family has electricity and running water, not in the capacity though that we as Americans think of though, that is for another time though.

I hope everyone is doing well, I just checked ESPN and its crazy that the Twins are playing the Yankees live yesterday there, while it is almost 2:00 pm here.