Happy Boxing Day!

Ok, well actually Happy New Year's and Merry Christmas but in all the British Commonwealths they also celebrate Boxing Day on the 26th of December.  What and why is Boxing Day a holiday?  Presently it's a day basically for banks and stores to get an extra day off and for people to go shopping much like our day after Thanksgiving in the U.S., but before it was a day where the wealthy would give a box of goods (clothing or other such items) to their servants or those people in need.  Why do you need to know all this?  You don't but I just wanted to know myself so I figured I would share.
 Things in the village continue to go as normal we had a wonderful Thanksgiving, getting to meet up with all the volunteers in Savusavu for a couple nights.

(from left to right: Me, Monica, Bubba, David, Greta, and Milli) Hanging out on the porch at Daku Resort near Savusavu for Thanksgiving.

  Alyssa conducted a Young Women's Empowerment Day (I think that was the title), that went really well.  It basically gave the girls in our village ages 14-25 a chance to get together and have a day for themselves.  Alyssa taught them about exercise and ways to they can workout in the village, tips on healthy cooking, I conducted a short class on money management, and then they all got a chance to make their own bracelets and play volleyball.  They all seemed to have a really good time and Alyssa did a great job planning and running the day pretty much on her own.

Alyssa leading the group exercise in the community hall.

Eating lunch at our house.  On the menu; dahl with rice and juice

Manasa and Myself helping run the financial management training in the hall

I finished writing a business plan for the fish/prawn pond that the village wants near the school that is on their land.  Some of you may know that I had been working on it quite a bit when Alyssa and I first got to site but do to logistical problems and lack of motivation, the project never really went anywhere.  Well I decided to write a business plan for something tangible that shows I actually did spend quite a bit of my time here working on it.  The picture below gives an idea of what the fish pond would look like and the size.  It is a integrated pond, meaning it would use duck manure to create plankton growth in the pond to feed the fish.  I am planning to give a copy to the Ministry of Fisheries and Natuvu village and maybe someday something will come out of it but if not like I said I at least have something to show for the work.

As for our Christmas and New Year's we got the chance or maybe we created the chance to go to New Zealand.  It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen and had a great time there.  We spent 12 nights there all together spending 10 nights on the southern island and the our final two nights at the capitol of Wellington.

Canterbury Museum in Christchurch

Franz Josef Glacier

Queenstown; view from our Gandola Trip

Our Kayaking Trip in Milford Sound

Mirror Lake in Fjordland National Park

Finally once we returned form there we headed to Funky Fish Resort for New Year's on Malolo island to spend it with some of the Peace Corps Volunteers

New Year's Night

P.S. Alyssa hates it when you place snakes on her shoulder!

Back Home Again

The Fiji vacation with my parents has come and gone but it was a fantastic time!  We went on a zipline (my mom had the best time!), visited a few park reserves/historic sites, went to the Fiji museum and visited a village composed entirely of traditional Fijian thatched houses.  For meals, we ate good pizza/lasagna, Indian and food from the grocery store/market.  After about a week away from home, we all headed back to the village for a few days.  My parents and I had a special program for the kids in the village.  The kids got to learn how to make easy American foods (like Mac-n-Cheese) and then eat the food (my mom brought some stuff along on the trip for this purpose).  On Sunday, we all went to church (in Fijian), I bought my parents traditional cloths to wear, my dad and Matt drank yaqona (kava) and my friends brought us over a nice breakfast (Fijian pie and pudding cake) and lunch (fresh fish, dalo, cooked greens and chicken from the village).  We spent a couple of days in Savusavu and my parents agreed with us that its the prettiest town in Fiji. :)  It's been raining really heavily the past few days, but we were fortunate to have beautiful weather while they were here. Bye for now! 

Visit From Minnesota!

Matt and I are preparing for my parents to arrive this Saturday- yeah!  We are going to take a ferry boat down to the main island (it leaves at 7 pm and arrives at 5 am) and then take a bus to meet them from there (a 4 hour ride).  It will take a lot longer to arrive but will cost us about 1/6 the price!  Plus, we'll get a couple of days just to hang out in the city (there's only one ferry boat this week, so we have to go early).

Last week, I was gone from Monday to Saturday at a woman's skill building workshop in a nearby village.  I wasn't expecting to teach anything but at the last minute I ended up teaching knitting and how to make virgin coconut oil (or as everyone here calls it- virgin oil).  Also, I ended up giving a lesson on healthy eating and led a fitness walk.  In Fiji, 82% of deaths are caused by non-communicable diseases and there is a huge problem with obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc (just like in America).  Maybe it was a bit morbid, but I had all the participants close there eyes and picture 10 loved ones.  Then I had them choose 8 of those people.  Next, I informed them that they all had died.  Kind of mean, huh?!

Matt is still the gardening champion.  He goes up to the school 1 or 2 days per week and teaches the kids about vegetable gardening and taking care of the environment.  Also, his garden in the village is producing TONS of vegetables right now.  There's two types of cabbage, beans, peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers.  On top of that, people from the village have been giving us bananas (which Matt often goes with to pick), papayas, dalo, fish and vivili (the inside of sea shells!), so we've had lots of local foods lately.

In other news, Matt and I have been trying to start teaching people around here how to use computers.  Matt will start teaching the older children (middle school age) at our house after my parents leave.  I have started to teach two of my friends how to use the computers in town.  I showed them how to use the internet one day and one of them how to type another day.  Obviously, they will need more than two lessons but its a start!

Matt and I are really looking forward to my parents visit.  We will spend a week on the main island and I intend to pretend that I am a tourist (wearing shorts, not talking about Peace Corps, using hot showers)- LOL!  We will then fly back up to Vanua Levu and spend about a week in the village/Savusavu.  We have a special kids club planned with my parents where the kids will make American snacks and then we'll have a little party at the end where they get to eat what they've made.  Also, my good friends will be making my parents meals on Sunday, so they'll get to have Fijian pie, fish, coconut milk, dalo, Fijian greens (bele, roro) and 'village' chicken (ie one of the chickens from Natuvu).

There are other things going on but those are the interesting ones.  So long for now and many happy wishes to our friends and family back in America- especially those just getting married and having babies!  Bye bye!!!

Matt's Birthday

Matt just had his birthday last weekend and a gang of volunteers from 'the north' got together to celebrate.  We stayed at a campground outside of Savusavu and it was a great time!  The owner of the campground only charged around $15 per person per night and she cooked us a really nice steak dinner our first night there!  We also walked over to a nearby resort and used their pool (for free- we just bought some snacks at the restaurant to make up for it).  Enjoy the few pictures that I put up!  Bye for now!

It's been a while...

Greetings!  (Alyssa writing here)

I just realized that our last post was 1.5 months ago.  Oops!  Well, a brief overview of what we've been up to:

-We went to Nadi for our Mid Service Training (MST) in August.  That means we're over half done!  In Nadi, we ate really good pizza at "Mama's Pizza" and I had good Indian food at "Sitar."
-After Nadi, I went over to Suva for a few days.  I marched in the Hibiscus Festival Parade (for the Peace Corps float) and then headed to a workshop on health promotion in the schools.  The assistant head teacher from our local school attended with me.
-Matt spent a few days in Suva prior to MST, because he hadn't yet done his mandatory mid-year doctors visit.  So, he got lucky and was able to hang around the city for a few days.
-Matt's garden is growing again and we have a bunch of green beans.
-Our village is SUPER QUIET (and extra boring) because a lot of young men are gone cutting sugar cane.
-Last month, I help organize a village clean up day and it was a success.  I put up a few pictures below.
-Our anniversary and b-days are all coming up in the next couple of months and my parents are visiting at the end of October- yeah!

Sending my love to America (loloma),
Alyssa

Putting rubbish in the pit.

Cutting the grass the usual way (no really!).

Sweet gloves!

Prizes for the winners.

Hello Again

  Well after a long hiatus and a trip to America and back I finally decided I should post on this blog again.  My last time I think was in January so I am a little over due.  Since coming back from America, which was a great trip getting to see everyone and be back for three weeks, we are starting to fall back into our old schedules.  Once I got use to taking cold showers again it was like I never left, which by the way are not at all enjoyable in the winter season here in Fiji.
  There is actually quite a bit coming up for both us both personally and professionally.  At the end of August we meet up with our fellow 2010 volunteers that we came into the country with and have our mid-service training or MST, Alyssa is working with the Health Committee on doing a Village Clean Up/Waste Management Education Day, and I am working with the school to do an Environment Club sleepover.  All those hopefully will go well and should be fun.
  This past week though I got the chance to work with the Ministry of Fisheries and some members from my village to help setup an Marine Protected Area booth for the Savusavu carnival/show (they just called it a show but it is more equivalent to a county fair back home).  This consisted of us going out the day before and collecting samples of marine invertebrates and then the fisheries bringing them in to town.  They put them in tanks and the next day I came into town and got to hang out, talk to the kids and let them touch some of the creatures we brought.  I will put a bunch of pictures below sorry for cheap underwater case I use(that's what causes the ring in the pictures) but I figured why spend $200 when I can spend $25.  Overall it was a great chance to promote Marine Protected Areas there benefit but  also just to let all the kids get a chance to see all the cool Marine life.

Us departing off for our search from Natuvu

One of the divers trying to pull out a moray eel.  It actually ended up biting him and they killed it in the end but they ate it so it did not go to waste.

A triton, which is a large sea snail.  These are actually very hard to find and they eat Crown-of-Thorns starfish which are responsible for killing coral reef.

Manasa diving down trying to catch a fish

Giant Sea Clam

Baby Sea Turtle

The Fisheries Display at the "Show"

Me describing to the kids what a sea snail is and having them identify it on the poster behind me.

Well that is it from here, I hopefully won't take as long to post again.

Back to Our Fiji Home

Matt and I made it back to Fiji one week ago today.  Our trip home was really nice- the best part was meeting our nephew, Reece (1 year old), and our niece, Elsie (2 weeks old)!  Other lovely parts:  eating America food (particularly grilled meat, pasta and baked goods), not having to hand wash cloths (that's mine), watching baseball, driving (which was scary the first time) and of course just visiting our family and some friends!!!!

Since we got back, we've just been getting the garden back in order, cleaning the house (the sand from the beach blew inside a whole bunch) and trying to get back into the swing of old projects.  Also, Matt and I are working hard to eat healthier and we've been running together, too.  Most of you know that I'm now a flake about this kind of stuff, so it's nice to be back into a routine.

Today, Matt and I took the bus up to Labasa.  The new group of volunteers are here now, so my group is throwing them a 'Welcome to the North' BBQ.  Should be a good time!

That's all I know for now.  I am really looking forward to this year- my parents are coming, there are two Peace Corps conferences where I'll get to see old friends and I have established friends and work partners from last year.  Moce!