PARTY TIME AT HILTON

Friday last week was an extremely special day at Hilton Special School. Mr Hilton, who the school was founded by and named after, had his birthday. He turned the ripe age of 90. Apparently he still works next to the school's hostel down the road and is heavily involved with the school commitee.

While I was sick in bed last week, the whole school was busy preparing for the birthday bash. Dances were choreographed, multitudes of cakes were made, decorations were prepared and invitations were sent to all those who are connected with the school.

We arrived at school and it was already buzzing by 8am. Everyone was dressed to the nines. In Fiji, shirts, dresses and skirts made from "bula" fabric (bright floral prints) is completely acceptable. In fact, Friday is "Bula Friday" whereby everyone wears a brightly printed top/sulu/jaba/shirt/combo around town or to work. Knowing that I had no "Bula" outfit that I was comfortable wearing, I chopped the dress I'd bought when I first arrived into a top and used the bottom half to make a matching headband. When I wore it as a dress, the print was so overwhelming that it was as if one of the printed leaves on the fabric was actually going to eat me.



We sat through the formal speeches to thank Mr Hilton and pay respect to the wonderful work that he has done for special education in Fiji. The children performed a traditional dance and the entire school and birthday guests sang one of the best "Happy Birthday" songs I've ever heard. Well, being in Fiji, everything that is sung is sung beautifully and in some form of two to four-part harmony.



Then morning tea was served. Unfortunately, I missed out on morning tea and was instead trying to console a crying student. She had been pushed off the gigantic jumping castle that had been erected in the middle of the school grounds. I thought I'd cheer her up by painting a butterfly on her face with some facepaint that the deputy head teacher had given me.

So of course, word had spread that I was painting someone's face. I think the sound of a bottle of paint being opened must ripple through the school faster than a wildfire. Either that or the frequency of a facepaint bottle being opened can only be heard by children who know how to pinpoint the exact location of said facepaint bottle. I wouldn't be suprised if they could recognise the colour from the next room. Before I knew it, I had a swarm of children pushing and shoving around me to be the next to have their face painted. All of them were yelling "me next, me next, me next!!!"



I called for reinforcements: the gap volunteers and Lauren came running to my aid. I spent the next 3 hours madly painting countless numbers of faces: flowers, hearts, butterflies, the New Zealand fern rugby logo thing, spider webs, more flowers and the list went on. The children at the school have little concept of taking turns or staying in a line. In about 30 minutes, the classroom was crowded with pushing, shoving children who gave us no personal space. A tired and exasperated Lauren acted as crowd control and had to teach the children how to wait in line.

I missed all the extra formalities as I was confined to the facepainting classroom. I did manage to squeeze in a proper introduction to Mr Hilton. My impression formed from a short conversation with him made me believe that he's a 40 year old brain in a 90 year old man's frail body. He shook my hand with much gratitude which was also accompanied by a kiss on the cheek. I feel honoured.



The deputy head teacher had seen how we had been face painting non-stop for about 3 hours and demanded that we stop once the bell had rung. Of course, the children kept coming in for more. I finished up with an empty stomach and completely exhausted. Lauren and I excused ourselves from school. As soon as we entered the door on Ruve Street, we both waved at each other, flopped onto our beds and snoozed like we hadn't slept for days.



Click to enlarge the article from the Fiji Times:

BACK FROM THE DEAD

Warning: this post is only mildly censored.

I think I'm coming back to life again. I'm not entirely sure what I've done the past 2-3 days, but it's all been a bit of a blur.

My housemates think that it might've started with the night sweats last week. Close your eyes if you don't like pictures of sweaty tops, but this is how much I sweated:



For those of you who know me, you'll know that I don't sweat all that much to warrant the above photo. There are no camera tricks, that is what I found when I woke up the other night.

The next two days I was tired, but okay. Saturday night came and went and on Sunday morning, I felt dreadful. I spent about 30% of the day curled up in the foetal position in bed, 30% groaning in the foetal position and 30% in the vale lailai (Fijian for toilet). The rest of the time I was somewhere in between my room and the toilet. I did manage to muster up enough "wellness" to skype my Mother dearest for about 30 minutes, which afterwards I curled up in the foetal position again and kept groaning. I think that was enough to trick her, but now she's going to read this and know that I wasn't well.

At one point, Luke was in the bathroom shaving and I desperately needed to purge. Unfortunately, it was while he was standing at the basin that he reckons I emptied my whole body weight in fluid into the toilet.

I also managed to rack up a temperature of 38.2 and my heart rate hit about 90 when usually it floats around 66...I think things were rather hazy at that point in time. Nothing I ate would stay down and even water wouldn't find peace with my stomach.

Thank goodness for caring housemates and an amazing medical kit provided by my volunteer organisation. Cheers, to the people who discovered lopremide, gastrolyte and stemetil. My housemates did threaten to take me to hospital if I wasn't well by today, but so far, I feel brilliant. Tired, anorexic and dangerously thin, but brilliant. My housemates even bought me a brownie in the hope that it would make me feel better. The brownie is yet to be eaten, but the gesture of kindness goes a long way.

Looks like it's back to school again tomorrow.

BEQA ISLAND

I’ve been starting to feel overwhelmingly anxious. The task at school is mounting and I need to think about knitting things to sell at the school bazaar in October. The school bazaar will be held in October to raise money for the Sigatoka games (a national inter-school sporting event/extravaganza). I’m also way behind in organising the Cross Island Walk for the Fiji Day long weekend. On top of all of this, I’ve managed to get into heated discussions with old friends that have stressed me out so much that I’m losing sleep and breaking out into night sweats over it.

Thank heavens for our head teacher who knows how to seize an opportunity. Today was the monthly meeting for all the head teachers of schools in the Suva district. They aim to hold it at different schools each month. This month, the meeting would be held on Beqa Island. Beqa Island is a small Island to the south of a town called Navua which is west of Suva:



To reach Beqa Island, we woke at 5:30am, caught a taxi with our head teacher to the Teacher’s Association where all the head teachers were congregating, took a 40 minute bus ride to Navua, followed by at 40 minute boat ride to a village on the south of Beqa Island. In between all of this, we had our token Fiji-time waiting periods of about 80 minutes in total. We reached Beqa Island by about 10:00am.

The boat trip to Beqa Island provided us with some spectacular views. As the boat exited the mouth of Navua river, we could see the small but mountainous land of Beqa Island. As we drew nearer, Beqa Island’s peaks slowly grew until they towered over our boat. We passed over reefs that were blanketed by sapphire blue waters which Lauren and I couldn’t help but deliberate over which Derwent colour we should use to describe the glistening sea. We mulled over cobolt blue, kingfisher blue, ultramarine, Prussian blue…the list went on. Beqa Island’s coastline is bordered by steep cliffs which are bursting with tropical plant life. There was the occasional assortment of palm trees sticking out like fly-away hairs on a bad hair day amongst rocky outcrops of stone cliff face.



We arrived on the south of Beqa Island where the sleepy Dakuni Village exists – the largest one on the island. The faint sound of women’s voices singing hymns greeted us as we stepped off the boat into the warm waters on the village shore.



Village women cleaning fish:


We were ushered through a tangle of stone houses, dodging the array of animal life scampering around at our feet. Curious dogs sniffing at our sulus (sulu is a Fijian sarong), chickens and roosters scattering themselves away from us as we step through their feeding area. We also saw domesticated cats which had flopped onto the shaded grassy patch next to the village houses. I haven’t seen any domesticated cats in Suva, so of course, I was snap happy:





We changed into our formal sulu and jabas (pronounced “chumba”, a tunic-like top worn on top of a sulu) and proceeded to the community hall where formal proceedings were commencing. We all sauntered into the community hall where kava was being served and the sevusevu commenced (a sevusevu is a village formality where guests are officially greeted, God is acknowledged through prayer and song and gifts are presented to the village leaders). Following this, an enormous spread of cassava-based sweets were provided for morning tea. There was cassava cake with pumpkin, cassava cake with coconut, cassava cake with sweet potato, cassava cake with sugar, cassava cake with even more cassava, and pancakes.



Au sa gunu!


The teachers then met for their official meeting and the other volunteers and I decided to explore the village and take a stroll along the shore. Women were in the water cleaning fresh fish which had recently been caught. We played peek-a-boo with the intensely gorgeous village children and I taught them hand-clapping games that I used to play back in primary school.

We re-entered the community hall and there was a row of ladies performing a seated traditional dance to traditional music. If you’re from a different village, it is custom to “tease” the ladies who are performing a dance by either stuffing money into their clothes (but not like the way Westerners would do at a gentleman’s club), put white paint on their faces or even do a silly dance of their own in front of them.



Lunch had an equally impressive spread of food with fish cooked about five different ways, “roro” which is this amazing Fijian food that has coconut and some other accompaniment wrapped up in leaves (I think I need to google the exact details..either way it tastes amazing), shell fish soaked in more coconut milk, fish soaked in coconut milk and lime juice (almost “kokoda” but not quite) and more boiled cassava.

Following lunch, we witnessed Beqa Island’s most famous pastime: fire walking. Fire walking involves:

Heating a pile of stones…



Spreading the stones out into a flat pile with massive sticks (apparently yelling really loudly at the stones make them move easier)…


And then, walking across the ridiculously hot stones…


The stones are so hot that you can light a cigarette from them.

This concluded the day’s proceedings and it was finally time to go home. I chose to ride on the roof of the boat on the way back home. We waved the villagers goodbye and they sang a goodbye song to us as we departed on our boats back to Navua.



Spontaneous Fijian four-part harmony, I have found, is one extremely quick way to soothe the soul. I was sitting on the top of the boat with saltwater spray flicking across my face and the wind running its harsh fingers through my hair to ruffle it up. One of the other volunteers sitting on top of the boat with me spotted the sleek bodies of dolphins skipping across the water’s surface beside our boat. A brief moment of excitement inspired me to bang on the compartment below to point the dolphins out to everyone else. Finally, once the novelty of the dolphins had passed, I closed my eyes, breathed in the ocean air, licked the saltwater off my lips and exhaled a breath of relief: everything’s not so bad anymore.

THE SUBSTITUTE TEACHERS

And this is an extra long one…

Today was Tuesday. Of course it was Tuesday. Just like any other Tuesday at school. Today I chose to take the bus to school rather than walk. The reason for this was because I had to return the school printer. Unfortunately, we discovered that this printer would only print in red, print on an angle, feed two pieces of paper at the same time and chew up the paper. It usually takes an extra 5 minutes to walk to school than to catch the bus, but when faced with carrying large cumbersome objects to school, buses are a more appealing option.

I boarded the crowded bus and was trying to figure out the best way to fit myself and a printer in the aisle of the bus. A complete stranger tapped me on the shoulder and motioned for me to give her the printer to put on her lap. In Fiji, this also happens with small children. If the bus is full, big bulky items, children included, will sit willingly on the laps of complete strangers. So I stood in the aisle with my bag on my shoulder and the school printer sitting on a random Fijian lady’s lap.

In Fiji, people are also accustomed to giving vague responses. I asked the lady:

“Where are you getting off?”, suggesting that I didn’t want to burden her with carrying my printer past her preferred stop. The lady replied with classic Fijian vagueness:

“Oh, somewhere there. Where you get off?”

Me with direct Australianness: “CWM hospital”

Woman carrying my printer: “Ah. Is OK.”

And so we arrived at school, I retrieved my printer with a very sweet “Vinaka” and hopped off the bus, being very careful not to fall off the meter-high steps.

Lauren and I walked down the steep driveway towards the school and found that all the senior students were boarding a bus for an excursion and the junior children were putting their best efforts into cleaning the school. This included a cheeky poke on my bottom with a sasa (coconut broom) from one of the students.

We also discovered that the teacher for class 1 was away sick today. Normally, when a teacher is sick, either a prefect or head student will supervise the class who are to continue working in their workbooks. Either that, or they will join another class. Class 1 is probably one of the most difficult classes in the school. The children’s’ disabilities include (and broadly speaking) mild hemiplegias, limb deformities, intellectual impairments, communication impairments and developmental delay. Not only that, but most of the children have limited socially appropriate interaction skills. So this means that there is a classroom of children who do not sit when they are told to sit, pinch and punch if their neighbour has annoyed them, leave the classroom without asking or will do a completely different task to what they’re told if they don’t feel like doing it.

What on earth were Lauren and I thinking when we enthusiastically offered to take the class for the day???

Lauren and I were keen to observe this class from a teacher’s perspective. We have both assessed the students from a Speech Pathology and Physio/OT point of view. We’ve found gaps everywhere: in their language, communication, visual perception, comprehension, coordination, letter formation, sequential organisation, and the list goes on. So where on earth were we going to start?

Every class in Fiji starts with a devotion and prayer. Easy - delegate the job to the head girl who probably goes to church every Sunday, unlike my own agnostic self.

Next: we sing more songs. Lauren makes up a “Hello” song on the spot which we take in turns to sing to each of the students. Lauren also reiterates sequence words. For example: “who did we sing the “Hello” song to FIRST? And who was the LAST person to enter the classroom?” The children struggle with this concept but some of them catch onto the idea.

Lauren then asks the children to recite the nursery rhymes that they have been singing in class. She draws a pictorial representation on the board and asks the children to help her. One of the children yells out: “Humpty Dumpty!” To which Lauren responds: “Excellent – and WHAT is Humpty Dumpty?” The children respond: “IS A BALL! IS A BALL!” Lauren continues, “Humpty Dumpty is an EGG!” Somehow, something has been lost in translation.

We then ask one child at a time to come to the front of the class and help lead the class in singing the nursery rhyme. We choose a child who appears to be bursting with confidence. However, as he creeps to the front of the room, the child who was previously yelling so obnoxiously at us from his chair has been overcome by shyness as he stands in front of the class. His voice is reduced to a whisper as he recites “Humpty Dumpty” as he fiddles nervously with his school shirt. Apparently, it is a new experience to be speaking in front of the class to their peers.

Next, it is time for a story. Normally, a story is written on a long piece of butcher’s paper. The illustrations do not accompany the story and the students usually parrot back the lines of the story after the teacher has read it. Lauren and I cannot help ourselves, but to bring back our old memories of sitting around our grade 1 teacher on the floor as they read us a story. The classroom does not have an area for sitting on the ground, so we get all of the students to move the desks aside to clear some space to sit on the floor.

Then, it is my turn to read them the rainbow story. Nine pairs of eager eyes stare back at me as I flip over the first page of my giant reading book. A gasp of excitement ripples through the classroom as the lay their eyes on the vivid colours of the storybook. Everyone Is sitting still, no one is moving (except Tee who constantly gets up against our firm direction), there is no punching or hitting and I know that somehow, we have managed to capture their attention. It’s as if they’ve never seen a picture book before. With Lauren whispering guidance at me from the back of the group, I read them the rainbow story and ask them questions about the story: “What colour is she using? What was the last colour she used? What is she doing with her trolley – is she PUSHING it, or PULLING it?” Some of the students answer my questions correctly. Others struggle, but they keep on persisting.

Next, we sing the rainbow song and me being my Physio self, can’t help but put big arm actions to the words of the song. “Make a BIG arc with your arm, just like a rainbow!” A sea of arms raised up in the air appears before me.

Worksheets are next. Lauren and I had madly drawn up a massive outline of the letter “m” and some lines for them to practice writing the letter “m” on during recess. Lauren helps student Jay to write the letter “m”. He apprehensively moves away from the security of following the dotted "m" and writes his own “m” along the line. He is so excited and chuffed that he’s done the right thing and beams at Lauren. The class continues and they are each rewarded with a sticker of their choice which, of course, sends excitement through the room.

Lunch time comes and goes and it’s time to play more games. We try to explain to them “heads down, thumbs up”. Lauren and I set up the children with their heads on the desk and their thumbs sticking up in the air. Lauren goes around to put a select number of student's thumbs down. The children don’t quite understand the concept as they all raise their hand when Lauren asks: “Who felt me put down their thumb?”. Lauren had only chosen 4 students.

We try “Simon Says”. That doesn’t go so well either. However, they all are thrilled with the funny actions that Lauren and I are asking them to perform. They want to play it again, but Lauren and I decide to abort and play a simpler game: Dead Fish.

We get the children to lie on the ground. Still as a dead fish! The aim of the game is to lie very still without moving. If you move, then you are out. But of course, some of them are still wriggling and don’t quite understand the concept. Some of them are lying as still as can be. Lauren and I are finally getting somewhere with the concepts of rules and games.

Then, the last activity for the day: FRUIT SALAD. They didn’t understand “Simon Says”, “Heads Down, Thumbs Up” was a disaster and we gained partial understanding for “Dead Fish”.

And here’s how fruit salad went:

I asked all the children to pair up with a partner. They needed help to do that, but we got there with some assistance. I asked the children to sit on the ground opposite their partner with their legs out straight. Some children needed reminding through the whole game, but they soon go the picture when they got stepped on. Each pair was labelled as a fruit – tropical fruit, of course! Papaya, mango, banana, pineapple and apple. After explaining to the children the concept of the game, we played the first round. Lauren yells out: “BANANA!”. The children who were given the label of banana smile blankly at Lauren. Lauren yells and stares directly at them again: “BANANA!!!!!” The children still smile blankly back at Lauren. Finally, after Lauren stands them up and walks them over the children’s legs, around the back of the children and back to their places, the idea starts to catch on.

“PAPAYA!!!!” Fortunately, I was playing and I was a papaya. I stand up quickly and ask little Nathan to stand up with me. He squeals at me: “I beat you, I beat you!!!!” FINALLY, the concept is really starting to catch on. I jump over the children’s legs with Nathan and run around the back and over the children’s legs again. Nathan quickly sits down before I do and yells out with delight: “See, I BEAT YOU I BEAT YOU!!!”.

“MANGO!!!!!” Students G and M leap up and run around the students and over their legs. G has one functional leg and with the most precise and agile movement, hops over each pair of legs that is in her path and proudly sits on the ground before M has reached the finish.

The game goes on and even the parents who are sitting in the yard start to cheer on the children as they take it in turns to run over their classmate’s legs. There is so much laughter and yelling that even the head teacher has come out to see what the commotion is all about.

Then the bell rings and it is time for sport. Class time has finished and I’m surprised that the children have enough energy left over for sport training for the upcoming Sigatoka games. I am pooped and so is Lauren.

We’re really hoping that the class 1 teacher has recovered from her illness by tomorrow…

DRAMA AT HILTON

The school was broken into on the weekend. The head teacher's office was targeted and valuable electronic equipments, vital to the school's functioning, were stolen. In times of desperation, people resort to desperate measures...but to steal from a special school? One that is visibly under-resourced and can hardly provide for its own students? What compels a person to perform such a deplorable act?

I hope for the school's sake that this doesn't happen again.

WITHOUT AN OVEN

It is now a clear fact that Ruve St rocks without an oven. Bamboo steamers are the bomb, unless they become a bomb if you let your wok burn dry and the steamer happens to catch fire. That hasn't happened, but we smelt something burning this evening.

Anyway, I told you about the banana leaves I carried around town in a previous post. I have done some amazing things with my banana leaf. I haven't made a raft or turned it into a knittable banana leaf yarn, but it has flavoured the nourishment for the energy I need to carry other random objects around Suva.

Last night, I made Kuih Koci! The recipe was from Poh's Kitchen (bless her socks) and it tasted like a pyramid of Fiji-made-Malaysian heaven. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any fresh pandan leaves to add to the flavour. I received weird looks at school when I asked where I could buy fresh ones for cooking. In Fiji, they only use dried pandan leaves for mat weaving here.



The great thing about them is that they looked pretty ugly and untidy when I wrapped them up. However, once steamed, they had expanded into their banana leaf parcels and this was the result:



Tonight's dinner was also a piece of awesome. I had chicken marinated in coconut milk with fresh pineapple, dried basil wrapped in a Banana leaf:



Now, it also had this smokey flavour to it which might explain the burn marks around the base of our bamboo steamer. I think something must have caught fire at some stage, but the flavour it produced was AMAZING!

Recent Events

Apologies for the week-long neglected blog. Mum, you must be getting edgy that I have not posted for a whole week! Suva has been rainy, windy and sporadically sunny.

School holidays have been and gone. Not much has happened. I got completely and utterly bored towards the end of the holidays and resorted to knitting a bra. Yes, I am knitting a bra. More to come about the bra in a later blog post.

Sunday, which was Father's day (which is observed in Fiji), was rather eventful. It panned out like this:

Woke up early as I normally do to walk 40 minutes to the pool, with the arrival time of 8:30. I swam somewhere between 500 and 600 meters and it started raining on me while I was in the pool. The feeling of cool droplets on your face as you're doing backstroke down the pool makes you feel like you've got pins and needles on your face.

I finished at the pool and walked to the bus stop. On the way, there were Indo-Fijian boys selling Mangoes:

"You buy mangoes? Sweet mangoes! Sweet like you madam..." was yelled at me from across the street. I responded by rolling my eyes so far into the back of my head that I wasn't sure if they'd come back again. I proceeded to buy tomatoes from another street seller who tried to convince me that I should pay more because it was Father's day.

I waited at the bus stop madly trying to repair the broken zip on my bag, and then gave up when the bus arrived. As soon as I sat down, another man came from behind me, sat himself beside me and draped his arm over the back of my seat. He was sitting a bit too close. He edged towards me and I froze. I had no idea what to do. I saw that he had a razor in his hand, and he was also talking to himself. I didn't quite catch what he was saying, partly because my anxiety levels were rising and partly because he was speaking nonsense to no one in particular. At this stage, my heart was beating faster than it had been while I was swimming laps in the pool.

I looked around desperately for support. Everyone was looking away and this guy noticed that I was giving imploring looks to the people around me. He edged closer. I squashed myself up against the window as close as I could to get away from him.

Thankfully, we passed a police station. Not wanting to draw attention to myself, I raised my eyebrows at the policeman standing at the front of the station.

Raising your eyebrows at someone in Fiji has a multitude of meanings:
"Yes",
"What do you want?",
"Can I speak to you?",
"I've acknowledged that you've said something but I don't know how to respond to your question",
"Maybe",
"I want your attention!!!"

Or in my case, raising my eyebrows meant:

"Please policeman, can you get this man next to me off the bus because he is really scaring me!!!!"

Apparently it worked, because the bus stopped, the policeman came up to the bus and yelled at the man sitting next to me. When the man did not move, the policeman boarded the bus and escorted him off.

Phew. Amanda is saved again for another day.

Other than that, the rest of the day turned out beautifully. I went to Yum Cha at Restaurant 88 at the back of the main foodcourt in the central shopping complex. I met the Rucksack club which is a club that organises cultural and outdoor activities for anyone living in Fiji. Yum Cha was fantastic and genuine, as opposed to the normal "Chinese" food you find in Suva: chopped bok choi and carrot drowning in soy sauce and MSG.

I've also managed to rope myself into organising the Cross Island Walk. This is a walk that starts from the North of the Viti Levu island through the centre of Viti Levu and back to Suva in the south.

But anyway, that is enough from me for now. More to come on knitted bras, kuih, school and planning the cross island walk...

P.S. Happy Birthday, Ben!