WALKING ACROSS FIJI - 2

And so we arrived at Nagatagata...

The children from the village crowded around our bus to help us take our bags and gear into the village. As soon as we had arrived, it had started to rain. In Fiji, it commonly rains while the sun is shining. They call this "The Monkey's Birthday". The sun shone through the rain as the monkey celebrated its birthday.

We all donned our sulus and entered the village. When entering a Fijian village, it is a must for women to wear a sulu (kind of like a sarong). If you show any inner thigh, even if its covered by pants, it is considered "tabu". The children showed us to the community hall where we stretched our legs after the 8 hour bus ride.

The children at Nagatagata village were absolutely adorable. It's a strange dynamic in the village where there are children that are primary school aged, then a large generation gap, and then adults aged about 30 and above. It's as if there's an entire generation missing from the village. The missing generation were either in another village where the area's high school was or somewhere in the main towns studying and/or attending university. Either way, I couldn't resist getting to know the village children by playing games with them.




Larissa, one of our fellow Aussie volunteers had brought with her balloons for the children to play with. They were so incredibly excited by the balloons. Soon, there were balloons flying everywhere in all directions and laughter flooding into the room just as the afternoon sun began peeping through the windows.

Here's evidence of the monkey's birthday:



We then asked the children to show us their school. The sun was rapidly setting and the children walked us to their school in the dying light. Their school was impressively large for an isolated village. There were also small houses scattered at the front of the school where the teachers resided. I believe that teachers here in Fiji are assigned schools to teach at. I believe that they don't get much say in the matter and are sent wherever the ministry has told them to go. So to accommodate them, the teachers stay on the school premises throughout the duration of the school term.



We then returned back to Nagatagata village where the sevusevu had already started. The sevusevu is a ceremony to welcome guests and officially ask permission from the turaga ni koro (chief) to stay in his village. Here, they prepare yaqona (kava) ceremoniously and present it to all of the guests who have requested to stay in the village. The electricity to the village had been cut out for the night, so we all sat in a darkened room with a couple of kerosene lamps scattered about the room. This made for an intimate and somewhat eerie ceremony where the village chief thanked us in whispers that flickered with the light against the wall.

After this, we sat down to scrumptious dinner of cassava, fish, coconut-soaked spinach, eggplant cooked in coconut...the list goes on! Before retiring to sleep in the communal hall, I told scary stories to the children and played more balloon volleyball in the darkness.

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Dawn had arrived with the sounds of the rooster making his morning call. Mind you, the rooster had actually started at 4am. Apparently no one had informed this rooster of its role to crow at dawn rather than the matakalailai (small hours of the morning before the sun rises). We grogily peeled ourselves off the concrete floors and trudged outside to wash at the stand pipe. I went for a walk with some of the village children who wanted to show me their family's farm land from a higher vantage point. This was the view:





We were then treated to a scrumptious breakfast:



And while we were preparing to leave, some of the children had strung together leis of flowers for us to wear around our necks. Emily was given a crown made from dried pandanus leaves.



I thanked the village chief for being so kind to let us stay in his village. As I parted, he requested that I take a photo of him and his grandson:



And so we were off, the first part of walking through the centre of Fiji. The children from Nagatagata village started walking with us for some of the way. They appeared to have an endless amount of energy as they would run to the front of the walking group, and then dash back to myself at the back and request to borrow my camera to take more photos. After about an hour of walking, they decided to turn back and leave us to make our own way:





The 18 in my group walked across undulating terrain amongst the rolling hills that are scattered throughout the centre of Fiji:





We finally reached our lunch destination where the horses that had our packs from Nagatagata had caught up with us. We were told to wait here for about an hour as the next village was not quite ready to have us yet. Meanwhile, Melina, Emily and I decided to pass time by taking some silly photos:




We slowly made our way down towards the next village, Nubutautau. Here's the group, lazing about on the side of the road:



And looking down towards Nubutautau.



Nubutautau is a village that is almost right in the heart of Viti Levu (the main island of Fiji). It has a rich history whereby the Methodist Reverend Baker had trekked to this village from the south about 150 years ago. Unfortunately, he had managed to offend the turaga ni koro of the village and was henceforth struck with an axe and killed at Nubutautau (a bit more about that in a moment).

We arrived at Nubutautau where they were also hosting Methodist church leaders who had trekked to Nubutautau from the south, following the steps of Reverend Baker. It was for this reason that we were not greeted by a swarm of running children like Nagatagata village. Again, as we packed our things into the community hall, it began raining, yet again. Apparently there hadn't been any rain for three months prior to our arrival at each village.

Eventually the children in the village appeared and showed us the way to the river at the back of the village. The wash in the river was so incredibly refreshing. We were all glad to rinse off the dust that had stuck to our suncreamed skin and the additional dirt we had tried to rub into our skin when reapplying suncream.



Again, we were requested to partake in a sevusevu ceremony. Yaqona was prepared and our thanks were conveyed to the village. Following this, we were treated to yet another scrumptious dinner. Half of the hall that we were to be sleeping in was now occupied by Methodist church leaders drinking deeply from kava bowls.



Nubutautau also has a reputation for being the party village. People who have participated in the walk in the past report that the village LOVES dancing. Even as we were walking towards the village, we met a lady along the way who was very sad that she couldn't be at the village to dance with us as she had to stay with her sick husband. Despite feeling like our legs were about to fall off, we were all expected to dance the night away. My fellow hikers were sprawled across the floor of the hall and were beginning to nod off to sleep. It was getting later and later and the village chief kept calling me over to make sure that my walkers would still be partaking in dancing that evening. I tried desperately to keep everyone somewhat alive in a bid to keep the village chief happy. After all, this village DID have a history of killing people who had offended the village chief.

Ten o'clock had come around and pretty much everyone was in the land of nod. I crept up to the village chief and asked if we were still required to dance. To our relief, the chief apologised and explained that the generator that powers the speakers were broken and that there would be no dancing that evening. At the sound of this news, everyone rapidly set up their beds and tucked themselves into their sleeping bags. However, within 10 minutes, the music had managed to finally start up. The children came in an dragged some of the walkers out from underneath their sleeping bags. Reluctantly, and zombie-like, some of us stood up for a token dance. I searched around the room to see if I could see the village chief but he too had retired for the night. I think the villagers got the idea eventually when we were all struggling to stay on our feet after a day's walking and turned off the music. Finally, we were able to tuck ourselves in properly and go to sleep.



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Morning again and we were woken by the voices of the Methodist Church leaders who were singing and walking around the village. They were visiting Reverend Baker's plaque to commemorate his death. After they returned, it was our turn to visit the plaque. The village chief spoke to us about the story of Reverend Baker who had come as a missionary to spread the word of God to the people of Viti Levu. As I mentioned before, Reverend Baker offended someone and the village chief ordered for him to be killed. They've still kept the axe that struck Reverend Baker:



Again it was breakfast:



And we were off yet again:
Then it was time to cross the Sigatoka river 21 times:



I managed to stay on my feet, but some people lost their footing and fell into the river. Thankfully it was a hot day as the river was an excellent source to cool our bodies down. The horses also followed us through the river.

After the final stretch of an uphill dirt road, we reached our destination village at Korolevu and boarded the carrier that would take us on a bumpy ride back to Sigatoka. Strangely enough and despite being at high risk of falling off my seat, I managed to fall asleep on the carrier back to Sigatoka.



I was dreading the meeting of our favourite bus driver. When we reached Sigatoka, the bus driver was waiting for us, despite my fear that he would try and rip us off and not show up at all. We boarded the bus and the front seat next to the driver remained empty. Of course, I was the last person to board the bus. We had also taken back with us a villager from Nubutautau who needed to visit the hospital in Suva. There were two seats left on the bus and I had a choice between sitting beside the sick and potentially contagious villager, or the bus driver. Naturally, I chose the sick villager. The bus driver turned around and invited me to sit next to him. As I was incredibly creeped out by this man, I insisted that I wanted to keep the sick village man company. The bus driver was insistent, but thankfully, one of the other walkers volunteered to sit next to him. What a creep.

We arrived back in Suva at 10pm. Everyone found it rather difficult to get off the bus. By this stage, our limbs had stiffened up with enough lactic acid to run the battery for the bus. As I shaked everyone's hand for a successful and safe trip, the bus driver also came up to me to shake my hand. Unfortunately, he also pulled me in to give me a peck on the cheek. It was like receiving a kiss from a toad. A toad with a really bad combover and yoyo for a temper.

Now we were back home, and after disinfecting my face and scrubbing my cheek until it was a raw red, I finally sat down with Melina and Emily. We all sighed together and despite being grateful to sleep on our own beds and not concrete floors, we agreed that it felt like we had been to an entirely different country and back again.

WALKING ACROSS FIJI

Apologies for the following:
- blog entries are becoming infrequent despite more and more happening
- the events in this entry occured about a month ago
- this blog entry has not been edited so I apologise about the errors
- this blog entry will be epic.

Before I came to Fiji, I had heard about a hike that goes through the centre of Viti Levu through villages that hardly ever see westerners. There's a group called the Fiji Rucksack Club that organises the "cross island walk" twice a year over long weekends. Of course, I had to join this club as I was very keen to embark on this journey.

I attended my first meeting and had enquired about when the next one was. Unfortunately, no one had stepped up to the role of organising the trip. Apparently it wasn't going to go ahead. I was terribly disappointed at this news. The other volunteers had already been in June and had raved about it. I wasn't going to wait until next June for it to happen again. Despite being incredibly apprehensive,
I took it upon myself to find out how I went about organising the walk. If I could help it, I was going to go on this walk and no one was going to stop me.

To cut a long story short, I suddenly found myself with the daunting task of organising a trip with complete strangers to places that I've never been, in a country that I had only been in for 2 months.

I had signed up 18 people from all corners of the world. We had our fellow Australian volunteers (and housemates Emily and Melina that I had convinced to come along for the trip), Australian expats, expats from the E.U., a couple of ladies from New Zealand, a USP student from Kenya, a Columbian lady, a local Indo-Fijian and a man from Egypt. The only representation we lacked was someone from Asia, but I suppose I was the obvious choice to fill that category.

Now, I've been a bit Fijian and have been vague on details about what the walk actually involves. As we know, there are two large islands in Fiji. The one that I currently reside on is "Viti Levu". It's shaped like a ovaloid blob and Suva is on the bottom right hand corner of the blob. The walk itinerary was as follows:

Day 1: driving around the island to the north end starting from a village called Nagatagata (pronounced "Nangatangata")

Day 2: walk to somewhere into the interior to a village called Nubutautau (pronounced "Numbutautau")

Day 3: walk along the Sigatoka river to Namoli village. From there, we would drive along dirt roads to Sigatoka at the south of Viti Levu and take a bus back to Suva.

Organising this walk was certainly stressful as it would be in any country. Normally, I'm used to organising hiking trips with a bunch of close buddies from university. And usually, I'm not the ONLY person organsing stuff. In fact, we all organise it together, mutually and without hassle. Organising it with 17 other strangers is a whole different kettle of fish. There's money to chase, people to hassle, questions to answer and a long, long trail of emails to write. Also, in Australia, you don't have to contact village chiefs and take along a mountain of gifts for them to stay in their village. I spent ages trying to get through to village chiefs on dodgy phone lines through thick Fijian accents. I think at one stage, I interpreted "Please bring bread and butter with you. 3 bread." as "please bring butter butter. 3 butter".

So here's how it went:

Part 1: Shopping for the village gifts.

When visiting a village, it is custom to bring gifts especially if you are staying the night. Gifts usually include the small luxury items that you'd only ever be able to get from town. Seeing as town is difficult and expensive to get to, the villagers in the interior appreciate the items that can't be grown and harvested. I roped Emily into helping me buying things like kindergarten supplies, 10kg of flour, 10kg of sugar, cigarettes, soap, shampoo, a massive bucket of breakfast crackers (which people in Fiji seem to go CRAZY for them), drinking chocolate, tea, photos.

We also bought water for the walkers as we had heard that draught had stripped the western part of Viti Levu of a lot of its water. As we didn't want to make a dint in their water supplies, I bought 18 litres of water. The 18 litres of water was then dragged across the street to where the market was. We had come to the last part of our shopping expedition and had to buy 2 huge bunches of kava root for the sevusevu (a kind of greeting ceremony) that occurs when you visit a village. Emily and I traipsed up to the dry market where all the kava is sold. It's the strangest feeling shopping for something that you want, but you have no idea what it looks like or what it should be. Luckily there's a man who sells kava as soon as you enter the door to the dry market upstairs. He pulled us aside into his kava stand when we raised our eyebrows in response to "sevusevu?".

Kava is sold as a massive bundle of roots that's wrapped in newspaper in an inverted cone-shaped looking thing with an extended windey tail. The whole thing is then wrapped up in raffia. The hardest thing was carrying 9 litres of water AND the kava back down through the main market and to the taxi that would eventually take us home.

At the end of it, this is what we had:



Part 2: The Bus Trip

The day finally arrived and we were set to go. Now, I'd only been in Fiji 2 months, so I had no idea about road conditions, or even which direction we should have been going. I didn't even have a map to follow. I did have a compass, but no map...which meant that the compass was pretty much useless. Now this caused us a bit of strife. No one in the group had been on the trip before and the bus driver had no idea where we were going. The bus driver also had the temper of a Siamese fighting fish.

The first hiccup came when we ended up taking the clockwise route instead of the anti-clockwise route to Nagatagata. The clockwise route goes along the "Queens Road" which stretches along the south part of Viti Levu, around the west and up to the north. The "Kings Road" which is the road that we were meant to take is unsealed, bumpy and would have been incredibly dangerous given the heavy rain that had hit the eastern side of Viti Levu the week before. So all in all, it was probably a smart detour to take.

As we were driving, the driver kept asking me if I knew about the road we were taking up north. I had told him repeatedly that I had no idea what the roads were like. I assumed that he being the bus driver would have looked up where he was going and would know the way. As things go in Fiji, there are many communication breakdowns and this was just another one of those annoying communication breakdowns.

We reached the north after about 6 hours of driving. As we made the turn off onto the gravel road that would eventually lead us to Nagatagata, the mood of our bus driver had suddenly flipped from being jovial and pleasant to abusive, cursing and intimidating. He would yell at me saying that I had tricked him into travelling along sealed paths and that I should know the way that I'm going. He told me that it was ridiculous to drive 26km along unsealed roads becuase his precious bus would have dust all over it. He would also complain incessantly about the cost of his bus and the damage that driving on a gravel road would do to it.

He insisted that we take some locals with us on the trip to show us the way. We stopped by some ladies selling fruit on the side of the road to ask if any of them could come along. The bus driver was incredibly creepy and asked for two young unmarried girls to come with us. The Fijian ladies deliberated for a while as to who would go with us on the bus. There was a young girl standing at the doorway to their house and the bus driver kept insisting that this young girl should come with us. He kept making jokes about him not being able to take married women because he would have trouble with their husbands. I was hoping so badly that the ladies wouldn't send the young girl with us. I also think that with a cluey busload of westeners, we wouldn't have allowed it anyway. Thankfully, two women in their 50s or 60s boarded the bus and came with us to show us the way.

We started the 26km journey along the gravel roads and with each passing kilometre his anger levels would increase ten-fold. Being fearful that we wouldn't have a bus to take us back to Suva from Sigatoka, I stayed silent rather than attempting to stand up to him and creating anymore conflict than there already was. Unfortunately, I did feel intimidated by this man and decided to stop at each village to ask for a carrier to take us the rest of the way. A carrier reminds me of one of those army trucks that carry people on sideways benches in the back compartment. They're much more suited to the gravel roads that interlace through the interior of Fiji. As we'd reach each village, I kept asking the bus driver if he would take us to the next village and keep asking until we found a carrier. We kept telling him it was another 5km to each village. I felt like this disgusting, foul man deserved every bit of battering to his bus for being a creep, not bothering to look up where he was going and trying to extort more money out of us than we actually had.

We drove up windy roads with hairpin turns and along pot-holed gravel roads (which in actual fact, I'm making sound a lot worse than they actually were). I felt like we were never going to get to Nagatagata and while other people were happily snoozing away, I was incredibly frightened that this man was going to stop the bus in an angry rage and offload us all. He would also say things like "at least Jesus is on our side, he has brought the rain" and then swear and curse Jesus at every hairpin turn that he would have to make. Of course, it was completely Jesus' fault that he didn't have the capacity to know where he was going or own any road maps for that matter.

I sat at the front of the bus painfully watching each kilometre pass us and each minute ticking away on my watch, hoping that the next corner would be Nagatagata village. We were only on the bus for an hour, but it felt like an entire day.

Then, finally, as we climbed one hill and started to descend it, we saw a scattering of bures that meant we were nearing yet another village. This village had a sleepy feel to it and when I saw that children were running out to greet us, I knew that we had finally reached Nagatagata.



I have never felt such a welcoming wave of relief ripple through my body. I'm trying to think of another time when I've experienced such relief after being so incredibly stressed to my core. I don't even think that my last exam at uni was as beautiful as the feeling of reaching Nagatagata.

That is about all I can stomach for the moment. When I get around to it, I'll write about the beautiful villages and the amazing walk with lot of pictures.

KNITTING FIJI

One of the best things that I brought with me to Fiji are my knitting needles. At the time, mum thought I was a bit crazy because who, in their right mind, would ever knit in the steamy hot Fijian conditions. Funnily enough, it gets "cold" enough here that people wear beanies, scarves and gloves when it gets down to about 20 degrees.

I knit so much that my housemates have grown accustomed to the odd bits of wool cut-offs that are found in various locations around our house. Bits of wool can be found around the dinner table, on my bed, somewhere on the floor in someone else's room and in the washing machine.

During the school holidays, someone had been handed a flyer advertising a "bra art" competition. In a bid to raise awareness about breast cancer, the Fiji cancer society were about to hold their annual bra-art competition. Each year the response to the compeition has been growing - probably to the size of about a DD. Towards the end of the school holidays, I was getting rather bored. When I get bored, I become slightly silly. Lauren, Luke and myself were sitting at our bright red "Rups Big Bear" dining table. We were coming up with whacky ideas as to what we'd put on a bra design. We thought of silly things like crabs with claws pinching nipples, bras covered in dalo leaves (but then your breasts would probably be itchy from handling the dalo), the Fiji flag on a bra and of course, the coconut bra. I joked that I should try and knit a bra. It was at this point that Luke had another one of his lightbulb moments: why didn't I just knit the Fiji flag on a bra? We all looked at him as if he had just invented the wheel.

Now Luke thought I was being sarcastic when I told him that it was a brilliant idea. It wasn't until I had started downloading pictures of the Fiji flag and complaining loudly to Lauren that there weren't any good knitted bra patterns on the internet that he knew that I was actually serious.

I'm not sure how many of you have checked recently, but there aren't that many patterns for a basic knitted bra on the internet. So I started drawing one up myself.

Then I went on a quest to buy coloured wool which they call "kula". I got blank stares when I asked for wool/yarn/the balls of string that you knit/crochet with. You have to ask for "kula" and then people know what you're talking about. They use them here to decorate the ends of their pandanus mats. Then I started knitting....



And knitting....



And embroidering details........



Bought a $2 bra from Rups Big Bear to extract the foam bra cup out of it (no one sells the bra cups by themselves in Fiji...I think the idea of using them to pad out dresses or making bras is just a ludicrous idea here)

Until.....



Qo!

Handing it in was also a bit of an issue. I was told that I could hand it in to any Westpac branch. Given my luck, I had to choose the branch which hadn't had ANY entries submitted yet. Of course, they had no idea what to do with it, tried to charge me $5 to enter the competition when it was free and then wanted to be given the entry form when it clearly says that it needed to be pinned to the bra itself. I was really skeptical as to whether or not it would ever be entered at all.

Judging day came along and I was slightly nervous. I went after school one day to the place where I thought all the bras were going to be displayed. As I walked closer to the display, it was quite apparent that there was not a single bright blue entry that was modelled on the display units. I hadn't won anything. These were the winning entries:



It was at this point that I was really starting to think that it hadn't ever been entered. The staff at the bank were not the most helpful and seemed completely clueless as to why I was giving them an over-decorated bra despite the clear advertisement that they had on their window. By now, I didn't really care if it won or if it was judged to be the ugliest bra in the whole competition. All I wanted was for my knitted bra to be on display for someone else to appreciate.

Apparently the rest of the bras were being displayed at Prouds (another shop in Fiji). Emily thought that it was only right that I should at least have a photo with my bra being proudly displayed at Prouds. So she accompanied me to Prouds, only to find that the display room was shut. We peered through the window through cupped hands against the glass like children drooling over lollies that they didn't quite have enough pocket money to buy. Again, we couldn't see any bright blue shapes in the darkened room and I was really thinking that my bra entry was still sitting at the Westpac branch.

Then, I received an email:

"I'm so sorry about the late notice, but your bra has been selected to be shown in a choreographed performance at Fiji Fashion Week. Kind regards, Helen"

I think I literally jumped out of my seat. All of my housemates were in bed by this time so I had no one to tell. Lauren came out of her room to make her nightly tea and I exploded with my news. Eventually, all of my housemates were informed and we all agreed that there was only one action to take: buy a ticket to fashion week.

However, I was still convinced that there must have been a mistake and that my bra had been entered but they had sent me the email by mistake. I also dreamt that there was a wardrobe malfunction and that my bra couldn't be worn anymore. I had crazy ideas that the model who was assigned to wear my bra would be come horrendously sick and no one else would be able to fit into it so it would be left out off the catwalk.

Then, the fashion show was due to start. I was nervous. Really nervous. It was as if I was watching my own child at a dancing concert. This bra IS my child. I made it, I loved it and I even gave it its first bra. I am so glad that I have such supportive housemates. They all came along with me to see my bra on show. They were also fantastic at telling me to stop being stupid and calm down. Of course it was going to be shown.

The lights went down and the next show was announced: a sample of the Fiji Cancer Society bra art compeition. In the darkness, I could see two long lines of girls walking along the catwalk to take their places, seated on the sides of the stage. Then the music started and a spotlight was shone onto the back of the stage. There, in the middle of the spotlight was a model wearing my Fiji flag knitted bra. A fellow male dancer lifted her up into the air and my heart lifted with her. It made it! It wasn't sitting at the Westpac branch and nor was it lying in a pathetic heap in the "too ugly to show" pile.



What an amazing feeling it is to see your work on the catwalk under bright lights.

SHOPPING IN FIJI

Recently, a friend who wanted to visit said that they weren't interested in any shopping "experiences" that Fiji had to offer. In most cases, I would totally understand the disinterest in shopping as it cheapens the whole experience of visiting another country...or it makes it more expensive - if you get what I mean (hur hur). However, I beg to differ. Shopping in Fiji is a unique, frustrating and confusing experience.

Example 1:
At the bread shop, they sell "white", "wholemeal" and "high fibre" bread. They sell each of these varieties in small, medium and large. Usually, I ask for a large wholemeal so I can share with Melina and Emily (my fellow housemates). Strangely enough, "wholemeal" also means "high fibre". So when I ask for a "large wholemeal" this can either be interpreted as a "large wholemeal" or a "medium high fibre". Get it? If you do, please tell me, becuase I'm still trying to figure it out. Right now, it's like a lucky dip everytime I go shopping for bread. I could come out with a wholemeal loaf, or a high fibre loaf. Either way, it's bread and I'm not so fussed.

Example 2:
The corner store is our one-stop-shop for all odd bits and pieces. You name it, they probably have it. Once, I went to ask for sticky tape. I was desperate for sticky tape. It was as if my life existance had suddenly become centered around sticky tape. As a last resort, I paid a visit to the corner store. I walked in and asked for sticky tape.

The response I got was: the eyebrow raise. (Refer to previous posts where I explain that the eyebrow raise can mean a myriad of things).

I asked the girl behind the counter again: Do you have cellotape? (thinking that the different wording might produce a different response).

The response I got was: eyebrow raise with a head nod to the right. I looked to the right and saw nothing but flour and two minute noodles.

I asked the girl behind the counter again: Can you please show me the cellotape?

The response I got was: *eyes rolling into the back of the girl's head* as she reaches behind the counter, where I can't see the sticky tape, and pulls out two sizes: ridiculously thin sticky tape, and ridiculously fat packing tape.

My response: errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The response from the girl: EYEBROW RAISE.

My response: The skinny one please.

Girl behind the counter: "which one you want??!??!"

My response: The. THIN. ONE. PLEASE.

Girl behind the counter: "50cents"

Example 3:
We went to the tailors to get a set of sulu and jaba made. We entered the shop and the direct response was:
"Go away, I'm busy. You come back in 2 weeks."

Example 4:
I need to buy a trampoline. I think that buying a trampoline for the school would be an amazing treatment tool. I think I walked into every shop that sold sporting equipment in Suva. I also believe that half of them didn't even know what I was talking about when I said: "trampoline".

However, I did find one shop...here's how it went:

Me: "Do you sell trampolines?"
Shop attendant: eyebrow raise

...awkward extended silence...

Me: "so...you have trampolines?"
Shop attendant: "yes"

...2nd prolonged awkward silence.

Me: "so...where's the trampoline?"
Shop attendant: "oh, you want to see it?"
Me: "that would be nice thanks."

Example 5:
The school is holding its annual bazaar on Saturday. At the last meeting, one of the teachers suggested that we sell balloons. They suggested that we sell balloons on sticks because helium is too expensive. However, no one knew where to find the balloon sticks with the ties.

While I was searching for trampolines (see above), I came across the balloon sticks and holders in a cardboard box at the back of a shop. I was so excited, I even rang Lauren just so I could tell someone else how excited I was to find the balloon sticks and ties/holders. I literally skipped up to the counter holding the balloon sticks and holders like I was a cat presenting it's owner with a dead bird.

Me: "How much for the balloons and their holders?"
Shop attendant: "where did you find that?"
Me: "over there"
Shop attendant: "you can't buy that"
Me: "why not?"
Shop attendant: "you can't buy that"
Me: "yes, but WHY not?"
Shop attendant: "It has no balloon"
Me; "but I don't want the balloon"
Shop attendant: "you wait, I find the balloon"

So I waited, and then when I felt like I'd been waiting too long, I went to the back of the shop to ask her how she was going. She gave me a look that was so dirty that my finger would have been covered in dirt had I stroked it across her face.

Shop attendant: "I can't find the balloons"
Me: "great, so can I buy it anyway? I didn't really want the balloons. How much is it?"
Shop attendant: "15cents each"
Me: "great, here's $15, can I have 100?"
Shop attendant: "you can't buy it!!!!"
Me: "But you just said it was 15cents.. and you don't have the balloons anyway, I don't want the balloons. If I bought it from you now with the balloons, I'd probably throw them away becasue I don't want them. No one wants to buy the sticks without the balloons except for me, so if you sell them to me, you're still making money from me. Even if the balloons turn up, I've still paid for them in which case you can save me time and throw away the balloons for me when they arrive."

By the way, the balloons that were meant to go on the sticks were crummy foil balloons that weren't inflated anyway. That's why I didn't really want them.

Shop attendant: "go ask my manager. He's over there"
Me: "where?"
Shop attendant: eyebrow raise and head motioning somewhere to my 4 o'clock.

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Me to the store manager: "can I buy these?"
Manager: "what is it?"
Me: "balloon sticks and holders without the balloons because your suppliers forgot to send the balloons."
Manager: "You can't buy it. You need the balloon as well. I can't sell it without the balloon"
Me: "then I'll buy it with the balloon and throw it out when I get home. In fact, you can call me when you find the balloons and sell it to me later, or you can take my money now and save me the trouble of throwing out the balloons when you get them. I genuinely want to pay full price for an incomplete product. You're not losing money if I buy them from you."
Manager: "fine."

Now the sticks are bundled in groups of 100. There are 5 colours, so 5 lots of 100. Of course, I didn't want just ONE colour. I had to have a variety of colours. So I asked the manager again:

Me: Can I buy 20 of each colour?
Manager: "NO! you can't do that!"
Me: But if I buy one colour, you won't have any left of that colour because you only have 100 of each colour. What if I buy all of your yellow sticks and a child wants a balloon with a yellow stick? It's better if I take 20 of each colour so you have an even amount of each colour left over. Please can I buy 20 of each colour?
Manager: "Fine fine fine. Just buy and go"

Amanda wins.

Shopping in Fiji. Try it, you'll love it =)

STUDENT NAIATU

I feel lucky for having chosen an assignment at a school. I know that when I can't seem to get things working or moving with staff members at school, I can always cheat my way out of doing "real" work by treating students. I have every intention of leaving a lasting impression and changing habits of the school that will benefit them in the long run, but when you're one of the few motivated people in the school, it becomes easy to lose sight of what you're trying to acheive.

The wrong thing to do is to become the "replacement" Physiotherapist and do therapy with the children all day long. The right thing to do is to set up programs and protocols to ensure that everyone else knows how to deliver the necessary therapy so that once I depart, I won't leave any gaping holes and the students will benefit in the long run.

I'm going to start telling a few stories about particular students at school. Their real names won't be used and their disabilities will not be overly descriptive. Please bear with me as I feel that protection of their identity is paramount.

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Student "Naiatu" is a 15 year old boy with hemiplegia. This means that half of his body is weak. He can walk and talk and despite his official "diagnosis", he is quite agile. He loves to play rugby, just like every other young boy in the school, and acquires many cuts and bruises from playing too much of the aforementioned sport.

Having a hemiplegic arm, it makes it difficult to use this arm in everyday tasks. For example, opening jars, sharpening his pencil, stabilising the paper that he is writing on becomes a much more difficult event. He still copes by compensating with his good arm. He does have some movement in his affected arm and hand, but prefers to hide it under his jacket sleeve. He likes to keep it under his jacket sleeve where it is tucked away from the world, out of his way and would probably serve him better if it wasn't even there at all (that's what he thinks, anyway). I have been trying to tell him that the more he uses it, the more useful it will become. I feel like I've busted a gut to tell him that it would be less of an annoyance if he actually tried to use it.

Recently, I started telling him off that he needed to keep his sleeve up to expose his hemiplegic hand. On several occasions, I grabbed him to prevent him from running away and rolled up his sleeve. He would then walk away from me and hastily unroll his sleeve again over his hemiplegic hand. I became quite persistent with my sleeve rolling and every day became a battle between myself and Naiatu to keep his sleeve rolled up.

One day, I was sitting in the therapy room when he ran in and showed me a nasty looking scab with exposed raw skin underneath. He asked me if I had a bandaid or something to wrap it up. It actually wasn't that bad and didn't really need a bandaid, but nonetheless, I searched high and low in my cupboard. As I actually don't know where anything is, I turned him away and told him that I might try and find one at home for him. He walked out feeling incredibly disappointed that I didn't have a bandaid, and before he exited the room, I grabbed him and rolled up his sleeve. It was at this point that it dawned on me the ultimate prize that would motivate him to keep his sleeve up.

"Naiatu, if you keep your sleeve rolled up for the rest of today, I'll bring a bandaid for you tomorrow"

His face lit up and for the first time, he didn't try to pull his sleeve back down over his hand as he walked away from me. The rest of the morning, he spent every opportunity to show me that he had his sleeve rolled up. Then, later in the afternoon, he was walking past and his sleeve had fallen back over his hand. He tried rolling up his sleeve, but it was too late. He had seen that I had caught him with his sleeve down. In an act of desperation he finally rolled it up again and pleaded with me:

"Please, please, I pull it up again. You see? See my hand, I show you! Please, please, you bring bandaid for me tomorrow?"

To which I responded:

"I'm sorry Naiatu, but unless you keep your sleeve up for ANOTHER day, I might think about bringing in a bandaid for you."

To which his response was: "Please, please! When I wear bandaid, I play rugby better!" I thought to myself: "just like bandaids cure headaches and tummyaches if you stick them on your head and stomach respectively."

The next day, Naiatu made even more of an effort to keep his hand exposed. I kept hearing my name being called out:

"Amanda! Amanda! Look! Look! You see my hand?!"

And when I walked past his classroom, he made sure that I'd seen him:

"Amanda! Amanda!" Naiatu would yell at me from the middle of his classroom, holding up his hand.

At 3pm, he ran up to me with his hand still exposed from his rolled up sleeve.

"So you bring me something tomorrow? All day, I show you my hand, it has no sleeve!"

But I am horrible and mean. I am a Physio-terrorist. I made him wait until 3pm the next day. I had a bandaid and a lollypop ready to give him at the end of the day, but would withold it if I saw his sleeve rolled down past his hand. Even when it was hot, he kept his jacket on just so he could show me that his jacket was rolled up. I'm not sure if I'm breaching child protection laws by bribing him with a bandaid, but I'm also pretty sure that he's never used his hemiplegic hand as much as he had done by lifting it up to show it to me in the past 3 days.

It was at 3pm today, when the final bell had rung to signify the end of another week that he ran up to me agian. He looked at me expectantly and finally, I handed over a bandaid and a lollypop. And with a quickly spoken: "Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!", he wrapped his arms around my waist and gave me a very grateful hug.

I hope that it's the last time that I have to tell him to keep his sleeve rolled up. If it is, we're one step closer to disuse atrophy of hemiplegic muscles...

THE RAIN RAIN RAIN CAME DOWN DOWN DOWN

It's been raining pretty much non stop for nearly 36 hours straight in Suva. Not just light rain, but HEAVY rain. Rain in Suva is usually like Melbourne rain - it clears within 5 minutes. Now, it hasn't stopped for hours and has nearly been going on for two days straight. It is so heavy that my window is starting to pool with water. The easterly wind on my eastern facing window does not help the cause either. Luckily, my water pool is not as bad as Luke and Lauren's room. Their room also has an east-facing window and they have a puddle on the floor.



Today at school, the rains have affected the pipes and has made the water turn brown. When this happens at school, it becomes a health hazard so all the children are sent home straight away. I love it how no one ever informs me about what's happening at the school until it's just about to happen. There I was tapping away at my computer with the opposite end of the Physio room forming puddles of water and a bucket catching the drips falling next to me. I was just about to get up and get ready for my next therapy group when all of a sudden, the bell rang and the children all picked up their bags and left. Finally, my counterpart saw the puzzled look on my face and told me that the water had turned brown. The school is aware that some children will still try to drink the water even if it doesn't look quite right. Therefore, they were all sent home and I finished early from school.

Sadly, despite Fiji being such a small dot of land in the middle of the Pacific ocean, the western side of Fiji doesn't seem to get any rain. They are in a draught and by the looks of the radar picture above, they don't seem to be getting any of the torrential rain we seem to be getting in Suva. I said to someone the other day that they should build a huge pipeline from Suva to the west. That someone said that it wouldn't happen because Fiji just doensn't have the money to make that happen.

I think I'll wrap up this post here. I just heard a worrying clap of thunder just outside my window...

VINAKA, ANNE

It felt like Christmas today. I had a special visitor at school who was delivering special craft and disability equipment from a very special friend from home.

Let me tell you about Anne. I met Anne in 2008 through Yooralla. However, it seems like I've known her for much longer than that. Anne and I have been on many adventures that are mostly centered around bike trails. They have also involved fun runs, smorgasbord picnics, appreciation in the arts and nature and joint disapproval of the double golden arches. Anne and I share a passion for disability advocacy. This is why I'm in Fiji and why Anne must have felt compelled to help out where she could. (I'm sure she'll speak for herself at the conclusion of this post)

Anne had jumped at the opportunity that one of my Yooralla colleagues, Ruchita, would be coming all the way to Suva. Ruchita made it to Suva and all the way to Hilton Special School with Anne's bag of goodies. Thanks to their combined efforts, the children now have scissors, pipecleaners, jumbo coloured pencils (which have already managed to become dirty from excited scribbling), pencil grips and a pile of felt a metre high with needles and thread to go with it. All the special things that make craft so much more fun, but are so hard to come by in Suva.

So, to Anne and Ruchita, a massive "vinaka vakalevu". The photos will come as the children's imaginations run wild.

Where there is good news, there are always challenging issues.

My frustration is beginning to simmer at school. It is all good and well that all this fantastic equipment is now available for use. My challenge now is to ensure that it is used in the correct way: by the children, for the children.

I have found that artwork done in classes are not always completed by children. Rather than allowing the children to use the scissors, an adult will take over and finish everything for them. Making mistakes and exploring different mediums takes far too long, apparently. At best, any artwork found on the walls are probably 10% completed by the children 90% someone else.

I am always asked if I can lend my equipment to another colleague. I am happy to lend it to people as long as a child gets to use it for most of the time. More often than not, the equipment that I lend will not be used by a child, but will be used by an adult to complete artwork on a child's behalf.

So now that I have all these amazing new things, my job is to ensure that it is the children who use it most of the time. They may need assistance and it may take a bit longer, but at least it will be one step closer to being involved, included and not ignored.

FRUSTRATION AND RELIEF

I'm so sick of things falling through.

Events and outings do get organised here. You work with others to set a date, you do your preparations and they do theirs. You look forward to the events that have been organised. The event is written down in your diary and you turn down other offers because you're already busy (apparently). Then, the day before, or even on the day, it gets called off. Someone's "sick". It's not the best time to do it. Something else has come up. The equipment's faulty. No one else has shown up. It's cancelled.

The other day at school, I had prepared my professional development topic. I spent all night putting together my information sheet and pored over it time and time again to comb out the mistakes. I added in extra notes to extrapolate on certain sub-topics and even brainstomed some side jokes to keep the teachers interested. The day that I was meant ot deliver my professional development came around but then one teacher decided that there were too many teachers absent. I think only 3 were absent, but apparently that was enough to decide to call the whole thing off.

Postponed until further notice. When? Your guess is as good as mine.

Over the last 6 weeks, Emily and I have been trying to get our diving licence done. We've been postponed 4 times. We were meant to go out in a party of four. First, one person was sick, so that meant that everyone missed out. The next week, someone else was sick, and despite Emily and I wanting to go out anyway, it had to be cancelled. Then the next week when we were meant to go out diving on the Saturday, someone was sick again so our diving instructor compensated by moving the Saturday date to Sunday. On Saturday, the diving instructor was on his boat anyway and hence could have taken us out. Why he couldn't keep Saturday's date and why he had to move it to Sunday was beyond me but either way he managed to get out on his boat, fall over, hit his foot and acquire a haematoma. So Sunday's dive was cancelled. Postponed to today. That was fine, except the boat wasn't working. So it's been postponed. Again.

I handed in a hand-made bra for the bra art competition. I was told that the result of the competition would be announced yesterday morning at 7:30am. I went to the place where I was told it would be announced. And why was I not suprised to see an empty venue, with no sign of another person with no evidence that a bra competition was in progress.

Luckily, some things do go ahead as planned. I am a bushwalker. I am Australian so I will call it bushwalking. Perhaps now that I'm in Fiji, I'll call it jungle walking:



I've missed my walking at home. Every long weekend is an opportunity to get away with my friends to scale the peaks of Victoria. There's something unique about sitting on top of a peak, looking out over an amazing view without the noise of traffic, crowds or screaming children. The world stops at the top of a mountain. You feel like you're floating on air. ...but that might be because your legs are showing you how much they hate you by throbbing with pain after negotiating mud, roots, steep inclines and rocks.

Yesterday was the Rucksack Club's Mt Korobaba hike. We walked up a steep, rooty, muddy, overgrown track to the top of the mountain. The peak is about 400m above sea level, only 15 minutes out of Suva, and rewards those who reach its peak with this:



My legs are burning now and I have mud stains on my socks that look as though they're a permanent feature. Despite all the things that don't seem to happen, a walk in the jungle certainly calms me down quite nicely.

Back to school again tomorrow...