New Pics

New photos on Flickr! I finally got around to it, although I have not organized them yet. Enjoy!

Winter in the Tropics

I remember John and Barbara telling us stories about how Fijians would wear parkas and socks with their flip-flops during the winter here, but somehow, I couldn’t quite believe that it really got cold. I mean, this is the tropics, right? They wear jeans during the summer, too—they’re just used to it. Well, after being cold and wearing my only long pants and my only pair of socks for three days in a row, I realized that it was solstice. Winter solstice. And it’s COLD.

I’m not sure how, but Miles seems to be much better prepared than me (he’s got jeans and plenty of socks), and he keeps laughing at me for saying that it’s cold. He reminds me that it’s not any colder than Oregon in September, and that I am just used to it. As excited as I am to be coming home, I try not to think about the cold. I’m not sure how I’m going to survive it. All I can say is that it’s good I’m coming in August, when it will be nice and warm, so I will have time to ease gradually into the cool fall weather.

Jasper is doing even more awesome than usual. We went through a rough patch of two year old behavior, but either we’re used to it now, or we’re reached a good equilibrium. I can’t help but think that our decision to keep him home a lot more (away from the kids who shoot pretend machine guns and hit each other for fun) has something to do with his more pleasant behavior. He’s really into reading books and spends a significant portion of the day either reading to himself or asking us to read to him, and has some really cute two year old obsessions—planes, busses, boats, fish (and to some extent animals in general), and the moon. Now that he has been on a plane trip (that he can remember), he zooms around the house making plane noises and flying his “plane” (his hand) every time he hears a plane land or take off from the airport (about 10 times per day). When we are in town, he excitedly points out every bus that goes by (way too many to count), and sits in rapt wonder when I take him on the bus (which I’ve done twice now for fun). When we’re in town, he points out all the boats in the harbor, and we’ve inflated the micro-dinghy in the living room, which he plays in all the time. In the book “Sand Cake”, he excitedly points out the boats on every page, as he does with the moon in “Goodnight Moon” and “Where the Wild Things Are”. And every night we look for the moon outside (stars get some excitement, but the main attraction is definitely the moon). When I take him to the market, I always let him pick out a fish to take home, and he proudly carries it (in a plastic bag) and when people stop to talk to my little kaivalagi boy (which happens about every 15 seconds), he holds up his bag and excitedly says “ika, ika” (Fijian for fish). Oh how they love him. His favorite movie (well, pretty much the only one he has seen here, besides some recorded rugby) is “Blue Planet”, an hour-long documentary (BBC I think) about the Earth’s oceans, which strongly features two of his favorite things, fish and the moon (there are a lot of time lapse moon/tide shots). And his skin is finally doing better. We seem to have the mosquito reaction under control with the children’s Claritin, as well as keeping him inside more and using coconut oil on him (great mosquito repellent) to prevent the bites in the first place. Unfortunately, the scars he has from scratching will probably last for a while.

I am still going to the hospital for clinic every week and loving it. Hopefully I will be able to attend some deliveries before I leave too. One of the nurses wrote my cell number on the OB ward’s blackboard, but the next time I went in it had been erased. So I wrote it again, only to see it had been erased again by two days later. I’m not sure why it’s getting erased, but now one of the nurses has my number in her cell phone, and another nurse who works on the weekend wrote my number on a slip of paper by the phone, so hopefully between the two of them, someone will call me at some point. I’ll have to check to see if the paper is still there after clinic tomorrow. I really want them to call me! We’ll see if it actually happens though. One of the Peace Corps volunteers who used to work at the hospital told me that she would try to get people to call her or even just talk to her to let her know about trainings, etc, but that in the eight months she was there, not one person called her. After eight months, she changed her position to working in the schools, since she said she basically didn’t do anything at the hospital, and that as far as she could tell, most of the people working there try their best to do nothing as well. Sigh. I will keep working on them anyway. If I can get one single phone call, I will consider it a huge success.

Suva Trip (June 15)

Miles and Jasper went to Suva last week to finally get the screw taken out of Miles’ ankle and to have Jasper seen by the dermatologist for the skin rashes he keeps getting. The trip was a huge success, if slightly stressful for Miles. Originally we were thinking they would take the ferry, but they ended up flying instead. Since Jasper is mildly obsessed with airplanes, this turned out to be a great idea. Every time Jasper hears an airplane (several times a day since we live so close to the airport), he stops, gasps, and points in the direction of the plane. Sometimes he also says “waqavuka” or “airplane” (which sound like “kavuka” or “apane”). When we drive by the airport, he gets all excited and tries to stand up to see if there is a plane there. So when we drove down and actually stopped at the airport, he got wide-eyed with excitement. He walked around, checking the place out, first looking for an airplane (it wasn’t there yet), then moving on to the other parts of the airport (there’s not that much to it, it’s tiny). Then he watched the staff weigh the luggage, and then he got weighed too. We waited for a few minutes, then he went to the parking lot to watch their plane land. He watched the people get off while he excitedly pointed and waved. Then he and Miles made their way out to the tiny plane (actually, the 16-seater they took is the big one around here!). Miles reported that the rest of the day was lots of fun, and that Jasper was really excited during takeoff and landing, and that in between, when they were above the cloud cover, Jasper took a nap since there wasn’t anything to see. He also had fun on the taxi ride into Suva (about a 45 minute ride), and being in a new place, staying in a hotel, and eating junk food with daddy (Miles let him pick what he wanted from the grocery store!).

The stress came the second day, the day of the appointments. Since the orthopedist Miles was seeing was at the public hospital, where they don’t do appointments, he had to wait for about 5 hours to be seen. Of course, this was very hard for Jasper, who kept trying to get Miles to leave to go do something fun. Also, since Miles didn’t realize how long it would take, he didn’t bring any food—lunch or snacks—to the hospital (and you can’t get anything there), so both Miles and Jasper got hungry and cranky. Then when they were prepping Miles for surgery, the doctor asked him who was going to take care of his son, and Miles said he wasn’t sure. But this is Fiji, right, so it was no big deal, the nurses took him for the half hour Miles was in the OR. Jasper was not very happy with this, not having had any lunch or a nap, but he calmed down when the nurses propped open the OR door and stood in the doorway watching daddy’s surgery. The doc was a bit surprised to be observed by a toddler in the doorway, but (definitely Fiji), he just shrugged his shoulders and kept working.

Because Miles was at the hospital so long, they actually missed the appointment with the dermatologist at the private hospital (luckily just down the street, not to far away), so the surgeon called and explained what had happened, and the dermatologist said he would see them whenever they got there. So Jasper was seen, and although we didn’t really get much new information, it was nice to know that we had been on the right page. Jasper is basically having an allergic reaction to mosquito bites, which causes them to swell up really bad. The swelling makes it so that when he scratches them (and it’s impossible to get him to stop), they open up and the bacteria on his skin (probably staph) infects them and they turn into sores that don’t heal easily. So we put him on a round of antibiotics to clear the ones he currently has, got a cream to put on bites in the future, some strong antimicrobial soap to try to knock back the staph population, some gentle non-soap cleanser to use after that, and finally some children’s Claritin to give him in the morning to prevent the reactions (because as long as we are here, he will get mosquito bites). Luckily I have found that putting coconut oil on the skin seems to deter the mosquitoes, and both Jasper and I get fewer bites if we’ve had a rub-down (and we smell good too!).

After the stressful day, Miles spent the next morning going from pharmacy to pharmacy trying to find scopolamine patches for me (and a stethoscope, which he found, for me to use at the prenatal clinic, yay!), without luck. As it turns out, John and Barbara had some and we didn’t know it, so I have some of theirs now—just used one today to complete my last certification dive. I’m now fully certified to scuba dive! Anyway, Jasper had another wonderful and exciting flight back to Savusavu, and now he’s as excited as ever about airplanes. Grandpa John took a bunch of pictures and made him a picture book about his trip to the airport, which he LOVES. I think we read it at least 20 times when we were over there the other night. And thankfully, his skin is starting to improve.

More pictures coming soon—I promise!

Our Fijian Village (written June 11th)

It’s been six weeks now, since we had our own personal Fijian village move in next door. When this whole project of taking down the house started, we were very familiar with the concept of “Fiji time” and knew that the estimated two weeks would be stretched to be quite a bit longer. I thought, “Ok, double that, and they should be here for about a month”. As it turns out, knowing about Fiji time was not enough. The second rule of Fiji time is that you can’t estimate how long something will take. You just have to be patient and wait for things to happen when they happen. Also, you cannot ask yourself what the reasons are for doing things the way they are done. Western logic will not explain it. For example, I thought our village would move out when they were done with the job of taking the house down. Well, the house was completely down a week ago, and the consensus was that they would be leaving on Monday. Well, then they wanted to stay here this week because there was a special activity going on at church. Then Saturday we’ll have a lovo, Sunday is church, and they’ll leave next Monday. It’s really starting to feel like they have moved in permanently. Wais (one of the guys) asked this morning if he could borrow the truck to get a sofa from town to bring up to the house. I said I would tell Miles about it, but in my head I was thinking “why do you need permanent furniture if you are done with the job and are supposed to be leaving in a few days?”

We’ve had some very good times with our village. They are always very nice, they constantly feed us, we have learned a lot about Fijian culture, language and food, and they keep an eye on Jasper when he plays outside (particularly nice when mama doesn’t want any more mosquito bites). But it’s hard to get away from our American ideas. We are very much American, after all, and we highly value our privacy. We want to be alone, free to do whatever we want and not feel observed or pressured to share everything all the time, as is the norm in Fijian culture. The other night, we were watching rugby, and not five minutes went by before we had the whole village in our living room watching with us. Which was fine—if they want to watch while we watch, we’re not going to say no (that would be pretty silly). The problem for us, is that around nine pm when Jasper is starting to melt down and needing to go to bed, it’s very hard to tell Fijians, “hey, could you guys go now please?” It’s just not done. And since everything is communal, no one bothers to return anything. We gave them a grog cloth (a special bag used to mix kava for drinking), and I have no idea where it is now (along with many other things we have let them “borrow”). Like I said, they are super nice, but the cultural disconnects are starting to wear us down.

Miles took Jasper to Suva last week for three days to visit the dermatologist regarding his skin rashes (I’ll get to that later), and while he was gone, it was clear that the neighbors felt really bad for me, being here by myself (in the village, you are NEVER alone). The first night (Thursday night), I went to bed right before they got home from church. I heard Mereani call my name, but I didn’t want to get out of bed, get dressed, and interact, so I just pretended not to hear. The next morning, she said she had called me because I was alone, and she thought they should come in and sleep with me so I wouldn’t be alone. I’m not kidding-they felt really bad for me. It was a nice gesture, but well, the way I see it, I’m NOT alone. They are sleeping on the back porch, not ten feet away from me. That’s not alone! They didn’t push sleeping in the house with me (though I’m curious if they meant in the bed with me or what), but they did continue to call me out of the house every few hours to eat or drink tea, and to make sure I wasn’t too lonely (I wasn’t).

Sometimes I feel guilty about wanting them to leave. They are so nice, but it is really tiring sometimes (figuratively and literally—they often start hammering on things at dawn/5:30) to feel like you have to force yourself to smile and say good morning and go out and have tea when you’re really feeling grumpy about being woken up at 5 and paranoid about walking around in your pajamas because you don’t want to offend anyone (Fijians are VERY modest—a holdover from very strong, strict Methodist missionary influence). They seem to have no issues with us, though I’m sure they do think we’re really weird (and they are right—white folks are quite weird). They talk about how they will be sad to leave and how they really like staying at our place and comment on how much they will miss us and we will miss them when they go. It’s hard to tell what they think about us actually—they don’t speak much English, and they’re always cheerful no matter what. A few weeks ago over the kava bowl, there was a small argument about whether I looked more like Princess Diana or Mary (as in the mother of Jesus). It was really a toss up, and in the end they compromised and decided that I look like both. Miles, on the other hand, was definitively stated to look like Moses (dead giveaway with that beard!). It was so weird. I kept asking myself if these comparisons meant something, or if they really just had so little contact with “Euros”.

Update June 23:

Well, things did not go as stated (did I really think they would?), but we finally have our privacy back. We did not have the lovo—Steven says we will have it at his house another weekend—and Monday everyone went down to the beach for a picnic. Tuesday they moved the last of the construction materials down to Steven’s and Tuesday night, our village returned to their real village. I can’t say I’ve really missed them in the week since they’ve been gone, but I am starting to think more positively about the time they spent here now that there’s some distance between us. I’m sure in a year I’ll only remember it as a funny story that took place during our crazy year in Fiji.

Mamas and Babies and Physiotherapists, oh my!

Today was my first day “observing” at the antenatal clinic at the Savusavu Hospital. It took me a while to get there. First, I talked with the (only) private doctor in town, Dr. Joeli. I asked him if he sees pregnant women, and he said yes, but he doesn’t provide routine prenatal care or do deliveries. He told me if I want to be involved with birth, he would talk to the head doctor at the hospital about me possibly observing or volunteering. He was true to his word, and told me I should go up there and talk with him myself. So I went up the hill to speak with Dr. Ishaq. Dr. Ishaq is a very busy man. He sees a normal case load of patients in addition to running the hospital. He told me that if I wanted to observe in the prenatal clinic, I should go talk to Kini. So over I went. Kini is a nurse midwife, and is in charge of the antenatal (prenatal) and family planning clinic. She was very nice and said it would be fine if I wanted to observe. She said she thought the best place for me to be of use, if I wanted to actively participate, would be to help out with the physiotherapist. Apparently, (and I saw this today), women are sent to the dental clinic after their “booking” or first appointment, and to the physiotherapist after their second appointment. The physiotherapist, Kini told me, goes over exercises for pregnancy and birth, and talks about posture, etc. He does a good job, she said, but since he’s a man, she thought it would be good to have a woman there teaching exercises because the mamas would be more comfortable with that. Well, I certainly think she is right. The physiotherapist was super nice, but it was clear that the situation was less than ideal. He was an Indian man speaking English to a group of mainly Fijian woman from rural villages- not the best English speakers. Basically all of the factors are working against this situation- gender, race, and language. And I could definitely see it on the women’s faces. Then there was the content. It was, well, mostly correct, and very well meaning, but seriously lacking in a number of ways. There were no visual aids- no model pelvis, no poster or flip chart with pregnancy anatomy, nothing. At one point, the physiotherapist used a picture of a (non-pregnant) female urogenital system from an anatomy textbook (ok, so there was one visual), but he was somewhat uncomfortably trying to explain how the baby comes out without using the words “cervix” or “vagina” and he was pointing to the bladder the whole time he was talking about the “baby bag” and “baby passage”. Sigh. Clearly, a lot of work can be done here. I think I’m going to start by making him a cardboard pelvis.

After observing the physiotherapist, I went back to the clinic and observed the intake, which was just a nurse retrieving charts, taking weights and blood pressures. Then the women go to Kini and get counseling regarding both breastfeeding and birth control. Then they see the doctor (for Wednesday clinic) or Kini (on Monday clinic). Monday is “low risk” clinic and Wednesday is “high risk” clinic. Today was Wednesday, so next I went in with the doctor and spent the rest of the clinic doing exams with her. It was awesome, in so many ways. I not only got to observe, but completely participate, doing everything that the doctor did (and she was super nice)- chart review, measuring and palpating the uterus/baby, determining the position and station, listening to fetal heart tones, etc. It was awesome to get more hands on experience, but also really cool, was that the doctor told me at the end of the clinic that she had learned a lot from me (!). We talked between mamas about maternity/midwifery care in the US, and I asked her questions about standard maternity care in Fiji. The clinic was a lot like a standard medical model in the US, where the mamas only spend about 10 minutes with the OB. I told Ana (the doc) about how we (meaning midwives) spend a lot of time with the mamas in the states, and how we give them a lot of information, and encourage them to make their own choices. She was surprised when I told her that we give the mothers the choice of whether they want an ultrasound or not, and she was highly impressed when I told her about my home birth, how I exclusively breastfeed my son for seven months, and that I’m still breastfeeding him once a day at two years old. She was surprised that I didn’t have an episiotomy as a first time mama. After I had done a few exams, she asked me about why I talked to the mamas about their baby’s position (while I was palpating, I was asking the mamas about what fetal movement they were feeling, where they felt kicks, etc, and explaining to them what they were feeling and what position the baby was in, etc.). I told her (well, in a nutshell), that I was able to have such an easy birth because I was prepared and relaxed, because I had a lot of knowledge about birth, and that I had this because of how much my midwife talked to me. I said that we talk to the women a lot to give them information, because then they are better prepared for their birth. She nodded, and I noticed that she started doing this during her exams too. I asked her about procedures for postdates (sweep membranes, then send them to Labasa for induction), and then if she recommended any natural induction methods. She said she heard about intercourse helping to start labor about a month ago, but she didn’t know why. So I explained about the prostaglandins in semen, and also told her about nipple stimulation and castor oil. I also talked with her about exercises for turning breech babies and for posterior babies, which she had never heard of either. I was so excited to be there, and she was super excited to hear about these things from me.

The doctors rotate duty at the prenatal clinic, so Ana won’t be doing another clinic for about a month. Next week, there will be a new doctor for me to meet. Hopefully the next one is as nice as Ana. One of the strange things (to me), is that the nurse midwife who works in the labor ward does not have any part in the prenatal clinic. She’s the only midwife in the ward (which has one room), so she’s on call 24/7 for a population of maybe 35- or 45,000 people (with a high birthrate). She’s one busy lady, and the mamas don’t meet her before they go into labor.

New Neighbors

After getting used to living outside of town, with only two quiet neighbors (and those are separated from us by a steep hillside), practically in the “bush”, it’s suddenly very different around here. After a long saga involving lawyers and property lines, the house directly next to us (we share a covered breezeway) is being torn down. The folks who have taken on this project, who are friends of the owner of the computer store, are living there while they take it down. Since our house is more window louvers than walls, and the house next door is now missing several walls, there is not much privacy.

It feels like we are living next door to a miniature replica of a Fijian village. There are four men and two women staying there, but several other people come and go as well. The men work on the house, carefully taking it apart and numbering and stacking the materials so they can be used to re-build the house on another piece of land, and the women (as far as I can see) cook for them. They cook with two big pots over a fire they have built on a workbench under the carport. They all get up around (usually before) dawn—no problem for me since that’s when Jasper wakes up too—and stay up late drinking grog (a.k.a. kava or Piper methysticum), which is a bit more problematic. They take a break to rest during the middle and hottest part of the day. We don’t do that at the computer shop, naturally, and so I am really building up a sleep deficit since I’m such a light sleeper and can’t fall asleep while they are laughing and listening to music and drinking grog.

Despite the annoyances of sleep disturbance and constant construction noise, things are very pleasant. The people are very friendly and they LOVE Jasper (everyone here does). They bring him food whenever we are home, and although they say it’s for Jasper, there’s always a ton for me and Miles to eat too. So we are basically being fed traditional Fijian food every day: “pancakes” for breakfast (which are like un-sweetened donuts), and cassava and soup for lunch (made with lentils, noodles, and whatever else is around- prawns from the creek, tinned meat, wild greens, etc). Sunday, a group of people came over for dinner and there was a bunch of traditional food, and of course we were invited. We had cassava, taro (the staple root crops served with everything), fish and some plant related to sugar cane cooked in coconut milk, curried fish, stew and rice, and of course lots of grog. These people, like all Fijians, are so generous. If they have something, it is shared. This is especially true with food. I don’t think it’s possible for them to make food and not offer us some when we are right there. Every time I go outside with Jasper, they offer us something to eat. That happens a lot, since Jasper loves playing with them.

It’s nice to be invited to eat and drink grog with people, but it’s hard too. They speak very little English, and Miles and I speak very little Fijian, so most of the time we just sit there and smile while everyone is talking in Fijian around us. Often I can get the gist of what they are saying, but since I can’t really participate by saying much, they assume we don’t know what they are saying. This is kind of annoying, because they are frequently making jokes about us. Now, I know we are weird kaivalagis (“Europeans”), and there’s plenty to make fun of from their perspective, but it is rather uncomfortable to understand enough to know that people are laughing at you but not be able to say anything, and the whole time, they think that you have no clue. They do try to teach us new Fijian words, which I really appreciate, because I am always trying to add to my vocabulary, but even this can be frustrating. Sometimes it feels like they think we’re really dumb, like when they were telling us the words for “hello” and “thank you” after I had already been using full sentences and asking how to say “he’s in the house” (prepositions are hard in every language!). It’s been fun learning more about the culture and food, and their generosity is amazing, but I’m also really missing our privacy and am getting tired of being laughed at.

Luckily, we are getting a short break. They worked on the house for a week and a half, and they are now spending a week in Labasa for a conference for Jehovah’s Witnesses. If current progress on the house is an indicator, we can expect them to stay for three or four more weeks when they come back.

Doctors, Hospitals, Health Concerns, oh my!

Well, it’s hard to believe we’ve been here for five months already. Miles’ and Jasper’s birthdays came and went, tax season is almost over (thank goodness for me), and I will be getting my dive certification soon. I’m supposed to start sometime after this Wednesday. Thankfully, most of our skin troubles seem to be clearing up. After countless different rashes, Jasper is looking more or less normal again. After trying a bunch of different remedies, it seems like in the end, his skin did the best when we stopped doing anything altogether. For the last week, we’ve just been washing him with soap every morning in the shower and have gotten the best results yet. We’ve stopped using bug spray on him, and to our surprise, he is hardly getting bit, even down at the Waqa’s where they don’t have screens on the windows. When I picked him up from there the other day, he did not have a single bite after running around all day. Yesterday after running around outside up by our house (where there are a TON of mosquitoes), he had only one bite. I am amazed and very glad—now we can stop using DEET (on Jasper anyway, I still get tons of bites).

Our number of encounters with the medical establishment of Fiji is growing. And boy are they interesting. Miles went to see Dr. Joeli, the only private doctor in town, last week. His clinic or “surgery” is in town, and the only other option for medical care is the hospital. Miles had a cold that he thought might be developing into an upper respiratory infection and possibly an ear infection. The doctor didn’t find any signs of infection (in the ears anyway, he didn’t really check anywhere else), so Miles came away with some Sudafed (hey, at least we know where to get it). The medications dispensed at the doctor’s office are frequently not in their original packaging, and are instead put in plastic baggies with a hand-written slip of paper with the name of the medication on it. Just a few weeks ago, John got such a bag with an antibiotic in it, some brown and black pills with the name scrawled on a slip of paper, plus another slip of paper with “2 pills, 3x/day” written on it. The best part was when we googled the name of the antibiotic and found two close matches, but no exact match for that name. But hey, it’s that or go to the hospital… plus the bill for Miles visit and a bunch of Sudafed was about $9 US.

This weekend, we chose the hospital. Sunday morning, Jasper was walking around with a cup of milk, when he tripped and fell. The glass broke, giving him several cuts on the arm and hand. One of the cuts on his arm was quite deep and Miles determined that it would need stitches. Since it was Sunday morning, our only choice was the hospital. I did not go, since I was sick and had to drag myself out of bed and try not to throw up while cleaning up the blood and glass, but Miles gave a report when they returned. Apparently, Miles wandered around the empty hospital for a while before encountering a nurse. When he told her his son was injured and asked her where the intake area was, she simply took them over to a nurse’s station, cleaned the wound, gave him an injection of a local anesthetic, and then attempted to stitch the cut. Apparently Jasper was just fine with the injection and sat there and stared as she gave it. But when she was doing the first stitch, he just went nuts crying and trying to get away. So he only got one stitch, instead of what probably should have been three. But it’s healing well, it’s not infected (miracle of miracles here in the tropics), and when Miles and the nurse determined there would be no further stitches, they just got up and went home. No paperwork, no wait, no money exchanged.

Now, the hospital does have an outpatient clinic, an “emergency room” of sorts, which I have seen. Miles just didn’t know where it was, and frankly, I’m not sure if it’s staffed on the weekends anyway. When I went there, it was with my friend, the Dutch nurse, and we gave ourselves a tour. The outpatient treatment area consisted of a long bench in the hallway, which people crammed together on while waiting to be seen, and a room behind the bench, where people were treated all in the same room. There was a table, where two doctors sat, each talking to a different patient (no confidentiality here), and then a curtain separating them from the area where the nurses gave care. When I was there, I made friends with one of the nurses on duty, and she chatted to me while we were about three feet away from a man getting an IV for dehydration. We were sitting on a hospital bed which I noticed was heavily stained with blood when I got up. No one was wearing gloves.

On the rest of our “tour” I saw the children’s ward, the men’s ward, the women’s ward and the OB room. The wards consisted of eight beds each, all in one room, four on one side of the hall, four on the other. I didn’t see any nurses around, except for the two from the outpatient clinic who came with us. The OB room was just that, one small dingy room with an ancient hospital bed, with an ancient fetal monitor and a broken incubator. In each of the wards there was a hand-written sign about making the budget stretch by washing all supplies and using them again. Everything except syringes was to be used again and again. Now I know there is a lot of waste in the way we do things, and many of the things used in our hospitals probably should be multi-use, but it came as quite a shock to me to see just how little there was by way of resources. Anna (the Dutch nurse) told me that she had been to the hospital the week before and had talked with a different hospital nurse and had asked her how they deal with crisis, with situations like not being able to revive a newborn, etc. She said the nurse seemed offended and answered with a snide tone, “we manage.” She probably thought this western, white nurse was looking down at the way they did things. But the truth is, she (and I) just wanted to know.

What is this thing on my arm?!

Oh the tropics, home to such interesting bacteria. Lately, Jasper and I have been battling various skin problems. I really have no idea what they even all are. Jasper has at least three different types of rashes, and I have a few different types of sores. I think the only one I can identify is heat rash (ok, ok, and the boils on Jasper’s head). We have been doing research and asking several of our friends about possible causes/remedies for the other rashes Jasper has been getting, with only a little success so far. At first, I thought his main rash, which is on his legs, arms, and face, was due to us spraying too much DEET on him, but other friends insist that they are from either flea bites or tick bites. Those friends (the Masirewas) definitely had some success in reducing the redness and swelling in his rashes by giving him an herbal medicine bath using guava leaves and volukaka. But we’ve been keeping him home, behind screens, away from animals, and he’s still had a few new eruptions (though definitely much reduced). One of the major problems, of course, is that he keeps scratching the sores. I can’t blame him, mine itch like crazy too, it’s just that they are not really healing because they keep getting re-opened. Miles is remaining unscathed (lucky duck), probably because he’s spent more time in Fiji in the past. He says he had all kinds of skin problems the time he was here for several months, and that after he went back to the states, they took about six months to resolve themselves. I really hope that our systems will adjust and that we will not be dealing with these for the rest of the time we spend here.

New month, new job, new dog

Sorry for the lack of posts; we’ve been so busy lately. It’s tax season and I’ve been trying to learn the Fiji tax system and get together all of the needed documentation, as well as starting another job.

Several weeks ago, I met a Dutch nurse/doula named Anna who was here visiting Gavin de Becker and his wife Yukimi, who live about 2 miles down the road from us. (Gavin is somewhat of a celebrity- he’s a security expert and has several best-selling books.) Gavin has a charity organization here in Fiji and has done a LOT for local villages and kids. Everything from helping with school uniforms and fees to providing medical supplies to remote villages. Anyway, I have been trying to figure out if there is any way for me to get involved in the birth scene here, and Anna wanted to see everything too, so it seemed like the perfect time to get out and meet people. We went to the hospital and met some of the nurses and toured the labor and delivery area (which consisted of one room at the end of the women’s ward, and was definitely NOT where I would ever want to give birth). The nurses were very nice, and I gave them my phone number and said that I would love to help in any way I could, or even just come and observe. Things happen very slowly here, though, and I have not talked to them for several weeks. More about the hospital later…

Spending time with Anna led to meeting Gavin and Yukimi, and after Anna left, Gavin told me that he wanted to start a school and wondered if I would be interested in helping out. I got pretty excited about it, and said that I would love to. So I have started working at the store Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and spending Tuesday and Thursday at Gavin’s with a group of six kids. I’m not exactly sure where this project is going to go, so far it’s been very informal, more like drop-in child care than a school, but it’s still early on. I’m not sure if I will continue to be the teacher, since things at the store have gotten a little hectic since I stopped being there four or five days a week. I also have not had any time to myself to catch up on sleep (I’ve started drinking coffee out of necessity) or to study midwifery, which is very important to me, so I may propose stepping back and acting more as a consultant if Gavin still wants to move forward with the project.

One of the nice things about teaching has been having Jasper with me for those two days a week. We have been going through a somewhat difficult time lately with behaviors he is picking up at the babysitter’s house. Things are getting better now, but for a while, there was a lot of negativity at our house while Miles and I were trying to communicate to Jasper that some things were just not ok to do at our house. At the Waqa’s, and in Fiji in general, there is a different view of some behaviors we consider to be unacceptable, mostly involving hitting. I know it’s normal for kids (in the US) to go through an experimental phase with these things, where they try them out and see what the responses are, and they eventually learn that they are not acceptable. But here in Fiji, there’s a different attitude. Kids here hit each other all the time and it’s not considered violent or bad, but just funny. They smack each other on the behind, or they push each other, and just laugh. There is no negative association with this kind of behavior; it’s generally considered to be fun. This also applies to hitting animals. It’s not like they are beating each other or getting black eyes or anything, but when Jasper brings it home and hits me or the dog, I naturally get upset. For a while, I think he was confused about why we were so upset about it, because he was just doing it in fun, and not because he was angry or acting out. It’s just the message he was learning down the hill. After several weeks of trying to figure out how to deal with it, things are getting better. I think we’ve basically gotten the message across. We tried some time outs, but I don’t think they really worked. I think in the end, just explaining to him over and over that I don’t want to be hit, I don’t like it, and that I won’t play with him if he’s hitting me, got through to him and he’s pretty much stopped doing it. He’s still a little rough with the dog at times, but it’s definitely getting better.

Speaking of the dog, we got a little puppy near the end of January. She’s black with a little bit of white on her chest and paws, and she is very cute and very playful. Her name is Lai-Lai, which means “little” in Fijian. We got her from an Australian woman who found her on the side of the road in awful shape and nursed her back to relatively good health before putting up a sign to find her a home. We took Jasper over to meet her and he did very well with her, so we took her home. She is quite smart, and we have already taught her to stay away from cars (well, our car, which is the only one she’s around) and not to bark when we are getting her food ready. We are still working on getting her to be quiet and not whine to be let in at 4am.

Riding the Bus

Riding the bus here has been a sometimes confusing, strange, and hilarious endeavor. To get to and from work, we generally drive the truck (“the Mazda van with the open tray”) down the hill to the Waqa’s, park the truck and drop Jasper off, then catch whatever transportation comes along into town. I say whatever transportation, because it’s generally not a bus. The first day I decided to take the bus, I was riding in by myself because Miles’ ankle was still healing and he hadn’t started working at the store yet. Now, there is no office or visible oversight that runs the bus system, someplace you can get a bus pass or ask for a schedule. There are no written bus schedules. People just know when the busses run. There are also virtually no bus stops (I think I’ve seen two).

So that first day, I decided to walk down to the only bus stop around and just wait until a bus came along. I was encouraged to see people standing at the corner. Of course, I thought it was a bit strange that they were standing at the corner, instead of at the actual bus stop 50 feet away, but there were people waiting, which was a good sign. I asked one of the women there if she was waiting for the bus (she was) and if she knew what time it came. She said 10. I waited a minute, then looked at my phone to check the time. 9:10. What?! These people were waiting in the hot sun a whole hour before the bus came? I wasn’t wearing any sun block and didn’t have any with me, and the sun was already scorching hot. After about five minutes of fretting about sunburn, a truck with a canopy on the back drove up and stopped. One of the women jumped in the back of the cab like she knew the people. Then the woman in the passenger seat nodded at me. I looked around at the other two ladies and some men standing around waiting, then back at the woman in the truck with a questioning look. She nodded at me again, and I decided to jump in. I wasn’t going to miss a ride and have a nasty sunburn to show for it. I got in and the truck sped away. No one said a word. I really, really hoped they were going to town and not some other random place. Sure enough, the truck went to town, pulled over, and everyone got out. I saw the other two women give the driver some money, so I followed suit.

The next day, I went out to the same corner. This time, no one was waiting. So I stood there by myself, and after less than ten minutes, an empty taxi stopped. I didn’t wait for the nod, I just jumped right in. And that’s pretty much how it’s been most mornings. Just walk down the road, and eventually someone will pick you up. Usually it will be a taxi or “carrier” (the trucks with the covered bed; people sit in the back too), but we’ve also gotten free rides from the police and from a tow truck. I think the longest I’ve waited is 15 minutes, though Miles says one of the days he went without me he had to wait half an hour. And on one day out of the last two months, the first thing that went by was the bus.

Now in the afternoons, we almost always ride the bus. The bus costs 70 cents (which is also what a “return” ride into town costs), but a taxi home costs $3.50 (or so we’ve been told, we’ve never actually taken one). The buses leave from the bus station at roughly the same time every day, so we can plan when we leave the store. And I have to say that riding the bus is often one of the highlights of my day.
Things just happen on the bus. One day, the bus was still in town when a woman pulled the stop cord. The driver stopped, but nothing happened. He turned around, not looking surprised or annoyed, just neutral, and the woman who had pulled the cord pointed across the street and said, “My sister, my sister. She’s coming.” So the sister made her way across the street, had a short conversation with the woman on the bus, and then the woman on the bus passed her maybe three year old daughter to her sister through the window (there is no glass, the windows are just open holes). Another time, the bus stopped by the gas station and the guy getting off told the driver he just needed to get some gas really quick, so the driver just waited for him to get his gas and get back on the bus. And then there was the time that the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere, and in the distance I saw a girl walking toward the bus. I thought maybe she wanted to get on the bus, but she was walking really slowly for that. Eventually she made it to the bus and handed the driver what I’m assuming was his lunch through the window. He said thanks and we drove off. Riding the bus is never dull, that’s for sure. And then there’s the feeling of careening out of control as it takes sharp curves going downhill… yep, never dull.

Get your Goat

There is only one TV station here in Fiji, and a serious lack of programming for those who would like to watch. I'm ok with that, since we don't have a TV, and aren't really interested. Sometimes, though, we do watch the news with John and Barbara.

The local news (which is the same as the national news) is on every evening at six for between 20 and 40 minutes, depending on how much is going on. Here's a quip to give you an idea of average reporting:

"There’s a new form of soccer being played in Fiji. It's based around penalty shots, and is played with three players per team. Led by esteemed coach blah blah blah..."

The money quote at the end of the segment:

“The winner gets a goat, which proves the game is from Labasa.”

Ah Labasa, what a strange place.

Volukaka and Kana

Well, this wasn’t supposed to be a chronicle of Fijian medicine, but I keep getting sick, so there you go. This time around, I had something I wouldn’t call a flu, but it had muscle aches, headache, stomachache, nausea and diarrhea as symptoms. Once again, Eseta was concerned for my well being, and told Miles when he dropped Jasper off that she would pick some leaves for me to use. She also reiterated that I really need to be careful about being out in the rain. If I get caught in the rain, I need to wash it off. When I went down there today to drop Jasper off, she told me this again, and I said that I couldn’t remember being in the rain at all recently, and she said it happened when I walked home the other day. I said I didn’t think it was raining, and she replied “only a little bit, it’s still not good.” Maybe there was a slight drizzle. Being from Oregon, I couldn’t remember feeling any rain. This time, she gave me leaves from the volukaka or Simple-leaf Chastetree to pour boiling water over and inhale the steam. This time, I couldn’t find any good information online; even Wikipedia was not much help, but I went ahead and tried it anyway. I didn’t really notice any difference in how my stomach felt, but it did seem to help my head, and it felt refreshing. Good enough for me.


Yesterday we received a feast from Eseta’s family. A complete lovo meal (food cooked in an earthen oven with heated volcanic rocks), with two kinds of fish, dalo (taro roots), lolo (coconut cream sauce), palusami (dalo leaves stuffed with onions and lolo), chicken, lamb curry, and chop suey. Every time they have a lovo, they really load us down with food, enough for several nights’ dinners. This particular lovo (or more appropriately "kana" or feast) was in honor of Asenaca’s (Eseta’s next youngest sister) getting her first period and her transition into womanhood. There were probably fifty people over for dinner at the Waqa’s, and I have no idea how many others they gave food to. These people know how to throw a party, and I think it’s really awesome to celebrate this particular life transition in such a beautiful, life affirming way, surrounded by friends and family. What a gift to give to your daughter.

Look Ma, no Novocain! A dental horror/love story

Well, I meant to go to the dentist before we left the country, really I did. I had been having intermittent tooth pain for months, especially upon eating sweets. But somehow, there were just so many things going on, and I never got around to it. So we’d been in Fiji for maybe two weeks before I started asking John about dentists: specifically, were there any in the country that would not give me nightmares. My tooth was hurting, and I was afraid that I might have to remain in pain for a year or two, or pay a lot of money to fly over to Australia if I got desperate. Turns out there was a recommended dentist in Labasa (1.5-2 hours away depending on if you get stuck behind a bus and how much it’s raining). So I called and made an appointment, though I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of appointment I had made.

me: “I would like to make an appointment with the dentist.”
receptionist: “mumble mumble, [something about a] clinic.”
me: “I don’t know about a clinic. I live in Savusavu and I would like to come to Labasa to see the dentist.”
receptionist: “mumble mumble, what are you having?”
me: “I would like to have my teeth cleaned and examined. I am having some pain, and I think I might need a filling.”
receptionist: “mumble mumble, tomorrow?”
me: “How about Thursday?”
receptionist: “mumble mumble, [the only audible time I hear is] quarter past two.”
me: “OK, quarter past two. Thank you.”

So I go to Labasa and show up at the dentist’s office at the appropriate time. While I’m waiting, I look at the posted price list: tooth extraction (top of the list) $5-15, scaling and polishing (which turns out to be cleaning) $30-45, on down to root canal for a whopping $250. Well, I’d better not need one of those, because I didn’t bring $250.

I go into the dentist’s area and sit in the chair. Everything looks pretty normal: the chair with automatic raising and lowering, that light that’s always making you squint no matter how they adjust it, the tools and instruments. My first surprise: there’s no hygienist. The dentist does the cleaning himself. Normal procedure. Then the exam: the pain is apparently caused by a cavity and it just needs a simple filling. He gives me a mirror so I can see, and says “It’s a small one, I’ll just go ahead and take care of it right now.” I’m relieved I don’t have to come back. Then he gets out the drill and starts right in. Wait, no shot? No topical gel? No, I realize. There’s not going to be any of that, he’s just going to fill it up the fast way, and I get to sit there squeezing the hell out of my skirt and making fingernail imprints in my palms. And I get to watch. I still have the mirror, and I can see the whole thing. Somehow, though, seeing it is so fascinating that it helps with the pain. I’ve never seen a filling being done before, and I know exactly when it’s going to hurt. So he fills it up, using all the same high tech dentistry as in the US, giving me a white composite filling. It’s done, and then comes the clincher: “Well, it looked small, but it was really quite deep.” “No shit.” is all I can think.

I go back up front to pay, and it comes to a grand total of $70: 35 for the cleaning, 35 for the filling. Well, considering that that’s about $35 US, and that it probably would have cost 10 times as much to get it done in the States, I’m glad I waited and had it done here. Overall a positive experience, even without the Novocain.

Flickr Photos

Thank you, thank you to Chantrelle for buying us a Flickr Pro Account. Now there is no limit to the number of photos we can download and you all can view all of them, anytime. But it's probably still a good idea to download the ones you want, since as we have seen, they can unexpectedly go away.