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.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
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!
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.
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.
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