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.