The nights in Lauwaki village can get pretty wild and crazy.  I thought I'd walk you through one of my typical nights, lets make it a monday, to show you what the hot and steamy Fijian nights bring about.  

My nights usually begin at 5 pm, after a full day of language and technical training.  Jeanette, Rhiannon (the other 2 female trainees in the village) and I have joined the Lauwaki Netball team, and go to practice around 5 (meaning maybe by 5:30.  Fiji time, remember?) each night.  Netball, for those of you from apparently the only former British colony to not have picked up this sport, is a women's game that is somewhat of a mix between basketball and ultimate frisbee.  The goal of the game, like in basketball, is to get the ball through the hoop.  The difference here is that the basket has no backboard.  This is a problem for me because the only shot I ever "mastered" in basketball was the layup.  No worries though, because only two people on the team are allowed to shoot, and I am not in the running for one of those spots.  Oh, two other curious rules are that when you shoot, you cannot jump, and you have three seconds to line up the shot.  The game is like ultimate frisbee because you are not allowed to run with the ball, but instead must pass it as soon as you receive it.  I must admit, I am not in love with this game.  It has strange rules (another being, you must stay 3 feet away from the person you are defending).  It is, however, a great opportunity for me to hang out with girls under the age of 40 and work off some of the outrageous amounts of food that I am eating (here, the word for fat-uro-is also the word for sexy).  The team has asked us to play with them in their next game....I'll keep you updated whether the game goes in the W or L column. 

We get back from practice around 6:30, and then it's time for a shower.  Those of you who have lived with me might scoff at the idea that I take quick showers here, but you better believe that in the land of cold showers, it's amazing how quickly you can soap up.  I never knew I could condition so fast!  Also, I must admit, I lied about the hot and steamy nights thing, which makes the cold shower that much more difficult.  Lately, the weather has not been so hot or steamy at night.  To we Americans in the village, the nights are comfortably cool, and we are grateful that Fiji is not an island oven like we were expecting.  To the rest of the villagers, however, the coolnights are similar to weather in the Alps during January.  I come home from practice, and my family is wearing knit caps, sweaters, socks, and anyother warm clothes that they can find.  This is downright comical to me, as I don't think the temperature has dropped below 70 degrees.  It is a bit concerning, because if they get this cold when it's 70, just how hot does it get during the summer??? 

Right, so after the shower, it's dinner time.  Sometimes I help cook (I made eggplant curry the other night), but most nights it's done before I get a chance to help.  I help set the table and say grace (a must before every meal here-I forget sometimes and dig in and the meals get a little awkward).  Dinner ranges from chicken soup or fish (yum) to ramen noodles with canned corn beef (yuck).  After dinner I help clean up, and then it's time for tv, reading, or studying.  You better believe the nights are this wild and crazy...and it's only 7:30 at this point!  At 8pm, the village drum sounds, signalling the start of the church service for the youth group.  Luckily I have been able to avoid this service thus far (I think once a week is all I can take of sermons in a language I don't understand), but from what I hear from my friends who were not so lucky, it is a very long 2 hours where you sit cross legged on the floor and understand nothing. 

At 8:30, my hostmom's favorite tv program comes on, and we always sit down together and watch it.  Wild, I know.  Apparently every woman in Fiji watches this show.    The show, direct from New Zealand, is called Shortland Street.  It is a horrendously cheesy, terribly acted, outrageously acted show about a group of people who work in a hospital.  Think General Hospital.  I think part of the reason it's so fun to watch is because it's so incredibly bad.  This week, the big story is that TK, the young, hot doctor was just arrested.  You see, he was trying to help his friend Mickey kick his meth addiction after Mickey was beaten up by his dealers for owing them too much money.  TK used to have quite the meth habit, and owed Mickey's family a favor because they helped him rehab a while ago.  He took Mickey to an out of the way cabin where he could detox and recover.  But Mickey, the scoundral, hadn't quite finished with his evil ways.  He called his dealer and told him that TK could make meth to repay his debts.  Of course, then, the undercover cop popped out with the rest of his squad and arrested them both.  It's a mixed up, crazy world on Shortland Street, and  I haven't even gotten into the married lesbians having an argument, the secretary who almost married a gay man, the daughter who stole the mother's promotion, or the prisoners who took the nurses hostage to protest the subpar prison conditions. 

After the show, we'll drink tea and I'll either stick around for more tv or hit the sack.  Sure, it might only be 9pm, but you can see how nuts my night has already been.  It'll wear a girl out.  And anyway, the nights aren't that easy to sleep through.  Anyone who has complained to me about noisy nights has never spent the night in Lauwaki Village.  Nights in the village are far louder and more rediculous than simple car horns or loud neighbors.  It starts with a dog chorus around 10pm that devolves into a William Wallace style battle by 11pm.  That dies down as the dogs become too maimed to fight anymore.  Around 2pm, though, the tide changes which for some reason sets off the roosters.  Wait until sunrise?  That's so midwest.  Here in the south pacific, roosters march to their own beat.  Once that's over with, there are a few hours of solid sleep until the neighbor begins praying very loudly at 6am.  At that point, I just try to stay in bed until my bladder won't hold out anymore.  Then it's time to get up and greet the new day. 

Ok, so I suppose the nights here really aren't all that crazy or wild.  They are really pretty relaxed and low key.  Being a youthful 23 year old, I thought that these quiet nights would be an issue when I first got here.  But now, after a month , I really cherish them.   I love having the time to exercise and spend time with my family.  I get more sleep than I have since turning 10, and still have time to read magazines (we get a subscription to Newsweek).  Sure, every once in a while I get youthful pangs longing for some sponteneity and a night out, and so every now and again, the trainees meet up and hit a resort bar.  All in all though, the quiet nights of Fiji have really grown on me.