Life isn't quite as good when that denial is taken away. It's a fact of the Peace Corps life that during the service, men lose weight and women gain weight. No one really knows what causes this phenomenom, but I have a few ideas, like the way a good number of females tend to deal with stress (pass me another chocolate bar please) and carbs (sticks to your bones like glue) differently from men. So, as a result of my femaleness, the freshmen 15 that I managed to get rid of in the months after I graduated has come back in the form of the Peace Corps 15. It's not too much extra weight; in fact, it should be easy to fit in to my pattern of denial, in my house that only has hand mirrors, and when all of my baggy village clothes still fit.

I must remind you however that this is Fiji. Denial is a piece of cake in America where thin is beautiful and no one except for maybe your mom would ever tell you all of your clothes were awkwardly tight. In Fiji, where fat is thought to be healthy and beautiful, it is considered a compliment to tell someone they're looking a little thicker in the middle. As I was hanging my laundry on the line outside a few days ago, someone I barely know walked by me. As he passed he said, “Maya o iko bulabula vinaka (Maya you're looking healthy). O iko levulevu (you're fat).” GASP!! How do you respond to that? “Thank you,” “No, it's just my (un)flattering shirt,” “Screw you”? And he's not the only one to say it. The old ladies will tell me, the young ladies tell me, the nurse says it, and even the little kids! For God's sake, I've only put on a few pounds! The bells are tolling to announce the iminent death of denial.

For me, the whole situation goes to show how funny culture is. The things typically considered to be most culture specific, like food or music, have been easy for me to adapt to. I'll eat octopus cooked in coconut milk while singing along to Dokidoki music anyday. However, body image has turned out to be one of my least flexible pieces of Americana. While yes, there are other big switches to get used to, such as the ocean being treated like a dumpster and beer being considered the work of the devil, being told I am becoming levulevu is the cultural change that affects me most personally. Chalk it up to those formative teenage years in the western world, I suppose. Lucky for my sanity though, I also spent those formative years perfecting the art of denial. Another cultural stronghold. So, when I hear levulevu and run inside to check out my waist in the tiny hand mirrors, I usually decide that Fijians just don't understand my curves and that the piece of pie I just bought is looking delicious! And anyway, I know that there are always a few parasites lurking around the village just waiting to reclaim an inch or two of that waistline.

It all started with some rat problems. The first house I lived in here in the village had a major infestation. Each night I moved the soap out of my shower and put it in a safe place. Why? Because if I had left it, the rat gang would move in and steal my soap. At that point, I was averaging about 2 bars of soap a month. And no, this was not because I had had a revelation about cleanliness-it was because of the thieves. Well, I moved into my new house and thought to myself, “Here's my chance to start anew and be super clean to avoid rat infestation. I am tired of breaking the bank on soap.” Unfortunately, no amount of cleanliness can keep those pests away. I wasn't sure what they were eating (the rats on this side of the village are not soap-eaters), but they came in droves.

Suddenly I found myself living in a rat's nest. I returned from a weekend away to find that they had been living in my underwear box. In their nightly gallivanting, they knocked spices and sponges off the shelves. I would wake up to hear them racing around the floor and walls near my bed. And then, the final straw. One night while I was sleeping, in a complete and utter invasion of my space, one took a big chomp on my finger in the middle of the night! In the morning, I awoke to find blood on my sheets and bite marks on my finger nail. Outraged, but to much of a wimp to go the route of the rat trap, I went for a two pronged approach, rat poison and a cat to do the dirty work. I quickly made a trip to the SPCA in Suva and, with the help of a few character judges, picked out the kitten who looked most like he would develop into a rat killer.

And so began my life as a Cat Lady. The little guy was an adorable little fluff of fur. Having him around (or maybe it was the poison) worked like a charm-he provided hours of entertainment and there were no rats anywhere near the house. Of course, he had a slight flea problem, and had mistaken the area under my bed as his bathroom, but these were small problems we worked through. He loved chasing anything that moved, be it my mosquito net or a mosquito, which I saw as a great sign for his future prowess as a ratter. I gave the wild little guy the name Riva (pronounced reeva), which is the Fijian word for crazy. It turns out, however, that unlike crazy, the word riva doesn't ever have a good connotation. You can't say, for example, “she's so riva! I love hanging out with that girl.” People who are riva go to the mental institution in Fiji. Moreover, riva also means mentally handicapped. (this is why that phrase doesn't work. Try it. “she's so mentally handicapped! I love hanging out with that girl.” Nope.) Oops. Luckily, Riva doesn't understand Fijian, and so doesn't know that I gave him a name that labels him as a resident of the mental institution.

Fast forward a month or two. Riva is starting to look like a real, grown up cat and understand the concept of a litter box. He loves to play. Life is great. One day I walk down to the beach to get some sand for his box and a crowd of little kids ran up to me. They were all speaking at once trying to tell me something about cats and a box and the beach and abandoned and.... Once I got them to slow down and tell me what the problem was, I found out that someone had abandoned two very young kittens in a box on the beach. Being the one crazy white person in the village who buys food for my cat and keeps him inside, they figured I was the perfect person to rescue the little guys. So, I took them in. I had to. I couldn't, in front of all of these sensitive, impressionable kids, leave the kittens there in a box where they would surely be taken away by the high tide and eaten by sharks. Or at the least be eaten by rats. So, Maya, the savior; the wonderful Peace Corps volunteer who is full of love (as the kids told me), took the two one-and-a-half week old kittens into her 16ft X 20ft home.

Thinking back, being labeled as someone who abandons cats may not have been such a bad thing. The two little cows were not yet old enough to eat on their own. So, every few hours I put a bit of milk into half of a contact solution bottle that was serving as a bottle. They weren't really very easy to feed, having claws and all, and so soon my house took on the smell of the old milk that had been spilled everywhere. I also realized that soap costs much less than milk in this country. Mornings were no longer relaxing because my new alarm clock was the obnoxiously loud mewing of the starving kittens. This alarm clock went off at all hours of the day and night. My social life was affected because people in the village were kind of afraid of the little kittens that stumbled all over the place and clawed their feet to look for food. If I went out somewhere, I had to make sure I wasn't gone too long so that I could get home to feed the kittens. They, like Riva when he first came to my house, could also not control where they peed. Nothing is quite so enjoyable as going to wipe your feet on the welcome mat and finding it already wet. They weren't even cute-they looked like rats and couldn't even really walk. What's more, they made Riva even crazier. Since their entrance to the house, he started galloping around the house, going full speed from one side to the other. If it wasn't the kittens that were keeping me awake, it was Riva's running. Thus my descent into Cat Lady-dom. One lady, three cats, very small house.

Things have gotten a little better lately. They have finally figured out how to eat on their own, however buying the food is still breaking the bank. They've quieted down a bit and mornings are a going a little smoother. Riva has taken to the little kittens (who I'm realizing might be females, which presents a whole other set of problems), and now sees them as great toys. He loves to, mid-gallop, tackle the kittens. This is hilarious to watch, but I do kind of worry about them developing some sort of complex or major injury. He also fills some of the mother roles that I can't by cleaning them and snuggling with them while they sleep. They are starting to get the walking thing, and starting to look cute, however they still haven't grasped the concept of the litter box and have they have fleas, two things which are causing major problems in our relationship. I am really hoping to hand them off to other families in the village. And I'm tired of cleaning up their poop. I am trying to talk up the fact that my house has been rat free since I got a cat, and prove how cute and fun the kittens are in hopes that this will help to unload them faster. My house is just too small to handle three cats. Or maybe I'll just give one away...two cats might not be too bad...

Now, even though sometimes it feels like I get stuck in my house, I really don't just sit in my house all day, waiting for people to come by. I frequently go to village meetings, youth meetings, and church meetings. Now, at the village and youth meetings, I will usually give people reminders or suggestions. At village meetings, I usually have to remind people to separate their recycling correctly and to continue building and using their compost pits. At youth meetings (youth being people above the age of 17 who aren't married) sometimes I'll suggest program ideas like setting up a role model program for the kids, other times I'll just sit in and be a presence. This is why I attend so many church meetings as well. It's not that I've recently become deeply religious, but it is the perfect way to let people know that I'm a member of the community and the perfect way to meet them. Because, really, a lot of my work here is about making connections. For example, I talk to someone at a church meeting and they mention a workshop they are going to where they will learn about starting a bread bakery. Then, I remember a friend who is very interested in starting a small business. I connect the two, and hopefully they'll both attend the workshop and start the bakery together, both being very committed. I feel like making these connections is a very important part of my job, which I wouldn't be able to do if I didn't get out and about in the village, attend different meetings, and talk to people.

And then there's the planned type of work. This is mainly the work that I do for the Environmental Committee that I work for, however there are other small things that I do. On the committee, we have women and men from all 5 villages in the district, and we meet monthly to choose projects and discuss progress on ongoing work. We organize the recycling for the district, set up an annual environmental day, build compost toilets, fix piggery waste systems (I have had far too much experience with pig poo since I've been here), and are going to (hopefully) organize a clean compound competition this year in the villages. Now, a lot of this stuff was started and done by the volunteer that I replaced, and in fact, she started the committee. My role here is to help the committee with their projects and make sure they progress (usually meaning I do them, though I am trying to change this), and provide guidance in choosing projects and planning. My main goal while I'm here, through planning workshops and delegating responsibilities, among other things, is to strengthen the committee and turn it into a force that will remain after I leave. It's a lofty goal, but if the committee doesn’t last it seems like a waste of all the education work. At this point, I believe, if I wasn't here to do a lot of the functional, organizational things, the committee would quickly dissolve. Hopefully, by the time I leave, this will have changed.

Other planned work involves weekly trash pick-ups in the village with the kids, attending various workshops about income generating projects and women in development. I’m pretty busy here, which is not something I ever expected from peace corps, but really, I’ve realized, that’s the way I like it.

My first experience with the Coconut Wireless occurred long ago, while I was still in my host village. The other Peace Corps Volunteers staying in the village and I were going to take a small 30 minute trek to the beach that followed the cane-train tracks. Alone. It turned out that my host mom (clearly an expert) was not thrilled at the idea of our solo venture, and using the Coconut Wireless, arranged an escort for us. When we reached the turn off to the beach, he was sitting there waiting. My host mom had not left her house, and yet the news and her request had traveled faster than we had. That's the incredible thing about the Coconut Wireless; it travels at lightening speeds through unseen channels. News travels far and wide before you even know that it left.

Now for my second encounter. As you might recall, I recently made a speaking blunder involving beautiful vaginas and wind. Well, lets fast forward a little from that day. I can't remember having told anyone aside from some fellow Peace Corps Volunteers, and I have basically pushed the incident out of my memory. I'm sitting outside the Provincial Office (aka, main government office for the district) in Sigatoka, about to go to a meeting encouraging villages to incorporate the environment into their 5 year plans. I am surrounded by mostly male Fijians, only one of whom I had met before. It's a pretty hot day, and there's not much talking. Suddenly, coming from behind me, I hear someone saying, in Fijian, "the vagina is beautiful." Hmm, I think, that's a weird coincidence. It is then repeated over and over and over, louder and louder. I realized that the phrase is being directed towards me, and I have never seen the man who is saying it before. Now, if it weren't for my previous blunder, it would probably be the sleaziest pick-up line ever attempted. I made eye-contact with him; my eyes giving him the "who are you-how do you know that story-do we really need to go into this now" look. Ignoring my silent request, he proceeded to repeat the story of my mistake to everyone attending the meeting. Everyone had a great laugh, and I'm sure my face turned shades of red that I didn't know existed. Now, how did this man who I have never ever spoken to in my life and has never seen my website learn about this story? Chalk it up to the mysterious and mystical Coconut Wireless.

Like anyone learning a new language, I have made a few mistakes when speaking to people. Ok, that's quite an understatement. I have made hundreds of thousands of mistakes, and probably add another 1000 to the tally every day. However, I have also made a few absolutely hilarious, totally awkward, and completely embarrassing mistakes that are worth writing home about. And so, home, for your enjoyment, here is one of my favorite mistakes.

A woman I'm friends with and her family have recently started a prawn farm in the village. It's a rather large operation with three deep ponds and 500,000 prawns. One day, when the critters were first dropped off, I went with my friend to see what they looked like. The weather that day had been particularly hot and steamy, one of those miserable days when at any second you expect the sky to open up to a torrential down pour, but it never does and instead you just sweat profusely. Luckily, in the evening, when we were looking at the ponds a glorious wind had started blowing. I wanted to share the glory of the weather with my friend, and so I told her "E totoka (it's beautiful) na cago!" Now, in Fijian, cagi (said, thangi) means wind. Unfortunately, I mixed up my vowels and said cago (said, thango). Cago means vagina. Yup, I said that the vagina was beautiful. I didn't understand that that's what I had said, of course, because that word wasn't included in our language training books. It was only after my friend stopped her uncontrollable laughter and could breath that she could explain my mistake. More uncontrollable laughter ensued.

There are plenty more mistakes where that came from. Will share more in another entry! Happy Holidays! Love and miss you all!!

So, for three weeks before the race (which took place on October 10), I went up to Mango Bay at 3pm, when practice was supposed to start, waited around until 4 or 4:30, when practice actually started, and worked out with the team for a few hours.  For the first week, practrice was really, really hard-reminicent of the hard practices for my high school cross country team.  We had timed runs up and down gigantic hills and then do 30 minutes of sprints on the beach.  After that we did push ups and sit ups.  Three straight weeks of that and the team would have been unstoppable. 

However during the second week that I was training with the team, some problem arose between the village and the resort.  Something to do with the manager sending the chief's son to jail.  Needless to say, that didn't go over well with the villagers working at the hotel, and employee/employer relationships were a little strained.  There was a bit of a strike, and training was kind of interrupted that week.  When practice restarted towards the end of the week, instead of running we kyaked to train for the water events.  While it was great fun to be kyaking inside of a barrier reef in the Pacific around sunset, it didn't do a whole lot for my fitness level.  The next week, we ran some, but also started to practice some of the other land events which involve more coordination than fitness.  Throw in a few missed practices for work related activities, and come race day, my, and probably the rest of the team's, fitness was not quite tip-top. 

Also the week before the competition, we solved the "I'm not really an employee" problem.  Once afternoon I worked with the housekeeping staff sweeping and mopping, making beds, and scrubbing toilets.  I didn't get paid, but as a result, was able to answer, if I was asked (which I wasn't), what my work was at Mango Bay.  I thought it was pretty hilarious, really.   I made sure to give all of the Australian and Kiwi tourists who walked into their rooms a big "Bula!"  Bula is what all of the Fijians say to the tourists, but not really what they use that much in the everyday setting. 

So, October 10 at 4am I woke up with the team (we spent the night together), ate at the hotel, and set off for the first event, the marathon relay.  Each team fields 10 people who each run about 2km in a relay.  I was the 4th runner and was able to pass one gril, but then got passed by one boy.  When I handed off the baton, we were second, then for a while we were first, then after a rough last two legs, we ended third out of seven teams.  Not bad, I thought-wasn't first place, but not bad for the team's first year in competition.  The rest of the team was crushed.  They seemed to have the attitude, first or nothing.  No worries, we still had a half a day of other land events and then an afternoon of water events to catch up, right?  

Not being quite as coordinated as my teammates, I was a spectator for the morning's land events.  And, unfortunately, these eventsw did not go very well.  In some events, the team simply didn't place very high.  In others, we started off well, and then were disqualified.  Needless to say, moral was dropping pretty quickly.  The final blow came in the last event before the kyaking started, the coconut tunnel.  In this event, 10 people have to pass a coconut throught their legs, rotating the person who is in front (if only I hadn't had to wake up at 4am, I might have remembered my camera and been able to document this hilarious spectacle).  Each round of the event, our team came in first, slowly making it to the finals.  Spirits soared, and I htought to myslef, alirght!  Here's the cohesive, enthusiastic team that I've been practicing with.  

Three teams participated in the final round.  Because of the excitement and energy, there were a few false starts.  First one guy from our team did.  Then, a guy from the Warwick and then one from the Naviti, then a few more false starts.  Each time there was a false start, the officials blew their whistles, called the contestants back, and restarted the race.  Finally, as the age old saying goes, the fifth time's the charm, and all of our hard work paid off.  Mango Bay won the race!  As we were all jumping for joy and celebrating, the other two teams claimed that we had false started.  This time, rather than restart the race, it was called a disqualification.  It was at this point exactly that the coach cracked open his first beer.  He continued with the "all or nothing" trend, though this time he found himself on the all side.  The majority of the team followed suit.  Those who weren't drinking beer began to drink kava.  Participation in the afternoon events dropeed steeply.  I was almost going to paddle in the women's kyak relay, but we couldn't find the third pair.  The remaining diehards dropped inot their places around the grog bowl, and the months of training for the races took a backseat to lifetimes of training for kava drinking.  In my mind, it was a happy ending.  Though we didn't win, we all happily sang songs, relaxed, talked, and drank kava into the evening. 

Most noticeably, I hear the kids playing right outside of my window. Despite the fact that they keep me from sleeping super soundly, it was nice to hear their laughter and shouts. They are playing this game called Pani, which I suppose is some sort of a mix between Cricket and Dodgeball. There are two teams. One team has a tennis ball and is trying to throw it at a tower of coconut shells. After the stack has been knocked over, the other team tries to hit the players of the other team, dodgeball style, and get them all out before they can restack the coconut shell tower. The trick is that the team restacking the tower and getting hit by balls is allowed to carry boards. If a ball is coming towards them, they can swat it away with the board, giving them some extra time to restack the coconut shells. If all the shells are restacked before the other team gets everyone out, they “win” and start over again. If everyone gets hit by a ball, the two teams switch roles. It’s a really confusing game that I had to watch at least for a week straight to understand.

Other sounds that I hear include lazy dog barks. The dogs here are much quieter than they were in Lauwaki, but you still hear them from time to time. There are three that hang out by my house, and since it’s the afternoon and hot, they are just lolling around making occasional snuffles.

Also, a new, but welcome sound at my house is the sound of my shower dripping. It might be a loud, slightly irritating sound, but it does mean I have water, which is a very enjoyable development, and worth putting up with a noisy drip. For all of you hippies out there afraid that I’m wasting water, no worries. I catch the water in a bucket and then use that water to bathe with rather than the zero-water pressure shower head. It works out quite nicely.

I also hear my friend Laite outside. Well, I don’t hear her, persay, but the sound of a lit being put on a pot. The women in Fiji cook with these gigantic aluminum pots. While most houses have kitchens and stoves inside, the really big root crop dishes, like cassava or taro root (which are eaten at almost every meal), are usually cooked outside over a fire. I think this is because they can take as long as two hours to cook and use so much heat, that to save fuel they are cooked over a fire instead of over a gas stove. Laite is usually cooking for at least six people (husband, husband’s parents and 2 brothers, and any nieces or nephews that happen to be around) so she cooks over the fire a lot and I often hear her opening and closing pots.

So, as I drifted off to sleep, I smiled about being able to take a nap when working and I smiled about living in Namatakula Village. I smiled about my village clean up, people I know, and my house, and thought to myself, this is the life. Then I frowned. I realized that it was a Saturday. Most people don’t think of Saturdays as work days, and can take naps anytime they want. Foiled again! Then again, most people don’t think of snorkeling as work. Take that suckers!