Moving in T-6 Days

I have always said that the best way to head off unpleasantness is to take a little vacation with your visiting parents. Well, that is what we did and I will tell you all about that in a second. First, the drama: we are definitely kicked out of our house. We had been promised that we would be OK to stay here until the end of the March and that we would hopefully have a new house lined up then. Well, I guess that “the end of March” means March 17th because that is when the new teacher is moving in. Turns out that the manager likes to make spurious promises because he also promised the principal and new teacher that we would be out “in 2 weeks.” 2 weeks was up last week. The promiser has conveniently tucked off to the capital and is wisely keeping his phone off. Needless to say, his days of working with the US Peace Corps have ended. If we end up leaving Koro, I will give you plenty of other juicy details that I will keep under wraps now.

Where does that leave us? Well, to my right I have noticed a large boulder and to my left a nondescript hard place. There is a house available in the village that may or may not meet Peace Corps security requirements. There would be no garden and no privacy, no view of the ocean from the porch, and nowhere to put anything. On the positive, it is a 6-year-old’s stone throw from the ocean, it is nice and big, and is shaded by a big tree. It is in the village, instead of above it, which has its positives and negatives. The house may be the least of our concerns as Peace Corps appears to be leaning toward pulling us out for a variety of reasons but boiling down to Sally’s counterpart turning out to be crazy and her associated loss of half of her job along with the deteriorating reliability of our transportation to/from the island. When we were posted here there were 2 boats/week and one plane/week. The plan got canceled and the boat was reduced to 1/week. Last week the boat broke. You can do the math. That happened to coincide with my parents’ visit which was overcome only by a death-defying maneuver that will be explained in further detail later (to keep you reading!).

So, where are we going if we leave is the million dollar question?!? More to the point, if you are about to send chocolate or a car or just a letter, stop the mail! Wait! We don’t know where we are heading and while we can probably have things forwarded, it would be best to hold off until we know more later in the week. We will either be moving into a new house on Wednesday or into a truck to go to Suva. You may commence sending delicious treats upon my command after Wednesday. There are one and a half options on the table. The most viable option is a site in rural Vanua Levu whose name escapes me. I told it is a great site. There was a health volunteer there until last year and the volunteer from our group who was to replace him went home. I do not know what we would be doing for work, but I can assume that it would be a significant step down from my current position, which is actually looking up.

Option 0.5 is Nacula Island in the Yasawas and while I am being told by the Peace Corps office that it is probably not going to work, I am pushing for it anyway. This is where my folks and I went for vacation last week and the place is amazingly beautiful in addition to having some serious needs. Knowing that we may be getting the flip-flop (that’s like the boot, but no one has those here) from our site here, I fielded them out for having a volunteer and they were thrilled about the idea. As it turns out, they had already submitted an application for a volunteer! Anyway, the timeline is much too fast for us to be out this week and in to an undeveloped site but I am not giving up that easily. That place was crazy-beautiful.

So, my parents came to visit and after having two visits from friends and family, I now know one thing: we will not be bringing any more visitors to Koro Island. The transportation to/from the island has now gotten the best of otherwise well-laid plans. For us, a boat that is, say, a week late or canceled entirely is not that big of a deal. On Fiji time, whether one goes this week or next is not that important. The importance is considerably magnified in the course of an American 2-week vacation. So, the Coffmans got stuck on the island and my parents got stuck off of it (or we got stuck on it, depending on your perspective). The ferry broke this time so there was no boat. My parents ended up paying out the nose to take a small fiberglass boat 3 hours across the Koro Sea in 25 knot winds. I did this to may parents, on my mother’s 60th birthday no less. (Did I tell you about the last time my parents visited me in a foreign land when my mother broke her ankle. (Worst son ever.) Well, they made it but I won’t be testing fate with sending another of my loved ones that way. When you come, we will meet you somewhere.

That being said, we had a really great time with my parents and at least the weather cooperated. Their trip took them to Savusavu for a couple of days (having been stranded by the lack of a boat) then to Koro where they got their dose of sitting on the floor and wearing funny clothing. My Dad took to wearing a skirt like he was born to do it. Then we headed for greener pastures, first to the Coral Coast of Viti Levu for a night, to Denerau for one night that got extended to 2 based on Sally and I being unable to quit the luxury after just one night. Then we headed to Nacula Island, one the last in the Yasawa chain, next to the island where they filmed Blue Lagoon (which we watched on an impossibly small screen while we were there). It was amazing and we stayed on what was probably the most picturesque strip of beach that I have ever seen. We did a bunch of snorkeling, Sally and I dove, we hiked the island, and otherwise pretended that we don’t live here and were just visiting. It was wonderful to just be a tourist. Sadly, they headed out on Tuesday and we came home here to face the music. To top it all off, there is a hurricane heading our way—should be here on Sunday or Monday. That should make moving easy.

Well, I am working on the photos from the trip with my parents and should have that for your viewing pleasure. In the meantime, I am going to head down to the village to drink some grog as my way of showing support for the women’s fundraiser to make enough money to build a bread kitchen. If we are staying here, it sure would be nice to not have to make my own bread.