Win Some, Lose Some

In the spirit of you-win-some-you-lose-some, we have arrived at our new site. It was not an easy journey. After the cyclone, the ferry broke basically stranding the island without incoming food, which would not have been that big of a deal had not most of the crops been destroyed by the cyclone. It also stranded us. We were told on Thursday that we were being pulled from the island and that Peace Corps would be coming on Friday night to pick us up and move us. So we packed. Then the boat broke so we unpacked. (The best part is that it broke in the ocean so had to turn around and go back. We didn’t find out that the boat hadn’t made it for awhile.) Then they said it was coming so we packed. We continued that routine for the better part of a week. Finally it was decided that Peace Corps was unwilling to risk getting off the boat to pick us up fearing that another boat may never come. If a boat ever made it to Koro, we were to get ourselves and our belongings on it and never look back lest we turn into a pillar of salt.

So, on the day that the boat was to finally and truly leave, we packed (as per our usual). The boat was to leave at 1:00pm getting to Koro at around 9:00pm. Since food was scarce on the island at this point, every meal was becoming an experiment in scrounging. We were also trying to minimize unpacking at this point. So, we planned to eat lunch and then skip dinner. The boat didn’t leave at 1:00…or 2:00…or 3:00. It left at 6:00. Then it had to turn around again. Evidently, they put the cars on wrong so the whole thing was listing. They had to return to port to put arrange them correctly. The boat really and truly left at 8:00 so we headed down there nice and early to make sure that we could get all of our stuff there. We got there at around 2:00am for a 3:00am arrival. Guess what time the boat didn’t come and what time it started raining. The boat finally limped in to Koro after sunrise at around 7 or 8. I stopped keeping track in there somewhere due to delirium. One of the engines had failed, the water pump had failed, and the lights on the lower deck had failed, but the boat made it and nothing short of the boat being on fire or actively sinking would have preventing me from getting on it.

So, we did. Just a short 4-hour trip to Savusavu and we would be free from the burdens of travel to Koro forever. Then we got to Savusavu. Well, one of the winches to pull the boat into port broke so they couldn’t pull us in. We sat in the harbor for 3 hours while they tried to fix it. Finally, they tied a rope to a truck on land and the truck pulled us ashore. And thus ends the last time that I plan to ever ride the SOFI ferry again. All in all, it took us 14 hours to get from Koro to Savusavu, two dots on a map that on any map you probably have are indecipherable from each other.

Anyway, we are here in our new village—a large-ish village about 2 hours by bus outside of the town of Savusavu. Savusavu itself is known as the “Hidden Paradise,” and while I wouldn’t go that far, it is nice. Most importantly, it has stores and in those stores are cheese, and jam, and peanut butter, and VEGETABLES! It is a 4-hour round trip to get there so you have to mean it to go there, but the fact that we can is revolutionary to us. We got off Koro once every couple of months and only then if we had a conference or something. We just got to the village but so far, it seems great. The biggest difference is that they have had a Peace Corps Volunteer before. That means that in the Fijian way, we are always being compared to him (and evidently, he was super-PCV here. The man did amazing things from what I can tell), but it means that they really want us here. They know what Peace Corps is and is not and had been begging for another volunteer for some time.

Our house is pretty awesome. We had a great house on Koro, but this makes our old house look like a hovel. It is owned by a woman who spent enough time in Australia to have upped her standards a bit. It is a 2 bedroom concrete block house with lots of space. It is right in the village with our front porch (yep) overlooking the Methodist church and the sea behind it. It isn’t quite the view that we had on Koro, but anytime that your porch looks at the water, complaining is moot. The only issues have to do with dirt. The last volunteer here was a single, young, and clearly dirty male. If the rumors hold true, he didn’t pick up a broom or rag in 2 years. I believe it. Then after he left, the filth had 9 months of time to marinate while the house was unoccupied. So, we walked into that mess. It is still a work in progress but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Since the cyclone, there is no electricity in this part of the village. That is a bit of a bummer and will make computer access a little more difficult and less frequent. So, if you are used to reading my wit on this blog on a regular basis, it will be much less frequent in the near future. E-mail will be similarly disrupted. As for phones, the phones that we have been using (mine: 7413233 and Sally’s: 7413231) don’t work here. We have a number for now that does, sort of, work here. It is 9346384. If you are calling, use that one for now. We will keep the other phone numbers for use around town and the rest of Fiji, but if you are trying to call in the near future, use 9346384. We also have our new address. So, here is the summary of information:

Address:

Brian Smithers/Sally Moyce
Box 904
PO Savusavu
Fiji Islands

Phone: 9346384

One really great thing about this move is how easy it just became to come and visit us. We are pretty well booked out through August but after that, we are looking for visitors!