Sally and I had gone up to a small island called Mali, off of the north coast of Vanua Levu, to a do a work exchange. That means that another volunteer asks for you to come to their site because they want your "expertise." Sometimes that expertise is that you make them laugh. That being said, we were invited by our friend Christian for me to help him start a vegetable garden at the primary school on the island and for Sally to do a workshop on nutrition. It was a smashing success actually. We pounded out a few plots with 12 kids--food that will be used to feed them since most of the students stay in a dorm at the school. We also had a pretty good time.
Anyway, the plan was to come to Labasa Saturday night, stay with these 2 volunteers there, and then catch the morning bus to Savusavu to make our bus back the village. Well, that didn't happen because for some reason, Fiji doesn't have to go to work on the day that the Queen was born. That gives us another night here, the upshot being that I have access to a computer! On the computer front, my parents have been generous enough to offer the purchase of a new one which will be brought by Katie, Bobby and Madeline (sister, brother, and cousin of Sally) when they come to visit in a few short weeks. Needless to say, we are pretty excited for them to get here for both computational reasons and otherwise.
Life has been pretty good here since we last spoke. I just spent a few weeks in Suva training the incoming crop of volunteers the ins and outs of backyard gardening. Peace Corps Fiji has decided to make that a priority this year, and every volunteer is going to start a garden at his her site in the first few months. I also wrote a book (Organic Gardening in Fiji: Lessons in Absurd Fecundity) which the Library of Congress doesn't quite know about yet, but Peace Corps is using it as its manual. We are still tidying it up to see what we will ultimately try to do with it. ("We" includes another volunteer, Matt Roy, who did the illustrations.)
Back in the village, I came home to find out the chiefs had followed my advice and told the Chinese fishing company where they could stick their 99-year lease. That as some really great news. And we finally got started on a large-scale organic vegetable farming operation with the young men of the village. We got the land squared away and have fenced it off (with bamboo that we hauled out of the forests ourselves--not nearly as much fun as it might sound) to keep out the horses. They are in the process of clearing out the grass and when/if I get back we are going to get some seeds in the ground. The farm is initially going to be used to get enough money together to build a 10-pig piggery. Then, between the farm and the piggery, the group should be able to turn a tidy profit, feeding the pigs healthy stuff and feeding the waste back into the farm. I didn't really understand how like alchemy composting was until I got here. Do it.
So, next week Sally and I head down to Suva for our Mid-Service Training, which means that we are halfway there (Bryan Adams songs regularly enter my mind lately). In one year, we will be packing bags at this time. Crazy, huh? Time does a-fly. We go from Mid-Service Training to meeting Bobby, Katie, Madeline, and computer in Nadi at the Westin, this ridiculously posh place that I went with my parents that keeps throwing out these crazy deals to locals. So, why not hang out by the infinity pool for a couple of days? Well, I can tell by your attention span that you are bored now so I will wrap it up, but hopefully with the arrival of a new computer, the blog droughts will yet again come to an end. Don't forget to write, and when you do write, don't forget to put some chocolate in there with the envelope!
One last thing. I got to follow the USA's first World Cup match against England on the computer this morning. Oh man, I love the World Cup. Go USA!
