Here comes ‘nother one

Last week, it was announced by the usually trustworthy* Fiji Meteorological Service that there would be no tropical cyclones this season since half of it was gone and there hadn’t been one yet. Also, cyclones suck so everyone liked the announcement and thus liked the job that the Fiji Meteorological Service is doing in preventing muder-winds (the direct translation of cagilaba, the Fijian word for cyclone). Well, approximately three days after that announcement, cyclone Wilma got going. She missed us (sorry Tonga) so all was well until two days after that (now) a tropical depression developed just north of Fiji. Right now, it doesn’t look like it will amount to much. It has the illustrious name of TD09F; they don’t get real names until their winds get strong enough to earn it. Anyway, it is expected to turn into a cyclone tonight when it may hit the northern island of Fiji (Vanua Levu, where we are) or it may pass to the northwest (sorry Vanuatu). Either way, we will get plenty of wind and rain but even if we get hit, this will thankfully not be nearly as destructive as Tomasi last year. I don’t need to see another one of those. Here is the satellite image of TD09F. You can see what a sloppy, lazy tropical depression it is. Seriously, get yourself organized, TD09F!

Otherwise, Sally and I are doing well enough. December-January is a pretty slow time: school is out, the village is in holiday mode and it is hotter than all get-out (although this year has been much cooler than last year). So, there has been a lot of hanging out for us. This may sound well and good except that Fijians and Americans don’t hang out the same way and what should be relaxing is really just work, all the time. It is work just to have a conversation in Fijian, even a year and a half later. And invariably, what hanging out means is sitting around drinking a whole lot of kava. Weirdly, that also has not made its way to fun yet.

One way to solve this not relaxing when we are supposed to be relaxing is to take a vacation, and Sally and I are doing just that. First up, Peace Corps has asked Sally and me to help out with site preparation for the new batch of volunteers due in May. That means that this week, we are traveling around Vanua Levu (north island) to check potential new villages and to meet with community leaders of those villages. It isn’t exactly vacation, but it gets us out of the village, and that always sounds better than it ends up being. Anyway, February 12^th, we are heading to Suva for me to re-take the GREs, which I took in the early 00’s, but have long since expired. Then on February 13^th, Sally and I are boarding a plane headed for New Zealand, where we will open bottles of wine that have real corks, and eat cheese that is supposed to have blue (bleu?) things in it, and be cold, and see snow, and sleep in, and not be famous for the color of our skin. You get the idea. New Zealand has become this utopic vision for us so it had better live up to its bidding.

On the eve of this trip to developednationlandia, I have recently been thinking about some of the things that I haven’t done since I came to Fiji that seemed normal prior to my departure. It is funny to see them because some of them are things by which I once defined myself. It is sort of refreshing to see the artificial ways in which I delineated my life sort of fall apart. It turns out that I am just a person, not a collection of things that I do or do not do. So, here are some things that I did not do in 2010:

1. Drive a car
2. Eat a mushroom
3. Play the piano
4. Speak Spanish
5. Drink a good beer
6. Listen to FM radio
7. Watch a baseball game (on TV—obviously not live)
8. Play in a baseball game
9. Ride a bicycle
10. Kiss my wife in public
11. Eat a tator tot
12. Swim a lap in a pool
13. Play a game of ultimate Frisbee or kickball
14. Earn a dollar
15. Take a bath
16. See a lake
17. Ski (or even see snow)
18. See my sister or brother
19. Eat celery, broccoli, kale, or sweet corn
20. Drink orange juice
21. Eat a bagel or cream cheese
22. Travel outside of the country (of Fiji, that is, which is very small, mind you)
23. Eat a good slice of pizza

Now, as I was writing this list, I realized that when I return to the US, I will have an equally long list of things that I had in Fiji that I won’t have in the US and that I will miss. That being said, the grass is always greener and at the moment the grass here looks pretty brown. It certainly doesn’t look like an everything bagel, toasted with cream cheese. Not at all. Here is to 2011, the year when I get it all!

Oh, and I have to apologize for the recent lack of photos.  Our camera broke and we were without one for a bit.  Thanks to the help of Mary Moyce, we are back with camera in hand.

*Nope