Islands

First off, sorry I'm late in doing this blog. I have gotten home on late Tues. evening and have been readjusting to the material world and life in general in America. I have been catching up on my own journal and trying to read as many peoples' blogs as possible before I talk to them in class. I also have been catching up with friends who can't wait to see me.

Ok, so when I first got to taveuni in Fiji I thought of how great it would be to live there.

I met some travellers doing the "Round the World" airline ticket thing that I'm sure most informed college students know about. It's a chep ticket that allows you to go in one direction around the world travelling to mnay different countries and your flights are pretty flexible too. I thought that would be great, I want to do that next summer...

then around the 6th week I got homesick and thought that it would be tough to be far away from home for so long and at so many different places.

But by the same week, I had already met so many friends and family (I was really considered part of the family when staying in some homes) that cared for me and were very giving. They made it impossible NOT to love it there. Everyone asked if I would live on Taveuni some day. As far as living there, I had thought about it. Being subsistant and hard working on a farm, the kids are as happy as can be and not bored from playing too many game boy games. One traveller, April - originally from Australia, said this is where she is going to raise her kids. They are a third world country, many of the people in the below $6000 FJD ($3600 USD) range, making them officially in poverty. But the kids are always happy, usually not fussy, and well fed. Once, while having breakfast in a village, a small boy was walking outside, and the family asked him if he'd eaten yet. He didn't give a straight answer and so they were yelling at him to come and eat some breakfast. The boy ended up running away. There is always someone looking outside, ready to invite anybody that walks by to come and eat.

When people would ask me if I would be coming back to Taveuni, I told them if I can save up money after paying off the loan that I took to come here in the first place. The amount of money I spent on the plane ticket is an unfathomable amount of money for the Fijians that live here. Most of the islanders have maybe taken the ferry to other Fijian islands, but there are a small few who have been to Australia or New Zealand, and even smaller few anywhere else. The truth is, i may want to explore other places and not go back to the same place. But it would be interesting to follow Thurson Clark's lead and follow up on an island I have visited and see how it has changed since I had been there.

So with all the friends, family, beautiful scenery, beautiful weather, and still unexplored land since my island was a fairly big one, it was very difficult to know that I was gonna have to leave, and there was no extending my flight. Many of my friends asked if I could stay longer, but I told them I couldn't, as long as I wanted credits to graduate from college.

So I had very mixed feelings, happy to be going home but sad to be leaving everyone and everything that had helped make my first eight weeks farthest from home so homely. I left one family, my friend Joe's (who was the first person to invite me to drink kava and had been my teacher for much of the Fijian language and culture.) and his mother-in-law, the mother and main cook of the house, had tears in her eyes as I hugged her good bye. One uncle Paulo gave me three Fijian fans that he made. Another family I said goodbye to told me to write each of them individually and send them Reggae Cd's (they had a Cd player that actually worked. Many families HAD one, but the kids got a hold of it or something happened and things don't last long in Fiji, because what's yours is mine and it rarely changes with expensive equipment.) One woman, Fina, gave me the first mat she ever wove, from the panderas tree. It was only 4 square feet and it was an honor. She also gave me a beatiful shell.

My last day was kinda hectic. I had to go to the bank, go to a few stores for souveniers, stop by a village for something I forgot and catch a plane a 2:55 in the afternoon. Intead of trying to go to the bank, I just boorowed money from my friend, Richard, who is a Taro root buyer so has alot of money from the company he works for. I bought two cane knives, a bunch of shirts and sarongs (sulus) and 3 kg bag of kava to bring home, none of which is illegal to bring back into the US. We dorve to the bank, I paid him back, I bought more souveneirs. So here I am, this cheap ass tourist for 8 weeks, and then buying all this stuff and finally living up to the storeowners expectations. They were beginning to thinkI was a local, speaking Fijian and not buying any thing but the essentials. Ha, fooled them. Anyway, Richard gave me a ride as far as the village where I left my torch, accidentally. I said I'd write and got the torch said goodbye again and waited for about a 1/2 hour to an hour for a ride, taxi, anything that would get me to one more house I had left stuff at (the first house I had stayed at) and then the Airport in 2 hours. Finnally a taxi already filled with people came by and it turned out to be the smae taxi driver that brought me from the airport to the first place I stayed, the place I was on my way to before going to the airport. So Isikele (Petro, the name he tells tourists and me until I saw him more often and he started giving me free rides) dropped me off at the first accomidation I had stayed at and I told him I needed a ride in a 1/2 hour to the airport so he said he'd drop off his other passengers and come back for me. I gave final gifts to the family and said goodbye as Isikele came back and dropped me off at the airport. I paid him $2.00 for the total ride, when a tourist would normally pay around $12. It was a perfect end to my eight weeks on Taveuni. Isikele had shown me and taken me to my first place to stay and now took me back to the airport and saw me off. It was almost like Deja Vu, except my pack was 20 pounds heavier than it was when I came.

The rest is all regular stuff. Late airplanes, drinkin duty-free bailey's, sleeping sitting up, getting swollen feet, getting really stiff and jetlagged, missing your flight, re-scheduling, and running to your flight only to wait at security for them to hand check all your film. On my flight from LA to Seattle, I met I guy who oversees his Costco-like business called Cost You Less. There is one in Fiji and Guam and Hawaii and four in the carribean, so he gets to travel to this places a few times a year. He was on the same flight as me and knew all the regular flight times and "knew if [he] missed the 4:14 flight the next was the 5:12..." This guy was a pro. So anyway, I got to the airport to my Mommy and Daddy waiting for me. The hunter became hunted when they called my name and took a sneaky picture of me. We went and ate at the same diner we ate at right before my flight to Fiji, except my Grandparents were there that time. I had nice greasy, fried american food and it was quite different than the food I had eaten in Fiji: Stews with Taro; Fish with coconut cream; noodles, cocnut cream, bele (a leafy green veg.), tuna, and taro; curry and flatbread; curry and rice; stew and cassava; tea and biskets; pancakes made with coconut cream and more.

So that's it. I dropped off the 52 rolls of slide film at the Phot Center at Evergreen. I get waves of culture shock, I get waves of excitement to be home, where I get all giddy, and jump and I have a wave of energy. This is such a wierd experience, but I am glad to have experienced it, and I am glad to have experienced it with many others in my class. We were not alone, and we are not alone now as we can compare and contrast our experiences and teach each other about different island experiences. Thank you all for reading, and have a fantastic day.

Ni sa bula vinaka i vale! (Have a wonderful welcome back home!)

Love,

Jon Huey - Traveller and Photographer

Posted by Jon Huey at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ummmmmmm, since last blog, I found out the girl i told about in the last blog was married and she was just acting single while her buff fijian farmer husband was up in the bush working. All good and fun for her but that could be bad if he found out. One lady told me that a fijian man will be very angry to hear about something like that. Thank you sally for your suggestion for pacific remedy. I did try the fijian remedy, oci and lemon leaves boiled and then i sit over a pot of it with a blanket over me and breath it in. It got too hot and i soon had to take a cold shower and it didn't help much.

i went back to Lavena, an isolated village of only farmers and popular because of its Lavena Coastal Walk. A beautiful, fairly easy 3 km flat walk to a beautiful Wainibau waterfall. I'd been here before with a local guide, Simone, a 38 year old that looks and moves like he's 20 something. He is very agile and holds my bags and walks barefoot, like all the villagers. One tourist asked him where his shoes were, he simply replied, "these are my shoes." So on the walk, simone had pointed out all the plants and trees that are used for medicine, hair gel, making mats, making fans, brooms, food spices, fishing nets, bedding, and decoration, and more. I took notes on all of this and decided later to focus my project on the fijians use of the various plants. So I went back to do some critical photography of the plants. But since it is so isolated, i got stuck there for a day with nothing to do, because it was extremely windy and there was a hurricane warning. When it rained, it rained sideways.
The weekly ferry did not come because of the severe winds. This doesn't make much difference for the subsistence farmers like in Lavena, but for the workers at stores and depend on stores food, and after two weeks the stores run out of food because they don't want to hold too much cause if a hurricane comes they will lose it all.

So anyway i went to spend two nights in welagi village with my friend Joe. We were to go up in the farm to photograph more crops and the process of certain crops like taro and cassava. But he had a painful boil on his armpit and it was raining and you get really itchy carrying bags when it's wet, he said. This was Easter weekend. The shops were closed most of the weekend and the bus schedule was lessened to once a day instead of three.
To skip alot of what happened this last week, i started feeling pain in my rear end and ignored it a few days and then asked joe about it. He said it was a boil, and now I've been telling people that this boil is an easter egg and i need to lay it.
so monday after easter sunday, i walked up to the hospital with my friend (brother, because I'm part of the family) Noa but it was closed because of the holiday.
Ok, what to do, now? what to do? let's go to the waterslide!!!
that's a good idea, even though i can't sit properly. I have to sit on my right butt cheek until my back gets sore from being bent and then i have to stand or lay down.
the waterslide was packed with people, all locals enjoying a cool slide on this hot holiday. Since i couldn't sit down slides, i did stand up slides. And everyone stopped what they were doing and watched me. then when i was done with my first slide, everyone cheered and clapped. apparantly thet've never seen a kaivulagi (white person) stand up slides. Usually it is only the boys. I never saw any of the girls there do it. I guess i really became a true local beacuse of that. It was probably because of my many years of skateboarding and snowboarding that helped me pick it up so fast. When i asked how you do it to a local the first time i went, he said with much practice and advised me not to do it. But i did.

Now back to my painful boil. I went to the hospital the next day and waited for 2 hours to be seen. The doctor's office and inside the pharmacy are airconditioned. The reception desk had a computer, too. The doctor that saw me was a young girl from Yale. She will be hear for 5 weeks and then go back to be a doctor as she has finished her medical studies. She said the hospital here was pretty good beacuse of help from the Australian Aid Project. But can't do anything for a heartattack and they don't have a surgeon. There is one doctor from Nigeria. She said most of the perscriptions she gives out are "...antibiotics because they walk around with bare feet and don't take 4 showers a day like americans do." Well i don't take 4 showers a day but she was just exaggerating. She injected some numbing stuff and made an inciscion in an attempt to release the fluid and said she got to a really hard part and said she was afraid it's too hard and infected. You're going to just have to take these 4 antibiotics a day and clean the boil and keep it dry and gave me some cream and bandaids to put on twice a day. And it might reduce itself on its own or i can come back fri to get it taken out if it feels like its softer.
So i finally got to visit the pharmacy which is in the hospital, they didn't have the stuff i needed so she gave me some stuff from her backpack of goodies. The GOOD news is that it was FREE, and she gave me some samples of claritan like stuff for my allergies.

But i'm standing up as i write this and when i hitched two different rides here i sat on my right cheek and get a sore back and i'm getting faint from standing up for an hour on the internet. And there is a fever that came along with my boil. So i don't know when i can go back to Lavena for those critical photos and i was gonna interview the ag dept. and i'm supposed to have dinner at waitavala with one family on thurs. and sat night a big lovo farewell feast in Welagi with kava and a washdown of rum (meat and rum supplied by me and rou rou leaves, lolo (coconut milk), the lodging and the earth oven and the kava provided by the villagers. Then i leave on tues, so i'm getting pretty depressed or just worked up that i can't do some of these things i've planned.

I'm in pain right now, but soon i'll be home and i'll have enough work done to put something together, so i may blog once before i leave, but if not, I'll see you all when i' get back to home sweet home!

Love you all, have a safe trip back.

Jon

Posted by Jon Huey at 05:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

So I was gonna go diving. This nice man named Bobbi from the south end offered me "the local price" for diving which is half-off and told me if i want to do diving,tell his mother-in-law two days in advance to make sure he can get the instructor to come on the bus, as they don't get much business. His mother-in-law lives near waiyevo in the center of the island where i am staying. I told the mother-in law of the dive shop two days in advance that i wanted to do the diving. The day that i planned to go i even saw her on the bus and told her where i was going. She got off at wairiki and i took the long windy dirt road to the south end dive shop. I get off the tri-dayly bus and wlk up the driveway to meet a confused looking face of Bobbi's wife. After telling her why i was there she explains bobbi isn't there and they weren't informed that i was going to take the course. So she sends me off to the bus stop to wait for a taxi or a hitch but calls me back up for some avacado and banana to take back with me.

The next time i call bobbi directly (two days in advance) as i got the phone number from his wife. And i take the long trip down again and i meet him outside his house and he gives me a book to start reading and shows me some of the equipment, since the instructor must've missed the bus and will be here around 12. After a while he gets a call from the isnstructor informing him that he is sick and won't be able to come down today. Soo, i take the book back to read and plan on starting tomarrow.

So i get home and start reading about equalizing pressure under the water...

now, i have failed to mention that my allergies have kicked in here and the few benadryl that my mom gave to me have been expunged. I have purchased two packets of sinutab, one that mentions relieving allergies but makes you drowsy and one that doesn't make you drowsy but only mentions relieving sinus and headache pain. Now I was lucky to even find this because at every store that i go to and ask for allergy medicine, the clerk just shakes his/her head in confusion. I finally found it after asking a clerk who answered no, but after i asked to look at some of the medications behind the counter , i found sinutab. I'm not sure if this is legal but he sold the packets by the tabs (or whatever you call the things that hold the pills) from inside the box separately. these have provided minor relief.

... now back to the diving, so i'm reading this book and it says congestion from cold or allergies can prevent one from equalizing underwater creating pain and can cause rupturing of the air spaces in my head, like the sinuses. Anyway it also recommends not using medications like decongestents because they can produce undesireable sideffects and can wear off while underwater and then i'd be stuck down under water because if i came up i would have reverse rupture (or whatever it is called, you scuba divers know what it's called, but i stopped reading the book at this point). So i tried equalizing on land by squeezing my nose and blowing to feel it in my ears and couldn't do it. So needless to say, that has scared me off and i'm no longer going to dive unless my allergies clear. Only 2 weeks left so i just probably won't. That is not my priority here anyway so no big deal.

I have been pretty miserable though with these allergies. I wake up and start sneezing, if i take one medicine, i'm napping the whole day. if i take another, it doesn't even work. I get on a sneeze attack and just keep going and going and going. I have heard that a sneeze is 1/10th of an orgasm, and if this is true, then wow, I'm spent. I purchased a wash cloth and i get it wet and sqeeze it out and put it over my nose and that helps but it's hard to see my journal over the cloth and i only have one hand to hold the pen and notebook and the fan keeps blowing the pages and if i move the fan, the sweat gets my paper wet. but i'm staying with a family i love, in Waiyevo. And it's not just because they have offered me a free place to stay with 3 free meals and oh they keep asking me if i've had enough and keep offering me more. It is a family not like your normal family. It is made up of a father and mother of a 2 year old, and then many cousins of the father and mother. Most are from the main island and they are here together in this house for 6 months to buy dalo (taro root) and then go back to the main island and so have more money than farmers and have meat with every dinner, which is a sign of wealth here. Plus the hilarious uncle, Noa, has the funniest quotes in english, like "I love you full speed, no brake" he says afterward,"No handbrake, no, get it out of hear!" And the mother, Fina is so attentive to my feelings and what i'm looking at or if i don't understand what is going on in the fijian conversation, and the ask me a lot of questions and will actually understand my answers because they know more english than most fijians here. I really love this family (of course i still love my american family) Noa says this is my home away from home. I actually have many homes away from home on this island.

To answer my sister's question about the women on Taveuni. There are many beautiful women here, and i have gotten many "uro" which is what you call out to someone if you think they are hot. It literally mean fat, or delicious. And this one woman my age in Walagi a village i've stayed a few nights in alway flirts with me. But Fijians joke around and tease so much it's hard to tell if she's serious but i think she is. SHe asks, "did you sleep well last night"
"Not really" (because of my allergies)
"well you should've called me, i would've helped you" Everyone roars in laughter. Another time asks if i've had any fijian girls here, i say no, she says "only 3 weeks left, you better sprint" more laughter. She says she wants to get to know a european (which is what i am) and i should get to know a fijian. we could get to know each other then adds, "we could get to know each other's private parts" and more laughter. Apart from this i've gotten to know their humor. Their jokes are alot different here. To us americans they would seem too obvious but maybe i;ll explain better later, i'v already just spent $10 or so on this internet so i'd better go. I finally called my parents and spoke to them for 7 1/2 min. for $20. I can't wait to get home. Haaaaaa chew!!!

Haaaa chew,

Jonny Rotten

P.S. how's that for a rant, randy?

Posted by Jon Huey at 01:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

First, thank you all for reading and replying. as far as my family goes, thank you mom, dad, jim, sara, paula, and grandma, and joey. Joey i wish you could be at this waterslide. it is so fun and there are many kids your age, plus it's free! i've gone 4 times now.

i've made so many friends here, i've had so many invitations to stay at people's houses i've had to turn many down. I've been spending more time with indo fijians too so i've been able to compare and contrast the two ethnic groups on the island. I've been spending only about $10 a day this last week because of home stays and i'm out of gifts from home so I am buying groceries for them. the family i'm with now won't accept my gifts cause they buy dalo and send it to the main island and apparantly that makes a lot of money.

a man offered me a suba certification for $250 FJD instead of the normal $600. i've got the local rate so i'm gonna do it. I wasn#t going to because of the expense but since it's so cheap, woo hoo.

I've been to the south part of the island now so i;ve seen most of the cities. all the inland is farmland and i;ve only scraped the surface of that.

As far as my study goes...

I may have switched my focus to Taveuni's farming, specifically, with a touch of other life.

It is hard to do audio recording and take photos of the same thing so i've kinda given up on audio recording though i've done some. plus it's low quality and i'm a perfectionist of sorts. well sometimes.

MY documentation kit is pretty much done . THe cinema here closed down a month before i came. they were playing free american movies such as lord of the rings every day. But a hardware store plays rugby tourneys by satellite so i may watch that. I did watch this horrible recent Indian movie, that was a gangster movie made in USA with horribly cheesy fight scenes. Randy could make a movie much better than the one i saw. I documented it but i wish to do another.

Every time i try to do the cultural geography of the landscape, i get distracted, talking to locals, getting invited for water, or tea, or lunch. everyone stops to ask what i am doing and i've had to do it over a few days.

I went camping up in the bush for two nights and took photos of the planting of taro and more. My friend Joe (and his son, Mak) and I rode horse up to the top of a local mountain and saw a great view. I rode the horse by myself which was exciting, but with no sadle, my groin and inner thighs were very sore afterward. I used my one man tent for the first time, and realized it is very hot and small. It's hard to fall asleep when you're sweating. Luckily i stored my big bag in Joe's tent. I should have just brought a hammock, mosquito net, and tarp. but whatever. It was great farming and picking all the food we needed to eat from the farm and cooking it. Coconut, scraped and squeezed and cooked with bele leaves = lolo, very tasty. And breadfruit, and taro and cassava and taro leaves, and banana and mandarin and lemon tea and sugar, salt and rice and the pots were the only things we had had to bring up for food. I wish it was that subsistent, camping in America.

Ok, i must go now, and i must admit i am still homesick, and often irritable, hearing the same questions: Where are you from? How long have you been in Fiji? on Taveuni? When will you go back? How do you like it here? It gets annoying telling the same thing over and over. And all the kids yell out "Pulangi!" which means european or white person when they see me and if i have my camera it is always a combination of "pulangi" and "veitamba" and it's like i expected that to stop as i stayed here longer and learned the language and became more and more like a local. I like walking places with a local friend cause then it is easier to deal with being different.

But I'll be fine and i'm finally gonna call my parents. I know, i'm such a bad son, five weeks without calling them, but they have been reading these blogs and it's expensive to call home.

As always, love and peace and happiness and good fortune and healthy life and all that,

Jon Travolta (one family here calls me this)

P.S. happy birthday Jim!!!

Posted by Jon Huey at 09:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

So i was getting kind of tired alot in lavena and lazy and slow and unmotivated, I guess just living island time, and finally i realized that it was from too much kava. now, if i do have kava i say low tide instead of high tide. i can be an islander to some extent but it is interfering with my ability to do work.

So the peace corps girl that i had made friends with, didn't show up to this big meeting for the park, that many of my fijianfriends went to, and this was odd because she's supposed to be there. Later, we all found out that some man had broken into her apt., that she shares with other peace corps vol., with a knife and so they stayed the night at some resort then flew to suva the next morining, Everyone misses her and we hope she is just shaken up and comes back. that is a pretty uncommon thing to happen on taveuni. the villages in the park may help build her a bure to live in.

so, while here on taveuni, i've had waves of homesickness then i have an inctredibly fun time and forget about it, but starting last week (i think after staying the same place for to long and not experiencing too new) I became really homesick and unfriendly. But this Aus/uk 27 year old woman, April, stayed in lavena and when she left she convinced me to go with her to wiayevo where there's another waterslide. so we went and stayed at a cheap place, having a house all to ourselves, with a living space two separate roomas a kitchen with A FRIDGE. WOO HOO. so i put my film in there and we stayed two nights. we went to the waterslide on a sun. when all the kids go (mostly young men and a few teenage girls) and it was long with many chutes and pools to play in. kids were sit sliding, stand sliding, group sliding, pushing and pulling, rolling and splashing, jumping and flipping, damning up the water and then going down with the rush. it was better than any other waterslide i've been to, and i got so many bumps and bruises, it was great. i got this big swell on my hip and couldn't wear my hip pack, but we went again the next day. later that night April and i spent some of our time trying to find beer or some form of alcohol from black market sellers on our part of the island, with no luck. we wanted to make the crappy food we were going to make taste better, the next day we did get rum and coke and had a better meal anyway.

April is a great conversationalist. she loves to talk so i think that definately made me feel less homesick, being able to talk complicated english to some one and that is why i decided to go with her again, this time to the south part of the island to do snorkeling. long story-short, the place we got off the bus at was now the information to the actually dive shop that moved to a different island. so we were stuck at this place but ended up being transported to this nice upmarket resort which wasn't too expensive, the dinner was, but it was very good. I decided i could treat myself a bit since i spent about an avg. of $12.20 USD this last week just hanging around lavena. so we went snorkeling 4 times in about 24 hours, once at night and stirred up phosphoresence and that was soooo awesome, probably a little cause of the rum we had left. anyway I learned alot more Australian words and she used "reckon" and "heaps" alot.

so i've found a place that has internet for 12.5 cents a min., cheaper than any other place so I am now using it. the only probalem is that it is a labtop and i keep presssing the wrong buttons so i'll probably have more misspellings and i decided not to use the caps button.

Oh yeah, being out here alone has really brought me closer to God and i;ve been praying alot and thanking God for everything and everyone.

Peace and love to you all,

Jon

Posted by Jon Huey at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

So, after my last blog, I had thought I missed the bus so I walked over to Island pizza and ordered a pizza. some young locals were hanging out and drinkin' liquor and beer they offered me a good amount as a sat there with them. It turned out I hadn't missed the bus and it was just the first of three school buses. But I was really hungry, they were offering me drinks, friendship and most were even offering me a free place to stay. So I stayed with a man who called himself MIB, Man in black. His girlfriends house was big and was her grandfather's. She is 1/8 swedish. Of course they were very kind and when I woke up the next morning, I caught the bus back to Bouma National Heritage Park and met Stacy and Ben on the same bus, we all went to Tavoro waterfall where there are three large, lush waterfalls within a 1 1/2 hike. The hike to the last fall is so overgrown, steep, and muddy that it made for an interesting trip through spiderwebs and vines. The stream crossing is slippery with ropes guiding you across. I brought a dry bag for my camera gear so I was set. I plan to go back soon with friends from Lavena to do some cliff jumping. Oh yeah there is one waterfall that you can use as a slide. This park is soooooo fun and x-treme brah!!!!

Since then, I've just been living it up in Lavena. I've been hanging out with the locals, like Joe who is the only Morman in the village of Catholics. He doesn't drink Kava because of his religion and is not supposed to drink Alcohol, but it's lax Fiji and he drinks a little, not to get drunk though. I've been learning more about the Taveuni dialect (not pronouncing the k's and the t is pronounced "ch"). I've been swing in on the rope swing by the ocean ( you climp up one coconut tree and someone throws you the rope and you put the stick between your legs and "lako" (go) I could impress you with all the rest of the fijian words that I know but it would be too tedious. I finally bought a sulu so now I am more like a kai viti (local) than a kai vulagi White person, European or Westerner)

I'll stay in Lavena a little longer than I'll move on. Every once in a while I get homesick, but then I do something incredibly fun like catch a wave with a kayak with Tino. Wounds are healing finally but I got a new one on my left leg. Not bad though. Love you all!!

Posted by Jon Huey at 05:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Ok, so the family I was with is so nice. It's supposed to be like a hotel. They have prices for meals on the wall, but they have been giving me many free meals. They made lovo, a meal of chicken lamb neck, potatoe, onion garlic, and more cooked over rocks and wrapped in many coconut leaves. It took about 4 hours to prepare and cook and everyone including me helped out. It was so execellent and worth the wait.

This American girl, Stacy, and this fijian boy from the southern part of the island were staying in the same place. I was talking to the girl and found out she is researching coral reefs and has been in Fiji for 2 months or so. She was on Viti Levu before Taveuni. I told her about Evergreen and she said she had these two friends on Viti Levu that went there. It was Cammy and Marsha. Ha ha. Kelley, or anyone else who knows Cammy and Marsha, make sure to tell them to read this and Stacy says hi. She's doing fine with her new Fijian Boyfriend. I also met this Canadian guy, Raj, who said he met those two. He grew up in 100 mile house, Hiroko, I told him you stayed there for a while.

So decided to move on the lush rainforest Bouma national heritage park part of the island. What a great idea!!!!! Before I went though I visited the Provincial office in Somosomo and met a Peace corps worker, Janessa who's been here 6 months and will be here for 2 years. She was going to be going over to Lavena in the park the next day, and I already was planning to also. So I met her on the bus and she stopped by one village on the way and would be in Lavena in the evening. I showed up and am staying in the visitor's center Lodge. There is no one else except for Janessa staying here. The tourist season is very low now, which is good for me.

Since I made friends with Janessa (who knows Fijian pretty well) , I 've been learning more and more Fijian and they have been giving me free meals at the lodge, since they feed her. She lent me her Fijian Grammar book and that has helped me. She is helping out the Bouma Nat. HeritAGE park, and teaching them how to use a computer on a labtop. it takes them a long time to check their e-mail and type. I've begun to love ceylon tea. They have alot of it here.

I went on a beautiful guided kayak journey with Simone. We parked our kayaks, hiked to a double water fall, I took some pics, we swam to the falls and climbed up and used one as a waterslide, wooooooo eeeee!!! We hiked back into our kayaks visited another fall, had lunch, came back to the first fall, parked our kayaks and walked all the way back on a costal walk back to Lavena. He let me stop when ever I wanted to take pics, he even helped me with tripod and filters. He taught me all about the flora and fauna, I took notes, taught me about endemic species. We passed through a village, with traditional thatched bures, and I took photos. We got back and pancake and tea. Someone brought me and Janessa dinner and later had Kava with Simone. I did get a sunburn on my legs cause I thought they would be covered like lake kayaks do. Sea kayaks are open though. I also had a nasty infection with that blister from the sandals. But This guy, Tino put some herbal medicine on it and it's getting better. I'm gonna get flip flops and a sulu (sarang).

Just today, a 23 year old Fijian, joe, offered for me to stay with him in his house for free in the village in Lavena. I will take him up on that.

I just heard the last bus to Lavena go by. The internet kept closing and I've had to re-type my message. I might have to stay around here tonight, instead of paying a heavy taxi fare.

I love it here. Peace.

Posted by Jon Huey at 01:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Ok, First off, I'm having the time of my life here. The family I've been staying with is so kind. I've been spending a lot of time learning Fijian. the dialect is different from what I learned before I came here, so I've had to adjust my phrases and words a bit. I've observed that in their environment, their senses are so keen. They notice things like Bees or a car coming or a fire burning on a distant island or a plane in the sky much quicker than me. Maybe I'm still trying to take it all in. They do alot of "dabe watakei talanoa" - sitting and telling a story. I went snorkeling, it's a completely lovely different world underwater, unseen from above. I'm sweating all the time, I've gotten used to it though, I stink, got used to that too, I hope others have, I've been drinkin tons of water, my wounds aren't healing very quickly (oddly enough most of my wounds seem to be from my stupid new sandals, I do better barefoot)

Second though, "Au tauvimate" - I'm sick , with the flu. a cough and a runny nose. I've had to postpone some of my plans. Mary, my Fijian Nana (mom I still love you) has been giving me some herbal medicine and skone and tea for breakfast. She is like my mom cause she tells me to bbe careful when The young twins and I go bareback horse riding and she tells me to wear my hat and stay in the shade and all that mom stuff.

I I love the island time here, even though you may wait an hour for someone to do something for you. Everyone is so laidback. I usually hitch rides if the bus is not availiable because taxis are too expensive. It hasn't rained much until recently, Luckily it's while I'm sick. I'm getting better though, and as soon as I do I will move on to a different part of the island.

I've already got some great shots. I've shot 7 rolls, 252 exposures. I'm going to do most of my documentation kit next week, even though I've done alot, like the day to day stuff, I've found alot of time to write in my journal, often writing two times a day.

I hope all is well with the rest of y'all. thank you for reading my blog. Sorry if I don't read yours, I don't want to spend all my money on internet time. I'll try to read yours when I have a free computer, well nothings free but you know what I mean. Peace.

Posted by Jon Huey at 06:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Ok, so I made it. I got here and got really nervous. I was scared and tired. But, I found a nice cheap place to stay, Lisi's Campground and accomidations in Matei. The family owns 55 acres and they farm. They are very kind and made me feel very welcome. It is 15/day Fijian. The first day I was there they invited me to play volleyball, so I played with Joe, Jack, Jon, and Tui. Then after that I showed them hackey sack. Oh, there is another girl named Catherine who is staying at Lisi's too. She is traveling all over and is a diver and is from Hong Kong and England. That night, Joe invited Catherine me to drink Grog, Kava. We did and we learned alot more Fijian and the culture. We spent about 2-3 hours drinking about a 1/2 a gallon among four of us. Kids undr 14 don't drink it. I slept really well that night, even though I heard there cousins come over and wash down the kava with some beer. The next day I hitched to the bankand got some groceries and then took the bus back and Joe's wife Niumai and her little son, Mak came on the bus. Later we walked down the street and went to the coconut fields to get some leaves to make brooms. The kids, Tui and Jon climbed up the coconut trees and cut down the leaves and kicked down a few cocnuts. Joe cut one open for me and I drank the milk. It tasted like juice. They have also given me a papaya. It is great, but I am still scared.

When I was on the first plane ride and descending down on LA looking at the endless expanse of lights, that will probably light up the city all night, I thought, "what a waste of electricity." Probably because I don't live there. I couldn't help but think about other cultures around the world and wonder how much electricity they use to light up the night. Why can't we just go to bed when it gets dark or stay home, and use candles? Why does the car dealership with no one in it have to be brighter than the field where they soccer players were practicing? I also can't help but realize how hypocritical these statements are. aren't I flying in a plane right now? Don't I use the same lights at night? Don't I complain when something isn't lit up when I want or need to see it at night? I wondered how Fijians spend their time once the sun goes down. I have learned they do use a little halogen lights here for a while. Just something to think about.

Posted by Jon Huey at 09:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

This quote is from P.F. Kluge's book, The Edge of Paradise: America in Micronesia. Kluge was a journalist, who had been in Micronesia with the Peace Corps around 1967, writing for the Micronesian Reporter, as well as making friends with a Senator from Palau in Micronesia. Then, while living in L.A. in 1969, covering annual meetings for The Wall Street Journal he comments that "...it was hard not to think that leaving the islands was the worst mistake I'd ever made...That's when I began dividing my life into two categories of time: time in the islands, which was maximum life, and time away from the islands, which was exile."

Posted by Jon Huey at 07:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm definately getting nervous for my departure, though I'm sure I'm not as nervous as my my mom. She gets much more worked up for things than I do.

The only place out of the country that I've been to has been Canada. That is not to say that I'm not ready. I am 21 years old, have been on trips alone before, and have been on many camping trips too. I know how to survive alone, and I know I'm not alone because the whole class is doing the same thing that I'm doing. I'm confident that my geogroup will support me in any way they can. As far as race and culture, my pacific geogroup will all be the minority and it will be an interesting, important, and enriching experience.

Ok, I'm ready! Let's do it.

Peace,

Ramblin' Jon

Posted by Jon Huey at 05:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I am checking to see if this works. The last one wouldn't work; some error popped up after it was trying to update the entry.

Posted by Jon Huey at 09:29 PM | Permalink

-Ni bula!

-io bula.

-O Ni lai vei?

-Au se lako mada Fiji!

That was Fijian for, "Hi!, Hi., Where are you going?, I'm going to Fiji." Luckily for me, In Fiji, the official language is English, though they do speak their native language. Most of the people in the islands program are going to English-speaking islands. I was just thinking how lucky we are that our English-speaking ancestors colonized what they did, in order to make it so easy for us to go there and communicate with our native tongue. (This might sound like an arrogant statement, but I just wanted to bluntly state my thought)

Posted by Jon Huey at 04:42 PM | Permalink