Well to my faithful followers, much thanks indeed for spending a slice of your time over the past three years indulging in my silly stories. I hope that at times they were informative as well as entertaining. I really enjoyed sharing these adventures with you... even if I did so sparingly.
So, after three years in Fiji, my service with the Peace Corps as finally come to a close. How sad I am that my last post was back in December - so much has happened since then. I suppose that is my excuse too for not sharing any of it.
Here's a few highlights:
1. I went home for the holidays! For three weeks I romped around in the New England snow again. Best of all, I was able to bring my soon to be husband along for the ride! How wonderful and amusing it was to subject a native Fijian to a New England winter. What did he do upon seeing snow? Took off his shoes and ran around barefoot.
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| Snow! |
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| Norman mixing some Christmas eve grog with the fam |
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| Christmas morning |
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| Christmas dinner |
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| Hampton Beach! He wasn't up for a swim. |
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| My mom loved having the extra hands to shovel the driveway |
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| Boston |
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| At the Whaling Museum in New Bedford, MA; Norman standing next to a tabua (whale's tooth) from Fiji |
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| We each found our twin... |
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| Snow tubing! |
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| And of course a trip to the aquarium. |
2. As you no doubt gathered from highlight # 1, I got married! My hubby, Norman, is a native Fijian, but awesomely enough he is also descended from a whaler from Nantucket who got stranded in Fiji in the early-mid 1800s. It was good for him to get back in touch with his New England roots.
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| We did a simple government ceremony and celebrated afterward. Hoping to have a proper ceremony back home! |
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| ah l'amour |
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| Signing the certificate |
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| The wedding party! |
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| And finally the requisite evening grog celebrations:) |
3. I continued to do my work at the Provincial Office - taking on a new and most excellent project - ecotourism. The reason for its added excellence is namely in the fact that I was able to enjoy various touring adventures as part of my job! The motivation behind this initiative was to aid communities with income generation but also to help them design their projects so that they would be environmentally friendly and sustainable.
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| Walking out to a protected area at low tide. |
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| I organized a large ecotourism stakeholders meeting bringing together 20 or so communities with local resorts, tour operators, tourism experts, and the local government (my office). Through the meeting, we formed the Ca'au Eco-Tourism Association (CETA), which will allow the participating communities to share resources and ideas and to stand together in this project to preserve the best interests of the indigenous peoples. |
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| Giving a presentation on basic business |
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| Going out to view a new marine protected area and participate in the demarcation |
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| Collecting coconuts |
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| Trekking through some bush as part of a local eco-tour that was in development. |
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| The trek led to this beautiful waterfall swimming hole. |
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| Some local diving :D |
I was able to attend the big annual provincial meeting (bose ni yasana) where all of the district chiefs and various government officials come together to discuss... everything. Surprisingly, the meeting only lasted one day (normally it's two); unsurprisingly, upon conclusion, the meeting materials were swept away and the grog/dance party began!
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| The three in charge of running the big meeting; the one on the far right was my boss - Roko Tui Cakaudrove |
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| My office had the responsibility of all the set-up and running, etc for the meeting; this also meant that we were more or less the only ones without chairs! |
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| The meeting was held on top of this hill on Taveuni with an incredible view. The facility was a well run agricultural training center. |
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| Waltzing at the party :) |
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| Most of the kaivulagi (white people) that worked at the Provincial office! |
I participated in a bunch of other workshops as well and had the unique opportunity to go deep into the highlands of Vanua Levu to aid in outreach to a community that is far removed from everywhere else. Oh, and I somehow ended up organizing a rescue effort to save a stranded (not beached!) minke whale in Natewa Bay...
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| Hard at work - integration through grog and cards |
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| All Fijians are expert card players |
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| My counterpart fabulously showing the community we visited that is situated deep in the interior |
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| This community is so far off the beaten path that many families have chosen to leave the village in search of a home elsewhere, where they can be closer to better education, medical services, people, etc. Only a fraction of the houses in the village are presently occupied. |
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| Out on the water in search of the stranded whale! Stranded makes it sound like it would be easy to find, but really, the whale was just stuck at the end of a long bay and we were trying to determine why it wasn't swimming out - if something was trapping it there or if it was injured, etc. |
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| We were finally able to get up close to it. It was a minke whale that was not yet fully grown. It had a large gash on its back that was perhaps caused by a boat/engine. After taking a look at the rest of the bay, it seemed evident that nothing was blocking its exit. So we left it alone, assuming that it was looking for refuge while it healed. It was still a few months away from feeding season, so if it didn't swim out by that time, we were going to have to attempt an actual "rescue" ... by which I mean, we would find a way to force it out before it starved to death. But in the end, it healed fine and made its own way back out to sea. |
4. I had many tearful goodbyes. After three years, I was ready to close my service and move onto my next phase in life, but that didn't make it easier to say goodbye. There were speeches and ceremonies, lots of singing and, of course, grog. The process of leaving soaked up my entire month of July and much of it is a blur.
...alas, I don't have any of those pictures yet until I can fix my camera
5. On August 2nd, 2014, I officially closed my service with the Peace Corps.
So, now I have returned home and am looking for the next big adventure... oh, not really. I suppose it's time for me to have my feet on the ground again for a while. I'm looking for a job to kill the time before I start grad school for marine biology/oceanography either in January or next fall. I am also working tirelessly to get my husband here from Fiji. It is slow going for a variety of reasons... most of which is waiting. But with a little luck, Norman will be home for the holidays :).
With that, my friends, I will at long last sign off.
Moce mada vakalailai!
