What have I been up to you ask?

I’ve been getting that question a lot lately & decided to respond. I am working for the Sathya Sai Institute, a sector of a Sai Baba organization in Lautoka, Fiji. Sai Baba is a spiritual figure that governs a set of his own beliefs that is respected & practiced globally beginning in 1947. The main project the Institute needs me for is to produce a music cd that teaches what they call Universal Human Values including Love, Peace, Right Action, Truth & Non-violence, so basically yogic principles. This is totally bitch’n, b/c the spiritual principles are what I believe, however on the flip side of this I am FAR from a singer- song writer. My job is to write & produce music etc. and thankfully, I have already enlisted other PC volunteers to help in this musical endeavor so that I don’t make a complete & utter ass of myself.

The Institute that governs the school is very unique because it urges other schools to teach these Human Values in their schools & incorporate them into their curriculum. Traditional learning focuses mostly on left brain learning & this instigates the right brain….feelings, emotions, spirituality etc. to be developed and balanced. Right on. I have been tirelessly working on a resource book for secondary school teachers that incorporates adding these human values into their established curriculum.

Creating one smart little loving Buddha at a time.

The resource book has quotes, stories, activities and visualization exercises that focus on a specific value, for example compassion. I edit stories, compose the activities, include questions and write the visualizations as well. This is a massive endeavor for the Institute & I am happy to help. They appreciate my “American” view point & thanks to having an English teacher as a mom my English skills are pretty good.

I also got together a composting area. The school that the institute governs is extraordinary & is a pilot for many others. They teach composting in their curriculum & because of that it was very easy to work on getting that done. So with myself, 5 students, 2 teachers & the grounds keeper we built a 3 sectioned compost with corrugated tin, sawed up logs, nails, a cane knife and a hammer….oh yes & sweat. In an hour and a half it was done and there are all kinds of delightful things rotting in it already! The school has a working garden that a garden club is in charge of & they take home veges to their families when it is time to harvest. So our compost goodies will now act as fertilizer for the garden.

There are 30 min yoga classes once per week that are for the older kids. I have taught a couple of times when the other teacher was out of town. I’ve never loved teaching kids yoga and this group is so big, around 35, that I find myself disciplining more than teaching and its just flat out exhausting. But it is nice to still be teaching.

The director of the institute was interested in making virgin coconut oil & another volunteer has been working on that as her main project, so I got the instructions from her & we will start making VCO as soon as the resource book is finished. I’m really excited about that because coconut oil is wonderful for you and is kind of expensive…..cheap compared to US prices but expensive for my PC budget. The process is done using very basic-mostly recycled materials-and we hope to provide a workshop to the teachers and parents of the students to educate them on how to make it , use it and possibly start a little coconut oil business of their own as it is becoming increasingly popular.

The head master of the school was interested in recycling paper instead of burning it & I found instructions on how to make paper from paper. Like the thick grainy kind that sometimes has flowers pressed in it for like $5 a sheet in the states…now all of you know what you are getting for Christmas :) The technology is simple and cheap & all ages of kids can participate so this will also be a fun and rewarding project.

Finally, I met Milt Nelms, Int’l swim coach and husband to 5 time medalist Australian Olympian Shane Gould. We met at a local pool where he was conducting a swim lesson to teach gym teachers in training how to swim themselves & also how to teach swimming. The S. Pacific has a huge drowning rate & Milt is implementing a maverick style swim training to help educate & prevent. So I went to the pool & observed & met him & Shane & had dinner & talked about future projects I could assist with around the island.

There is a ton of work potential here & I am lucky to have so many opportunities and such great people to work with. My work environment is laid back, we get to work at 8:30am, have tea at 10:30am, lunch at 1pm & leave at 3pm.

Unfortunately none of these projects involve snorkeling or the beach, but that will come later as I am going to visit my BFFF-best friend forever Fiji….(I know its totally juvenile, but I was really tired when I came up with it) in the Yasawas, the islands where the movie Blue lagoon was filmed….circa 1980…think 15 yr old Brooke Shields be-bopping around naked..yes that one. It’s totally gorgeous and I am welcoming the brake from the city, buses, exhaust etc.

I'm missing the comforts and familiarity of home, and friends and family so much.

xoxox

Things I’ve noted about Fiji, Lautoka City & myself

I have been in Lautoka now for 1 month, it has been quit rocky. Adjusting to a new environment and schedule was extraordinarily challenging. I am living with a roommate in a very small 2 bedroom flat and have 2 foam mats on the floor for a bed….I really miss my chiropractor. I am living in the 2^nd largest city in Fiji with a population of 53,000. That was my first adjustment actually, living in an urban environment…not what I had envisioned or wanted when I was signing up for Peace Corps. I was thinking more like hut-living along the beach, questionable water quality & random electricity. Not so. I have a concrete house with a solar powered hot water tank, electricity all of the time-however, I only have water from 4am-8am & 4pm-8pm…that can be rough when you are trying to hand wash clothes in the middle of the day. I was daydreaming more rainforest jungle than concrete jungle. I have neighbors very close on all sides, an Indian family at the back & left, Rotuman in the front & Fijian on the right.

Possibly the worst part of the city is the burning trash. Burning trash is a regular practice which has been recently deemed illegal, but of course is un-regulated so it still goes on everywhere all of the time. In the village they most often burned trash away from the houses, here we live right on top of each other & I just so happen to live on top of a hill so all of the smoke rises…yeah!! My liver is doing its best to process the fumes.

On an up note, the people here are truly friendly. I was invited to a party at a Rotuman family’s house. (Rotuma: a small island a 36 hour boat trip north of Fiji, there is no bank, post office etc, that small. It is part of the Polynesian Islands with their own culture and language separate from Fiji.) We talked and ate & danced while they played the guitar and drank kava. Their laugh registers on the Richter scale it’s so bountiful..awesome! More and more people have been inviting me to their home’s, teas and parties. This means a lot because I didn’t realize how important having a social life was to me. In Cleveland I was always going to a yoga class, a friend’s party, a salsa event or family occasion, starting all of that from scratch in Fiji is not easy. Not easy, but slowly happening.

Last weekend I was feeling very homesick. I missed my Mom, Dad, sisters, niece, nephew and friends. So I decided to go back to my host family’s house in Naqio and stay the weekend. It was exactly what I needed. They were so happy to see me!! It had only been 3 weeks & they treated me like royalty. So many people were coming over to ask me how things were going on my own, giving me hugs and demanding I eat at their house. I went to see a movie with my sister, slept in a real bed (hallelujah), had my mom feed me 3 amazing meals per day & learned how to make imlii ke chutney-tamarind chutney. That weekend of caring was a much needed juicing up of my spirit. I realized I was missing the feeling of being loved.

Below is one of my famed “lists”. I was forever being teased by my Mom and friends about my numerous lists and here is another one…..

Things I’ve noted about Fiji, Lautoka City & Myself

Older men color their hair…..apparently going grey is Universally unfashionable

Many people, mostly Fijian men, go shoeless all over town, the bus, stores, everywhere. Sometimes I think by choice, sometimes b/c they don’t have shoes.

The decibel level of the music on buses is more than my delicate eardrums can handle. It’s hard to find a moment of silence around here: dogs, cars, tv’s, every store has music playing outside of it, as if that were going to lure me in, when it actually does the opposite.

The Fijians have their own way of communicating without words. Clicks, whistles, head nods, hand gestures, eyebrow raises for yes & no (good luck figuring that one out). Unless you’re a native, you’ll never really now all of these subtleties.

Men that smell good really stick out…mmeeeeooowwww

The Fijian way of asking “how are you?” is “where are you going?”

The kids read the national newspaper.

Young men get up on the bus to let older women sit down.

The simplest things like flax seeds or a “new” used shirt can make my day when I’m missing home.

It takes time for a new place to feel like home.

Total strangers (in my case a cab driver) invite you to stay with their family on other islands. (I might do it.)

There is a serious untapped market for Fijian male models.

The furniture patterns are from the 1970’s-plush maroon paisley anyone?

Re-mixed, burned, dubbed, pirated, re-recorded music is all the norm & no one seems to care.

Waiting is something you just have to get used to.

Complete lack of customer service is something you just have to get used to.

Half of the people wear clothes that in no way come even close to matching & they obviously could care less.

The faux hawk has made it to Fiji....Indians wear it & the Fijian men rock Fro-hawks with tails, yes that’s right, the “tail” , I’m sorry to inform you, has made it back into style.

For being so close to the equator it actually does get cool here. Its winter now & gets into the low 60’s at night.

Most of the people in this city have trash pick up-4 times per week-yet they still choose to burn it..right next to my F#*^ing house. I wonder if burning plastic will ever smell good?

Life and work are progressing and adjusting. Looking forward to trips and events keep me positive. xoxoxox

It's not always coming up roses...& my new address

Photos may speak a thousand words but when they are posted on FaceBook they have usually been very carefully selected to not make myself look fat or to display an environment that is reality but ridiculously joyful. However, this obviously doesn’t cover the not-so-awesome behind the scenes moments. The ones where I miss my Mom and the comforts of the familiar and having my closest friends to talk me down are lacking. So in an effort to keep this Peace Corps experience a reflection of reality, but not too much of a bitch fest, here are a few examples.

I made sure no one took a photo of me to be posted to the Universe when I had a 101 degree fever, was sweating through clothes & shitting myself inside out for 2 full days. I surmise this sickness occurred because I regrettably did not wash a pear and carrot that I had eaten earlier that day. Lesson learned. Interestingly, I am finding the Indo-Fijians to be very superstitious as my host Mom was telling me that I was sick from too much admiration. She said I needed to put a black dot behind my ear to protect myself from people telling me how much they dig me. Interesting & duly noted.

There will be no photos of me when I woke from a horrible nightmare at 3:30am & couldn’t shake off the fear. Additionally, no photos will appear of me when I was on the cusp of utter emotional & mental bankruptcy after having several 14 hour days, language tests, homework & community presentations. I promise, that was not pretty. Alas, a few good night’s sleep & doing some shopping in Suva for my upcoming move to Lautoka, where I will be spending the next 2 years, did the trick to bring me out of my funk.

It is very interesting how I have witnessed myself reacting to certain things totally different & I know that the Fijian context has everything to do with it. For example, the pre-historic sized cockroaches that come out at night that climb on the counter while I brush my teeth..…not even phased. If this happened in the US I would have grabbed the heaviest object & splashed its guts straight away. Today when I was putting on my socks I noticed blood on the sole of my foot that had been acquired from the chicken that was killed the night before for dinner. Awesome. Or how about the spider that was in my bedroom that had the leg span of a softball…..no worries. My host sister says, don’t worry they have their own home. Okay then, hopefully it doesn’t make it through my mosquito net later. Not even the little mouse that was climbing down the light cord in my kitchen raised an alarm. Thankfully, I think I managed my expectations of Fijian creatures fairly well.

To keep this PC experience even remotely possible, focusing on the negative doesn’t do me any good. However, it reminds me that I have fortitude & really allows me to enjoy the pleasure of the good times. Like the “Indo-lovo-disco” we had last night as a going away for us here in the settlement. We had a traditional lovo……think Hawaiian luau-dig a pit, place in hot coals/rocks, chicken-fish-casava-dalo on top, cover it up, 1.5 hrs later, uncover & consume the deliciousness. We ate, danced & laughed. All of us, young and old; a cross-cultural, cross-gender, cross-age-range throw down.

A local tv station, Fiji 1, came around & filmed some volunteers in the villages while we were in class, yours truly starred on the 6:30pm news speaking Hindi. Right set (which means something like great, cool, good).

I especially enjoy walking down the long road in front of my house. It is lined with palm trees & since this a rural area, there are plenty of horses and cows moving around on the land. Sometimes it reminds me of the farm land in Ohio, I never expected that. The people that walk by are always saying Bula & ask me where I am going. Or sometimes I catch a few kids along the way & they come with.

I will be leaving the rural road behind me & moving to Lautoka town, the second largest city in Fiji. I am anxious to get settled in, learn where the markets are, practice my language, get to some serious cooking and start my work. I’m also planning my first trip to visit my friend in the Yasawa Islands, the location where the movie Blue lagoon was filmed. Right on.

Until next time.

Fir Milenga (see you again)

Love, Sara

My new address, i moved to Lautoka on July 7th

Sara Szunyogh

PO Box 4166

Lautoka, Fiji Islands

On the daily.....

I thought I would post what a typical day is like for me in Fiji during training.

6:15am Wake-up (to the sound of roosters & this very strange habit that many Indo-Fijians have...when they brush their teeth they make this gagging/hacking up a lung sound. The first time I heard it I thought my host sister was throwing up.)

6:30am Go for a sunrise jog or try & do yoga in my room. (there is NO privacy. We jokingly call what we have the coconut wireless...literally the other people in my village know what I ate for breakfast 10 minutes after I ate it, so doing yoga outside means I have an audience.)

7:00am-8:00am Shower & eat breakfast ( Meaning I fill up a bucket with cold water (I have not felt hot water out of a faucet since I’ve been here) from a spicket inside the shower room & use a small bowl to dump water over myself to get clean. I can fill up a tea kettle & heat up water to warm up my bucket & that helps tremendously.) My mom prepares my breakfast & serves me, niiiccce. Breakfast is always roti, an unleavened flatbread & some kind of curry, pumpkin, egg, eggplant.

8-10am Language class (I am learning Hindi-Fijian. Its like broken slang Hindi- a mixture of Hindi, Fijian, English. Its held outside on the porch of the house next to mine.)

10:30am-11am Tea time (A tradition held over from British rule. Usually served with biscuits...what they call cookies.)

11-12:30pm More language (We've only got 7 weeks of training to become conversational)

12:30pm-2pm Lunch (Again, host mom is a wicked awesome cook & makes my lunch. Usually roti or rice, a different curry, left overs from dinner & a piece of fruit.)

2-3:30pm More Training (It varies from learning how to garden in this environment, to cultural differences, to learning about the water, health & trash problems in Fiji.)

3:30pm-4pm More tea & snacks (they like to eat)

4-5:30pm More Training

5:30-6:30pm Relax, go for a walk, read, talk to my family


6:30pm-7:30pm Have Dinner (Mom makes dinner too, another curry. She goes fishing everyday, so we eat fish everyday. I am happy with that.)

7:30/8pmpm-8:30/9pm Write letters, take a bucket bath (we only have running water a/b 30% of the time), talk with my family, rest, have tea

9:30pm Go to bed

On Thursdays we go into the nearest town called Nausori & have class with our entire group of 35 volunteers. On the weekends I spend time with my host family, work on homework, go into town, wash my clothes and relax.

So much love to all of you from south of the equator. And yes the water does flush down in the opposite direction :)
xoxo
Sara