Site Placement

So I bet you all are wondering where my permanent site will be? I know that I have been wondering for MONTHS about this, so I know you all must be as well! Well due to safety and security issues I can not reveal exactly where I am in Fiji, but can give a brief description about what is like, and what I will be doing. If you want to know exactly you can email me at tdoak08@su.edu and I can tell you. However please do not post on any social media or pass along in emails my exact site location. SORRY!!!! But here is a picture of Fiji so you can kind of guess where I am :-) 

 

First off I will explain about what my job will be like. This is only the little bit of details that I have been given, and very well might change! I will be working in a Nursing Station, which is the smallest health facility in the Ministry of Health system. There is only one nurse and I working in the station.

Job Responsibilities:

§  Assist with programs relating to Maternal and Child Health

§  Raise awareness on Health Promoting Schools focusing on water and sanitation

§  Assist in awareness programs in communities about clean and healthy water and sanitation

§  Assist in developing youth programs related to behavior change in healthy living styles

§  Conduct in-service training for staff and community Health Workers

§  Assist in designing and developing Health Education Resources

Needless to say, I will be VERY busy for the next two years! My job will serve 3 villages, 22 settlements, 3 primary schools, with a population of approximately 1056.

            My actually house and village is quite amazing and is an island just off of Vanua Levu (2^nd largest island in the North) and I have to travel by a little fiberglass boat to my village. The island itself is only one village with approximately 80 houses in the village with my house being made of wood with a bathroom and toilet attached. The really nice part is, is that I only have a 2-minute walk to my work! When it comes to electricity, I will sometimes have it from 6pm-11pm if the generator is working that day, or if it is not raining. Peace Corps has provided me with solar panels so incase of no electricity for long periods of time. I have no idea about water yet  but have been told that I will have to collect rain water often.            In the village there is a post office that is run by the council (local government), but all banks and markets are located on the “main land”. When it comes to communication, Peace Corps has supplied me with a satellite phone, and personal tracking device in case of emergency. Hopefully I will have some form of communication while I am there or this will definitely be a test for myself. 

            I am super excited, and nervous for this placement but I know that I can do it. This is what I signed up for anyway right?! I am truly going to be “roughing” it out there on my little island and I could not be more excited or happy to do that in such a wonderful place as Fiji!

Moce! Sota Tale!

My Host Family Home

I thought for this blog post I would show you a bit of my host families home and tell you about what takes part in each picture!

The picture below is the taken right from the front door (katumba). Here in Fiji they call this the sitting room, but we would call it the living room. As you can notice there are no chairs except for the at the table. In a home there may or may not be any seating, but if the family has seating they will still sit on the floor. You can see a refrigerator in the background, which is sometimes found in homes. My room is off to the left side of the picture! The second picture below is taken from the kitchen entryway. You can also see my room a little bit! But I mostly wanted to show the TV stand because this is also typical of a home in Fiji. The family having a refrigerator or a TV is dependable if there is electricity and the income of the family. If you look on the floor you can see woven mats that are made by hand. These are very typical in homes especially in the sitting room. 

Next we move into the kitchen that you can see below. This kitchen has a sink area over to the right where we do our dishes by hand. In the back (the center of the picture) is where all the cooking is taken place. The kerosene stove and pots are all stored back here and where the women do the cooking. The reason I say women is because the men only cook in the lovo (earth oven). Over to the right side of the picture is the pantry where the salt, oil, some plates and miscellaneous kitchen things are kept.  You can also see the electric oven and frying pan on top of the table in one of the pictures below. 

Now we move onto the “bathroom” area. The shower (sisili) and toilet are separated here in Fiji into two separate rooms. The first picture you see is the shower room, which isn’t a shower room because the showerhead does not work! I take a bucket bath because the water pressure is not enough to go into the showerhead. The red handled bucket in the big green bucket is what I use to dump the water onto my body, and no it is not warm water at all! The cold water however does feel good with it being so hot here. The next picture is the toilet, which I can flush about once and then have to wait an hour or so for it to refill. Thank god I have not been sick yet (knock on wood) or else I would have a problem!!  

Well that’s about it for my host families home. Look forward to hearing about what you all think about this house and can’t wait to show you my home soon enough!!

Food

So for this blog I have decided to start and focus on certain aspects of Fiji. Even though it is Fiji Day here, I need to learn more about Fiji Day before I can blog about it. Now remember this is from my point of view and is from observations from the people that I have come in contact with. Food is a vital part of every day life here in Fiji and serves as a way to show respect, love, and appreciation. The more food there is the more that they respect you.

Fijians like very bland and some of the foods literally taste like nothing. I never thought food could taste like nothing, but some does! Fijians do not typically like to use any spices other than curry. They use curry only with chicken, potatoes, and sometimes eggplant. But for the most part, food is either not seasoned or it is seasoned with salt.

The staples of Fijian meals are root crops; dalo, cassava, potatoes or rice.  Dalo and cassava essential are like eating 3 potatoes in one, they are very heavy and dense. Cassava has a bit of nutritional value to them but in moderation, which is not a concept that Fijians understand.  I don’t like eating cassava or dalo because it one tastes like nothing, and two is super heavy! When you eat the dalo or cassava you only eat the bottom part, aka the root. They use the stock part for other things but do not typically eat stock but eat the leaf. The picture below is of a cassava plant picked straight from the farm.

When is comes to meat, Fijians eat a lot of chicken and fish. When a family buys a chicken from the market or store it is a full chicken. Image a chicken defeathered and then put into a bag, that is what the chicken is like. It still tastes fine when cooked but it just boney. I do miss being able to eat chicken or fish without having to worry about bones. Fish is caught right from the ocean and taken straight to the kitchen, gutted, and then cooked. I have loved when fresh fish is being served for a meal because it is one of my favorite dishes. But again, the bones are still very well present so you have to be careful when you bite into your meal because you will get a little surprise if you are not careful. A lot of the time however they buy tin fish or tin beef because it is less expensive and is ready to cook right away. These tin foods are coated in tons of oil and salt and not very healthy.

Now I bet you are asking about all the fresh fruits? Well, I eat a ton of the fruits because I can literally pick them off the trees, which is AWESOME! However Fijians do not eat hardly any fruits. They see them as expensive and not essential to their health. But the price of fruit is not very expensive at all. They range from $1 - $3 depending on which season of fruit is happening. Here in Fiji you can find a variety of fruits, some are locally grown and some are imported. 

Fijians do eat a lot of veggies and understand that vegetables are a vital part of staying healthy. Salads however are totally different here because leafy green vegetables are hard to find. They consist of celery, tomatoes, and carrots boiled. Raw vegetables really are not eaten because they are worry that the raw food might make them sick. My host family has now began to steam and eat raw veggies which is a lot better for their health, and they even like eating a real salad!