Christmas in Fiji

Even though I just posted a blog about the wedding that was very close to Christmas, I thought I would explain how my first Christmas in Fiji was.

I very much missed my family, and I had some break downs during the day. But inbetween the very few breakdowns I had, I was surrounded by so many people in my village who were so filled with joy that I couldn't be sad.

With any holiday, Kioa likes to celebrate with parities, dancing, and food. Christmas Eve started with going around with the Youth (people 18-30) singing to all the elderly and new born babies. It was really fun to be able to hang out with people my own age and just sing. Granted they sang in Tuvaluan, so I only clapped and sang when I knew the words.

The Christmas Eve church service started at 10:00pm and was a midnight service. I was given the opportunity to sing and play the guitar at the service and sand "Silent Night". I gave a little description and history of the song so that they could understand why I had chosen this particular song. They really seemed to enjoy it by the clapping and thanks that I received after I sang. Hopefully they will ask me to do some more in the church so I can better integrate and share my music.

After the service I went home to change and wait for my neighbor friend to come and get me to go to the dance. He came over and we had a little bit of grog and then went to the dance until 3:00am when the power went out. Then we preceded to go to another house and have more grog until I finally said that I had to sleep for a little while before my family called me to wish me Merry Christmas. I went home and slept until 5:00am when my family from home called me to FaceTime with them. It was so amazing to see them all for Christmas and be able to spend some quality family time.

Because it was about 6:00am when I finished seeing my family, I stayed up and took some pictures of the sunrise. The tide was low so I was able to walk the beach and get some really sweet shots!

Christmas day consisted of eating a feast with the village for lunch and dinner with traditional dancing inbetween the feasts. It was really special to be part of their festivities, and made me feel so happy that I made the decision to stay in the village for this holiday.

Merry Christmas to everyone from Fiji! I hope you enjoy your big dinners that I'm sure you are

all having right about now.

Till Death Due Us Part

The weekend before Christmas, I was invited to a wedding here in my village. The wedding was the biggest wedding that the island has had in a very long time, where both the groom and bride are from here. A lot of the times one or the other are from somewhere else and not originally my village. The nurse I work with and I were both asked to be honored guests for the wedding. Now, I thought being an honored guest was pretty cool and it totally had it perks! But then there were the downfalls of having no alone time all weekend...

The festivities started around 9:00am on Friday morning with the Church service. It was really beautiful to watch these two people share their vows, and the church was all decorated. The service was a lot shorter than I had intended. Tea was the next thing on the agenda at the brides family home, that was also short and sweet to the point. Throughout the weekend, anytime that there was a feast, (any meal that we had!) people from each side had to give speeches which made things go 10x longer!

After tea was finished, we then moved to the community hall where the lunch feast was to take place. I have never seen so much food in my life until this lunch. Food was just piled high on banana leaves (which acted as the table cloth). I was amazed and so excited because I had not eaten the day before to have room for all the food during the weekend. It was a very smart decision on my part to do this because it was 3 feasts every day!!! SO MUCH FOOD!!!

Once lunch was finished and people had done their speeches, the entertainment began. The two sides consisted of Tuvaluan and Rabian traditions. The brides family is originally from Rabi Island, but she grew up in my village. She had so many costume changes, but the dances for both sides were so beautiful!

That night we had a dance that lasted until 3:00am...I was so tired at this point because we had been drinking a lot of grog throughout the day along with all the food that was in tummy. It was a lot of fun being around everyone and really integrating HARDCORE!

Saturday, and Sunday consisted of the same thing; Feast for breakfast, dance, grog, feast for lunch, dance, grog, nap, feast for dinner, grog, dance...pretty much in that order

Once Sunday night happened I was happy to be able to get in my house and just lay down in my bed. I was very tired and my body just hurt from all the partying with the village. Who knew that I would loose all my college "skills" so quickly!

Monday morning was a doosy because I woke up to 12 missed calls on my cell phone. Now, I would normally hear someone calling me, but here I wear ear plugs so that I can muffle out the roosters and dogs going all night long. All the numbers were numbers that I didn't recognize and I assumed that it was people in my village. So, I didn't think anything of it until I got into work and Adi (nurse I work with) told me that an older man had died last night. Needless to say, Adi and I had to do take care of body and do the exam to find cause of death. Now we didn't do a full exam where we cut the body open or anything, but just did a surface exam and talked with many different people who were there. Here is that story...

The man that passed away was 57 years old and was visiting for the wedding from Rabi. Nobody knew his last name and he did not come with any children or other family. The brides side of the family had been having dinner at 12:00am...WHO HAS DINNER AT MIDNIGHT?! Around 12:30am, the man clutched his chest and said he was having extreme chest pain and it was hard to breathe. The gentlemen died approximately 12:45am.

Traditionally, the body is not supposed to be moved from where the person dies until it goes into the coffin. Therefore, when we arrived to do the exam around 9:00am, the body was under a sheet and people were eating breakfast and cooking directly around the body. I found this extremely uncomfortable for me because I have never had to deal with a rotting dead body before. I've been to my share of funerals, but those bodies are no longer rotting. This man's body was clearly rotting, began to smell, and his stomach was extremely distended that I thought the gas and fluids from his insides were going to burst out any minute.

Needless to say, it was a very interesting weekend and a experiential Monday morning.

Here is the link to the photo album. There are lots of new pictures there!
Fiji Album

Happy Holidays everyone! Christmas post will be coming soon!!!

Building A Bigger Music Library

So this post is yet again asking for your help!

Anytime I am home or at work I play my iTunes library because I don't like having quiet around. I always need music in the background to keep me distracted from negative thoughts. The power that music has is amazing! Makes me keep my faith in my Music Therapy degree and certification! I always put my library on shuffle so that I have all my music and a variety of music styles.

Consequently I have run through my entire music library a few times. I would LOVE if any of you could contribute to my music library my uploading some of your favorite songs, or any new music that is coming out in the states. I don't get to hear the radio so I have no idea what is new and hot these days. 

If you would like to contribute to the "Tim Doesn't Go Insane" Music Library, please send me an email (tdoak08@su.edu) and I will then add you to a Dropbox Folder where you can upload some music.


Thank you all so much for everything that you have been doing! You really are some amazing people for reading my blog and helping me out. Keep passing along the blog to people to read! I see how many people read this and even where people are reading it from. Crazy to see some different countries reading this blog :-)

Tofa!

Camp GLOW & Garden Time

It's been a while since I have written a blog post, so it was time to write one up!

This past week, I took part in the Group 89 Vanua Levu PCVs in Camp GLOW. "Camp GLOW stands for Girls Leading Our World and is a worldwide Peace Corps initiative to empower young women of developing nations to be strong leaders. The camp focused on the development of wellness, self-confidence, and leadership. With these life skills, the participants of Camp GLOW will share their new knowledge with their communities. During the camp, we held group discussion, games, sports, crafts, exercise, gardening, health education, a career panel, and community speakers." The United States Ambassador even came to speak to the girls, which they thought was just the coolest thing ever!

 

What I mostly did to help out was run errands back and forth from town, helped with cooking, and gave a presence of a male that cares about these girls future. At first the girls thought it was weird to see a male at a Girls Leading Our World camp, but after me just being me they came around and started actually chatting with me about things. It was amazing to see these girls change in just a few short days. They really understood what we were trying to get across to them, and even taught us somethings as well.

Mental health here in the pacific is very poor. Many people (especially women) think that them hating themselves is normal, and that being miserable to normal. So many people think that happiness is what they feel, which is not the case. During this camp, the girls told many people that they had this new feeling of happiness that they had never felt before. We has the volunteers gave these girls a week that they will never forget and they will hopefully take what they have learned to their communities.

Helping facilitate the camp really brought me back to my roots, a camp counselor. It made me really miss being at Double H (HH) and being with my kids. The magic that HH has, truly is something special. Being at HH for so many summers, I have made that magic a part of my every day life. It lives inside me and I try and spread it to others in the world. This camp was a way for me to do that in a way that I knew how, being at camp. Each of the campers that I have had at HH have taught me something new about myself or about life. This one week at GLOW did the exact same as HH did. I was able to just be Tim the camp Counselor who is silly, goofy, and a little weird sometimes.

 

My major goal for projects here in Fiji has turned to doing another camp GLOW next year, and to even start a boys camp called Camp BILD (Boys In Leadership Development). I'm hoping that this will really give me a push to do something really great here during my service.

I started planning out my garden that I am attempting to have beside my house. I managed to stake out all the plots that I need, and dug for over 2 hours on the first plot and only got 1/2 way done with it. Gardening is hard work ya all!! I have never sweated so much during work in a long long time! Had to stop for the day because I was starting to get light headed from the heat and not being able to drink enough water. Hopefully I will be able to find a local kid/boy/man who will help me and maybe just do it for me :-) Use my resources as I like to say!

Hope all is good in the world of America! I have also added many pictures to my Facebook so here is the link again to the album and to the Camp LOW album.

Fiji Album
Posters I've Made Album 
Camp GLOW Album

Tofa!