Start Again
[Peace Corps requires this disclaimer: “The contents of this Web site are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps.”]
As one gets INto something new & diff, deeper, it all becomes less & less clear, exponentially. Very quickly, explaining it to anyone not there, anyone not an american peace corps volunteer in the Nadroga-Navosa Provincial Office, Sigatoka koro, 2004, becomes infeasible.
I can’t even explain it to the other PCVs. Nor, they, their experiences, existences, to me.
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So let me start again with something simple.
I live in Sigatoka koro. It’s a fijian village adjacent to Sigatoka Town, the former populated entirely of Fijians, the latter of Indians. I have 2 large rooms of a 3-unit concrete building on the wide shallow Sigatoka River. Adjacent is Adi Joana, a 70-something chief of this tikina (collection of villages) and 2 others, a wonderful woman, i am so lucky, and the fact that i am of her household, Were Nidri, counts for much as i travel about the province. I hear her hearty wild raucous laugh at this moment, tiko, as i type, she drinking yaqona with her family and the others of the koro on her porch.
Adi Joana, left, with her family.
I wake with the lali [hollow log drum, beat upon to call folks to church – few go] at 4am, and again in the morning with the sun. There are louvered windows all around, the breeze blows thru. Outside are the various sounds of the roosters, barking semi-feral dogs, squealing pigs be-set by same, passing farmers conversing enroute to their fields.
I shower. The narrow bathroom contains both a toilet & shower. Initially the water was cold, but lately i’ve added a F$200 (US$~120) water-heater, as it’s the fijian winter and i have the means. The volume is very low, as it heats as the water flows thru, but that’s ok, hot water is such a luxury.
I eat breakfast, corn flakes in milk, on the porch, looking out thru the palms over the river, this new day’s sun reflecting, always beautiful and special.
I dress in sulu vakataga (formal skirt) and business shirt & (often) tie, and walk the 10minutes to work, of course greeting the neighbors etc, yadra, they breakfasting on their porches, as i leave. I pass the pigs & chickens, cattle & dogs, across the rugby field to the highway. I greet each of the pedestrians i meet, yadra to the Fijians, who always smile; morning, morning to the Indians, who do not.
There is trash everywhere along the road, especially in any watercourse.
I detour around the commercial district, to walk the narrow-gage sugar railroad, tranquil, green.
Sugar railroad.
Arriving usually at 8:10, only Siteri, the custodian, is there. She’s a good hard-working woman who tries tactfully to teach me Nadroga, the local dialect of Fijian. But i am so stupid.
I sign in. The roster shows the Roko Tui, my big boss, in at 8, then immediately gone, taking his kids to school. Often he never comes back, off, he says, to some ceremonial whatever, awarding some prize at some high school. Etc. The other office folks dribble in over the next half-hour, except those “sick”, typically perhaps 3-5 every day in an office of 15. (They get 30 sick days a year, may as well use ‘em.)
Roko Tui Nadroga-Navosa.
I work long, but inefficiently. I foolishly got involved in much too much. My projects:
- ICM pigs
o ICM=integrated coastal management. The reef here, within the last 10yrs, has died, due to water pollution, and folks trampling all over it at low-tide killing any low animal-like lifeform, in order to eat same. Pig-raising, surprisingly, accounts for 40% of the nitrate pollution going to the reef (unless you subscribe to the belief that researchers don’t DIS those (the hotels) who fund them – we won’t get into that). South Pacific waters are naturally very sterile. Coral, having evolved in that environment, likes that. Algae on the other hand, like nitrate richness. Pigs & sewage accommodate the algae. The coral dies. The fish die. The fijian culture, which depends to a large extent on abundant fish – dies?
o So the idea is to move the piggeries (which typically are actually hanging out over the water, or directly adjacent), more inland, where the waste will not drop into the water, where maybe it actually can be used to enrich the depleted soil nutrients.
o This is a huge project involving potentially hundreds of thousands of F$. Essentially it is mine alone. I feel inadequate.
A typical piggery.
- ICM mgmt
o I am give management authority over a big friendly Fijian guy who works in the provincial office. Indeed, he may the ONLY guy who ‘works’ (hard) in the provincial office. But are the receipts (which he writes himself, because vendors don’t DO receipts here) that he turns in true, or faked? I don’t have any way of knowing, and this is my biggest source of daily stress. I don’t want to stifle his good effort, nor do i want to give away $ to dishonesty.
o Oh, and by the way, tho he speaks English, i can only understand 10% of what he says. If i ask a specific question, that figure approaches zero.
Erami. A good man.
- Malomalo water/elec
o The only thing, it seems, that is really important to the provincial office, is meetings – social stuff is really important to Fijians. The yearly provincial meeting is lavish – one assistant roko tells me it costs >F$100k. Wow. Well, next year’s meeting is at Malomalo. That gives them #1 priority on all gov-funding. Great! Except they still, themselves, need to come up with 1/3 share. Shit!
o They have a very minimal water system, and no electricity. Turns out it will cost ‘em something on the order of >$20k to achieve the adequate water & elec needed for the meeting. It is my job to help ‘em do that.
o It’s impossible.
Closing ceremony at the last Bose ni Yasana, Vatukarasa.
- Vatukarasa porch
o As an honor, i’m to design the porch for a village community hall, and help ‘em build it. Thanks!
- Namada Water
o This was my very first project. The koro i trained in, during the dry season, has water 2 or 1 or 0 hours/day, because of population increase, flush toilets (which relative to pit toilets, use one hell of a lot of water), and planted pine plantations which, intended as income, suck one heck of a lot of water out of he ground relative to the native jungle.
o The guy at the British embassy assured me that they would fund it – they love these kind of projects.
o But he got another job, with the Japanese.
o The new guy tells me: sorry.
o So i need to find another country anxious to fund water projects. It is an odd fiji reality that the only way to get anything done is get some foreign gov (NewZealand, Australia, Japan, European Union, Taiwan, France, in approximate order of commonality) to fund it. (USA? Absolutely not. When asked, i tell the folks that the US is spending all its $ in Iraq.)
- Votua Water
o This is the 2nd project i got involved with.
o They’re thinking ahead and want to assure a good water supply for their growing village.
o They have a water tank, but don’t use it – it was plumbed wrong when it was put in.
o I tell them how to fix the plumbing.
o They don’t believe me.
- Keiyasi school water
o This school relies on a community water system which supplies water about 1hr a day, if at all. The reason it doesn’t work is that the paid government employees who are responsible for it are incompetent or lazy.
o The school used to have an adequate water system, but it went to hell after the new gov system came along.
o So now the kids (who are resident, since this is a school that serves a very widely-dispersed remote area) spend hours of class time hauling water.
- Keiyasi koro
o They need drainage, footpaths, road improvements, ecotourism, water improvement.
- Ratubaka ecotourism
o The idea is to develop a resort in the Interior – which has never been done before. See http://www.greatempty.us/3/040714korieqo/index.htm .
- Namada ecotourism/trek
o More ecotourism – idea is that folks would trek thru The Bush from village to village over several days. It’s a great idea.
- Dreki ag
o A “youth group” agriculture & piggeries project. Except the president and vice-president of this “youth group” are 49 & 54 yrs old, respectively. It’s all a scam, and the government is complicit.
- All those other water/etc projs
o Every single village i go to has a water supply problem.
- Somehow improve communications among entities
o Villages give 10s of 1000s of $ to gov entities (as their 1/3 share of projects) and, for years, don’t hear another word back. If they go to the gov entity they gave the $ to and ask what’s happening, all they’re told is that it’s been passed up the next level (because likely this is all that entity itself knows). This is ridiculous.
o People in villages don’t have mailing addresses – can you imagine?
o Hence if they have an electric or phone bill or personal correspondence from relatives overseas, or whatever, they use the provincial office as their mailing address.
o So a big stack of mail comes in every day, and in theory it’s sorted out into pigeonholes by tikina (group of villages) - altho’ i in fact find old mail everywhere – on the floor, in file cabinets, desk drawers, on countertops, in boxes.
o If that isn’t bad enuf: in theory, village leaders, when they come in to the provincial office, are supposed to pick up the mail, take it back to their villages, and distribute it. It appears that this never happens.
o If that isn’t bad enuf: i’m told that if any mail looks interesting, someone along the line is sure to open it up to investigate – and then of course, once it’s open, you have to discard it, else they’d know you were snooping.
o Hence: people often know it’s time to go in to pay a bill when the power goes off. (And yes: they go IN to pay bills in person, despite the considerable transport difficulties. Because NO ONE uses checks.)
I could stay quite reasonably busy with any one of these enterprises. It’s often impossible to get anything done, even something as simple as copying, printing, making a goddamn phone call. Some days, people stream in all day. It can be a chaotic place, an insane country. Which certainly makes it interesting. Someday, I’ll tell ya more.
My good friend, Assistant Roko Alipate Natoba Vitukawalu, and a typical office scene.
Lunch hour, i walk home, relief, for a PB&J, or over to an Indian deli (3 to choose from, virtually identical, in 2 blocks’ distance) for a bag of fries, F$1, about 60cents US.
4:30pm, quitting time, i walk downtown and shop for a few groceries and beer, then return to the office and change clothes for aerobics class at the fire station across the street. Often mentally exhausted, i just want to go home, but instead i go to aerobics, and the second the music starts, i feel great, the day goes away. (Tho’ lately this tradition has rather fallen apart, no one comes anymore except me and a Japanese volunteer – before there were as many as 10+ men & women, fijian, Indian, American, Japanese, quite an unusual mix, and we had a great time. I don’t know why the others stopped.)
Home, i usually spend the eve typing log notes of my hectic day. I read the Newsweek mags that Peace Corps sends, but all the news is bad. Dinner is “Maggies” noodles, like Top Ramen.
To bed by 8:30 or 9 (no TV). I sleep well, tho’ always wake in the nite to the various village sounds. Barking dogs. The pigs rattling the corrugated iron roof in the sty hanging out over the Sigatoka River outside the window. The man hacking, spitting, in the yard outside. Rooster choruses, they don’t wait til dawn. A baby crying. But this is all normal and expected. Transient noise past, there’s only the sound of waves on the reef. I am so lucky.
So far, another day has always followed.
For a few weeks, i was completely stressed out. My neck was stiff. My lower back was stiff. Then it occurred to me to quit fretting about too much to do, and just DO SOMETHING. Now, actually doing at least a little, i feel a lot better.
Many of the folks who wait on my projects PRAY for me, as if i, and God, are their only hope. They walk into my office and pray. And there is so little ‘system’, this has about as much chance as anything. Rarely, some small part of their prayers are miraculously answered, little thanks to me.
Three-eighths of the time here already gone. It’s unbelievable to me the turn this life-o-mine has taken. With all the frustrations, so fortunate.
m
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- copyright 2004 michael mcmillan m@greatempty.us - www.greatempty.us