Back in Oz

So its been way to long b/w posts and much has happened in the last few months. First and foremost on the list is my 25th birthday on the 5th of December coincided exactly with Fiji's military coup. This latest in a long list of coup's in Fiji meant that Australia basically immediatley withdrew its aid from Fiji (including all AYAD's).

So this meant a lot of uncertainty, confusion, anger, reverse culture-shock for all the AYAD's involved. Especially when we only had two hours notice of evacuation. (What a joke!) Anyway I guess there are worse times to be evacuated back to Australia, (it being summer, xmas, NYE etc...) being told to wait for a return date to Fiji for about two months, however, gets quickly tiresome.




So in short, I have been going to the beach a fair bit down in Blairgowrie, eating lots of nice foods and working on the development of a proud beer belly. As you can see from above winery tours have also taken place with my fellow AYAD's. Below is a photo of me jumping into a rock-pool out the back of Blairgowrie. Its a hella scary jump but lots of fun.




Today, has been the day for decisions about returning to Fiji, basically I am going back in a couple of weeks for a couple of weeks to pick up the stuff I left at 139 Domain rd, have a proper goodbye, and maybe do my scuba course (depending on $). Once back, I am hoping that the AYAD program will have matched me up with another assignment somewhere (hopefully somewhere with a relatively stable political environment) or else it might have to be shirt and tie for yours truely.

What the.....?

Sounds like a tasty poo treat!

Long week-end

So after the overcast rainy volivoli week-end I was determined to get my fix of sunshine. The Yasawas island chain is about as far west as you can go and about as far from Suva as is possible. So I was optimistic in the hope that the weather patterns are different out there. How wrong could I have been as it simply just wasn't meant to be. The whole long week-end apart from a few hours on the Saturday was characterised by a now very familiar grey dullness interspersed of course with the frequently occaisional downpour. Now that my two cents of disappointment are out of the way I can shall continue.

So left Suva Thursday afternoon and managed a ride in the back of the 'Save the Children' 4WD over towards Nadi. 180 kms and 4hrs later we arrived at Alex's (AYAD working in Nadi) and continued to plan the rest of the week-end over some beers and dinner at the Nadi Bay Resort. We had to rise and shine early on Friday as the Yawasa Flyer was departing at 9.00 a.m from Denarau which is a few kilometers from Nadi. Our destination for the Friday day/night was none other than 'Beachcomber Island' which is only a short 20min ride from the mainland. Not really sure how to explain Beachcomber, I think the best way is to say that I was bed No. 85 in the dormitory. I think there is well over a hundred in the dorm with the vast majority of them being English backpackers. Walking in there early on Friday morning was something like sex-ed 101. The place was simply teeming with english backpackers looking for a good time. So due to the unbelievably stormy weather, the drinking and card games got underway before lunch and there was little respite till the wee hours of the morning.




So morning came and time for four hour boat cruise to Oarsman's bay. I must say that I was glad to see the back of that island. Saturday was relatively nice weather (as in it didn't rain) and the sun came through to say hello for a few hours which was a welcome change. So lots of snorkelling and paddling etc... Coral and fish magnificient as usual. Sunday was spent with much of the same except with worse weather and hence the photo above is quite representative of the activities. Monday morning was time for a boat trip out to some caves before our trip back to Nadi. The boat ride there was just excessively cold, wet, rough and long. As you can gather from the photo, I was not very impressed. The caves were pretty cool and we had to dive under water through a kind of tunnel to get into what felt like prehistoric bat caves. Part of the film 'The Blue Lagoon' was filmed there.



Trip back to Suva took in total around nine hours and was not really comfortable. Paradise is not really around the corner from Suva. So already planning and looking forward to my next trip away. Got some friends coming over early November so look forward to seeing them out here and showing them around a bit. I find myself living cheaply during the week so as to finance my week-end fixes of beach.

VoliVoli and some random Fiji pix

VoliVoli is located in the same area as Nananu-i-ra except its still on the mainland. Its a pretty cool backpackers and has a a pretty unique sandbank. My camera has stopped working however, so i guess photos are going to be lacking from this weekend, however, I have posted some random Fiji photos of the market and downtown Suva for y'all to look at. So three of us left Suva under torrential conditions on Friday afternoon. Its true that the heavens opened up. I find myself repeating myself regularly "I've never seen so much rain". First time I had seen proper flooding and there were many a squatter settlement under water. As in pure Fiji style though no one really seemed surprised or anxious at the four hour long journey across rickety bridges and dirt roads that lay ahead. (Check out the photo taken from the first trip of the dodgy bridge).



So we were hoping that by travelling north we might get away from the drowing rain in Suva and acheive some sort of blue sky beach weather. We were mistaken. No rain but overcast the whole time and yet I still managed to get burnt. Friday night was eventful, there was around 15 Feejee experience backpackers from around the world but mostly English, it was a pretty fun and rowdy night. I especially liked the crab races and the bonfire on the beach is always a good way to end a night. Saturday morning was spent snorkelling off a reef whilst those with their Padi diving certificates went diving. I still love the snorkelling, the soft coral and the fish are amazing. One of the girls got seasick and it was fairly fun to see the colour drain from her face in the space of five minutes. The rest of the week-end was spent reading books, eating, drinking beer, playin cards etc... It really doesn't have the same atmosphere as when it is sunny though. So long bus ride home last night and back at work today. My boss has been away for a week as her father died last week and I got to experience a Fijian style pre-funeral with the kava presentation and the drinking. It was very culturally different from a Westerners perspective as it wasn't as sombre as I expected.


Its a short week for me this week as for the first time since I have been here, its a long week-end and I am taking Friday and Tuesday off and heading off to the Yasawas. Its very remote and a long way to travel but I have been reliably informed that it is simply stunning. Hope you enjoy some of the random photos of downtown Suva.

World Suicide Prevention Day

Saturday was World Suicide Prevention Day 2006 and a big march was organised early in the morning through the centre of Suva. There was a good vibe amongst the marchers and the marching band did a good job of leading the way. There were some pretty 'special' banners being waved around. It must be a nightmare trying to organise something like that here in Fiji, so all in all I think it went well (Fiji style), however, I kind of got the impression that we were more of a curiosity than anything else though. The last few days have also seen the arrival of 'summer', and I think the brutal rise in temperatures is going to make life a lot tougher. Luckily so far we have had a beautiful run of nice sunny weather but the heat is never much fun when watching TV makes you sweat.

Nananu-i-Ra

So I finally got a taste of the postcard touristic Fiji last week-end. I was starting to get very disheartened by the lack of sun here in Suva.... Anywayz a group of about 15 AYADS headed north from Suva straight after work on Friday. I think when someone else takes on the responsibility of organising a trip everyone wants to jump on board, hence the large no. of people. So we all ended up squeezed into a couple of mini-vans and headed north in the direction of RakiRaki. The ride was a long, bumpy and scary one with a good portion of the road on dirt track. The other AYADs who had already made the trip were telling me to be thankful it was too dark to see the excessively dodgy bridges we were crossing through the rugged rainforest. We arrived at the wharf at about eight o'clock and caught a transfer boat for a half hour ride to the island. It already felt so good to get some fresh air, see some clean ocean and finally catch a glimpse of the stars after two months in Suva. The rest of Friday night was spent in the usual fashion with everyone sinking a few beers and getting acquainted with our new surrounds. Saturday morning, although most were nursing hangovers and too many mosquito bites, was an early rise and a trek through the island to get to the beach on the other side of the island. It was my first real tropical island experience and I was blown away by everything. It was my very first time snorkeling and actually seeing something else apart from the nothing in Port Phillip Bay. The diversity and colors of the coral and the fish was amazing and I have never seen anything like it before.

The rest of Saturday was spent alternating b/w sleeping in hammocks underneath coconut trees and snorkeling for hours around the reef which was just outside our clubhouse/shack. I think it was about 16.00 o'clock when most rejoined the group for some kava and beer in the afternoon sun. Well relaxed, those not watching the footy match D's Vs. ?? on the TV which ended in a draw, made the short trek up to the top of the island to watch the sun set over the Pacific. It was an idyllic sunset and my thoughts kept going back to what the first European travelers must have experienced sailing these waters for the first time.

After dinner, the night was spent around a beachfire chatshing with other guests/backpackers staying on the island and general shenanigans that backpackers and AYADs get up to on Saturday nights. Sunday was much the same as Saturday with lots of snorkeling, frisbee, volleyball and consolidating my relationship with the hammocks. A couple of hours of the afternoon were also spent trying successfully to crack open a coconut that very nearly busted my noggin open the night before. It gave me a huge shock just dropping out of the tree with a huge thud as it did, but still tasted delicious.

Apart from me and two others by 17.00 on Sunday, all the AYADS had left the island for the return trip to Suva for work on Monday morning. Not me though I just had to stay another day considering it would was my first real week-end away in two months. It was definitely worth it, the extra day/night there was worth its weight in gold. Monday was time to go back to Suva and we caught a local bus. This was such an interesting experience in itself and I think I will have to devote a posting at some stage of the funky reggae 1970's Fijian buses. But we finally made it back to Suva after approximately five hours of bumps, near misses and beautifully scenic mountainous rainforest.

So there it is for the moment, my first touristic experience in Fiji. Its tough going back to work when I've had such a taste of paradise but I now have a new found motivation to visit as many of these places as possible.

So back at work which is going along ok. The station has embarked upon its first ever radio documentary on guess what??? KAVA of course. We are also holding another fundraising activity around the University campus in a couple of weeks which will hopefully raise some funds and raise the stations profile. I have also, alongside my regular french show, have started an environment show with another Australian on Thursdays for an hour. Its pretty interesting as we are inviting different professionals from all sectors (Government and NGO's) to come for an interview. The show is good for the station as well because its really closely tied to what a community radio station should be addressing and informing the general public with.

Gunusende (the g is silent)

So here is that photo of the rafting trip last week end.

Friday was 'bula Friday', this meant we all had to get dressed up in our best 'bula shirts', if you don't you have to pay a penalty fee. Bula shirts are basically a fashion faux-pas everywhere in the world except here. Think of really bad Hawaiian shirts and you get the idea. Friday was also gunusende which was held after work. This is a kava drinking fund raising session. Firstly kava is a concoction that looks like muddy water made from the root of a pepper plant. I guess its a herbal medicine. Kava has been used throughout the pacific for over 3000 and still has a very strong presence here in Fiji. Its drunk to calm the nerves, promote sociability and also to numb muscle aches. So you basically have three differently sized coconut bowls, one worth 20 cents, 50 cents and 1$. You pay to have someone to drink whatever size you pay for. If you can't drink anymore you have to double the pay and send it back. This gunusende idea doesn't necessarily therefore have to be done with kava. As you can imagine I was a popular target as being my first kava session everyone was really keen see me on the floor. I managed about 2.5 hours of solid drinking and was pretty 'relaxed' with a fairly bloated stomach by the time I left the party, which had shifted into second gear by that time. Its not uncommon for Fijians to drink 'grog' (what they call it over here) till all hours in the morning. In fact I am pretty sure the only 24 hour shops in Fiji are grog shops. So ended up going to an AYAD house party and everyone took note of my very relaxed and laid back demeanour. All in all close to $400 was raised for only $50 worth of kava and it was good to socialise outside of work with some of the staff here. I am also getting much better at sitting on the floor for extended periods of time, I won't, however, go so far to say its comfortatable.


Next is a photo of me and my counter-part Shirley, she has been working at radio pasifik for about six months and has already accomplished a great deal here. She used to work at Radio Fiji for 12 years and amongst other things was the host of the romantic love song request show.
Saturday was an early wake up again as Radio Pasifik was doing an outside broadcast in Sukuna Park (the main park in the middle of Suva). It was for the closing ceremony of the National Youth Week Celebrations and was organised by various NGO's and charitable organisations. The radio volunteers did a great job of mc-ing and held various fun-day competitions and handed out prizes. It was a bit of a small turn-out but it didn't rain which was the lucky.