fellowship

/ˈfεloυſιp/ n. 1a the condition of sharing similar interests, ideals, or experiences, as by reason of profession, religion, or nationality. b the companionship of individuals in a congenial atmosphere and on equal terms. 2 a close association of friends or equals sharing similar interests. 3 friendship; comradeship.

I spent most of this week camping. I joined a big group of the Deaf Christian Fellowship (including some of the students at the school where I work) and travelled to Deuba /nde'umba/ on the Coral Coast, where we had a great time. Those of you who know me really well will be quite surprised to hear that I involved myself briefly in a game of rugby. This did result in me injuring myself on an open window (honestly, who expects to be caught in the neck by a window frame on the rugby field?) but it was still good.

The food was … camp-like. Porridge for breakfast every morning. Then morning tea. Then lunch. Then dinner. Then supper. It does make me wonder … with so much eating, why did I not need to use the toilet the whole week? Surely this is not right? I wonder if it’s a bad sign for the coming few days. Fijian and Indo-Fijian food tastes really good on the whole, but it does play around with your digestive system. Anyway. Sorry for the excess information there. Moving on…

On one of the few sunny days we had (it was drizzling and cloudy for the most part; typical eastern Fiji style) we all went to the beach for a bit of a swim, which was really nice. It was warm and refreshing. One of the younger girls had forgotten to take the packet of chips out of the pocket of her swimming shorts though, and very soon we were surrounded by a school of fish. It was fantastic. A very surreal, bizarre feeling though. The fish didn’t touch us at all, and swam away very quickly once the food disappeared, but it was a nice experience.

It was great to get to know some more Deaf people, and socialise with them. I learned some new Fijian Sign Language (which has just recently been allocated an official abbreviation, FJSL, by the Fijian Association of the Deaf). I made some new friends, which was awesome. I am so thankful for the openness of the Fijian people, putting up with all my questions and mistakes. I have tried to show my interest in their language and culture as much as I can. Even more so, I am heaps thankful for the way the Deaf people here are accepting me, and welcoming me, and helping me learn new signs and change the ones I knew which don’t apply here. The overall theme of the camp was “Fellowship”, and we were given several challenging reminders of what fellowship is, and means, and how to stay in fellowship.

As an aside, if you’re wondering why I’ve capitalised the word “Deaf” all the time here, I’d encourage you to search the web for articles about Deaf culture and Deaf communities.

I will be going home to Sydney in just a few days for my sister’s wedding, so stay tuned for my next update, which will probably be from the best city in the world (Sydney, in case any of you out there were confused and I needed to say it again)!

wildlife

/'waıldlaıf/ n. 1 living things and especially mammals, birds, and fishes that are neither human nor domesticated.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that there is a great diversity of species here, of the kind you would never expect to see in Australia. The interesting thing is that the animals here are perhaps more daring and seem to appear more often.

The obvious ones are the dogs. In our street they are everywhere, running around like it’s nobody else’s business. This is one of the reasons I haven’t ridden my bike very much here: they chase me … apparently, so my friend Ruth tells me, to try and bite my legs. Alex has taken to feeding them. Our neighbours say that since he started doing that, they look much healthier and happier, which is great. The down side is that they have all fallen in love with him. They follow him everywhere. He has occasionally had to hop on a passing bus to get to work, otherwise they’d accompany him all the way in to town. When he arrives home in the evenings there is a great baying and howling. “Sounds like Alex is back,” we all say. They run after his taxis, and stand up on their hind legs to try and scrabble their way in through the car door. We had a few friends over for dinner the other night, and I left the door open for two minutes, and suddenly there was a great parade of canine visitors traipsing their way through our laundry and into the kitchen. “Get out! You’ve got us confused with somebody else! Alex lives across the road!” Dumb dogs. Kathryn (who is volunteering at the Fiji SPCA) plans to get them all desexed. They say that that is a big problem here in Suva: very few people have their pets desexed.

A week or so ago, we were sitting around the table, and I heard this faint mewing noise. We opened the curtains and there was a tiny ginger striped kitten clinging onto the fly wire. I thought he may have been stuck, but as soon as we went outside, he jumped down and started wandering around our feet. It was lucky Janet was strong-willed, otherwise Wes and I would have let our hearts rule our heads and invite the little fella in (which, in the long run, would probably not have been a good idea, what with food and toilet training, and all the rest).

Now, here are a couple of photos to try and illustrate some of the more random visitors I have seen around the place.

These are the ants. Not too exciting, you might say. But these guys are like food detectives. Everything in the kitchen has to stay absolutely spotless, otherwise there is a great army of ants arrive to feed on whatever dribble of food you might have missed in the cleaning up. They are absolutely relentless. Janet hates them with a passion. In this photo, there is obviously some small smudge of food on our chopping boards, and these little guys have sniffed it out and are trying to get to the source, so they can invite all their mates along for the feast.

I have no idea where this one came from. Obviously it’s some kind of grasshopper (maybe if there are any biologists out there, you can give me some more detailed info!) but he was there one morning, just happily sitting on our sugar bowl. They have got to be the longest antennae I have ever seen! He hasn’t showed up again since I took this photo.

This spider is sitting on the lid of our gas stove. He’s not too big … maybe a centimetre or so across. Boy, they can move fast, though. I have a feeling that they can perhaps even jump. By the way, sorry Tanni for including this picture. I know how squeamish spiders make you feel. But imagine if you were living here!

Ahh, the millipedes. Maybe about two or three centimetres long, these little guys are everywhere. Shabina told me that they love to habitat dark, damp places. “Like our house,” I retorted. Truly, our house is surrounded by trees, and in the humid climate of Suva, our place must be paradise for the millipedes. So, we’ve been told that we have to keep it clean and dry, and turn our mattresses over on a regular basis, and change the sheets all the time. Yes, change the sheets. I woke up one morning with an itchy, swollen finger, and couldn’t understand why. Then I found a millipede under my blanket. The little son-of-a-gun must have bitten me during the night!! I have had the rather unfortunate experience of accidentally stepping on a millipede. You wouldn’t think it by looking at them, but they make quite a crunch, sad to say. There is also the much larger, much uglier version of the millipede around. I have seen only two of these, but man, you wouldn’t want to run into one in a dark alley at night time. It’s like something from a science-fiction movie. I have been told that they live in mulberry trees and are quite happy to drop down on unsuspecting passers-by. I just read in an on-line encyclopaedia that they are supposedly not poisonous, but I have been warned not to irritate one, because they can spray something into your eyes which will blind you. The fewer of these I see, the better, I think.

We haven’t had too many cockroaches, thank goodness! There were some huge wasps buzzing around at work the other day, which I was quite apprehensive about, but they seem to have disappeared (for the moment)! I have also seen a fair few mongooses. Apparently, being bitten by a mongoose is one of the easiest and most efficient ways to catch rabies.

Last of all, the cute little geckos. I’ve only seen a couple of these, but we hear their calling every now and then. This little one is climbing up my bedroom wall. Apparently they are good for mosquito control, so we don’t complain when we see these guys around.

Well, that’ll do for now, I think. But before I finish off this entry, here’s a little photo of the four of us. Now that Kathryn has arrived, the Team is complete.

Cheers,
Andy

newcomer

/ˈnju:kΛmə/ n. 1 one who has recently come to a community; a recent arrival. 2 a new participant in some activity; a neophyte.

Just a quick one this week …

Firstly, I should apologise for some of my disparaging remarks about our mobile phone service provider, and our inability to get dial tones most of the time. There was an article in the paper the other day quoting the CEO of the network. In it, he said there is no problem with the network at all … Rather the problems stem from “consumer behaviour”. Apparently, if we all stopped trying to use our mobile phones during the peak periods (generally evening times on weekdays) there would be no problems in getting through. Makes sense to me: If you don’t try to call, you won’t have to worry about being cut off! So anyway … I did want to offer my sincere apologies for my comments which made it seem like there was some problem with the network, when in fact it was our fault all along.

I got a package sent to me from home, which was nice. There were some photos, and a couple of books … some comforting things from Australia.

Yesterday, I spoke to our In-Country Manager, Jennie. We haven’t seen her for about a month. The first thing she said to me was, “You’ve lost weight, man.” I wouldn’t really know, because we don’t have scales. I guess it may have something to do with the fact that I walk an hour to work every day, and then an hour home again. Either that, or I haven’t been eating well, but I don’t think this is the case … I haven’t really been doing anything differently. Heavy-based starchy type foods like cassava and rice are in abundance here, so, it’s a bit of a mystery.

Our newest housemate, Kathryn, arrived on the weekend, and has spent the last two days settling in and getting herself oriented. We went for a walk into town yesterday, and showed her ’round. I’ll have to take a photo of the four of us and post it on here, so you can see the complete team.

Last of all, here is a photo of the “Opening Ceremony” at our mini-Olympics at school the other day. If you click on it, I think it should come up with a bigger version. The kids are so cute!

Cheers,
Andy