Wowzies! I Haven't written for a while, clearly I'm not a very committed blogger, or maybe those who blog every day have too much time on their hands and not enough sunshine on their faces, moonlight on their skins, and sweaty dirty kids hanging off them all the time...
Lots happening since last time I wrote, ups and downs... we all got hit by a bad fish poisoning, Carl caught a whole lot of fish one day and there was one fish he didn’t really know and wasn’t sure if it was ok to eat or not. There have been stories here of people eating poison fish and dying within a couple of hours, but Carls uncle reckoned this one was ok... so him and Carl tried some of it first, thinking that if they don’t feel sick within an hour then it should be ok, which they didn’t, so we all dug in, and it was a damn delish fish, if I might say so myself, beautiful soft oily flesh, one of the tastiest ones I’ve had here, but the little bugger tricked us, and we all ended up horizontal for over a week, no vomiting and runs, but just an awful lethargy, body aches and an inability to MOVE!!! The kids weren’t too bad, it was mainly me, Carl and his Uncle, and they STILL haven't fully recovered and are still very wary of eating fish. So that put us all out for a couple of weeks, any work on the house was stalled and I was dragging myself along every day trying to keep the kids and myself sane.
Then there were the big Rotuma day celebrations on May 13th, this is probably the biggest celebration on the island, and well prepared for, weeks in advanced. A boat arrived from Fiji carrying the Fijian President and a few ministers and government officials, and there were numerous celebrations and “do’s” around the island for the long weekend they were here.
One of them was a day of singing and dancing island style, with all the beautiful young and old women coming up dressed in their exquisite fresh flowered fashion of leaf skirts and flower lays, to dance and swing their hips for the President and co, basket weaving competitions (which reminded me of the Joint rolling competitions they have at the Nimbin Mardi Grass in northern NSW). Each district/village exhibited their goods in big stalls, including every variety of fruit and veg they grew, arts and crafts, fresh made virgin coconut oils, it was really beautiful. They constructed trees by standing a banana tree and hanging coconuts off it, sour sop fruits, and other branches from different trees- looking really good. They decorated posts with beautiful flowers and fruit, ate lots of food, and all in all was really lovely to see how the whole island comes together in celebration, everyone making their best efforts to serve the best of the best to the government officials. Because there is no accommodation on the island other than people’s homes, Mr. President and his crew had to sleep on the (not at all posh) boat they came on, saying they didn’t want to impose on the locals and their families by staying in their houses. No presidential suites, no motorcades of security personal, no hovering helicopters. Just another guy coming over for a weekend of song and dance. And apparently old mate was dancing away with all the ladies all night long!!!!
Local display of arts and crafts- i LOVE these baskets!!!
Decoration of post!
Display of one of the districts produce
Display of my very first crop- white radishes!(which i pickled...)
Taro root/banana tree/coconut tree
Arts and crafts display
Carl’s uncle Varo, who’s house we’re living in, arrived on the government boat from Fiji, smuggled by one of his mates who was the engineer on the boat (apparently no civilians were allowed on the boat, but Varo was locked in his mate’s room for the first day of travel, only to be allowed out when in the middle of the ocean and acted as part of the crew...). With him arrived lots of stock- all the basics- sugar, flour, eggs, butter, lamb chops, frozen chickens, soaps, detergents etc; and also the connection to sky TV satellite, which has turned this house into a place of blaring loud TV noise, and very loud blokey rugby watching epicentre every night...not great for my idyllic desert island scene, but oh well...
What has kept me busy the most, is our new Preschool, which opened a couple of weeks ago, after working together with a few keen mums and women that wanted to get it going, and we’re now up and running. Ish.
We had a “Launch” on the first day of the school term- they had invited some “Honorary guests” (which to my understanding were a few of the more wealthy people in the district, in the hope of them donating some $$$ which they did!!!), they had a reverend to come and bless the place and the children, they had the high-school band come to play music and all the kids and guests were dancing around, we all brought a pot of food and we served a yummy lunch to all the guests and ourselves. They loaded all the kids (and me)in a ute and took them for a ride around the school grounds (the preschool Bur’e is attached to the primary and highschool grounds) while waving and screaming at all the school kids, who stared at them with not much interest. I must say tho, that my kids were the only ones yelling out “HI!!!” and waving the royal wave to all the passers by, while the other Rotuman kids just sat there, probably not quite understanding what they were supposed to be doing...
Anyway- the launch was good, they put lots of effort into it, but it seemed like they didn’t really think much of what needs to be done beyond the launch, like preparing a daily program to teach the kids, for example...
The preschool is basically run by mums, none of whom have ever had any early childhood teaching experience, (one woman used to be a primary teacher) so its pretty much making it up day by day. There are 2-3 very enthusiastic women who really want it to work and are working hard for it, but the rest of the mums that have been on the “committee” aren’t really committed and just come and go as they please, conveniently leaving their kids at the school to be looked after, without contributing much for its function. I find that very frustrating, as we are all volunteering to do this work, no one is getting payed for anything, and whatever we have has been donated by others, or raised at different fund raising occasions. ( We had a fundraiser one day and managed to raise $165! Which to them was alot- all from selling 20-50 cent muffins, sugar cane, cakes, second hand clothes, face painting etc. We also make and sell iceblocks to sell to the primary school kids- mixing red cordial with milk powder (yuck!), pouring into plastic cups with re-used iceblock sticks and freezing them-en mass!. The kids LOVE it!!!)
Some of the money raised goes towards the teachers transport, there is a big problem with transport on the island, we catch the school kids truck every morning, and need to find a ride home at the end of the day (12.30pm, as the school trucks only come at 3-3.30). Tricky sometimes, but we’ve been managing.
I emailed Noah’s preschool in Bondi to ask if they would like to help with collecting stuff from the parents to send over for the Preschool here, and had a great response! They all brought over stuff and even donated some money to pay for the freight. It was so nice to see how people come together for a cause and were so generous with their help. I haven't yet received the boxes unfortunately, as the flight that came to Rotuma yesterday was too full and they couldn’t take any extra cargo, so we’re hoping it will arrive on next week’s flight. Thank you so much to all of you who were involved in getting that together (Selina, Em, and O.S.L.D.P.S staff and parents).
The first couple of weeks of preschool has been a bit of a shambles, very unorganized and uncoordinated, but I guess it’s to be expected. We have so little resources, basically all we have is a Bur’e, we have to use the primary school toilets (which rarely flush), we have some play dough which I made and brought in, a few bits of Lego, some off cuts of timber cut into blocks, a bit of crayons, markers and pencils, and that’s pretty much it... we have to make do with what nature provides, and improvise with recycled rubbish. We take the kids down to the water front to collect stones and seed pods, and pick leaves and flowers when learning about the different colours.
Rotumans are very much into singing, especially devotional songs, so my boys are now learning and bringing home all these “thank you Jesus” and “praise the lord” songs, which is quite funny actually. I’ve had to teach a few songs which I had to pull out of my childhood sleaves, and found myself reciting songs like (and this is a song that only my generation in Israel MIGHT remember) “sing a song” by Susie surprise, and the Hokey pokey, and gosh- who knows what else will pop out from my memory box, but it’s been fun!
And speaking of devotional songs, I might have mentioned this in the past, but Rotumans LOVE praying to the lord Jesus at any given occasion... so they thank the lord at the beginning of the day, they thank the lord before morning tea, and then again at lunch, and then again at the end of the day (might I mention that all of this is within the 3.5 hours that we are there...)So now my kids are saying prayers before meals, which is kinda cute, as long as they don’t mention any PARTICULAR God! Their prayers usually go ”... mumble mumble mumble... AMEN!!!!” or my favourite “Thank you for the world so sweet, thank you for the things we eat, thank you for the birds that sing, thank you lord for everything”. (I'm happy with that one- it incorporates gratitude and acknowledgement to the universe, mother earth, natures beings and everything!).
We do alot of dancing! Rotumans LOVE their dancing, and it is too cute seeing how the little girls shake their hips and the boys shake their knees- a-la Rotuman style. Even cuter is to see my boys trying to do the Rotuman knee shake dance... HILARIOUS!!!
So we’re plodding along with the preschool, we’ll see how well it goes, hopefully they will manage to keep it going, get more support and get it registered and sponsored by the government.
Noah was the little kid who gave the decorated scissors to the guy to cut the flower lay to"open" the preschool
Inside the preschool Bur'e
Me and the kids going on a joy ride around the school grounds...
Other than that- life goes on, I was thinking that my blogging this time must be far less interesting than it was last year when we were living in Itumuta and I was having such a hard time of it. There is so much less to write about this time, coz life is pretty good, and simple, and I’m really enjoying the family time we have here. Nothing major happens (besides the odd fish poisoning, boils and occasional sickness) everyone we’re living with are very lovely, considerate and easy, the kids are happy, Carl, as usual is working hard. The house building is on again after a long few weeks of stalling because Carl needed to cut more trees down and mill the timber (another MASSIVE Mahogany tree for the floorboards), and being sick, and the usual glitches of lack of fuel on the island etc... but its now all on- they’ve got all (but two of )the posts in the ground and will be starting to bolt the bearers and joists in next week. They’ve cleared all the land of weeds and old trees and the view is looking more beautiful than before.
Massive Mahogany tree, this is one of 2 logs Carl used to cut for our floorboards...
I often stop and think of how impossible this project has seemed, how much we’ve been thru and how slooooooooow its been, but when I look ahead into the not too distant future and think of what an amazing house we will have here, that WE built , from scratch, and We’ll be able to come here and hang out whenever we want, even when we’re 80 yrs old, and our kids can come here with their mates one day, and our mates can come here with us one day...and it makes me feel excited! But mostly I feel very very proud, of myself too, but mainly of Carl. He has worked so damn hard on this, from designing the house to planning and calculating the number and size of every piece of timber that needed to be cut, to cutting down massive trees, to milling them into perfect size without ever having touched a chain saw in his life, to the very very hard physical work that I cant believe he has endured. And that’s not to mention all the organizing of everything being shipped from Australia to Fiji and then on the almost impossible route to Rotuma. I can go on and on, but I might sound like I’m bragging, which I don’t mind at all because he deserves it, but Carl would hate that, so I’ll stop.
All I can say is- good on us!
Oh and also- that we shaved the boys hair off!!!! OMG- I cried to see their beautiful curls fall to the ground, and my angelic looking boys turn into blokey looking kids... their soft curls being replaced by prickly heads... they look so different, its like I need to get to know them again, and its weird. It had to be done, their hair started looking like mops, so a healthy cut will bring healthy growth of new beautiful soft curls... quickly, I hope!
My 2 shaved heads!!!!
Until then, blessings upon you, and I am going to eat some donuts that Aggy has made. Yum.
