wrote a lot -- didn't say anything.

I'm not sure where to begin. I feel like so much has happened in the past couple weeks, but really nothing has happened. I think I might be through the initial phase of culture shock and moving into the general acceptance phase. Apparently this is an ongoing cycle and I will be experiencing this for the next 2 years. Super.

I realized that I might be able to make this place somewhat of a home. (Don't freak out! I saw your face freak out a little. America will always be my home.) Two years here won't be too bad. I'm starting to make friends in my community and I've even taught some people some slang like "I hate you" and "Don't you even think about it" and "step" said like when you're about to fake fight someone. I never realized how fun the English language is and how much slang we actually use on a daily basis without realizing. Try explaining the phrase "rotten to the core" to a non-American. It's pretty tough. But once I got over my I absolutely must speak only fijian and nothing else phase, I'm much happier. I can't express myself very well in Fijian, so I do the best I can and then I resort back to English. I find that I'm much funnier in English and I'm much happier when I mix the two languages. Most people understand English as well because school is taught in all English so even if they can't speak it back to me, we can communicate on a basic level.

We've started a big clean-up campaign. The areas around the outside of the village are overgrown and are mosquito breeding grounds to the extreme. There have recently been 50 cases of Dengue fever in Fiji so making sure we limit the breeding places is extrememly important. These mosquitos breed in tires, empty tins and bottles, and any other standing water. So every Monday we grab the machetes and hack down the overgrown bush. The village is starting to look really nice and people are really proud of the work they've done.

I'm trying to figure out ways to fit into the plans of my village. (Which I will from now on refer to as Koro because it means village in Fijian and gives more of the feel I'm looking for in my writing. Plus it sort of gives the village a name because I can't explicitly state it on the internets.) The Koro has a 6 year plan already in place, but they need to prioritize. There are so many big projects, like a fish pond, beekeeping, eco-tourism, mangrove reforestation, etc, that accomplishing all the tasks will be fairly impossible. Especially because development moves very slowly here and there are some projects that were started last year that still aren't finished (ie the concrete footpath).

I'm excited to work with my community, but I understand it will be hard. I think I'll end up doing small workshops and a lot of networking people for the projects already in place. I hear about all the other volunteers doing cool projects and it makes me wonder if I have the creativity for this. I'm doing my best though and I figure, there's got to be a volunteer who's worse than me out there. So I'm fine.

One quick sotry about more dead animals before I sign off. I think a cat adopted me. My house has a lot of rats living between the walls and under it. Ever since the cat moved in the rats have been much quiter so I'm thrilled. Except for Tuesday morning when I woke up to find the cat nibbling on a rat. Cool. But please next time, puss, don't leave its back leg and tail in a bloody heap on my mat. It's tough to clean out those blood stains.