Up to our ears in voivoi

Voivoi = the plant used for weaving mats

The women in my village spent 3 full days weaving new mats for our village office. It was fun to hang out with them and goof off. Plus I've improved my weaving skills.

Voivoi takes a full week (provided there's no rain) to prepare for weaving. There are many steps, and I forget most of them, but it's a lot of work. Just know that.

I've been kind of a downer lately, so I wanted to post an upbeat blog. In the last photo you can really see the voivoi all over the house. It's hanging, there are strips ready to be used, discarded strips, the actual mat. We ended up weaving 2 mats and they look really nice in the office.

i do the best imitation of myself

"Maybe I'm diggin myself in a hole/wonderin/who i am/when i oughta know"

Really the best thing about this blog will be the title. It's a Ben Folds song and his melodic voice has gotten this bush bunnie through many a struggle. It's actually a cute little ditty and ya'll should download it (legally or illegally, the line is blurred here).

Here's the rub, I miss America. I am ecstatic to be coming back for a visit in 98 days. This thought makes me happy. It's about the only thing making me happy right now. Also, in case there isn't enough entertainment in America with all the movies, magazines, video games, electricity, music, family, friends, booze, mexican food, billiards, bikes, beer pong, nice weather, sex, candy, drugs, and you feel like sitting down and writing a good old fashioned letter... You can send me one at

Amy Hirtzel
PO Box 3352
Nausori, Fiji Islands

I realize this is a shameless plug to get letters and hopefully candy (anything carmel) but maybe it'll work. Typed letters are welcome as well, especially for any of you doctor types. I mean, I'm lonely over here, people! And the best thing about sending something is I'll write back. And what Yankee doesn't love some good ol snail mail? I know you do. So do your part to keep the US Postal Service in business for at least another 7 months and write your pathetic friend a letter.

Also I'll be there for a whirlwind 3 week visit in December. And I won't be so pathetic. I will be awesome and ready to have fun. So I hope everyone has been practicing their tra-la-la because come December...

It.
Is.
On.

more pics

Fitting right in...well sort of...


Mom and daughter.


Ok, he's not having it in this picture. He's so selective with which white people he likes. Gosh.


This one is sideways, but I'm cooking. Yeah, can you believe it?


Mom at low tide.

pictures because more words would be excessive.

Sitting with my Bu and taking a break during weaving. It really stretches the back and leg muscles. This woman is also my best friend in my village.


Grog-a-holics. Wearing our salusalus on the last night in the village.


The cutest babe in the world. The actual baby I mean, not Stephanie.


Dismissing the kids from school. "Who has the best line?"


Steph drinking a bu (coconut milk) straight no chaser.

pocketses and bumper cables

I cried as I dropped my mom at the airport. She just left Fiji. She had a great visit and even managed to adapt to village life for 3 days and 4 nights. She didn't freak out in the village at all even though she had a cockroach crawl on her back one night! We had a great time talking, cooking, and wandering aimlessly around Suva and the village. Thanks for the visit, ma.

Saturday July 25th was my one year anniversary in the village. This is good news. It means I've completed one full year! It also means I only have one left.

I have mixed feelings about this time epiphany. I am ready to come home to America more than anything. I also want to stay and finish my last year more than anything. Having my mom here was a total (excuse my language) mind fuck. I don't know how else to put it. My mom is one of the oldest feelings of home I have. Obviously, she was my home for my first 9 months of existence and I lived with her for 19 years of my life (outside her body thankfully). So then to have a feeling of home that does not include her at all is messing with me, especially since I didn't notice it until she came to visit.

I have been struggling with these ideas of identity and home for a long time now. I don't fit in anywhere. I'm not American. I'm not Fijian. I am something in the middle. It reminds me of a book I read in college (shout out to Cole Farrell and Debbie Mix), "Borderlands", where a Latina-American woman explains how it feels to be trapped in two identities, never fully feeling American or Latina. Always wrestling with one aspect of her personality or the other. Feeling her cultural duality in every decision she makes and in all social circumstances.

Enter an American in a Fijian village. Having other Americans around forces me to see the differences that I have so brilliantly learned to accept as normal for the past 12 months. No, it's not weird that my grandma comes over every 5 minutes and sits and watches me do whatever I'm doing without talking. No, it's not weird to freeze myself out with every shower I take. No, it's not weird for small children to call my name every 10 seconds even though they don't want anything. No, Fijian food is not weird. No, it's not hot or humid here, the weather is actually quite mild this month. No, grog is not gross. No, I don't mind having spiders in my shower.

But these aspects of life are all different to us as Americans and should be different for me. However, I've been Fijianized. This is how adaptive humans can become. I watched my mother adapt to camping-like conditions in 3 days. I never thought this would happen, but when forced, she did it (with grace and humility I might add). I've had 14 months to become an adapted human being and that's exactly what I've done. I don't love everything about Fijian culture. In fact, all the things I previously mentioned get on my nerves sometimes to the degree that I have small mental breakdowns resulting in chocolate binges and the completing of a 600-page book about Dracula in a day. I am not proud of these moments, but they are inevitable. I have changed. Mostly internally. Everyone who has visited says I'm the same I've always been. So why do I feel so different then?

Will my identity ever be whole? Will I ever feel like I am home? Do I fit in anywhere? Will anyone ever understand me? Am I understandable? Is it possible to have 2 different homes with 2 different identities in 2 different countries? Should I need to split my soul into 2 horcruxes, say a Bell's Oberon bottle and a tanoa (grog bowl)? Does this mean I have a split-personality? Should I see a psychiatrist?

Really I've done a bunch of babbling about myself and said nothing. I guess I just want to say that I am counting down the days until my trip home in December, when I will be on a plane home. Instead of watching my loved ones leave, I will be coming home to them. As for now, I will continue to wrestle with the idea of home, and remain in my state of suspended homelessness for awhile longer. Maybe time will reveal these answers to me. Yes, only time will tell.

it's been a long, long time, gotta get this message to you boy

I have been working away in my village. And my working I mean mostly community integrating, which is a fancy way of saying I've been weaving, eating, talking, grogging, dancing, singing, walking, and most importantly laughing with my villagers.

We've been pretty busy for the past 6 months, so the village (including myself) is on hiatus right now. It's like taking a really long nap. So far this year we've built a dam, fixed all the pipes/taps in the village, built a new pipeline, had a massive clean-up project, hosted 2 workshops, planted more mangroves, and grown fruit trees. I'm sure I've forgotten some things in that list. For my village, this is a lot of work! I've been content working a couple days a week, but mostly lounging around and making up riddles (in Fijian, toot toot) with my favorite kids.

Stephanie, one of my besties from BSU, just left a short week ago. I couldn't believe how much fun we had together. She grogged every night, was inducted into a family by being 'knighted' with her own fish (What's up, tui?), ate fish off the bone, visited almost every classroom at the primary school, helped with a reproductive health session at the secondary school (sex!), saw women breastfeed, learned to weave, scraped coconuts, woke up every morning to the sound of chickens and the drums, and by the end of the week didn't even whimper at the sight of a cockroach. She's pretty much Fijian now. Needless to say it was great to have her here. My house felt pretty empty and quiet afterwards. I have since readjusted and anticipate a reunion tour SB 2010.

Other than that, I have been doing lots of reproductive health talks. Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex. Already this year, 2 secondary students have gotten pregnant, so it's a major concern (salute major concern). It's also extremely tabu for Fijians to talk to their kids about sex, so they leave it to the teachers. The teachers aren't comfortable talking about it either. So basically students only get about 90 minutes worth of health/sex education a year from people who are uncomfortable talking about it with them. This is bad. I'm helping to change it. I feel good about this. Plus, sex is fun to talk about and can be quite entertaining. Imagine the jokes.

I met the new group of PCV's today, and they seem eager to get out in the field and get to work. We are getting 3 new volunteers close to me and we finally have a boy over on our side of the island! There's also some newbies up a couple hours from me, so I'm planning on getting to know them as well in the next year. It's going to be a good time.

This next year will bring new challenges, but I am much more confident in my abilities to conduct meaningful projects/programs in my area. Not only that, but I want to conduct meaningful projects/programs in my area. I feel very connected here, not only to the people but to the land as well. I think I'm turning Fijian. :)

I'll leave you all with our favorite riddle. The first 2 lines are nonsense, but each riddle is presented with this back and forth banter, then the riddler says the riddle and waits for the answers to come pouring ito entice me to play. It usually works -- I'm a sucker for a good time.

Riddler: Qima
Guesser: Qama
Riddler: Tuktuku sa lamata. (I have news brought up from the depths.)
Guesser: Na cava? (Oh yeah, what?)
Riddler: Na bubu ci, rogoca e na vuravura. (A grandma farted, and it was heard around the world.)

And now, it's time for you to guess.

Rockstar by Nickelback

I have to admit, unfortunately, that the catalyst for this blog entry was this terrible song by a band I really don't enjoy. However, I was riding a minibus and thus subjected to the driver's taste in music, which is usually sub par and proved to be once again.

I was actually listening to the words though and I realized why I like it here and also what frustrates me about the US. On a daily basis. my villagers are barely influenced from the outside world, which means they live simple, wonderful lives. If we never went to town, we would never even know the news as there are no televisions, 2 radios that only play fijian music, no newspapers, no advertisements, no junk food, and no other outside influences other than myself. This means lacks of outside entertainment as well. Imagine a family that hangs out together, sits around and talks, eats every meal together, goes on outings to the beach together, makes their own fun because there are no shiny objects to watch instead. It seems almost impossible to imagine this happening in America the way it happens here.

It's so much easier to watch television than to talk. It's easier to go to a movie than spend countless hours sitting and staring at one another while illumated for hours only by a kerosene lamp. But this is what I do here and so one must come up with one's own fun--making shadow puppets with accompanying stories, for example.

What does this mean for me when I go back home? My behaviors have changed a lot. I sit on the floors instead of furniture, I make due with less than I ever could in America (shoes, clothing, food, resources, office supplies, etc), I'm more resourceful, I can laugh at the same joke for months, I enjoy talking for hours about nothing. Well I guess that last one hasn't changed. I will always love talking for hours about nothing. There are other ways as well, but they are hard to conjure up at this moment.

I guess for the first time, I'm nervous about returning home. It's a year away, but some of my values have changed and they aren't in line with American values. What does this mean for my future? How will I keep the values I like about Fiji while living in a different culture? I suppose I kept some American values while I came here, and I'll just have to reverse the process when I go home.