Bula! I haven't said much about campus, so here's a bit of info. I'm staying in a guest house on the FNU campus. It's about 10 minutes or so from Lautoka. LOTS of students also live on campus in the dorms which means there is great energy here! Every night a group of them plays volleyball on a cement court right by the guest house. I'll take a pic sometime. My first two days here while still in a jet-lagged stupor I couldn't figure out why students kept randomly throwing things up in trees - sometimes alone, sometimes in groups. Not wanting to appear any more clueless than I already do my strategy was to just keep walking and pretend I didn't notice. Finally yesterday I had a light-bulb moment... they're all picking (or rather catching) mangoes! There are lots of giant trees on campus, and at least half of them are mango trees. It just happens that one of them is in front of my house. See the big old tree below.
And here are a bunch of delicious mangoes from my tree!
To all of my mango-loving friends, especially you Tosha and Todd, oh how I wish you could be here right now! Students are not just throwing things! They are carrying as many mangoes as they can hold back to their dorm rooms. These suckers are sooo sticky and juicy that you need a bath after you eat one and the issue is that now that people know me they keep bringing me a mango and telling me to eat it on the spot, which of course I do! Then I spend the rest of the day sticking to everything. Maybe this is a joke they like to play. "Let's watch the American eat a juicy mango and then try to figure out what to do next". But, whatever, it's worth it! P.S. Blogger spell-check says you spell plural mango with an e-s... who knew.
Yesterday I figured out public transportation! There is a bus stop right by campus and I can now get to town whenever I need to. A few favorite things...
The open-air bus and all of the kids on it. This one below wanted me to know that I am not actually his friend and that he had better things to do than look at my camera. :-)
The HUGE market - one city block in size. It's pretty overwhelming actually, and this pic doesn't even do it justice, but this here is a farmer's market people! This pic is in one of a series of like five really large covered markets on the block. Between the fresh mango and pineapple I am the happiest visitor in Lautoka!
Lautoka is the sugar cane capitol of Fiji. They call it the Sugar City. In fact this is the reason so many Indians are in Fiji. The colonial British brought them here as cheap labor on the sugar cane plantations. Then when the British finally left, the Indian's stayed. And an amazingly rich Hindi-Fijian culture is the result. Everyone I have talked to says that no other island in the south pacific is like Fiji culturally for this reason. The fact that people say "Namaste" and I get to eat the food I loved in Nepal all the way here in Fiji is one of my favorite results. Anyway, sugar cane is EVERYWHERE in Lautoka, but my favorite was this little train that runs right to the wharf with car after car of sugar cane.
Today I got to go to church and it was the best thing ever! I met some really awesome people and bonded with lots of them about having a daughter on a mission. It was a kick! And, finally, after another evening of getting to know Leonard he did slow down long enough for a picture last night. I know, it's a little anticlimactic, but you don't understand how hard it was to stay perfectly still, laying in my bed, and pretend I wasn't taking a picture of him from across the room. Also, I'm not brave enough to get any closer anyway.
I spoke with Sangeeta and Dropati about Leonard and after telling them about Molly and Sophie and my five chickens with names (naming chickens is not a thing here) they think it's for the best that I keep him. They say I need a pet and the campus cat is too wild for me to tame. So, it's just Leonard and I. He clicks a lot, and they said that in Fiji if you are telling a story and a lizard clicks at the same time it means you're telling the truth. Good to know!
Love you all! I'm off to Suva, the capitol city, to meet the Dean and some Ministry of Education people tomorrow.
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