A present from the Easter Bunny

Turns out Good Friday ain’t so good after all. Introducing…

A tropical boil!

Which swelled my knee up to the extent that I couldn’t walk and cried a bit

But then I went to the hospital and they gave me a bandage and some pretty pink pills.

Don’t worry folks, I’m on the mend. Still going to the hospital every morning for a new dressing, but I’ve finished my pills and (excuse me) most of the pus is out. Thank you.

A tour of Levuka

To fully experience this blog, you will need the following props:

- A tin of tuna (or, indeed, any kind of fish)
- Speakers
- An oven

All set? Then let’s get started!

Bula, and welcome to Levuka. I am going to take you for a walk around the town centre where I spend most of my time.

As I step out of the house, I can see:

Yeah, that’s right, it’s my school. Those of you who have looked at the How To Contact Me page will have noted that I live on the school compound. This, by the way, is home:

This is where you need your oven. Stick your head in it for a few seconds to give yourself an idea of the sort of overwhelming heat you feel as you step out of the house.

Next, I walk around the corner of the white fence to the front of the school, where I have a choice: to the left along Totoga Lane, or to the right down towards Beach Street. I’m going to take the right:

(Note to GAPpers: I spy David the Man’s house!)

And now I’m on Beach Street, the main street of Levuka. To quote the Lonely Planet guide, “don’t bother looking for the beach, ’cause there isn’t one.” I’m going to turn right and walk right down to the end of the street.

(NB: All of these pictures were taken on a Sunday, the quietest day of the week by far, so that I didn’t have to embarass myself looking like the world’s biggest tourist in front of too many people. That’s why all the shops are shut and why it looks dead.)

At this point you need your speakers. Turn them on, and play these songs as you look at the rest of the photos. The pool halls are always blasting music out and it will give you a feel for the general atmosphere of the town.

Try:

• Zipso – Fika Mai le Pese (Total awesome Samoan song that I hear everywhere)
• Brick & Lace – Love is Wicked (Again, EVERYWHERE)
• Heck, anything by Bob Marley, you pick.

So I’ve walked right up to Pafco. Pafco is a massive tuna cannery, and is probably the only reason that Levuka still exists.

(Take a whiff of your tinned fish! Go on!)

Across the road is the Koro Makawa, the best nightclub in Levuka. Out of three.

(Yes, Levuka has more nightclubs than Linlithgow. Levuka has a population of, like, 1000 or something. Sort it out!)

“Next door” to the Koro Makawa is the old cinema, which is sadly shut down. Cute building though:

Opposite is the original MH building. It’s now the Library and Museum (where Clare works!), a shoe shop, and Ovalau Watersports.

The shops along Beach Street are all original colonial buildings from the 1860s. There’s a rumour going round that there’s a Western film going to made here at some point this year.

See what you see when you look out to sea:

That’s the island of Wakaya, which is owned by the bloke who owns Fiji Water. He bought it after his daughter disappeared and became a recluse. Now it’s the most exclusive resort in Fiji, where celebs such as Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise have stayed. Oh yeah.

Then we come to the church that I apparently go to. My school is just behind it.

As I walk further along the seawall, I come to The Bridge, where I like to sit and think or enjoy the day sometimes, or go swimming.

Next I walk up and past the Royal Hotel (Oldest Continuously Run Hotel In The South Pacific), where I usually do my internet and phone calls:

Once past the Royal Hotel, I turn right along this little muddy path, alongside the park where all the rugby games are played, and the creek, where you find trillions of frogs.

Further up I come to the Masonic Lodge:

It was burned down by Lovoni villagers during the 2000 coup. Apparently some people believed there were various tunnels running underneath the building, including one going through the centre of the Earth to the Masonic headquarters in Scotland. There wasn’t. Anyway, it’s not been rebuilt, and everyone has a different reason why.

Then I come to the town hall and Ovalau Club, the second best club in Levuka, tucked away behind Totoga Creek:

I walk towards home along Totoga Lane, where the police station is:

I pass the school:

And then once I walk along this muddy little path:

And I’m home!

The End.

(Man that took effort. Y’all better appreciate it, and appreciate it big. Chow.)

 

Edit: Stupid fucking thing won’t let me put spaces between the writing and photos, or make this bit not be in italics. So you’ll just have to put up with it, sorry.

Thinking Day

(If you’re not sure what Thinking Day is, click here)

Tuesday, February 19th

MAKARETA: Hey, Jenny, it’s Thinking Day on Friday and Sr. Mariana wants me, you and Joe to organise the day’s activities and whatnot.

JENNY: Okay, sure, fine.

Wednesday, 20th February

MAKARETA: *goes home to Suva*

Thursday, 21st February

JOE: *moves to Loreto*

Friday, 22nd February

JENNY: *panics*

Still, I think I pulled it off:

We gathered the troops outside, and Sr. Mariana had them singing outside while we got everyone out.

There was cake (!)

Ceremoniously cut by two Class 8 students

I painstakingly made a really shoddy sign naming the day’s theme

Which Sr. Kalala gave a talk on

 

With the aid of a lovely poster

I’d invented some games all involving water for them. This was the water balloon relay

All the games went down well

Dona (my host!) was the MC for the day

Picture of the Day: I also invented a True or False quiz for them, in which those who got the wrong answer got sprayed with water. Except, when I went round with my water gun, they all went mental and started screaming, jumping and chucking water everywhere, and I got caught right in the middle. Well funny.

Afterwards came the traditional Friday afternoon lowering of the flag and assembly before dismissal.

Afterwards, someone gave me pawpaw fruit, and we sat outside and sang Ronan Keating songs. This is Joe B and Joe Mana and my new guitar. Ace.

I had my picture taken with some ex-pupils and looked REALLY pale. I do have a tan, honest!

 

Later on, we drank grog and went to the Koro Makawa.

The End.

(I also wrote a song about water and taught it to some of the girl guides. There are no photos but a video which I will try get on YouTube at some point.)

(For more, less squashed pictures, see the Thinking Day folder under My Photos)

Photos from before I started my placement

Viv + Bailey’s = Happier than Rob and Chris

 

Our plane, Nadi airport, 6am

First night – Jamie the Barman, Viv, Ben, Fiona, Kate H, Jenny’s Legs

 

This is a tanoa with kava in it. Yes, it tastes as good as it looks, but you quickly get used to it.

You get some hot sunsets on the Coral Coast.

Mostly everyone on the last night. Note Jack with his new girlfriend and brother in law.

Suva has nice sunsets too.

My first view of Levuka. (The long white building is my school!)

This is a selection of my Before Levuka photos, to see the rest click here.

Enjoy!

Things that go bump in the night

I am starting to get used to cockroaches. I haven’t killed any yet, but one scurried over my toes today and I didn’t cry, so something’s going right. I’m also getting used to rats. Most of the rats are small mouse sized ones, and they’re actually kinda cute, but you still get the big ones. Actually, the other day I shared my shower with a big dead rat. I didn’t have my glasses on, so I was showering away, la-de-da, when I looked down and saw something that looked horribly like a large rat that had been smacked with a shovel. It was, as well. And no one knew how it had gotten there. Mad.

I’m also getting used to sharing my shower with the local insect population. 

I love Geckos. They’re cute, they eat insects, and a gecko fight can be good entertainment when the TV is broken. The eating insects part is especially good, since my room is one of their local nightspots. I haven’t worked out whether they eat mosquitos or not, but if they do, I love them even more.

We all know I hate mosquitos. I’m pretty sure that the people in the town who don’t know my name yet refer to me as The Mosquito Lady. It’s not cool.

You also get bats here. They’re cool.

There are trillions of stray dogs in Levuka. Y’all know that dogs freak me out a bit. The strays aren’t too bad, despite how manky they look, ’cause a lot of them are scared of humans and stay away, but there’s the odd one or two that like to corner me and bark loudly at me while I’m on the phone.

I’m not sure why, but there’s always a few chickens wandering about outside the house. The first few days I had a rooster as my own personal alarm clock, but now I sleep through it.

Where there are rivers, there are frogs. From the size of your fist to the size of your pinky nail. They’re quite fun, although it’s kinda unnerving when you’re walking alongside the river and suddenly the bit of ground you were about to stand on croaks and hops away.

That’s all I can think of, really.

Have added a link to my photos

It’s on the left there, have a look! Bit shite just now…

Right. So. I’ve tried to organise my pictures a bit to save it ending up as hundreds of pages of photos in non-chronological order. If you click the link, the photos you see there are the miscellaneous ones I haven’t made a folder for yet. If you look on the left hand side of the screen, you’ll see folders listed, and you can work through these as you will.

The photos I’m putting on Photobucket are literally all of my photos, taken straight off the camera to the internet. So I’m going to blog about the interesting ones at some point.

Until then, cheerio. I’m off to watch Shortland Street.