More things going on in Suva/Fiji in March and April

This came across my email

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from 1 Billion Rising:

What a better way to commemorate International Women's Day, than to push some boundaries and welcome in a revolution!

We bring to you Eve Ensler's hilarious, eye-opening tour into the last frontier, the forbidden zone at the heart of every woman.

A full theater performance of the Vagina Monologues! Its rocked audiences around the world including in Suva! Women will give voices to a chorus of lusty, outrageous, poignant, and thoroughly human stories!

 An event not to be missed by WOMEN or MEN! Join us this Friday @ Nadi, FNU Namaka Campus for a laugh out loud funny and deeply moving evening! And if you are not in the West maybe this is the time to plan that trip!!

Spread the word and the love!

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And this for academics and the people they love:

The University Expat Partners and Spouses will meet at 9AM Tuesday, 10 March at Central Coffee on the USP campus. Any expat partner/spouse affiliated with a local university is invited to attend. 

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and for the active among us, you know who you are: the Rucksack Club newsletter

Upcoming Trips and Meetings

March

• 11th - Club Meeting (Digital Stories: Talanoa from Nubutautau)
• 13-14th - Fijian Indian Cooking Class
• 14th - Mt Korobaba
• 18th - Committee Meeting (Tess's Humble Home)
• 21st - Naililili Cathedral Visit
• 27-29th - The Two-Peak Challenge
• 28th - Learn from the Scientists (Meet the Architects of the Streams)

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April

• 3-6th - Cycle Around Viti Levu - DEADLINE MARCH 11th
• 3-6th - Nubutautau Village Adventure
• 8th - Club Meeting
• 13th - Film Factory (Stay Tuned to the April Newsletter and watch Facebook)
• 15th - Committee Meeting
• 18th - Nalalawa 3k walk + waterfall with Happy Home Children - (Stay Tuned to the April Newsletter and watch Facebook)
• 18th - Nabalesere Waterfall + Wailotua Caves
• 25th - Learn from the Scientists (Frog night with Nunia)

The club is grateful to have a committed team of members who meet as a committee to plan and discuss future trips and  activities.  If you’d like to organise a trip or get involved, please contact any of the below. Rucksack Club Post Holders Email Address Daniel Gerecke (President / Key Master) Jason Kuczek (Vice President / Newsletter) kuczekjason@gmail.com Alison Hayes (Treasurer) alisonh@connect.com.fj Richard Clemo (Deputy Treasurer) richard.clemo@gmail.com Tess Martin (Membership Secretary) tesskmartin@gmail.com

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Full disclaimer: I'm just copying and pasting here. If any of this info is yours and you want it down, let me know.

Stuff I heard about that looks fun - March Edition

This week's episode of "Amerika Moves To Fiji" found me visiting a lawn bowling club and then a spice farm. Tuesday I was at bookclub at my son's school and then was briefing high school students on how to welcome career speakers to their school. Tomorrow I'm going to training with Corona Fiji to learn more about the hospital trolley. I also have the chance to present some workshops and in the afternoon I'll meet with a fellow expat about developing opportunities for campus expat partners and spouses.

So how did I find out about all this?

Well, one part is that I made some of these things happen by saying yes to opportunities that came my way. There's an improv theatre rule that you can apply to life: say "yes." If you're lucky you'll find someone in your life who'll say "yes" back. I remember reading about that and making a promise to myself to saying yes to as many things as I could. And that, dear reader, is the short version of how I ended up in Fiji.

But there's more to it than that. I also look for what's happening around me. I can't go to everything, but I like knowing about it. And today here's the stuff I heard about, most of it written the very same way it was shared with me:

♦ 5 March 2015 Free Cancer Clinic There was an estimated 14.1 million cancer cases around the world in 2012. The number is expected to rise to 19.3 million by 2025 (World Cancer Research Fund International) Do not wait until it's too late. Educate yourself on cancer now. You are all welcome to attend the Cancer Clinic at USP’s Health & Wellness Centre, and take advantage of the free private consultations with Fiji Cancer Society staff, and basic examinations for early detection.
Time:    9am – 2.30pm
Venue: USP Health & Wellness Centre (beside USP Westpac).

♦ 6 March 2015 Confucius Institute Free Movie Showing

♦ 7 March 2015 Zumba class at the USP Sports Gym this Saturday 7th March from 8am to 9am. These Saturday classes will be ongoing once a month.
Rates Adults - $5.00  & USP Student with valid Id’s and Kids - $3.00 Instructor – Litia Contact Mark on mark.fung@usp.ac.fj for queries.

♦ 25 & 26  March 2015 10AM Pacific Market Day, USP Campus, across from Cost-U-Less

♦ 28 March 2015 Nature Fiji: Learn from the Scientists: Meet the Architects of the Streams with Bindiya 28th March 2015 (Saturday morning)
Join Bindiya for a trip to Nabukavesi 3-tier waterfall and discover the animals, their in-
stream habitat preferences and how they act as bio-indicators for a healthy stream. Expect to see damselflies, dragonflies, caddis flies, mayflies, aquatic moths and more. Participants working in small teams will have fun sampling freshwater macro- invertebrates from the river, examining the diverse animals and learn the ecological importance of each individual collected. All sampling equipment will be provided. Transport will be provided: 7.30 am: Depart Suva from the Civic Center bus stop Destination: Nabukavesi, 40 mins from Suva. 12.30pm Depart Nabukavesi

I have trouble sitting on really cool info like this, so I'm passing it along. Hopefully I'll see you at one or more of these events!

Oh, and if you heard about something and want to get the word out about it, post a comment below or touch base, I'm pretty easy to find. EVEN BETTER - If you want to consolidate this information yourself and promise to share it for free and without using it to make a profit, send me your email, I'll happily send info your way.

I'll ask Mary

My next door neighbor is moving away today. I'm ready to bawl. If you've been following this closely you might be wondering "How did you get so close to someone when you only moved there 5 months ago?"

I first met Mary on an extended visit to Suva in 2013. Every morning we'd walk our kids down the schoolbus and we'd come back to a cup of coffee. At the time she was relatively new to Fiji, but she was already a font of information!

A year and change passed in a blur and soon my husband and I were deciding to make our time in the Pacific permanent. Not a week went by that I wasn't tweeting or emailing or facebooking Mary and asking for advice before my move from the Big Apple.

Now I've been here 5 months and everyone comments on how well I've settled in. Mary, Thank you.

So, in a nutshell, here's the highlights of the things I remember asking Mary how to do -- and also things she told me not to do! This is going to be a very incomplete list, but I promise to come back and add to it as a pearl of her wisdom bubbles out of the wrinkles in this blob of gray matter of mine.

Mary let me know

• to take every skin puncture, burn, and abrasion seriously. Clean it well, preferably with an antiseptic disinfectant like Dettol, Fiji is in the tropics, things get infected and can go septic faster than you ever imagined. 
• if something is weird with your skin, it's fungus. Get some Selsun Gold. 
• to use insect repellent religiously. Not religious? Use it the way you use your phone - from the minute you get up to the minute you go to sleep. 
• to take care of your feet. You probably won't wear closed toe shoes as often (or ever!) here, your chances of cutting, puncturing, twisting, blistering and just plain wearing out your feet are higher here. Also pedicures are awesome, get them frequently. Mary loves Beauty Mantra, but I haven't found a favorite place here.  
• regardless of what your alcoholic drink of choice is, when you go to an event, especially one for work, drink beer. It's hot here, you're sweating more than you realize, and wine or mixed drinks will hit you harder than you expect. Drink beer so your thirst is at least partially quenched and you don't end up dancing on the bar. 
• that if there's something you absolutely can't live without in the States then you'd better bring a year's supply with you when you move because there's no guarantee that you'll be able to get it here. 
• when you see something that you used in the states/UK that you haven't seen before in the store, buy it. You never know when it will show up in the store again.
• Stumped? Search the Suva Expats facebook group. If still no answer, post your question.
• that when you go to resort, regardless of how many stars it has, you still want some essentials: Line for anchoring kayaks, Snacks,  Mosquito coils, Matches, Bug repellent, Bug killer, Bite salve, Antihistimines, Sun screen, Shampoo, Hairbrush, Snorkel stuff, First aid kit including antiseptic, Water/cups, Games, Torch, Earplugs, Camera/cable, Phone charger, Mask demister  
• that even if you don't know somebody, go to an expats group meeting. Chances are you do know somebody, and even if you don't one month expat time is like one year of knowing a person anywhere else (I think the expat time quote might actually be from another expat) 

Here are some of the local expat groups. I've listed them in the order within the month that they meet:

• International Women's Association First Monday of the month
• University Expat Partners and Spouses Second Tuesday of the month (HR has the contact info) 
• Corona Fiji Third Wednesday of the month
• Asian Ladies Group Third Thursday of the month
• American Women's Association Last Thursday of the month  

Other Suva expats' blogs can be helpful!

• Fiji Diaries Mary's blog
• From Seattle to Suva Hypatia's blog
• Sweet European Dreams An US Army wife's blog 
• http://passintimeinfiji.blogspot.com Kates Blog
  

I'll update this as I get a chance, but I have to go now. I've already had my wifi completely quit and two video calls that I had to take on my phone. At least the water didn't go out as it did yesterday. Or the electricity... that happened way too frequently this past month. 

Banana Bread without the bananas.... and without the flour

First of all I want to point out that I'm not the only person in my kitchen. The kid is a great cook and I love what he comes up with!

This may or may not be the real reason why I taught my son to cook pic.twitter.com/rHl85QdCX6
— Amerika (@amerikag) February 14, 2015

But the result of so many cooks in the kitchen is that sometimes I start making a recipe with kitchen staples only to find out that those staples aren't in the kitchen....

Today was one of those times.

Here's my usual Banana Muffin recipe:

Banana Crumb Muffins

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups normal flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup butter, melted

Crumb Topping
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons normal flour
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon frozen butter, grated (keep it in the freezer until you need it)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease a cupcake pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared cupcake pan.
3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Grate frozen butter into the mixture. It should resemble coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

It's pretty delicious, but not as easy to make when you don't have those key ingredients....

So I adapted:

Pumpkin Whole Wheat Muffins

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups atta flour (finely ground whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup cooked pumpkin
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
60 grams butter
25 grams oil

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease a cupcake pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups atta, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together pumpkin, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

They turned out delicious and I took them over to a new expat's house. Her kids loved them.

The Big Metal Bowl

I have a son that's a picky eater. It makes me crazy, but at the same time, I can remember turning my nose up at foods. One of them was avocados. They were just so ... so green! I grew up in South Texas and for parties my parents would always make a giant bowl of guacamole. And they'd always encourage me to try some. But I kept my distance for years and years and then...

I got married.

Now, when you're married, you really try to make your spouse happy, even if sometimes you know down to your boots that you don't like something.

You can see what's coming, can't you?

Yeah, that's right. My new partner in crime made guacamole. Not only did he make guacamole, he used some of our oh so tiny paycheck to buy riotously expensive avocados. With love he chopped the tomatoes, added extra cilantro just like I like it, and then proudly presented it in a miniscule bowl with a side of tortilla chips.

Well, even if my pride wasn't at stake, we'd spent good money on that bowl of guacamole and by golly I was going to try it. I mean, how bad could it be?

I loved it. I absolutely totally and with every fiber of my being loved it. The creaminess of the avocados, the tang of the lime, the gentle bite of the red onions. What was this food of the gods and why had I never tried it?!

*crickets*

*clears throat*

I suddenly remembered all the parties my parents had growing up. I remembered that giant bowl of guacamole that they made and offered every time. In that moment I wanted to cry.

Fast forward twenty years (yes, we've been married that long) to our new home in Fiji. In case you're wondering, I moved here in October. I'm a newbie.

A friend of mine was giving me a ride and asked if I minded stopping by her house on the way. No problem! While she ran inside I walked around her yard. Look! The avocados grow on trees here!

She gave me a couple of avocados and I excitedly brought them home. I've been buying a couple at a time from the market, but this was the first time I'd had avocados fresh from the tree I saw them growing on. 

I tucked the avocados into a paper bag at home and then went to get dinner started. I opened the fridge and found...

We really need to be able to insert sound effects into blogs. I need a minor chord here to be followed by a choir singing Hallelujah! No, I'm not making this up. 

I opened the fridge to find a bowl as big as the one I remembered from childhood filled with freshly made guacamole. 

Isn't that a thing of beauty? 

Now if I can just get my son to try it. 

Dye? I earned this gray

From time to time I've considered dying the tips of my hair blue. 

I saw a woman at World Makerfaire who totally ROCKED a rainbow of colors, I admit I was tempted to see what the kaleidescope of color that I saw would look like on me. 

But I've never been tempted to dye my hair to cover my gray. Here's what I look like. Or rather, what I looked like in the last pic I can find of me that shows my gray. Turns out that even though those white strands look incredibly bright in my mirror, apparently they're mostly invisible to my camera! 

Amerika Gray

Why don't I just grin and dye it? I mean, I get my eyebrows threaded, waxed, tweezed, whatever. I love pedicures and a freshly painted tootsies  

Well, the year I turned 30 I was lucky enough to go to a women's retreat. Now I'm pretty hard to miss in a crowd, I'm the first to sign up for an adventure, I'm also happy to mentor others. What I didn't realize is that I was - I AM - really a young'un. At the retreat I met women from 17-70 from all walks of life. I met women with PhDs and women who had never graduated from high school. I met women who had built their own businesses and women who had built their own homes (As in CUT THE TREES DOWN built their own homes)

One of the women that I met and listened to over the course of the retreat related her story of transitioning out of her corporate lifestyle and into a more simple way of living. I remember her telling a group of us about how much she hated having her hair dyed. She hated everything about it - she hated sitting in the chair when she could be someplace else more productive. She hated the chemicals that were on her skin and hair. She hated the cost of the process and most of all she hated that it had to be repeated on a regular basis.

Now, not all that long before that retreat I'd been looking in the mirror and seen a gray hair. I'd looked at in in shock, pulled it, and then ran my fingers through my hair AND FOUND ANOTHER! I pulled that one too and stumbled out into the living room.

"I have a GRAY HAIR!" I announced to my husband.

He calmly looked at me.

"Oh, I thought you knew. You have lots of them."

Clearly his reaction did not correlate to my level of surprise.

Months went by, I accrued additonal gray hairs, but I never really got to a tipping point. Then, after the retreat, I realized I was perfectly ok with my silver. After all, I earned it.

Update 5 March 2105  - Saw this on facebook, had to share

Watching clothes dry

There's a chipmunk that just ran across the roof. I snuck up here to warm up in the Indian winter sun while our clothes dry. I have traffic noise on my right and the smell of lentils and other yummies cooking downstairs.

And I'm homesick. 

Well, not really homesick, because I'm still not sure where home really is right now, but definitely have that "I wanna be back" feeling and really not looking forward to schlepping big heavy bags and being folded into origami for a crazy long flight back. 

I'm tired. I'm tired of packing and unpacking our house and of putting myself out there to find new friends. I'm tired of not knowing where the things I want are in the grocery store, sometimes not even knowing if the things I want are in the country much less the grocery store. 

I miss my family. They're scattered all over,  so even if I stop moving or move closer to one that doesn't bring the rest of them any closer. 

Sometimes there's a lot to be said for putting down roots. 

In another 5 minutes I'll go downstairs and be utterly captivated by something again. This momentary sigh will be eclipsed by a squeal of excitement. But sometimes in the depth of the night, sometimes in the middle of the afternoon, sometimes I wish my life was a little less interesting.