Namosi Highlands - A beauty!

All in one go - clouds, mountains, trees and the sea at a distance - Wish I had a better camera!

Loved this lone rockie!

The scenic drive!

We drove up to a village in Namosi highlands (Viti Levu, Fiji) early this month. It was a lovely and picturesque ride, a pity my small camera cannot do justice to the scenery and neither are my photographic skills any good which could have otherwise helped a little bit. Nevertheless, here are a few photos of some breathtaking views, wonder if I have captured even one tenth of the visual treat that I experienced!

Pacific Ballet of Creation

'Ta'aroa' : Atul trying to capture the ambiance of the evening with his Samsung Corby 3650

The Waiting: Atul and ma 'waiting' in the balcony of 'Suva Civic Centre' - lovely Pacific Ocean with the sun-setting

One of the most enjoyable evenings of my life was watching the Pacific Ballet of Creation - 'Ta'aroa'. My mum is currently visiting us here in Fiji and she has a huge interest in performing arts, so what better introduction to Pacific art and culture than this ballet! On 14th April we went to watch this production by Allan Alo, a very talented Samoan artist who has been working and living in Fiji for many many years. Allan must be one of the most gracious and beautiful dancer I have seen in my life and I have enjoyed all his performances and productions. This was Allan's last production in Fiji and I did not want to miss the opportunity! I do not think words can describe this experience but I must treasure it here.

'Ta'aroa' was based on ancient Polynesian mythologies from Tahiti, Samoa and Maori. The production had the best from all the fields contributing - so what do you expect - A most unique and sensational production! Right from the concept to direction to music/live drums/ string ensemble and dance/ choreography to finale' - everything was just so incredibly beautiful. It was an everlasting cultural experience for Atul, mum and I. It is experiences like this that reaffirm, "I am blessed". Thank you to all the Pacific Island Countries and its people for all these experiences that we are able to have while we are in this part of the world!

My two little friends

Sometimes we meet and a bond forms just like that! Simply Beautiful! I met two young boys around 8-10 yrs old when I was visiting a settlement just outside Suva. I started conversation with them by asking their names - Nooki and Vilimoni, they said (and I wrote the names on my palm) and we talked for a while. Finally time to say goodbye - 'Bye Nooki and Vilimoni' I said making sure I remember their names and showed them my palm. By now we had established the bond. They quickly took pen from my hand and wrote their names 'Luke and Filimoni!'

Where is the Community Spirit!

Where is the community spirit?

If one has a brilliant idea for a community project, is it important we look for recognition/

hierarchy or the bigger picture! I guess each one has its place but what matters is which one overpowers the other or should all elements gel in to find a balance itself. That would be ideally the best solution. Why am I talking about this? Any particular reason or there is none...Just trying to reason out and make sure that I am in sink with the reality...

When we say I do not care , is it that I really do not care. Or is it because I care so much that I want to say I do not care to make sure I do care for other entities and perhaps I wish I could care for this one too...

A children's rhyme or is it really?!?

I wish I had a little red box to put the bad girls and boys in....

Now why would we want our kids to learn that bad girls and boys should be put in a little red box...is it right or perhaps it is...perhaps we are training the little minds that the place for bad girls and boys is not within the society...but what if this bad girl or boy is not really bad and has some problem...so why not say

I wish I had a little red net to save the bad one from drowning in...

Perhaps something along those lines, just something more positive, thats all!

A culmination of series of events led to the post...

Another natural disaster. Lessons learnt?

While people are still trying to bring their lives together in Christchurch (New Zealand), an earthquake recording 8.9 on Richter scale hit Japan on friday, 11th March, 2011 followed by devastatingly terrible tsunami that not only hit Japan but reached all the way to San Francisco, California...Yes, Fiji too was on alert along with more than 20 countries. Friends in Japan described their experience and fear through various social networks, this was really heartbreaking! Nature seems to be testing our patience but it is very very sad. My thoughts and prayers are with the people who have been affected by this twin disaster in Japan and the ripple effect of tsunami in other countries.

And if that was not enough the cooling systems in the nuclear reactors in Fukushima goes kaput..Solution - Release steam slowly (which comprises radioactive vapours) in order to bring the pressure down and this would technically save the reactor from exploding...so they said! Few hours later, explosion in one nuclear reactor... so how and why did that happen? What does it matter! But what matters is that already a number of people have been confirmed to have absorbed radioactive radiation and I shudder to think 'how many more...' And with this , electricity is also going to be in short supply. 55 Nuclear Power plants in Japan must have generated a huge amount of electricity so far but then how do we deal with it when there is a problem!

On the other side of the world, Germans were protesting in Stuttgart against extending the life of its nuclear reactor; with the news of nuclear reactor chaos in Fukushima, many more people joined the protest in Germany! Well they expressed their views loud and clear. Some 60000 people formed the human chain clearly indicating they meant business.

Have we learnt any lesson? I wonder! I have never been a great fan of nuclear energy but events like this compel you to express your views.

Food for thought- At least something positive has to come out of all this tragedy, why can't all Governments concentrate on Renewable Energy - solar or wind or geothermal which is much more cleaner and safer than nuclear! I wish and hope they would.

International Womens Day Centenary - 8th March 2011

To all you wonderful Women out there , Happy International Women's Day! Together, We Can Make a Difference!! Cheers to Women Power!!!

As we celebrate 100 years of IWD, I think of all those women who made this possible and dedicate this blog to them. Listening to a talk on Rosa Luxemburg, on BBC radio while driving to University yesterday (8th March), I could not help think how fortunate we are to have come such a long! And then, I stumbled upon what I would consider an over-confident response to IWD by a person who commented and questioned on web, "if the women's day celebration should now be a thing of past". I certainly do not think so! We have come a long way no doubt but we do have to cover many more miles...

Sharing with readers how some of my friends celebrated IWD and their thoughts/ reflections from around the world:

"...Clubs in Wales South ran an exhibition about 'Wonderful Welsh Women' and show-cased sorop projects from our clubs. We also held a bridge event there..."

"...We had a wonderful speaker from Botswana at the IWD Breakfast here yesterday..."

...

"...Greetings and Best wishes on this Women's International Day - 'Educate a Boy and you educate an individual; educate girl and you educate a community'(African proverb)..."

"...We ARE making a difference..."

Indeed, we ARE making a difference...

Saturday of Service

For Soroptimists all over the world, the first Saturday of March every year is dedicated to provide service to any one community/ institution/ organisation depending on the need. A noble cause indeed. I have been a soroptimist since 1999 and have been involved in the community work even before that. But the kick you get by the service provided on the SOS day is unparalleled! It personally gives me great joy and satisfaction to realize thousands and thousands of women all over the world are working towards one 'call'. As the SI Suva member and the program director, our club carried out the task of cleaning the walls of the passage to 'Children's Ward' at the 'Colonial Memorial Hospital' in Suva despite the low membership (we are facing this year). Our membership has reduced to half for various reasons and it is now a huge challenge to increase numbers not just in our club the rest of the six clubs in the country. We then cut the cake to celebrate the 'International Womens' Day' in advance with the nurse and other medical staff from the CWM. It was time well spent!

More on 'what', 'when', 'where', 'how' and 'why' on the Saturday of Service for all soroptimists can be found on the link below

http://www.sifounderregion.org/service/fr-Saturday-Service.html

A project is budding

I have been thinking of natural disasters and human lives and how can it be helped each time there is a disaster. Watching these disasters on TV can be depressing be it floods in Labasa (Fiji), cyclone/ floods in North Queensland, Sri Lanka, the annual floods in Bangladesh or earthquakes in South America to the most recent one in New Zealand. Help comes in and a lot of help comes from other countries and organisations like Soroptimist International, Rotary International etc. which is great! Sitting here (faraway), I often wonder how can we help! I strongly believe and encourage that everyone should donate no matter how small your donation, it all adds up as well as reaffirms solidarity amongst human beings!However, each time a disaster hits, I sit back and wonder is there something substantial that can be done...we may have just found the answer together with my daughter. We had a good skype conversation yesterday (23rd feb) and a project is budding! Later in the evening, discussed it with Atul, he liked it too. What better day than 23rd February (Rotary International 106th Anniversary) to conceive the idea! Hopefully in 2 months time, I should be able to post something substantial on this blog regarding this project, here is hoping. Keeping fingers crossed.

P.S. Posted on 24th Feb, 2011

Reguregu and meeting Lockie

Yeterday, I attended a 'reguregu' (an offering made to the grieving family usually with mats, tapa, yaqona commonly known as kava etc.) with some friends. The deceased was a Fijian man married to a Papua New Guinean woman and thus my connection to the 'reguregu'. This is second 'reguregu' I have attended in the last one month and emotions are running high. The ceremony sucks you in the cultural traditions and it is an experience that just cannot be described in words. As I came out with my friends and try to start my car, the car makes a 'click' and thats it. So we decide to jump start. Amidst all our talking and moving of cars, I see a pair of shiny eyes and a tiny structure looking at everything with a sort of expression, "Yes, this is what you need to do!" We pull out the jumpers and we hear "positive to positive and negative to negative". We all turn back and here is this little boy tiptoeing and looking inside the engine looks back at all us and smiles, we all smile back. I asked him his name and what he wanted to do when grew up, he told me he wanted to be a mechanic. And I said why not an 'engineer' and he said yes , ok. We talked for a short while with my usual rant of 'Work hard and utilise your time well'. And then he asked me will I come for the funeral on saturday, I looked back at him and just wanted to give him a big hug. Instead I said, 'Go home Lockie, its getting late now and remember what we talked about, engineer not a mechanic, just work hard and you will get there' and waved, he waved back. And we drove off. All the way back, my friend and I were discussing Lockie. There was just something about Lockie that I cannot forget and had to mention it here and write something today. Now I wonder whether he will have money to study till university or he will just stop after school and fulfill his dream of "I want to be a mechanic", I can vouch for those twinkling eyes that Lockie will make a brilliant mechanic. There are so many Lockies in the world and I just hope they get all the help they can. If you can help a child by sponsoring for his or her education, do that.

Reminiscing Commonwealth Torch Relay 2005-2006

As the World Cup Soccer finishes, we all wait for Commonwealth 2010 in New Delhi. South Africa did a fantastic job and hopefully India too will make us proud, Asiads (Asian Games) in 1982 in India went well so Commonwealth too should be fine! Though I am hoping all that construction work which we witnessed during our last trip in Dec. 2009 will be done by this month and Rajdhani will do a fab job of tidying up the place ahead of time, Here is hoping! My train of thoughts take me to Commonwealth 2006 when the torch arrived in Papua New Guinea (in Oct 2005).

In 2005, the Commonwealth torch came to Lae in Papua New Guinea and Soroptimists were acknowledged and given a chance to participate in the baton relay. I was the President of SI Lae at that time (while working in PNG University of Technology) and got the opportunity to run a distance of 1km (approx). Naomi Wilkins a good friend, fellow soroptimist and the Past National Representative of SI PNG was there early in the morning with me (as in the photo above left, Naomi and I eagerly waiting for the torch). The torch was handed over by one of our Unitech student who ran the previous lap (as in the photo above right). The atmosphere was surreal, with cars in the front and behind , helicopter in the sky and hundreds of children and young men and women gathered...this was to be treasured for the rest of my life!

I loved every single moment during the run, before and after (too) and felt proud (once again) to be a soroptimist!

The photos from SOS and IWD

The park was very very clean and litter free after the SOS activity carried out by SI Suva members and friends. The cake celebrating 99th IWD was yummy, a bit sweet though!

Happy International Women's Day IWD 2010

This year on 6th march, 2010, we, the Soroptimists of SI Suva carried out a workathon by cleaning up the children's park next to the beach and Manikau Police Post in order to mark 'Saturday of Service' which is an activity carried out by soroptimists all over the world every first saturday of march each year which is prior to IWD. After the SOS activity, we celebrated IWD by cutting a cake to mark 99th IWD in advance. Will post the photos soon.

Received an email greetings for IWD from my 10 year old niece, Salutations to this young woman in making!

Reclaim the Nite - 2009 in Suva

Last year too, SI Suva participated in 'Reclaim the Nite' march, photos are perfect to describe the atmosphere. Proud to be a woman!

Lots happening but no time to blog (On SI Fiji Region Meeting)

Photo 1: Training on 'Online Reporting'
Photo 2: Attentive Soroptimists in the training session
Photo 3: Six crazy women heading back to Suva


Lots happening but its a pity that I am not able to blog as frequently I would like to. One of the interesting day trip was a trip to Ba. SI Fiji Region had its region meeting on 25th July and we were six soroptimists from SI Suva who were going to attend the meeting. Suva is east of Viti Levu and Ba is North-West. We rented a car from Carpenter Motors and started our journey at 5.30a.m. Rosemary was the one to pick everyone up, so the poor soul started at 5.15a.m. and after picking up all the five women, we were off to Ba. I have been on Queens road several times with my family but this was different. Six professional and community oriented women (obviously we must have something in common, that is why we are soroptimists) left their homes early morning and each one of them so organised that we had no shortage of tea, coffee and milo! The trip was good, we talked and argued and laughed and panicked since we wanted to reach by 10.30 to start off the meeting at 11a.m. sharp. We reached on time. I conducted a training session on 'Online Reporting', our federation of South West Pacific has revamped the website and we now report all the projects online, this is something new so members need to be trained! We then had our region executive meeting followed by lunch and general meeting. We then drove back at 4.15p.m, this time I drove. We were tired and cranky but some of us wanted to stop to buy vegetables since we get fresh and cheap vegetables in west. By the time we reached Sigatoka, it seems we had lost our marbles and we had music blasting and women dancing inside the car!!! We had to reach before 10 otherwise we would have to pay another day's rental, so I was basically concentrating on making us reach in time as well as in one piece, this was a big ask considering there were lots of distraction such as dancing (I like to dance too!) and some classic jokes from these women who you would not even think could get this crazy!! Good fun ladies, I had a good time, another very good experience in Fiji for me!!!

The Lovo - Fijian Traditional Food

Lovo is a Fijian recipe that involves cooking meat, vegetables etc in cocnut milk and just salt to your taste and bake it on hot stones/ woodfire. At Pacific Harbour Village, they give a demonstration of Lovo preparation. I absolutely love 'lovo', it is one of my favourite foods along with palusami (a leafy vegetable cooked in coconut milk).
Some photos of lovo prepartion will demonstrate the procedure involved. Check bottom to top to get the order of cooking. Step 1 is preparing the pit while food in parcels on the table is ready to be cooked is at the bottom of this entry going to top it the last step 15 with empty pit.

My first bowl of Kava

Pacific Harbour is about 60 kms away from Suva, it has beautiful beaches and a commercial centre that preserves 'art and culture'. I had my first bowl of kava when we visited the 'Pacific Harbour Village' with Catherine in Nov 2008 at Pacific Harbour. The botanical name of kava is Piper methysticum, it is considered a social drink in the some of the Pacific Island nations, its given huge importance in Fiji. It gives you a feeling of numbness and you feel sleepy after drinking it. Traditionally, the roots of kava are mixed with water and the resulting solution is then drunk as kava. I had witnessed the ceremony before during my charity projects functions, however, did not get a chance to drink. Although this was a commercial scene. What the demonstrator mixed with water is the kava powder which is sold in market. Nevertheless, eperience of the drink would be nearly the same. So here I was, got a chance and grabbed it. I would like to have it again to understand and relish the drink properly.

Excerpts from National Fundraising Drive Events : Walkathon, Charity Gala Dinner and 'The Open Day and Fete'

We just finished the 10 week-long 'National Fundraising Drive'. It was a lot of hard work. I had three very hard working individuals in this team Hiroyuki Saito, Pauline Orikasa and Iris Freynhagen - Our Diversity became Our Strength! We had good times and bad but we throughly enjoyed the whole exercise. The satisfaction of helping the able students of the centre was enormous to keep us going even when the goinng was tough. It was very demanding for me especially with full time work and I had find time to cope up with the pressure of coordinating this project! Also the support from my husband and daughter was enormous as usual.

We had to reschedule the dates for the three events:

19th July: Walkathon

9th August: Charity Gala Dinner

5th September: Open Day and Fete

I shall place some of the photos shortly from the vaious events would very well describe the essence of the work put in as well as a good description of what happened! Below is the photo taken at the Charity Gala Dinner held at Holiday Inn Suva. The staff and management of Holiday Inn was supportive and forthcoming.

My current project: Coordinating Nationwide Fundraising Drive for FVTTCPD

After a successful fundrasing ' The Inaugral fete and Open day' that I coordinated last year in July, they approached me to coordinate a bigger one this year and the target is 100 grand! I have agreed to do it with certain set of rules laid down for all of us, had the first meeting with school last week. FVTTCPD now have another senior JICA volunteer, Hiroyuki Saito and one junior volunteer, they have come in place of Kinji, Miho and Saya. Saito's working style is quite similar to mine and so I think I will work well with him too. The basis of the fundraising is 'financial sustainability' of the centre. Keeping this in mind, we have identified 5 income generating projects in different sections of FVTTCPD, thus these 5 projects have become our reason to fundraise this year. We have an accountant who will ensure the tiny detail is taken care of and report will be audited. We have so far planned out three import dates:
27th June: Launch/ Opening of the Nationwide Fundraising Drive (NFD)
25th July: Corporate dinner (targeting major sponsors/ donors)
7th August: Closing of the NFD during the Fete & Open Day
It is going to be very demanding but its all for a very good cause and I am now all focussed towards it, all my free time is dedicated towards this project!

Activities as a Soroptimist in Fiji

I have always enjoyed soroptimist extension activities. During my time as the President of SI Lae, I other members of SI Lae in Papua New Guinea, I with three other members formed an extension team and worked very hard for 6 months to charter SI Port Moresby on 27th Nov. 2005. After coming to Fiji, a close soroptimist friend from Rakiraki mentioned similar possibilities in Lautoka during the time I was in Lautoka in dec. 2007 for 2 months. We then formed a team and started working towards it and we finally managed to charter SI Lautoka on 10th May 2008, thank you again to my daughter for her help with desk-top publishing during this exercise. It always gives me great pleasure to be a part of such activities. Some photos from SI Lautoka charter:

Another aspect we have worked on is publicising 'Soroptimist International' and its activities in Fiji. We have done very well since November last year and made sure media is aware of our activities and SI gets due publicity for its efforts towards helping women and girls all over the country and world. The recent charter ceremony was covered by all the three leading english newspapers in the country.

'Light Up Village' Project has finally become a reality

'Light Up Village' project that I was busy coordinating as an IWA (International Women's Association) member since August last year (2007) has finally become a reality. Three villages namely, Visoqo, Cawadevo and Nasovivi in Macuata Province have finally got light, thanks to funding provided by Canada Fund, GEF and International Women's Association. IWA supported Nasovivi village. It was a very good learning experince for me too, though Atul is a renewable energy expert and I do get a chance to learn things from him but doing a project gave me an opportunity to learn better. Atul and Jan were our energy experts for this project. Some pictures from these three villages.

Nasovivi village shown in the photo below: