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:

Celebrated christmas and New Years Fiji-Pacific style in Fiji

We celebrated christmas and new Year Fiji- Pacific style this year. We did not travel overseas during this christmas since we have just moved to Fiji, and already done a lot of travelling this year plus some other committments. So, we decided to make the most during this festive season by celebrating it pacific way. We did not travel to any tourist crowded spots because then you don't get the true local feel. Instead we decided to just blend in.
While everyone was busy running away from Suva during christmas, we stayed put, and roamed around in town, watched movies, and chirstmas day had a buffet lunch at 'Raintree Lodge Resturant' which was just superb. Set in idyllic location, the resturant offers you the best of all the worlds be it food or ambience. I would recommend 'Raintree lodge' for a lazy sunday meal with jazz.

2nd Jan. 2008
Spent the 'New Years Eve' visiting 'Sigatoka Sand Dunes' near Sigatoka and clebrated New Years eve and New Years Breakfast at the 'Outriggers', both are a must visit while in Fiji. Sanddunes is Fiji's first national park and is looked after by 'National Trust of Fiji Islands', the staff is great and very friendly. Thank you to Suala Tavitani, Simon and Jason for showing us around! A walk along the wooden trail is a beautiful experience. Sigatoka Sand Dunes is a major archaelogical site, first significant clues to man's arrival in Fiji was found- a burial site in the eastern end of the park that dates his arrival to around 2,000 years ago. Also some of the potsherds are estimated to be 2,600 yrs old, finds of ceramic 'Lapita' provide an indication as to the origin of the sites former occupants, these people were the first settlers in this country. 'Outrigger' is one of the finest resorts in Fiji and we had a very good and relaxed time there on 31st dec. and 1st jan, again staff is wonderful and service excellent too. I would recommend half a day spent in Sand Dunes followed by overnight stay at Outriggers, wraps up the trip well. Will post pictures shortly.

We still miss Papua New Guinea

While we are having a good time in Fiji surrounded by natural beauty and lovely people, we still miss Papua New Guinea. People often ask me whats there in PNG, and they only have negative opinion on PNG. Agreed PNG has its fair share of problem but we had a good time there and enjoyed the place. I was working too thus very busy and quite satisfied.

In the last few months in PNG, I organised a charity trip to 'Salamua' , its an isthmus, it has a small but beautiful and pristine beach. WE managed to raise a good amount with this trip and everyone enjoyed the trip thoroughly. We hired the boat from Karen Quinn and Mike Quinn, they were very cooperative and forthcoming. Karen was enthusiastic about taking us to all the good spots! Pictures can speak more than words, so let me post a few photos:

The money raised through this trip went to the projects carried out by Soroptimist International of Lae (I was then, a member of SI Lae)

Diwali in Suva

Diwali in Suva brought back the memories from childhood. We left India in 87 and ever since we have not celebrated diwali the way we do it in India and finally we did it Indian way right here in Suva. I must have put on extra 5 kilos with all the the goodies that we have been enjoying for the whole of november.
The first diwali treat was the fundraising diwali dinner on 26th Oct. organized by 'International Women's Association', I was in the organizing committee and Ankita too helped us with the computer work as ususal. We managed to raise a good amount which will go towards the 'Light Up Village' project in Matainadoi, Vanua Levu; I am coordinating this project at IWA front and liaising with with the 'Macuata Women's Association'. Then followed Rotary Diwali dinner on 27th Oct, Atul is a rotarian and it was lovely. We then attended Fiji Hindu Association Diwali Dinner which was a fundraising activity on 3rd nov.
On 9th Nov., we invited a close Indian friend, with a few other friends from Netherlands, England, Kenya, China/ Japan and Canada while our daughter invited some 10-12 friends of hers. Ankita with her friends took charge of the barbequeue in the garden while I organized a typical Indian meal inside the house. The atmosphere in Suva was just incredible, I could not help going back to childhood memories. For our daughter, it was the first diwali in true sense , we did everything that one would do during diwali, we put ion all the efforts to make this diwali a memorable one for all our daughter especially as this was her first traditional one. We have celebrated diwali in Nairobi, Papua New Guinea and Australia too; but nothing like 'Diwali in Fiji'. Although, in Nairobi, one could buy fireworks and go to the designated areas in town to do the fireworks, in PNG we could hardly get any fireworks apart from sparklers, our daughter felt diwali more obvious in Australia as compared to Nairobi or PNG. But, one could not miss diwali in Fiji where you start hearing your neighbours doing fireworks 3-4 days prior to diwali and it con
Here in Fiji, we could easily do everything that one would do in India during diwali. So, we decided to celebrate it in a traditional way with a few exceptions.
Right from shopping to diwali preparations at home to the actual diwali night, we tried incorporate everything we could to keep it close to a traditional diwali.
It was the first time for our daughter to buy fireworks like we do in India and then do the fireworks in her own house at diwali night; made mithais; bought clay diyas in addition to electric fairy lights to light up the place at night; bought 'Ganesh-Laxmi' idol as well as a steel dish a day before diwali (which is a symbolic thing to do). So all in all, it was true diwali especially for our child!

Going is Good

I have just been busy with my charity work so could not post anything, there is plenty to write but the time.................... We had a very successful fudraising dinner on 21st september, we managed to meet our target and it was a good night. The dinner at Vineyard Palace was good for its value. I am hoping we will do the same for the diwali fundraising dinner on 26th oct for the 'Light Up' project. Two weeks back, we also said 'goodbye' to a friend, Kinji Ihara and his wife, Kiji was a Senior JICA volunteer with FVTTCPD and a very human being. Kinji and I bacame good friends as I took over coordinating 'Open Day and Fete' for the centre. It was sad to say goodbye to Kinji and his wife. Another newly made friend, Lydia Rowson who is from PNG and was in Suva with hubby and children left Suva to joing her hubby in Taiwan. Lydia too is a wonderful woman who expressed her willlingness to help out for open Day and we came good friends since then. Lydia was an IWA member too.We travelled to lautoka, the west of Viti Levu last month with a friend and he organised for all of us to visit 'Bounty Island' which was a beautiful trip. Will post some photos later. One thing I could say here for Fiji is that this is a country that has a beautiful blend of east and west. Bounty island is 30 mins boat ride from Lautoka , there are two more islands 'treasure' and 'beachcomber', we plan to go there again and do the three island trip all together once again. At the moment we are basically, just feeling the place around and will start visiting places properly again. Lautoka is the town known for sugarcane farming, the major export from Fiji. It is a small and cute looking town. All the sugar comes from here and the farmers are struggling at the moment, I just hope it will get better for the farmers.With Diwali round the corner, the whole of Suva is in festive mood, we will be celebrating Diwali properly after a long time nearly 9 yrs. In PNG, once I called ma in India to wish them 'Happy Diwali' and she told me it was yesterday, i just could not believe how we missed diwali (did not notice it on internet even, must have been very busy with work and other things), we were very few indians in Unitech so it was quite possible to miss. On the contrary, here we cannot miss a single small or big special occasion which has some importance, so I am basically making up for all the missed occassions.

Soroptimists and IWA members in Fiji

As we settle in suva, we are meeting more people and making more friends. Its a beautiful place with beautiful people.

IWA membership is thriving with members from more than 20 different nationalities. It is an excellent mix of members. Above is the photo that an Indian friend took at the IWA meeting last week. I have made many friends through IWA. It basically targets raising funds and giving the funds out to the needy organisations/ groups etc.

The photo below shows some of the Soroptimists of Fiji.

In the photo, I am standing with members from various SI clubs of Fiji. Seated in the middle wearing the 'chain of office' is the region President Saras Kewal and to her left is the SI National representative for Fiji, Vasewa Dakui and to her right is the UN Liason and Programme Convener, Suman Lata Lal. I met Soroptimists of Suva in July and then met the soroptimists from different towns in Fiji this saturday at the Region meeting held in Vineyard Palace (A Chinese resturant quite famous venue for fundraising dinners): Members present at the meeting represented Soroptimist International of Lautoka, Soroptimist International of Raki Raki, Soroptimist International of Labasa, Soroptimist International of Sigatoka and of course Soroptimist International of Suva. While I enjoy my association with 'International Women's Association', I remain Soroptimist at heart so much so that I did not want to accept any position in the committee in IWA because I want to save a major chunk of my energy and time for projects with SI of Fiji. The SI clubs in Fiji membership consists of all Fijians. It would be good to have some expatriates in the club, at the moment I am the only expat member and I intend to bring in more so that we can have an internationally diverse group. I have made some good friends here too.

The Soroptimist international is a service organisation and they do some wonderful projects all over the world and so do Soroptimists of Fiji besides fund-raising activites. And this is what I am looking forward to , to actually get involved with the local community and do some interesting and useful projects!

More on Suva

There is so much to see and do in Suva, we have hardly started. 2 weeks back we went to Sigatoka, its 2 hours drive from Suva. The drive is beautiful. We went with another family ( a dutch family), Atul was interested in seeing wind turbines, he is a renewable energy expert. The wind turbine set up is an intiative of French government. They spent more than 4 hours there. The group photo shows Raturi family with the Cloins.

On our way back, we stopped at Art Village in Pacific Harbour (45 minutes away from Suva, nearly half way between Suva and Sigatoka) for a drink. It was a day trip and we absoluetly loved it.

Photos from the first project that I coordinated in Fiji

Some photos from the first project that I coordinated in Fiji. The photos were taken by Ankita at the 'Inaugral Fete and Open Day' that I coordinated for the 'Fiji Vocational and Technical Training for Persons with Disabilities', it was a huge not only a huge success in terms of the funds raised but very popular among the students too.

The final meeting with the staff and some volunteers that helped me with the project.

Students dancing and enjoying themselves with the Japanese Ambassador to Fiji, Mr. Namekawa.

No function can be complete without kava ceremony. Kava is Piper methysiticum, the roots of kava are masticated and mashed further in water to squeeze out all the juice out of it, which is considered a social drink. Below is the photo that shows kava cermony being performed in the honour of chief guest Mr. Namekawa.

Mrs. Namekawa enjoying the day, standing with her in the photo are computer teacher, my friend (the chinese lady and a volunteer) and myself.

Final moments: anouncing the raffle prizes and standing with me are the Centre Manager, Sumasafu Vilisoni and Senior JICA Volunteer (who was on a 2 year attachment with the Centre), Kinji.