Welcome to the Foyer

Posted at 1:28 PM, Wed 3 Aug 2016 by tina

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Leap of Faith

Posted at 8:55 AM, 27-Feb-2010 by Chica

Been a week since I made my great leap and have been as busy as  I would wish to be. 

Got hooked up with some appalling Aussie tourists my first night in Nadi - made me realise why I hate being an Aussie Tourist (sometimes).  We were at a nice small Fijian restaurant opposite my hotel, I ordered kokoda (raw fish marinated in coconut milk, then made up with chilli, onion, coriander - very traditional and very moreish).  She ordered prawns vakalolo - prawns wrapped in banana leaves and steamed.  She nearly died when she opened her parcel and - DEAR GOD, THE PRAWNS STILL HAD THEIR HEADS AND TAILS ON THEM - well she was finished for the night then.  Mossies were biting, her tummy was upset (they had arrived 3 hours earlier), she thought the heat was interacting with her 'medications' (HMMM) and she wanted to go back to the motel.  So he stayed on for a bit, finished his meal and totally bored me to tears with his opinion of Fiji and how to fix all their problems.   AAARRRHHGGH - let me outta here.  They were here for 2 weeks, with no idea where they were going - except to the islands somewhere.  Wanted my phone number - did the good old wrong digit trick - and made my escape.  But I did give them some nice small resorts to check out on their way to Suva. 

Aliti and Treasure House on first  morning in town.  She is looking so good - has lost 2 front teeth and the new ones are coming through. We always thought the ones which were such rotten stumps were her second teeth, but she is maybe not quite as old as we thought.  She is starting to say a few words - there were a clutch of volunteers there, and she had just started saying "Sofie", much to Sofie's delight.  Still not sure about school and the logistics - but will follow that up

Met a delightful NZ woman whose husband works in one of the new resorts.  They are in the process of adopting a baby girl through TH.  Grace is about 12 weeks old and the dearest little thing.  Grace's mother gave birth to her in Suva, walked out of the hospital after the birth with Grace in her arms, put her in a carton and stuffed her in a rubbish bin a few bus stops away.  Fortunately somebody heard her crying  and rescued her.  So she ended up at TH, and with now a new loving family on the way.  These stories are depressingly commo here.  Just in the Fiji Times this morning, was the article on how the current baby boom is under way.  This is a result of, I believe, a time during school hols last year when traditionally (??) many young girls end up pregnant.  Now, the result - which will mean more abandoned babies.

I have settled into a very comfy 2 bedroom flat in Olosara, a small beachside settlement just down the road from where we lived last time.  My hosts downstairs, who own the house, are Sunny and Shareen and their kids.  Nice family, good security, great guard dog (now my mate, thank heavens) and already wanting to buy my Suzy if and when I sell it!  The best thing, however, is that I have the internet in my apartment, a godsend to continue my work and stay connected.  Three days of working in the local net cafe was enough - by after school time it was like the set of a Bollywood movie.

Have made my first visit to a local school - they have an amazing computer lab, with about 20 computers all seemingly in good order and well set up.  But, surprise surprise, they have nobody who can teach.  They have just scored a Peace Corps worker for 3 hours on a Monday and will do 6 x 30 minute lessons with him - which will be a handful.  Anyway, I will go back and talk to the head teacher today and see where I can fit in.  He is keen for the small children to have the chance to learn - my dear friend Jane says that any learning at that age is learning, don't be deterred.  I was scouring the net yesterday for clues, and there is plenty of online learning games, but nothing much you can download.  I doubt that this school has the net.  I managed to download some good tools for English literacy, but printing out and then colouring pencils will be another matter.  But first things first. 

It seems there are several schools with kindly donated computers – mostly from overseas benefactors - but none of them have a teacher.  It seems such a shame - but an indication of how disposable computers are in other countries that we can give them away.  But we can't give away enough money to sponsor a teacher for a year to teach the whole school.  If you could just find the right person...

I am sure there are lots of people out there who would gladly give a few weeks of their time to come here and teach computer, or literacy.  Just need to be able to co-ordinate them.   HMMMM - another crazy idea to keep the Valagi Loloma awake at night. 

I visited Waya and Viwa Islands when I had my trip to the Yasawas last year.  They are crying out in the paper today for a teacher and for a nurse.  They are something like 70km by open boat to the nearest Clinic - just one nurse is all they want.  Pregnant mothers have to take that trip if they want to have proper medical antenatal care - and why should they not be entitled to it. 

It has been nice to come back to this town - I feel part of the community and even though I see the same person several times in one trip to town and still forget their name, they are very forgiving.  That's because I am the eccentric white woman.  I live in hope of somebody directing my ramblings to  Bill Gates or James Packer  or even somebody not quite so wealthy, but who has a couple of hundred thousand dollars to spare - there is so much could be done here.  Scary, really

And I do love the pirated DVD's - more movies to catch here than I ever do at home, all for $3 a pop.

And I  have PayPay - if anybody is keen to add a little to the pot. 

The Wheels on the Bus

Posted at 3:34 PM, 11-Feb-2010 by Chica

I am going to start with the important news.  We have decided today that it is going to cost about $100FJD per week to keep Aliti in school.  The school is waiving fees, but the cost is in a carer for the day, plus Mila is going to hire a driver, who will double as a handyman around TH.  The taxi was becoming ridiculously expensive.  Hiring a driver for the van fulfils a couple of needs – it gives them a reliable person for the morning and afternoon school runs, plus it gives them a ‘man about the house’ for lifting/carrying/yard maintenance, etc.  Especially as she has a man in mind who will apparently fill the fill. This is a good plan for all concerned.  Aliti’s carer is one of the ladies who has done childcare training for special needs children – which will be good for both she and Aliti. 

SO THAT IS THE TARGET – APPROXIMATELY $5000FJD(less than $3000AUD) PER ANNUM.  It’s now out there in the universe, and in our hands. 

Today I was the bus driver for Treasure House – just to give Ulamila a bit of a break.  She has driven every day now since school resumed, plus now driving Aliti to Lautoka. 

I left Sigatoka at a dreadfully early 5.45am – in full agreement with the local people’s dislike of the new daylight saving.  It is pitch dark and all the kids are on the roadside, in the dark, waiting for buses.  Sun doesn’t rise till about 6.40am – so very dangerous time for kids to be about.  Plus, my Suzy has a terminally high low beam, so every approaching car feels honour bound to flash me – even though they see me dip my lights.  Drives me nuts. 

So we got everybody in the bus by 7.30, then the circuit to the schools.  Little ones to kindy, bigger ones to school, night shift ladies to their bus stops and to buy the morning bread to take home, then on to Lautoka for Aliti. 

Lautoka Special School has about 30 kids, they live in for 2 weeks residential, then every second weekend they have an ‘exit’ weekend.   They are a wide variety of kids – from very disabled in wheelchairs, to deaf and blind.  Thursday is sports day and it was a fun crew on the oval, under the care of the teachers and volunteers.  There are 2 Japanese girls from JaCo and one Aussie physio from AusAid.  The Japanese girls are just wonderful with the little ones and apparently the kids adore them.  So the kids have their small groups of different activities, the more disabled ones have a carer, usually a family member to help out.  Aliti has Serenia. 

But man, oh man, the big kids had the toughest game of soccer you could imagine.  A couple of boys in wheelchairs – one boy with no legs – were mixing it well and truly, even though the other kids were giving them not much respite.  There was one very bright looking one boy, maybe 14 or so, who was in a chair and appeared to have deformed lower legs and feet.  I kept glancing up at the game and would see him on the ground. Then I realised he was out of his chair and dragging himself in play – he could get up on his knees and punt the ball no problems, even dive upwards to head it.  Then when everybody else was running wildly, he was dragging himself along in the dirt – it was amazing to watch.  All with the biggest smile and fully engaged with the game.  He obviously has an incredibly strong upper body, with good movement from his knees upwards. 

Aliti had a great time, dropping balls in a bucket, kicking at the ball, running races with the other kids in chairs being pushed by the carers.  Everybody screaming  with laughter. 

Mila had been asked by Lautoka Social Welfare to come and see 2 local children, in the hope of being able to place them at Treasure House.  She was very happy to have me with her (?) but I was very pleased to be asked along.  First was baby Aaron.  He is six months old, was born at Lautoka Hospital but abandoned by his single mother at birth.  He developed hydrocephaly and six weeks ago he had a shunt placed in his head.  He has come out of the Neonatal  ICU just 3 weeks ago, to the general children’s ward.  Of course, he is the darling of the staff and has his own very special cot front and centre.  They want him to go to Treasure House, but there are a number of people keen to adopt.  He is a beautiful, very normal looking little baby, but he needs 4 hourly pump manipulation and will do so until he is 5 years old.  So, even though he has a good prognosis, it is important that he has very regular medical care.   Then a couple turned up – a Fiji born, Australian citizen who is a nurse in Adelaide and his Fijian lawyer wife.   They are there for holidays, have been visiting her mother upstairs and discovered Aaron, so have been visiting him every day for 2 weeks.  They are very keen to adopt – let’s hope Aaron is soon heading off to a loving Australian family.  If not, then his future is unclear, as Treasure House is probably not the place for him.  Which means – where does he go.

The second was Patrick, a 10 year old boy in the care of a Fijian couple.  The wife had seen the mother begging with this child over a number of years.  One day, the child was in a very bad state and this lady just picked him up and took him home.  This family seem to be a reasonably well to do family – they have five children of their own.  Patrick was in such bad condition that he spent 4 months in hospital, his weight was 18kg, he had been terribly abused.  They think the mother had been knocking him around the head, to make him insensible and this had caused brain trauma.  Or maybe he was mildly disabled and was now just worse.  He was having up to 4 epileptic seizures a week, now only about 2 a month with medication.  He had been hospitalised as a young child when she had left him home alone and he had drank kerosene, as there was no water.  Anyway – now his carer family can no longer look after him.  He is a big boy, the wife is sick and has to go into hospital, in 15 months it has all just gotten too much for them.  Now they want Social Welfare to find a place for him – which is nigh impossible.  Again, not a case that Mila could place at Treasure House – in part because they have a house rule that boys over 6 years need to go to the Ba Boys Home.  So he is too old for starters.  But apparently this child’s mother is still begging in the town, now with his little 3 year old sister as a tool.  Semi, our Social Welfare guy, is going to follow her up.  Mila was outraged that these children had been on Social Welfare’s radar for years, with nothing done. 

Patrick’s case was probably more stressful for me, because he has been given shelter in a private home, obviously loved and well cared for.  His weight is now normal, his seizures are under good control, but he has simply worn out his welcome.  And such a sweet little boy, who was very likely a normal toddler.  Mila and I talked about it and she is going to talk to the Matron of the Special School, to see if they can take him there, at least for the 2 weekly residential.  Then maybe Mila will find a kind member of their Church to take him on the alternate weekends.  There has to be something which can be done for this dear little boy. 

So it reinforces to me just how precious is Aliti’s situation.  To have found a home where she is loved and cared for beautifully, to have the opportunity for schooling.  The day she and I met is one of life’s rare gifts.

The Terminator

Posted at 11:23 AM, 8-Feb-2010 by Chica

If you read my recent blog about the life of a house share with cockies, then you will be up to speed.  They have really gotten the better of me over the last few days.  I have stopped spraying at night, and leave them to have their rest – or more to the point, run wild through the place without the benefit of the mood-altering substance in the Red Spray Can. 

Last night, however, in the early evening I was watching a DVD – Invictus, it was great and I now actually know the first rule of rugby – only pass the ball to the side or to the rear – when the sound of the scuttling got the better of me.  I mean, fair cop, I had the lights on and I hadn’t even gone to bed.  There is a storage loft above my kitchen, with some rolled up Fijian mats and who knows what else.  I could see a couple of very large cockies up there, so I couldn’t resist the temptation to give the loft a shot from the deadly Red Spray Can.  I whispered my hopes for rebirth in a better life for them, then settled back to my movie.  By bed time all was quiet in Cockie Country. 

Different story this morning when I got up.  I picked up 9 very large, very terminal cockies from the kitchen and bathroom.  They are huge and even the ants were having trouble dragging them out the door.  As I had bought my Mortein bombs yesterday, I decided that I would go for a walk this morning and set off the bombs before I left.  Did that, got home about an hour later to the sight of 27 very large dead cockies throughout the place.  I haven’t even found all the ones which may have died inside the cupboards. It kind of reminded of our old days at Eudlo, when we had a mouse plague and I set a trap with a piece of bacon in a kitchen cupboard – that trap went off 7 times in about 30 minutes and I caught a mouse every time.  Eudlo was the house where if you wanted to go to the toilet at night – which was through the kitchen and into the bathroom, you had to stand in the doorway between the lounge and the kitchen, turn on the light, wait a minute for all the livestock to scuttle away – cockroaches, cane toads, rats – then walk quickly across to the toilet at the other end.  Character building days for our boys, that’s for sure. 

 I think that it must be almost a Guinness book of records effort – for a flat that has NEVER had a cockie, according to the owners.  I was almost going to take them down and show her this morning, but I know she would just say it is because I leave the front door open (no screen) and they must all be flying in since I have moved here (one week ago).  Still, they are nice people and I don’t want to offend – they give me fish and coconuts and soon I am gonna have to murder their young dog for barking in the night.  But the Tales of Blackie and Booza is for another blog!

I was going to go for the gross photo and line them up and record them here for posterity, but that would have meant touching them and I am not that keen on the blighters.

Instead, for your edification, here’s a photo of last night’s dinner of locally caught prawns – caught on the reef out the front on Friday night, into the markets Saturday early, into my seafood salsa Saturday nite.

First Day of School

Posted at 11:15 AM, 8-Feb-2010 by Chica

Those of my friends who know the story of my Fijian granddaughter, Aliti, won’t need to be reminded of my bond with her and her future.  It is part of the reason why I am back here – for her and for her little sisters up in the Sigatoka Valley.

I have been very keen for  Aliti to start school – with the help of Mila, the Director of Treasure House.  Last week when I arrived back in Nadi, and went to visit TH, they were apparently still waiting documentation from Social Welfare so they could enrol her.  As I thought I had left all that in order last year before I left, I was put out to say the least.  Once I got down to Sigatoka I went to visit my friends at Social Welfare  to find out what was happening.  It seemed only to take a mention that they were dragging the chain, and miraculously TH had a visit, plus Aliti was suddenly ready for school.  I went to visit her on Thursday this week, to find that she had gone to Lautoka for her first day at the Lautoka Special School.  So I waited around the house till she came home at lunch time.

She was very tired and had had a nap in the car, but Mila had accompanied her and said she had a ball.  She even joined in their ‘sports’ – remarkable for the way she was just a year ago when our lives intersected.  Mila has had a visitor, an occupational therapist from Australia, who has been doing some assessments on Aliti and giving the staff at TH exercise protocols.  She went to the school as well and told Mila that, even though the school is a residential facility, with the preferred option being for her to live in, that she thought it would be best for Aliti to return home to TH and not live in.  At the school, she would be one of 30 disabled kids, with probably minimal personal interaction after school.  At TH she is only one disabled child, who mixes it with all the normal kids and has a crew of staff to tend lovingly to her needs.  A sound decision, but one which will change the financial dynamics of her future.

There were many friends who expressed interest in being involved in Aliti’s long term care.  Well, now we are getting to the time where that is starting to happen.  Firstly, we have decided that she needs a personal carer to accompany her each day, to ensure her safety in transit and her well being whilst at school.  We have also decided that rather than use the big TH bus to take her to Lautoka (about 25km) each school day and the costs involved, it would be better to have a regular taxi booked each day, who will be her permanent transport.  This is a fairly common occurrence in Fiji – sounds decadent – but really no different to the disabled kids in Australia who go to and from their school in a taxi.  Unfortunately, no government subsidy here.

She will need some clothes and a regular supply of diapers, she has her wheel chair courtesy of Sunshine Coast Therapy Centre, I bought her some swimming things back with me this time, as the kids at the school have regular hydrotherapy.  Her school fees have been sponsored by the Australia Pacific Technical College  – a TAFE style training centre funded by AusAid – a great bonus for us. 

The other part of my dream is that her small sisters, still living up in the valley may also have the opportunity to start their schooling.  Last year, with some of the funds you donated, I was able to finalise their birth registrations, which they need here to be able to register for school.  I also equipped their grandfather’s house with some basic necessities of life, to provide them with some simple comforts.  My friends at Social Welfare also ensured that he received the Aged Benefit.  Over the next few weeks I plan to get the old man and the little girls into Nadi to visit Aliti – she hasn’t seen them for a year and we think it would be a good thing all round that she isn’t totally removed from her roots.  Then, I will work on getting the little girls into their local kindergarten.  I have heard recently that Aliti has a young brother living with a relative nearby – if not back with the grandfather by now.  Another part of this small family I would like to help.

My dream, for a long time, has to be to enable small miracles to happen – anywhere, anytime.   I would love to think that I could set up a children’s home along the lines of Treasure House – heaven knows, there is a desperate need in this country for shelter for these kids.  But I am not confident of that process – or that it is the right thing to do. However, I live in hope that one day one of these blogs/emails/newsletters will find its way to Oprah Winfrey, or Bill Gates, or James Packer – or some other lesser known wealthy philanthropist.  Then – I am in there, feet first.   What I can do, however, with your help, is to secure the future of a few children very easily and very NOW.

If you think you would like to be part of the future of some of these kids, then you could pop a contribution into my Fiji Fund – a different number from last time, unfortunately, but no transaction costs to you as it is an Australian account which I can easily access here. 

For those who remember the first photos – taken on Australia Day 2009 – the change for this little girl is nothing short of a miracle.