Bula Wear

Bula wear is the the "traditional" wear of Fiji. It is used to describe the fabric that is then sewn into shirts for the men, and sulu jiabas for the women.  Kalavata is the term for matching bula wear worn as a uniform.  Bula is rated according to its eyecatching factor. The brighter, busier, bolder, the better.  Bula means life therefore bula wear is worn to celebrate life. Since being in Fiji I have embraced the traditional dress. It all started with a compulsory Kalavata for school, and has since expanded to 4 sulu jiaba ensembles. And I don't plan to stop there.  Bula heaven is Paddy's, closely followed by Materialized. This is where I really lose my shit. Just ask Amy, there is no point in trying to converse with me whilst I am surrounded by such luscious prints, I am well and truly overstimulated and cannot be expected to divert my attention to any other matters.



here is a pictorial list of the variety of bula wear you can expect to encounter in Fiji

BABY BULA

FAMILY BULA

BRIGHT BULA

SCHOOL BULA

BEST BULA

PARTY BULA

BIG BULA

VILLAGE/ CHURCH BULA

MARKET BULA

KALAVATA

 currently on trend is Christmas bula wear. Result is many extra large, walking talking Christmas presents

CHRISTMAS BULA

 some of my bula wear:

Kalavata

I'm always taking orders if you are interested in joining me and embracing this energizing, ageless fashion spectcle.


cost = 3m of fabric + $10 tailoring

BULA!

Just popping down to the supermarket. Do you need anything?

Supermarket shopping in Ba is a chance to reconnect with our ancestors and test our hunter/ gatherer skills and stamina. 

Ba has a lovely selection of 4 different supermarket chains. They are all located within a wonderfully accessible 200m radius of the bus stand in town.

There are:
- 2 MH supermarkets
- 1 Shop and Save
- 1 Rajendra Prasad
- 3 New worlds

Although the items available in these supermarkets are essentially the same (sugar, 2 minute noodles, frozen chicken, white flour), there are some (e.g. yogurt) that can only be bought from one chain. Thus a normal, small, bi-weekly supermarket shop often involves visiting at least 3 supermarkets to locate all the items on our list. Not to mention the fact that we have to then visit the market for fresh items and a good dose of haggling, then the 1.5k uphill walk home.

Thus when we have trawled our way through 1/2 the supermarkets, we often stop and weigh up the necessity of the Houdini item vs imposing dehydration, heat exhaustion, shoulder reconstructions and insanity. Often the un-located item loses out, but not always. Some things are necessary.

I have prepared a list of what you can/cant expect to find when I send you off for a spot of grocery shopping.

Items available:
- soy milk in every flavour, except no flavour
- powder milk, (full cream, light etc)
- 15kg bags of rice, flower and sugar (as long as its white and had the bajezus refined out of it)
- fireworks
- frozen chickens in 15 different sizes
- ghee
- bulk multi packs of instant noodles
- tang/ cordial in every flavour of sugar, so long as its coloured orange
- such soft drink (juice) delights as Sprint, Pops and Fanta in 11 different flavours
- loose, scoop your own frozen pea/corn/ carrot mix.

Items not available:
- meat that wont kill you through a slow (or fast) painful death
- chicken off the bone
- lite/ low fat/ skim milk (long life)
- fresh milk
- crushed canned tomatoes
- frozen berries

Items that have been spotted but are never available when you want to buy them:
- butter
- yogurt
- olive oil
- pesto
- m&m's
- brown rice
- single packs of instant noodles
- apple juice

Happy shopping!

Inspiration board

Tropical weather, relaxed lifestyle, sunny days, fresh as fresh food, good friends, weekends in paradise aside, sometimes working in Fiji isn't all its cracked up to be.  Contributing factors can be varied and numerous. A few examples that have dominated my workplace recently and accumulated into desperate measures being taken include:

• the principal misses our weekly meeting for the 5th consecutive week (its only week 5 of term)
• the teachers sit down to eat their lunch at 12:40 (lunch is from 12-12:45) leaving their classes running amok completely unsupervised
• rescheduling my professional development presentation for the 4th time this term because <50% of teachers stuck out the whole school day, the rest Houdinied out of there AFAP
• Afternoon classes are cancelled for "item" practice (a dance that about 20% of the students are involved in), for the 4th time this week
• Thursday has become the new Friday so now not one but 2 days a week involve zero class time and are instead a mix of sport, recesses that extend into lunch time, video watching and a bit of dance.
• the head teacher still has not taught her class once this term, let alone set foot in her classroom despite  >3hrs in meetings discussing the urgency of this and brainstorming a kazillion ideas...

* (perhaps the reasons aren't as varied as i supposed)

• having a 1hr meeting to decide whether to cook palau or curry for staff social night (curry), then another 1hr meeting to decide what ingredinets need to be bought, where, and for how much, but instead re-discussing what to cook (now palau), then having a 3rd 1hr meeting to decide when to cook the palau, and instead un-re-deciding to cook curry, then deciding to postpone the whole event, then deciding to instead go ahead with it, then reverting back to palau. Then spending the whole day on Friday cooking instead of teaching, or supervising (including taking a machete to whole frozen chickens on a table set up in the playground - mmm boooones!)
• Seeing someone die
• children hitting each other with 1m rulers (or shoes, or books, or anything else they can get their hands on)
• a fave little student not showing for 4 weeks, and when we finally asked "why?" "oh didnt you know! he's not coming to school any more, the family has moved and he's going to a normal school" (no goodbyes :c)
• of the 4+ sporting tournaments that were supposed to dominate this term 0 have eventuated (including a 3 day massive annual event being cancelled)
• the teachers wrote off term three at the beginning of term 2 as being a busy term where there is no time for class work - and despite it no longer being busy the class work remains written off
• most people seem to believe that rain = no school
• etc etc etc 

Sometimes these things accumulate and you feel like you will never make any headway, nothing is getting achieved and every thing is doomed. In addition to developing a killer headache from banging you head against a brick wall.


So..... Yesterday a prominent wall at home was converted into "inspiration board/ achievement wall". A space for us to turn to in times of despair.  It features notes of things that we have already achieved, reminders of moments at school when we found ourselves in tears from laughing so hard, and photos of our beautiful students.  So on a bad day it only takes a glance a the inspiration board to remember that we have achieved things, we are having a good time and we love the kids to death.




- the Pingu post it is because one of our students talks (or trumpets) just like pingu and she makes me smile - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTWv63RyLP8
- Oni has us in fits of laughter from the moment he arrives at school and walks past our room giggling, then walks back again laughing even harder, then back the other way bending double, until we are all aching from laughing too much - love this kid (he also told us that God delivers the sermons at his church- will be visiting there before I leave)


so...
not such a bad gig after all :D

Enjoy work today!

love love.