soul shuddering
Today I went to town to get the mail. Getting mail is kind of an important event. I try not to let it gain too much importance lest I start relying on it for a boost when I feel low.
In the kerb of one of the main roads in town was a lady squatting doing a wee. I had full view of her bottom. It was hard to take, hard not to grimace and hard to not want to walk over to the other side of the road. This is not the first time I have seen it happen. Invariably it is women and probably with a mental illness. I think the rates of mental illness would be quite high here. People who are admitted to the one and only psychiatric hospital often come out worse than when they went in and there is a group called The Psychiatric Survivers Group which is more about surviving being in hospital rather than surviving living with a mental illness. One woman was disowned by her family after being admitted. She was actually well enough to leave but ended up staying because no family would come and get her. She then had to leave and is now homeless. She certainly has her problems but she is also highly intelligent and has her wits about her which is probably why she has survived as a prostitute.
Another lady at work is a relative of the late Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. He was Fiji’s Prime Minister for at least 17 years and a high chief. He was hugely respected and a great leader in Fiji for many years. He died last year and the whole of Fiji mourned him, dressing in black and lining the streets to see his coffin process by. This woman, because she was a family member was responsible for feeding the group of warriors that guarded Ratu Mara’s house till his body left to be buried. With the stress of feeding this group of men for days, her grief and stress, she had a psychotic episode. She spent two weeks in the psychiatric hospital and is now quite well. It might be the only episode she has. While her husband and children were supportive, her extended family have disowned her and say that she has an evil spirit inside of her. This abandonment from her family which is also chiefly I gather causes her great sadness.
The power of family here is a bit of a shock to me. While I have strong ties to my family I also have a great amount of liberty and independence. I hear stories of Deaf women who are told to stay at home, not to go out with deaf men, and to marry hearing men with whom they can’t communicate with. It is acceptable in the family for the women not to work and to stay at home till they marry. These women could be 30 years old. You also hear stories of women running away from home or drinking kerosene to cope with these pressures or frustrations. I know there are families in Australia who put similar pressures or expectations on their children and this can lead to other forms of ‘running away’. Maybe my reactions are more about me and what I expect from families.
This week I met the Prime Minister. He came to open the new buildings we have moved into at work and to accept the honor of the building being named after him - the first so far. Maybe if he is elected again in November, there will be other buildings to follow. So Qarase House is now in operation. We have lovely new toilets that have soap in the sinks. We have a kitchen and a staff room. We even have a muddy carpark and emerging garden but for now we have red dust till the greens grow. The Deaf Association has its OWN office and we no longer have to share a tiny room with the Spinal Injuries Association. No more people in wheelchairs struggling to get past me at my desk to their desk. We even have a verandah where the people in wheelchairs can have races or try out an electric wheelchair for fun. I get a huge laugh here out of the number of able-bodied people who visit our offices who like to pretend they have a disability by zipping around in a wheelchair. So far we have not had anyone pretend to be deaf or blind. Spinal injuries are more popular it seems!
So our office now has TWO desks and I don’t have to sit at a desk 50 cms wide and share it with the printer perched on the edge trying to write or read.
The opening with the Prime Minister was mostly in Fijian and luckily we were able to find an Interpreter who knew both Fijian and English. Lots of presentations to the Prime Minister were made starting off with the whale’s tooth, then kava, flower garlands, many woven mats, song and dance by the to-drool-for men from the army, then a round of kava to all the VIPS, a whole roasted pig and then the speeches. Wailai! A big ceremony.
I tried to enjoy the day and not fume too much. But I found it hard that people with disabilities are constantly referred to as ‘special’, that while the head of the parent body we are part of is a blind man, he was barely seen on the day and the one time he was able to say something was because the MC for the day brushed aside protocol and asked him to say something. This lady is the Minister for Education and the sister of Ratu Mara’s wife who was also a high chief so she had the power to do this. Protocol however demanded that the Interpreter not stand up the front and had to be relegated to the back of the hall along with all the other Deaf there. So none of the disability groups had any real presence. I found that hard especially when the building was for people with disabilities!
Being here it’s easy to make judgements about the way things should be done as you tend to think that your way is the best way. It’s funny to get the other perspective. One of the other volunteers related a story of this: an office girl who is Fijian turned up to work at 2pm instead of 9am with no reason. When she arrived, she sat down to watch some TV with another staff member. The athletics finals of all the secondary schools was on and it is very popular here. Another staff member who is an Australian volunteer, observed this and said to herself “I’ll give her 5 mins and then I will have to say something”. 15, 30 and then 40 mins had passed and this girl was still watching TV. Suddenly another Fijian staff member rushed in and started berating her, “in Fijian culture it is ok for you to come in late to work because we always forgive but European people don’t understand that and you can’t just sit there and not give a reason. If you don’t give a reason they will tell you off on your face”. This man did not necessarily know why ‘Europeans’ might think this behaviour unacceptable, he just knew it was. Funny to think that to them they think it strange that being on time is so important and equally strange that when someone has done something wrong you let them know it by telling them directly.
I have been allowed to drive the parent organisation’s vehicle mainly because I am the only staff member who can drive now that the last volunteer has returned home. It’s funny because when I get in the car and drive, everyone stops what they are doing to have a look and whistle or shake their hands like I am doing something very skilled. This week I have been driving it a bit as we moved offices. I have been a bit tentative driving as there are lots of potholes to avoid, as well as mad taxi-drivers and buses with plumes of smoke. I had to back into a driveway that was basically just mud with a few rocks thrown in for traction. I ummed and ahhhed while the young guys I was with motioned for me to get into it and stop being a wooz. As I backed into the mud and the car started sliding and the wheels whirring, they all got out of the car and proceeded to push the car as if this was an everyday part of going somewhere in a car. No reaction, no huffing and puffing and no comment afterwards. A suburban Suva driveway eh?
So off to the new office tomorrow. Just have to sweep the floor of the red dust and hunt down a mug for tea and then it’s off to being the productive little Westerner that I am. We got a grant accepted by the Australian government this week. So we now have money to get an internet connection, and buy a video camera so we can start recording Fiji Sign Language and maybe we will have some money left over to buy some blue tack to stick up a few posters!
In the kerb of one of the main roads in town was a lady squatting doing a wee. I had full view of her bottom. It was hard to take, hard not to grimace and hard to not want to walk over to the other side of the road. This is not the first time I have seen it happen. Invariably it is women and probably with a mental illness. I think the rates of mental illness would be quite high here. People who are admitted to the one and only psychiatric hospital often come out worse than when they went in and there is a group called The Psychiatric Survivers Group which is more about surviving being in hospital rather than surviving living with a mental illness. One woman was disowned by her family after being admitted. She was actually well enough to leave but ended up staying because no family would come and get her. She then had to leave and is now homeless. She certainly has her problems but she is also highly intelligent and has her wits about her which is probably why she has survived as a prostitute.
Another lady at work is a relative of the late Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. He was Fiji’s Prime Minister for at least 17 years and a high chief. He was hugely respected and a great leader in Fiji for many years. He died last year and the whole of Fiji mourned him, dressing in black and lining the streets to see his coffin process by. This woman, because she was a family member was responsible for feeding the group of warriors that guarded Ratu Mara’s house till his body left to be buried. With the stress of feeding this group of men for days, her grief and stress, she had a psychotic episode. She spent two weeks in the psychiatric hospital and is now quite well. It might be the only episode she has. While her husband and children were supportive, her extended family have disowned her and say that she has an evil spirit inside of her. This abandonment from her family which is also chiefly I gather causes her great sadness.
The power of family here is a bit of a shock to me. While I have strong ties to my family I also have a great amount of liberty and independence. I hear stories of Deaf women who are told to stay at home, not to go out with deaf men, and to marry hearing men with whom they can’t communicate with. It is acceptable in the family for the women not to work and to stay at home till they marry. These women could be 30 years old. You also hear stories of women running away from home or drinking kerosene to cope with these pressures or frustrations. I know there are families in Australia who put similar pressures or expectations on their children and this can lead to other forms of ‘running away’. Maybe my reactions are more about me and what I expect from families.
This week I met the Prime Minister. He came to open the new buildings we have moved into at work and to accept the honor of the building being named after him - the first so far. Maybe if he is elected again in November, there will be other buildings to follow. So Qarase House is now in operation. We have lovely new toilets that have soap in the sinks. We have a kitchen and a staff room. We even have a muddy carpark and emerging garden but for now we have red dust till the greens grow. The Deaf Association has its OWN office and we no longer have to share a tiny room with the Spinal Injuries Association. No more people in wheelchairs struggling to get past me at my desk to their desk. We even have a verandah where the people in wheelchairs can have races or try out an electric wheelchair for fun. I get a huge laugh here out of the number of able-bodied people who visit our offices who like to pretend they have a disability by zipping around in a wheelchair. So far we have not had anyone pretend to be deaf or blind. Spinal injuries are more popular it seems!
So our office now has TWO desks and I don’t have to sit at a desk 50 cms wide and share it with the printer perched on the edge trying to write or read.
The opening with the Prime Minister was mostly in Fijian and luckily we were able to find an Interpreter who knew both Fijian and English. Lots of presentations to the Prime Minister were made starting off with the whale’s tooth, then kava, flower garlands, many woven mats, song and dance by the to-drool-for men from the army, then a round of kava to all the VIPS, a whole roasted pig and then the speeches. Wailai! A big ceremony.
I tried to enjoy the day and not fume too much. But I found it hard that people with disabilities are constantly referred to as ‘special’, that while the head of the parent body we are part of is a blind man, he was barely seen on the day and the one time he was able to say something was because the MC for the day brushed aside protocol and asked him to say something. This lady is the Minister for Education and the sister of Ratu Mara’s wife who was also a high chief so she had the power to do this. Protocol however demanded that the Interpreter not stand up the front and had to be relegated to the back of the hall along with all the other Deaf there. So none of the disability groups had any real presence. I found that hard especially when the building was for people with disabilities!
Being here it’s easy to make judgements about the way things should be done as you tend to think that your way is the best way. It’s funny to get the other perspective. One of the other volunteers related a story of this: an office girl who is Fijian turned up to work at 2pm instead of 9am with no reason. When she arrived, she sat down to watch some TV with another staff member. The athletics finals of all the secondary schools was on and it is very popular here. Another staff member who is an Australian volunteer, observed this and said to herself “I’ll give her 5 mins and then I will have to say something”. 15, 30 and then 40 mins had passed and this girl was still watching TV. Suddenly another Fijian staff member rushed in and started berating her, “in Fijian culture it is ok for you to come in late to work because we always forgive but European people don’t understand that and you can’t just sit there and not give a reason. If you don’t give a reason they will tell you off on your face”. This man did not necessarily know why ‘Europeans’ might think this behaviour unacceptable, he just knew it was. Funny to think that to them they think it strange that being on time is so important and equally strange that when someone has done something wrong you let them know it by telling them directly.
I have been allowed to drive the parent organisation’s vehicle mainly because I am the only staff member who can drive now that the last volunteer has returned home. It’s funny because when I get in the car and drive, everyone stops what they are doing to have a look and whistle or shake their hands like I am doing something very skilled. This week I have been driving it a bit as we moved offices. I have been a bit tentative driving as there are lots of potholes to avoid, as well as mad taxi-drivers and buses with plumes of smoke. I had to back into a driveway that was basically just mud with a few rocks thrown in for traction. I ummed and ahhhed while the young guys I was with motioned for me to get into it and stop being a wooz. As I backed into the mud and the car started sliding and the wheels whirring, they all got out of the car and proceeded to push the car as if this was an everyday part of going somewhere in a car. No reaction, no huffing and puffing and no comment afterwards. A suburban Suva driveway eh?
So off to the new office tomorrow. Just have to sweep the floor of the red dust and hunt down a mug for tea and then it’s off to being the productive little Westerner that I am. We got a grant accepted by the Australian government this week. So we now have money to get an internet connection, and buy a video camera so we can start recording Fiji Sign Language and maybe we will have some money left over to buy some blue tack to stick up a few posters!
posted by kate at 8:19 pm
1 Comments:
Hi Kate,
Wow! Thankyou so much for sending this to my email. LIfe gets so busy, but it's such a buzz to read all your postings. You are a writer! and it's beautiful, really beautiful to read. Rich and entertaining and informative and political and humourous and engaging! Wow, wish i could oblige with you some tales from here. Perhaps i will send something completely different by email. ok, i'll try that. much love to you Pam.
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