now is the winter of our discontent
I have taken up a winter sport here in Fiji - swimming. I used to laugh when people told me that it gets cold here in winter but now I have actually been cold I am no longer laughing. It is still in the high twenties during the days but at night it gets as low as 22 degrees. It makes having cold showers hard work and I have been giving in and using the hot water system a bit more. I have also had to get up in the middle of the night to put on a pair of socks, then a long sleeved t-short which is the warmest thing I have, and then finally another cotton sheet on top of the one I already use.
It is so cold that I am often the only person in the pool swimming my laps. It makes it easy to be to be distracted by my imagination rather than other swimmers and I find myself having visions of Jaws coming up through a vent in the pool bottom and smashing the concrete as he does so. I think it increases the speed at which I swim which is a good thing I suppose. Swimming now is actually very pleasant. In the hotter months, the few times I went, I found that my body was overheating with the water as hot as a warm bath. I was sweating in the water.
There are two cellos in Fiji. One is owned by the University of the South Pacific and the other by an ex-patriot who is living here. The two cellos and some other strings are getting together for a concert at the university next week.
The university has a good bookshop. It is hard to find good bookshops and the hours I used to spend browsing bookshops in Australia have been drastically reduced. Bookshops in town will sell Barbara Cartland style romances or children’s coloring books and Lonely Planet guides. People say the library is quite good but it has a lot of airport novels, romance novels, very old books and a whole section on war. Not really my type. This bookshop at the university has the romance novels as well ( they are everywhere - are women all that desperate!) but you can tell that it is a university of the pacific. All the novels are mostly Indian writers like Salman Rushdie and V.S. Naipaul, or big name Australian writers like Tim Winton and Peter Carey. There are a few English classics and then a whole lot on issues of the pacific, books that I have never seen in Australia. I am looking forward to reading up on the pacific.
There has been talk of another coup in recent weeks. Fiji has had 3 coups, two in 1987 and then the last one in 2000. The government is trying to push through what is called (some say deceptively) the Reconciliation and Unity Bill. The aim is to give amnesty to those who were victims of the 2000 coup. At a reading of the Bill in parliament, the Opposition walked out. The military was also present with a number of officers at the reading. There has been much uproar about their presence and how psychologically unsettling it is to have them there in full uniform. The first coup was led by a Colonel (sp?) in the Army. It was reported in the paper that a permit to march in support of the Bill by a political party was rejected as was a permit to march in protest against the Bill by a local community group. While voices were raised about this restricting the right to freedom of expression, the Suva City Council said that at this unsettling time the need to maintain harmony was more important. The Bill was drafted without consultation with the citizens of Fiji. There has been so much noise about it that the government has given in to public pressure and organised sessions for the community to meet and talk with representatives about the Bill but this is happening only in the period of a month and will not be enough time to go to rural areas and hear the opinions of villagers in non-urban areas. Human Rights groups, various community groups and even diplomats from other countries have all voiced grave concern about the Bill being used to grant amnesty to people who have committed political crimes and should be tried through the legal system. The Bill could have the power to free these people and over-ride the legal system and processes. The ambassador for the US has come out and said that he feels strongly enough about the situation to breach diplomatic protocol by voicing an opinion that talk of coup-mongering is disgusting. The papers talk about Fiji having a culture of coup violence. Taxi drivers tell us that a coup will happen in a couple of months. The end of the road I live in faces the back of parliament house and was the scene of much action in the last coup.
On a more positive note: AustAid has given the Fiji Association of the Deaf $60,000 for the sign language project so it should be full steam ahead for developing a sign language dictionary and getting my work done.
It is so cold that I am often the only person in the pool swimming my laps. It makes it easy to be to be distracted by my imagination rather than other swimmers and I find myself having visions of Jaws coming up through a vent in the pool bottom and smashing the concrete as he does so. I think it increases the speed at which I swim which is a good thing I suppose. Swimming now is actually very pleasant. In the hotter months, the few times I went, I found that my body was overheating with the water as hot as a warm bath. I was sweating in the water.
There are two cellos in Fiji. One is owned by the University of the South Pacific and the other by an ex-patriot who is living here. The two cellos and some other strings are getting together for a concert at the university next week.
The university has a good bookshop. It is hard to find good bookshops and the hours I used to spend browsing bookshops in Australia have been drastically reduced. Bookshops in town will sell Barbara Cartland style romances or children’s coloring books and Lonely Planet guides. People say the library is quite good but it has a lot of airport novels, romance novels, very old books and a whole section on war. Not really my type. This bookshop at the university has the romance novels as well ( they are everywhere - are women all that desperate!) but you can tell that it is a university of the pacific. All the novels are mostly Indian writers like Salman Rushdie and V.S. Naipaul, or big name Australian writers like Tim Winton and Peter Carey. There are a few English classics and then a whole lot on issues of the pacific, books that I have never seen in Australia. I am looking forward to reading up on the pacific.
There has been talk of another coup in recent weeks. Fiji has had 3 coups, two in 1987 and then the last one in 2000. The government is trying to push through what is called (some say deceptively) the Reconciliation and Unity Bill. The aim is to give amnesty to those who were victims of the 2000 coup. At a reading of the Bill in parliament, the Opposition walked out. The military was also present with a number of officers at the reading. There has been much uproar about their presence and how psychologically unsettling it is to have them there in full uniform. The first coup was led by a Colonel (sp?) in the Army. It was reported in the paper that a permit to march in support of the Bill by a political party was rejected as was a permit to march in protest against the Bill by a local community group. While voices were raised about this restricting the right to freedom of expression, the Suva City Council said that at this unsettling time the need to maintain harmony was more important. The Bill was drafted without consultation with the citizens of Fiji. There has been so much noise about it that the government has given in to public pressure and organised sessions for the community to meet and talk with representatives about the Bill but this is happening only in the period of a month and will not be enough time to go to rural areas and hear the opinions of villagers in non-urban areas. Human Rights groups, various community groups and even diplomats from other countries have all voiced grave concern about the Bill being used to grant amnesty to people who have committed political crimes and should be tried through the legal system. The Bill could have the power to free these people and over-ride the legal system and processes. The ambassador for the US has come out and said that he feels strongly enough about the situation to breach diplomatic protocol by voicing an opinion that talk of coup-mongering is disgusting. The papers talk about Fiji having a culture of coup violence. Taxi drivers tell us that a coup will happen in a couple of months. The end of the road I live in faces the back of parliament house and was the scene of much action in the last coup.
On a more positive note: AustAid has given the Fiji Association of the Deaf $60,000 for the sign language project so it should be full steam ahead for developing a sign language dictionary and getting my work done.
posted by kate at 1:58 pm
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