Lice Attack

Update on the life and times of me…

Housing:
Sadly, I have moved out of my host family’s house. Happily, it was so I could move into my own apartment with the other three girls in my program. Although I will greatly miss my host family, I still get to see them whenever I want and plan on having them over for dinner and going over to their place for dinner as well. The new apartment is great! It has a full kitchen, nice family room, two bedrooms, a bathroom, two balconies, twenty four hour security, and is close to town. So far, living together with the other girls has been really loud and musical as well as research stimulating. I already have a somewhat clear direction of where I want to go with my research but I will get to that in a second. Monday night we had our Academic Director, her aunty and Momma T (our Fijian language teacher who is probably my favorite person in all of Fiji) over for a belated Mother’s Day dinner at the apartment. We prepared mashed potatoes, pasta salad, sausages, and garlic bread for them. It was gratifying to prepare a meal for them and have the opportunity to say ‘thank you’ for all of the hard work they have done on our behalf to benefit us and our educational journey. Emily, one of the girls on my program, is doing a research project on music in Fiji so we have had a variety of different musical artists over to the house to play and record their songs. It has been an interesting way to learn about Fijian culture while getting to enjoy it firsthand and up close. The best things about the apartment are taking hot showers and rooming with Emma, another girl on the program with me. The only downsides are the lack of free homemade meals and not having the two little girls around with whom I loved to play.

Sickness:
I was unaware that anyone over the age of about 10 years old was at risk for getting lice. I was unaware until I, at the ripe age of 21, found a bunch of little black bugs crawling around on my scalp. Never having had lice as child, I had literally no idea why my head had been itching for days. When I spotted the first bug, I assumed it was a random one that had fallen into my hair from the outside. Then, I realized there were many bugs crawling around. Because I still had no idea that getting lice was a possibility, I had a friend google it and what did I discover?!? It’s LICE! I had to go to the chemist and get a lice killing shampoo. Unfortunately, that didn’t work so I had to go and get ANOTHER treatment that conditioned my hair so I could comb through it with a fine tooth metal comb. The most disgusting part was the amount of bugs and eggs that were pulled out of my hair. Thankfully, Emma was there for me every step of the way, combing and combing until all the bugs had been taken out. Everyone is now nervous that they are going to get it but we are trying to be extremely precautious so it doesn’t spread. I still have no idea where I contracted it from but I definitely know how to identify it now so hopefully I can steer clear from all the itchiness.

Research Project:
For my research this semester, I have decided to investigate the water system in Fiji and conduct a case study on the company of Fiji Water (an American owned company that bottles water from a depleting fresh water aquifer). I plan to look at global bottled water statistics as well as water accessibility statistics universally and nationally in Fiji. Once I get an overview of the international community, I will delve into water issues in Fiji. These issues pertain to who has access, how clean the water is, etc. Then, I hope to give rough statistics on the bottled water industries present here and conclude the research with a case study on the company of Fiji Water. All the while, I hope to address issues of poverty, the economy, the environment, and advertisement/marketing schemes. I am really excited to start researching and from what I have done so far, it seems there are many sides to the same story and that I will have the opportunity to learn a lot. I also plan on traveling to the other side of the main island I live on to take a tour of the Fiji Water plant, interview people, and inspect the source from which the water is gathered. Personally, this is a really interesting topic for me to research because it supplements what I learn at Miami through my major and minors while also pushing me in new directions. It’s a rare occasion that I get to cover topics of the environment, global and national economy, advertisement/marketing and business models while intertwining those topics with the main and underlying theme of culture and anthropological perspective. Needless to say, I am really excited!


If you are looking for a way to entertain yourself… you should watch Planet Earth: Shallow Seas (which I believe is Episode 9). Not only is it breathtakingly beautiful but you will get to experience some of the things I have seen snorkeling through video. Although it covers other areas, and not Fiji, I have taken pictures of many of the things you can see in the episode but my pictures aren’t nearly as good as the Planet Earth episode. Gotta love the shallow seas and coral reefs of the world!!

Love. Sarah