Epeli Hauofa: Epeli was one of the finest writers from the Pacific. His 'Tales of the Teakong' is an excellent collection of interrelated stories, that reveals the wisdom in the otherwise seemingly futile relaxed way of approaching life. When I was looking for pictures to put up on this post, I saw him. Thought it is a good way to honor him. Mr. Hauofa passed away in 2008, leaving a long legacy of words that brought the Pacific to the world.
USP students: I got this picture from the net. I will replace it with one that I took later. This is just to give a glimpse of homogeneity of student body...around the world. Students in Fiji are no different today than anywhere else. They come in all sizes, and shapes, causal and formal, traditional and forward.
In Fiji I started to keep random notes on my experience in the country. I never published anything, but collected quite a few of these. The sad thing is that this movement and so much of 'having to learn' with all these moves, I have had a hard time concentrating and writing. Something has snapped in me and I cannot focus or create with the same ease. May be I will get back to it, sometime. But here is one example of how I would recollect events and write them to share with my friends.
The following was written sometime late 2006.
STUDENTS EVERYWHERE
No
question, really. One does it because
one loves books, loves to read, loves researching….but also enjoys little pay,
long hours, and not necessarily that many rewards.
Really,
Gluttons for punishment!!
But
to tell you the truth I love it. I love teaching. I love universities, I enjoy
libraries, and I love the silliness that you can find on all campuses and
schools. There is a reason that movies
about school and college days have remained popular throughout the heavy
emphasis on sex, violence and digital effects.
I
have often said, teaching is my religion.
And the days I do not teach I am Jedi.
The days I am too weak to hold the Jedi sword, I become a Hindu,
chanting mantras. (Ok, Ok, Mantras are more powerful than a sword...I know.)
I
love the silliness and the innocence of campuses. Research and all are good for
profession, career and mind. But the
best part about being a teacher is that semester after semester we get to be
part of young adults, and all the freshness they live with. Like doctors, we talk, learn and heal. We, the teachers, are soul doctors. Whether,
our students acknowledge that or not, we become the background that they use to
borrow and steal examples from. I
seriously think that we influence them more than TV.
Now,
what is to follow is not that profound.
Not anything spectacular but just an example of how the minds of 18-22
year olds work on the same tracks—all over the world.
Yesterday
was our last class for the semester. I
was wrapping things up. As always I had
a few stories planned. I always do that,
so that my students will at least remember the story and get something from it.
We
were talking about what we learn at universities. Not the content, but the process.
There
were about 11 of us in the class. I
could hear a little rustling sound. It
was coming from S’s end. She was
fidgeting with something in her purse.
A
little about S- She is this brainy,
ultra intelligent Indo-Fijian, who is also a muslim. Sometime ago, she decided to wear the
Hijab. The head covering that muslim
girls wear. She wants to a writer. On
media freedom day on May 3rd, she received a special mention for
creativity for her poem on how media can help in alleviating poverty.
But
here is the clincher, she also knows the most about western popular music. All the words, all the singers, and all the
bands.
So,
as I am speaking very seriously about university life, and how to make the best
of it, I see E looking very seriously at S’s purse and then at her.
“What,
you got condoms in there?” a response to the rustling sound.
S nods very seriously and mouths, “Yes, condoms.”
I
stop mid sentence. “E, did you just
ask S if she had condoms in her purse?”
“Yeah.”
E,
it could be anything, a chocolate, a toffee, why a condom?
The
class laughed. S smiled her gentle
smile and excused herself as she had to step outside the classroom for a few
minutes. (she had to get Panadol—like Tylenol).
“That’s
because E has a one track mind” said the class, almost in unison.
“No,
that is the first thing that popped into my head” explained E.
“That’s
because you have a one track mind.”
“Whatever”
says E with her perpetual, glorious smile.
A
little about E. She got the award
for best feature stories last year at the Journalism awards. She is this beautiful girl who usually gets
asked, ‘So where are you from?’ She is
part Chinese, Gilbertese (from Kiribati) and part Scottish and part English. But that is not what you notice about her the
first time you meet her. It is her fiery
personality and her ability to add drama to the most mundane of things. She and I have had many conversations of
‘America and its Politics.’ She seems to
know more than I, so I have not been able to convince her that there may be
some good in some parts of American Foreign Policy.
“You
know” I add my wisdom, “In the US they are called rubbers, and my first
American friends taught me that I should never call an eraser a rubber.”
“Yeah,
we call it that too, but that is what an eraser is, a rubber, you rub things on
your books with it” shrugged E, matter-of-factly.
Half
the class was still giggling because of the topic of conversation.
I
started talking about the final quiz that they were taking in a few minutes.
“Guys
let me tell you how to work on the multiple choice test if you want to pass”
said E with conviction, “Leave the eenie meenie……go for Jesus told me to
choose this one.”
Nods
and giggles, because of most of them acknowledged that they had read only half
of the 14 articles on the exam.
S walked back into the room. As she sat on
her chair, E asked with a genuine concern, “So, do you have a rubber for
your exam?” The class drowned in another
round of laugher.
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