Uro

Well it happened, August 20, 2010, exactly 3 months after entering this country; I’ve been told by a Fijian that I’m fat.  I knew it was going to happen sometime, it’s just hard to hear it for the first time.  I was chatting with my ICCP and the woman who shares her office interrupts me (quite common) to ask “Greta, have you put on weight?”  OUCH! I’m sure my facial expressions made it clear that I was shocked and offended that someone would say something like this to me. My ICCP then asked me if I had been running this week, I told her no because I haven’t been feeling well…she said “yes, we can tell”. So she suggested I weigh myself in the clinical lab upstairs, but I think I’ll pass on that one.

Now, this is not the same as being called fat in the states, somehow they don’t take any offense to being told they are fat or mean any harm by telling someone they are fat. They just use fat as a way to describe a person.  For example, one day I went to the health center to meet with a nurse.  When I couldn’t find her, a nice man tried to help me out- when I told him who I was looking for he said “oh, the fat one” – I didn’t respond because I don’t like to describe people that way. I wonder if this part of the culture is actually healthy – if people (especially women) are not offended or upset by being called fat, they will not have as many self-esteem and body image issues as we do in America.   There is a Fijian word (uro) that is used to let a person know they are attractive (you’ll hear cat calls every once and a while) but the exact translation is fat.

 I am trying to keep up my workouts, I feel 100X better afterwards.  It’s just difficult to find the motivation to do it, it’s hot in Fiji & I enjoy sleeping in each morning.  I think I’ll be better with my routine once my roommate moves to her house, not that she is preventing me from working out, I will just be very bored with no one around to talk to – so I’ll go for runs and do workouts.  I like running in the morning, it’s still nice and cool and there aren’t too many people out.  There is one small problem - air pollution, especially from the sugar cane trucks – they put out so much black smoke, I swear half my runs are done with my nose tucked in my shirt to try to filter some of it away from my lungs.

So I have survived my first time being called Fat by a Fijian, and you might be asking yourself “What did you do after someone said that to you?”…..I bought a big back of chocolate chip cookies and ate them.  It was delicious!