Time to pump out another post.
At Botaira, breakfast is served bright and early at 7:30 am.
I fell asleep no problem and I was up and ready to go at 4:00 am.
Wait! What? 4:00 am? Holy jet lag! Oh well, I was still able
to fall back asleep, but I woke up about every half hour. I was surprised when
everyone was getting up at 6:30, but then again, they were jet lagged too, so
it all made sense. Breakfast was pretty darn good, and I don’t know if it was
dehydration, but the fruit/juice made me want to melt into a puddle, because it
tasted that good. It was so refreshing. Other than watermelon and pineapple,
they had tea, or coffee if you are into that, cereal, toast, eggs, and a yummy
thing called okra. Cool beans, right?
At 9 all the Otago people did the village hike. You would go
see the kids at the school, the church, and buy some crafts made by the locals.
During that time, it rained so I stayed in my bunk and talked to one of the
girls, named Kyra. When the rain had finally stopped, we took a walk down the
beach to snap some pictures to try and capture our island paradise. I noticed
my stomach starting to bug me, so TMI, but I was in the bathroom for a while.
There was no throwing up action, but I did feel the blood drain from my face as
I shook. This could have been the result of the rain water I had been drinking,
but heck I wasn't about to start paying for water so I continued to drink it
anyway and I was fine. After that I laid down in my bed for a good while.
Soon everyone got back and it was time for lunch. I could
have sworn I was in America for a minute, because they served us some huge
burgers. The meat was not dark like beef, so I’m thinking it was probably
turkey meat? But either way it was really good. I didn't really have an
appetite so I couldn't enjoy it to my fullest potential though. I ate about
half of the bun with everything in it, and then I just ate the rest of the
patty and some crispy potato chips.
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| The awesomely huge burger. Picture Credit: Phillomina Wong |
2:45 rolled around and it was time for some weaving.
Apparently another group had made baskets earlier in the day. I was bummed
about not knowing, but hey, this woman came and she could make a hat out of
palm tree leaves in like 3 minutes flat. You could say I was impressed. Turns
out it takes a lot longer to make a fan, so Sam (one of the locals) showed us
various different ways you could tie/wear a sarong. For those of you that don’t
know what that is…INSERT GOOGLE DEFINITION HERE.
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| The Weaving Demonstration. Credit:Erika Pakalnis |
The demonstration was pretty much over so the girls at my
table left, and so I didn't look like I was sitting alone, I sat at another
table with a group of people I hadn't met. That was a good idea in my head, and
it would have been in practice also. However, the people I sat with ended up
leaving me at the table…alone again…2 minutes after I sat down (I am really
making myself seem pathetic, socially, in this blog but I’m just trying to make
you guys feel the essence of these situations like I did when I was in them).
Blah, blah, blah. Not long afterwards, they were going to
have a spear throwing competition. The two people who threw the farthest (one
boy, one girl) would win a free drink from the bar. I was given basically one
of the longest spear, so obviously I had a clear disadvantage. You never know,
I could have beasted the competition, had I been given a spear nicely proportioned
to the size of my body… Just sayin’. I’m kidding, but seriously. I wasn't the
worst of the bunch and that was good enough for me. My free drink would have
been water anyways. Why am I still talking about this? On with the story! I
would say a lot of the girls seemed too embarrassed to take the competition too
seriously, but some of the boys went all out. I wish there was a video of this
somewhere, but if you were there, then you’d know what I’m talkin’ bout.
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| Epic action shot of me. Credit: TEAN |
After that, a large group went to play volleyball.
Initially, I was going to go write in my journal for a bit, but since a few
girls asked me to go watch with them I said, “Sure”. I watched them play
volleyball for such a long time that as the evening went on, more and more of
our students were replaced by Fijians that by the end of what I watched, there
were only 3 of us left. This was interrupted by some yelling and drum banging,
and I knew it wasn't supper time. I guess they were just lighting some torches
around the beach? I never really knew what happened with that, but they were
dressed in costumes so naturally everyone was getting pictures with them. And
that’s when I realized I had sliced my big toe on a rock or some other pointy
thing. Serious skills, man. This made it really hard to walk normally on the
sand when one girl wanted to take a walk on the beach to look for seashells.
With every step, sand was getting pushed into at least one of the cuts. It’s a
shame nobody ever OFFERED me a BAND-AIDE.
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| All American volleyball. Credit: TEAN |
At dinner I sat with the same people. Unfortunately, it took
a million years for us to get our food, which was depressing for me because I
saw other people eating their food and I didn't eat any of the corn bread at
tea time. They gave us soup before the main meal, but I didn't eat a lot of it.
It reminded me of the dessert from the night before, which was not enjoyable.
It seemed like everyone else around me would always eat their full meal and I
felt bad when they would come to collect my plate, because I can’t eat a lot at
once in general, but in the heat especially. The dessert this night was cheese
cake and it was sooo good, but I couldn't finish that either.
Alright, now let’s talk about stars (what a good
transition). The night previously was rather cloudy, but this night was super
clear. I felt like I could look up at the stars forever. They were gorgeous. I
wanted to walk down the beach so I could look without the lights of the resort,
but trees were in the way so I walked back up and saw a group on the palm tree
ahead. It was only Jack, Dalton, and another kid, but I knew they already saw
me going in their direction so I just continued my way over. My genius
conversation starter was quite literally, “So. What about them stars, guys”?
Then Jack wanted to walk down the beach but I definitely wasn't going to do that
again, so Dalton and I walked up onto the deck to see what was happening.
Everyone was holding balloons, so we took 4 and blew ‘em up and waited to see
what the game was. When it was explained, I honestly didn't want to at first
because it was partnered and you had to pop the balloons doing certain
positions, which was weird. But as I watched other people do it, it became more
about popping the balloons as fast as you could and less about what you were
actually doing. So I was ready when it was our turn (which was last). The last
way you needed to pop the last balloon was to body slam the other person and I
probably took that too literally. Sorry Dalton.
And you’ll never guess what I discovered! I scrapped the
skin on the top of my big toe in the process and it bled. Not a lot, but enough
for me to need a napkin (I swear this doesn't usually happen to me). It was
beginning to be humorous, because it was all happening to the same one foot.
Again, I watched them play another two games and then I went
to sleep in my bunk.
**I created this blog to be able to tell my story while studying
abroad, but these Fiji posts feel more like a summary of what happened. I’m
gonna try to work on that, but in the meantime, hopefully these summaries work
well enough to fill you guys in on what I've been up to.
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