Fiji - Day Two

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.