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So I’m still in Suva. You’d think I’d have gotten to my placement now, having left the orientation resort on Sunday, but I’m not. Why! Why! Why! I hear you cry.
Well, I’ll tell you.
Boats don’t tend to run when there’s a cyclone. Pfft.
On Monday, we were driving to the port (at this point it was a mere tropical depression instead of a tropical cyclone) and there were loads of trees that had fallen over onto the roads that you had to avoid. I was staring out the window when I saw this massive branch break off a tree which fell a few metres in front of us on the road. Goddamnit. So we turned around and went back to Suva, where we’ve been staying the past couple of days.
I need to leave to get the boat in about 10 minutes though, so I’m not going to say much more, apart from that on Saturday the rugby sevens team (as in THE rugby sevens team) came to our resort and played some rugby and had a go on the banana boat. It was cool. That is all.
So I’m leaving the resort tomorrow for my placement. It’s been great here – rum and coke in a can, beach bonfires, singalongs with my new guitar (!!), fresh fruit every morning, etc etc. But I’m feeling a lot like a tourist here. Right now I just want to get to my placement. But at the same time I don’t want to be on my own without all the other volunteers. I’ll be fine once I actually get there though.
Those of you who know me will be surprised to hear that I have voluntarily been up, dressed, and outside before 6.45am every day since arriving here. There’s some sort of novelty about actually doing things BEFORE breakfast. It’s freaky and I like it. Oh yeah.
We went into the capital city of Suva the other day. It’s naive of me, I suppose, but I’ve been kind of surprised by all the Western things here. Brand names, expensive surf shops, McDonalds. It’s a lot less obvious once you get out of the town centre. Silly things though. I hadn’t realised that they use English English here rather than American English, (or I suppose it’s really Fijian English) which would have been obvious had I actually thought about it. Anyway, we walked around town, bought sulus at the flea market, Fijian simcards and newspapers, looked at all the food stalls, went to the hospital, took taxis and buses, spoke to the locals (they’re so friendly! People come up to you in the street and ask where you’re from and give you things. If you tried that in Britain you’d get sectioned.)
Speaking of taxis and buses, public transport isn’t bad here, but some of the drivers are absolute lunatics. I’ve been in a vehicle driven by a local a fair few times now, and they all keep doing this thing where they drive on the wrong side of the road for no apparent reason. Not overtaking, not avoiding potholes, they just drift over, sometimes straddling the centre line for a while, sometimes dancing about. Sometimes they do it in front of blind bends which scares the crap out of me. Almost all road accidents here involve public transport vehicles apparently. Our bus driver the other day got pulled over for speeding. Oops.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I doubt I’ll update again before I’m at my placement, and it might be a while before I find an internet cafe. Moce.
It took over two days, but I’m here!
Brief summary of the interesting and importantish bits of the journey:
So everything was boring and vaguely normal up until we went through security at Heathrow and found ourselves with a few hours to wait until our first twelve hour flight to LAX. Vivien, one of my fellow crazy persons volunteers suggested that the two of us bought a bottle of alcohol to commemorate our last few hours as legal drinking citizens (since the legal age is 21 in both LA and Fiji). We bought a litre bottle of Bailey’s (with a hint of mint!)
…and decided to try and finish it before boarding.
Oops.
Hey, it made the waiting time pass way quicker…
Then there was another 12 hour flight from LA to Nadi, most of which I slept through. When we arrived we were greeted by a fantastic hilly landscape and, I shit you not, a three piece guitar/ukelele band who sang wonderful traditional Fijian songs with amazing harmonies to everyone getting off the planes. Sooooooooo good.
So we’d made it to Nadi, but sadly four of our group’s luggage did not. This held us up enough to miss the 7.30am bus trip to our resort, which meant we had to wait until 1pm for the next one.
It was during these 5 and a half hours that I made a wonderful discovery.
In Fiji, they have Mountain Dew.
MOUNTAIN DEW!
Anyway, the bus eventually came, and the driver gave us all these pretty necklaces of tiny shells all laced together. I’m wearing it now and it’s well good. Then there came a three hour drive along the Fijian coast which gave us some fantastic views, mostly of hills and greenery.
So for the next few days, we’re staying at this resort for an orientation programme before we head to our placements. Given that the company who organises this is a charity, we were all expecting some wee budget resort.
It’s not.
It’s like a little slice of tropical utopia.
So far I’ve been for a swim in the pool, made friends with the barmen, had The World’s Best Pina Colada, which I drank on the beach, where I went paddling in the sea, then pizza for dinner in the seafront restaurant. This feels way too much like a holiday right now.
Anyway, I realise this entry is far too long and incoherent and “I did this then I did this then I did this” to be a good read, but I’m tired. Shut up.
The internet is free at this resort so I will probably be online again at some point in the next few days. Until then, ttfn!
and things are getting hectic. I’ve bought almost everything I need to buy, although I currently have lots of shoes and very little mosquito repellent, so I may have my priorities slightly mixed up.
I got an email from my Project Manager a couple of days ago saying that my original placement in Lovoni village has fallen through, so I’m now doing almost exactly the same placement in Levuka town instead, at the Marist Convent School, which looks something like this:
Levuka and Lovoni are both on the island Ovalau, which is just off the main island Viti Levu where most of the other volunteers are stationed. Since Lovoni is a tiny wee village with no internet or mobile phone reception or shops, (heck, it doesn’t have electricity half the time) I would be taking the bus truck to Levuka quite a lot anyway.
So basically the change of placement just means I’m going to have much easier access to internet and phone lines, and it’ll be a bit easier to travel around Fiji since it’s so much less isolated and rural. I’m still going to visit Lovoni though, it’s only an hour or so away and after hearing so much about it I still really want to go there.
Au sa liu mada!
(Yeah, I’ve been practising my Fijian. Not going so well…)
