My sincerest apologies for not updating this Blog sooner. I am finally in Sydney now, unpacked, and settled in for the next few months. Here are some final pictures from Fiji, however the majority of my pictures are accessible through facebook...so check them out there.
This is the Hindu temple that we visited. You can see the men and women in the background wearing the yellow outfits, marching around the temple, and worshiping the sun god.
This is from one of the islands that we went to in Fiji called Beachcomber. We jet-skied and rode horses on this particular island. We are standing on the front porch of one of the houses about to go sea-kayaking, this would be the most amazing stay in.
So I thoroughly enjoyed the trip to Fiji because we got to experience the island as a whole. I was just thinking about the luxury resorts and beautiful beaches, but the real day-to-day (non-touristy) Fiji was my favorite part. We stayed with Fijian families for the majority of our stay there and we got to experience their lives. I stayed in a house with 5 other girls, it was a fairly large house on a hill that overlooked Suva (the beautiful capital city) and in the distance you could see the ocean. Every morning I would come up for breakfast and just stand there on the porch (it wrapped around the whole house) and look out.
This is some of the family that I stayed with. Junior is the boy on the left, it was his house, and the other two girls live there during the week. There names are Windy-Mary and Una. That picture was right before they showed me how to crack open a coconut to get the milk and coconut flakes out. Junior just climbed right up into a tree and grabbed one, and then they banged it up against this iron rod thing and it cracked open. It was all extremely fascinating.
Many people had complaints about Fiji. Although the houses we stayed in were really nice by Fijian standards, to Americans they still were a little hard to adapt to. In my house there was no air conditioning at all, and although there was a nice breeze because it was on a hill, it was still extremely hot. We slept on a fitted sheet and that was it, they didn't really have blankets or anything. I got used to sweating 100% of the time I was there, even after getting out of the shower. Also there were mosquitos and you couldn't drink the water. Furthermore, we had tons of other roommates and we had to question if they were friendly or not. I took a quick picture of one of them, he was my favorite I would have to say, we became quite close during the trip. This is him...
All in all though, even though the living conditions were different than we are used to, it was a first-hand experience and I learned a ton. I would go back and stay with my family in a heartbeat, I loved every minute of it.
We did several things with the family in Fiji. Our "Ma" (which is what we called her) took us to the different markets and shops and cooked many amazing meals for us. We also attended one of her church services at her pastor's house and sang some hymns. We went to a 21st birthday party of a family friend and it was the biggest party I have ever seen. There were over 300 people there and they had entertainment and table after table of food. By far though, the best thing that we did was go to the waterfalls. It is this mountain type place, I really can't even explain it. As you walk down the mountain though there is just waterfall after waterfall. They flow into one another and create different pools. It was the most beautiful and exotic thing I have ever seen. We mainly stayed down at the bottom pool because there was a small waterfall, pool, and a rope-swing which we did over and over again. These are some of the girls that stayed in the house with me, you can see how the pools form and flow into each other. I am going to end it here with Fiji, hopefully I'll be able to put up more pictures from it later. My next post, though, will definitely be about what I have done and am doing in Sydney... it's Fabulous!
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