Fiji!

Bula family and friends! I am writing to you from a very cold New Zealand. Over the past five weeks I have been volunteering in Fiji and  I have had such an amazing time; met some truly inspirational people and worked alongside some of the nicest I have ever come across. Think Pacific is a truly incredible organisation and the effect it has had on the villages on Moturiki island alone in just three years is profound. So before I get into the nitty gritty of what I have been doing, I would like to say that if anyone is ever considering doing a volunteering project that it is absolutely unique and will give you a real taste of traditional Fijian culture, choose Think Pacific!

After a fifteen hour flight, a six hour layover in Auckland followed by a three and a half hour flight to Nadi, whilst suffering from a rather monstrous hangover, Jen and myself were somewhat tired when we reached our hostel: Smugglers Cove, just outside Nadi. After two days acclimatising, sunbathing and drinking, we met up with our Think Pacific team and leaders at Nadi airport. With twelve volunteers and two leaders in total we set off on a rather cramped, hot bus  journey round the island to the capital Suva. It was in this journey that we all started to get to know one another so it’s probably fitting that I introduce them to you now.  I’ll start with the leaders and to save time, sum them up in three words. Luke: a beardy, Cornish patriot and Lulu: a big, wise Bear. In regards to our team the twelve comprised of Amelia, Eliza, Jo, Emma S, Emma B, Rachael, Emily, Irish Luke, Grant, Harry, Jen and myself. After two hours of bonding in the tight confinements of the bus, we stopped off in Suva the Fijian capital (which is of a similar size to Hereford, so rather small) to pick up formal Fiji dress. Us guys bought Bula shirts (Hawaiian’ish shirts)  and pocket sulus (something reminiscent of a kilt) and the girls  all bought a colourful variety of jumbo dresses (not the most stylish long dresses) and sulus.


After leaving the urban sprawl of Suva we headed toward the coast where we got into two small boats in a murky brown river and headed down stream through Amazonesque green jungle out into the open sea, our destination being the tiny exotic island of Caqalai. After a fairly choppy voyage over the brilliant blue waters, we landed on the island and moved into a twelve bedroom dorm which stood mere metres from the sea. It was on Caqalai that we, the team, really started to get to know each other, as we had five days on the island with only a few project briefings whilst the rest of the time we had to ourselves. Days were spent  playing volleyball, rugby, trekking to Snake Island and of course sunbathing for Harry and the girls. In the evening we played lots of games, such as Take Me Out and Mafia. (We all later joked that the latter may have actually sparked some mistrust amongst team members). It was during our time on Caqalai that we also went to Nuibesaga a village on Moturiki Island and had our first Sevu Sevu (welcoming ceremony) and our first taste of Kava, otherwise known as Grog or Mud water. This beverage, which we all soon became very accustomed to, is not alcoholic but does leave one feeling rather sleepy and sometimes with a rather numb tongue. After leaving the village we headed back to Caqalai for our last few days before our project started.


When we left for Savuna Village, where our a Think Pacific expedition was based, we had quite literally no idea of what a welcome we were about the receive, when we arrived on the rocky shores beneath the village. The villagers has strung up a sizable banner saying ‘Welcome Home Think Pacific’ between two trees and whilst we ascended the cliff path to the village we greeted by the entire population singing a welcome song to us in their mother tongue.  After personally meeting all nineteen village members we quickly got into formal dress and had our Sevu Sevu with the village. This was followed by a banquet of fresh exotic vegetables and fish that could have fed fifty! After gorging ourselves we headed to the village hall for our first taste of Fijian dance; hophop. The music that accompanies hophop tends to be played live by a number of male Fijians who sing a vast selection of traditional music. Equipped with guitars, ukuleles, the deft, grass guitar and some of the best vocal harmonies I have ever heard, the Fijian men kept the performance up all night, whilst the Fijian women and the remaining men kept us dancing all night. Although the villagers quickly taught us their traditional dances, we soon brought a few of our own moves to the village hall. Irish Luke became a quick favourite of the Fijian women because he introduced them to such moves as ‘catching the fish’, ‘putting in a light bulb’ and what he later dubbed as ‘digging up Kasava’. Needless to say our bodies hurt from excessive frolicking the following morning.

After a couple of days of getting used to village life and getting to know our families who we were living with for the following four weeks, the real expedition began. As a group we had choice of either teaching in Moturiki District School or Kindi, or working in Savuna village itself on the build. Over the next four weeks we would have the opportunity to have a go at all three options changing if we liked after each week. If we taught, we would have to contend with a thirty minute boat ride to the village of Nasesara, where we would then trek for twenty minutes to school every day to and fro.  I decided to spend my first week in Kindi alongside Eliza and Amelia, however I don’t believe any of us had quite mentally prepared ourselves for what was coming our way and foolishly chose to ignore the leaders warnings that the kids in Kindi lick quite literally anything and everything! Joking aside we spent our mornings helping Laisa, an amazing woman who somehow keeps twenty odd crazy three year olds in check five days a week. Despite their habits of licking windows, climbing up walls, occasionally beating you up and urinating in quite inappropriate places it was ordered chaos and overall a great experience.

In the afternoon all the team partook in coaching sport and whilst the girls coached netball to different age groups, the boys coached rugby, myself being assigned to the under thirteens. Our aim of the four weeks was to help our own team progress as far a possible in a coming tournament in Levuka, the old capital of Fiji. It would be fair statement to say that all the MDS rugby teams needed a fair amount of work if they were going to go any distance in the competition, purely because all age groups did not understand a large amount  of the rules and their handling of the ball was very poor. Despite this, if there is one thing the Fijian boys did not lack its aggression. For instance on my first session, I had to pull two scrapping boys apart and in the process of doing so, the smaller of the two roared and I quote ‘I WANT TO RIP HIS HEAD OFF!‘ Yet on serious note, I personally never saw any of the boys shy away from tackles,  it was their technique that let them down because they all had a tendency to tackle from the neck and above. So taking all these factors into consideration and under the guidance of the leaders we aimed to improve the boys basics: handling, tackling and their elementary understanding of the laws in preparation for the coming tournament.

In the second week of project I signed myself up for the build. During the first week, the building team under the guidance of Jimbo, the expeditions building manager had painted the outside of the church and given the roof a fresh under coat of paint. It was our job in week two to start the construction of the showers and give the church roof its final coat of a turquoise paint. However after Jen and Amelia fell ill with a curious fever half the team, including myself, dropped like flies. The different doctors of Moturiki Island all had different ideas, some thought we were suffering from a mild case of typhoid, whilst others thought we had stomach infections, however it was nothing a five day course of antibiotics could not sort out. The day or two the afflicted took off would have potentially slowed down the build had it not been for the Fijian men of the village who got really stuck in and helped out on a day to day basis. Despite six team members being ill, week two was very short; we watched a regional sevens tournament in Bureta on the Friday and we had a bank holiday Monday that same weekend for the Queens birthday. It was for this reason that I didn’t think I spent anywhere near enough time on the building as I originally wanted too, so for week three I decided to spend some time on the build and have a real crack at it.

During week three on the build, we spent rather a large amount of time on a rather questionable looking ladder painting the church roof. Every now and again, due to someone shifting their weight the ladder would drop a few centimetres giving everyone clinging on a shock whilst they tried not drop paint brushes and pots onto the volunteers below them.  For those who did not fancy cooperating with what was later dubbed as ‘the ladder of death’, the new showers were built left right and centre. After setting a concrete base, we would erect a wooden frame and then cover the timber skeleton with corrugated iron equipped with a sturdy door. The villagers of Savuna themselves were great to the volunteers on the build. We had cake and lemon tea break most days at mid morning followed by a huge lunch before we headed off for sports coaching at school. Apart from sports coaching  we also had another extracurricular activity to oversee; The House Shout! For those of you who don’t know, a house shout is where the four houses that pupils are split up into at a school compete in a singing competition. Usually a house shout is taken somewhat seriously back home at schools in the UK. However if one wants to see the epitome of the word passion, one only needs to go to Moturiki District School and see how seriously the kids take their own house shout. Amelia, Jo and myself were assigned to blue house: Soqe, and we quickly shotgunned the classic chart topping tune that is One Direction, What makes you Beautiful. Having just five fifteen minute sessions to teach them the song without the aid of CD or Ipod we thought we had a rather arduous task ahead.  Yet it was only a matter of days until half of MDS including members of other school houses were busting out the tune whilst getting from class room to class room.

Whilst we spent the daytime having a great time, building, teaching, coaching sport or getting ready for The House Shout, the evenings where we didn’t pass out at 9pm or earlier from fatigue the Think Pacific team had organised many different events and activities to give us a full taste of Fijian Island life. For instance we spent a few evenings making certain objects the villagers still used such as weaving grass baskets or walls. We also attempted to carve our own Bilou bowls out of Coconut shell with a shard of glass (these are the bowls that Fijians drink Kava out of as a community). We also had a chance to represent Savuna in sport against the very talented Nasavuti (a village neighbouring MDS) locals at rugby and netball. Needless to say neither the guys or girls managed to win a fixture. Another activity that most of us had a crack at was spear fishing: the object to shoot sleeping fish at night from a range of several centimetres whilst swimming in the sea. After hearing that the first group consisting of Grant, Emily, Amelia and Luke had all shot a near one hundred percent success rate bringing back a dozen fish between them, I was quietly confident that I would follow suit. Yet when it was my groups turn to go out I was to return from the ocean empty handed and with my head hanging in shame. Whilst Harry, Emma B and Jen had shot many fish between them, missing none, I, having four shots at sleeping fish from mere centimetres and hit none. I still blame my attire, at the time claiming that as a result I had the manoeuvrability of a beached whale with a spear gun, whilst Jen was looking smug and trendy in her wet suit. On almost every other night we spent the evening drinking Kava and hophop’ing around either in Savuna village hall or in the other villages local to MDS.

During the weekends over the project, if didn’t have Saturday to ourselves snorkelling, playing rugby etc etc, we would either continue the build as a group of twelve, or even once or twice we were invited to the village plantations with the men to root up and harvest the food we would be eating during our Sunday meal. Sundays were dedicated to the Sabbath, so it was strictly no activities allowed, and we as group either spent the day relaxing out in the sun or drinking Grogg with the villagers all afternoon. My favourite weekend of the entire project was were we went on an all day trek around Moturiki Island after a late friday night grogging in Neicabecabe, whose villagers I may add are among the most hardcore  hophop’ers we encountered on Moturiki. To give you and example, before we departed the village to start our sizable trek, they insisted on more grog and hophop at 9am for an hour! After finally leaving Neicabecabe, already exhausted and with mild cases of numb tongue, we headed around the island in a big loop visiting  villages Daku, Iluibau and Wawa, all in which we had sizable Kava sessions. Needless to say by the time we were back home in Savuna, the sun had set and we were all grogged out.





When it came to our final week of project we had finished at the build; the showers were finished, the church was fully painted and the new water pump installed. And teaching, kindi and sports coaching had finished at school, (the MDS kids had sang us a very touching leaving song which had left a few of the girls a tad teary.) We only had the rugby and netball tournament in Levuka and the House Cup Competition left before we were finished at MDS for the foreseeable future. As I have already mentioned the MDS children were very fired up for The House Shout, and when the day of the House Cup was upon us , they were even more geared up because it combined House Speaking (speeches), House Sports and of course the shout. To cut a rather long and tragic tale short, our house, Soqe, came joint first in both the Shout and Speaking and the House Cup seemed within our grasp. However the Soqe kids somewhat lacked the sporting prowess of the other houses, not winning a single event in the House Sport and so we came overall a rather disappointing and resounding fourth place. The sports tournament in Levuka itself was also a day of ups and downs. In the first half the day the girls and all their netball teams didn’t loose and single game and all the boys teams made it to their semi-finals. Things were looking very bright then, until very dark and ominous looking clouds descended from the green hills towering over us. And within a matter of minutes the dry pitch and court were turned into brown lakes. The winds picked up and the day shelters and stands supporters had made were ripped apart or blown away. We were soon informed that the entire tournament was cancelled and so we had a very wet and rough boat journey back home to Savuna.

Our last weekend in Savuna village and on Moturiki Island soon dawned upon us. It is fair to say that that weekend was unsurprising emotional. After spending four amazing weeks with such lovely, inspirational people who had welcomed us, twelve strangers, into their village it then personally became to me clear how much Think Pacific and our project meant to them. After a very emotional Saturday church service where both villagers and team members made teary speeches and sang songs together in the freshly decorated church, we sat down for what would be our last supper in Savuna. The men had slaughtered one of their pigs, so needless to say we porked out that evening on the banquet prepared. After the meal (all of us being rather stuffed) we made our way to the village hall for our last grog and hophop session  in the village. After much crazy dancing and drinking we decided to surprise our hosts by singing them a song we had written over the course of our stay. After which followed more frolics which continued all night. I would like to say I made it till dawn, but when I started to fall asleep in the hall itself at 4am, I knew my tiny Fijian bed was calling me for one last quick nap. Upon being woken up by hophop king Luke, who informed me that he and grogaholic Amelia had found the stamina to stay awake all night it was time to lug our bags to village hall, where we had two more bowls of Kava with some very grogged and tired looking Fijians. We descended the path down to the sea, one last time with the entire village and as our two boats drew away from the shore, the people of Savuna sang one last farewell song whilst waving goodbye on the beach. I don’t think any of us quite imagined how truly heartbreaking it would be too leave and how close we had become with people who are so very different to us. We had all learnt so much from the Fijian way of life, however if I personally acquired one piece of knowledge from the people of Savuna who have such an immense sense of community, it is to cherish and love your family and friends above all others, because no-one or nothing will ever be more important.

Living on Moturiki Island, in Savuna and volunteering with Think Pacific has been such an amazing experience, I believe it changed every single team mate for the better. Every one of the twelve volunteers where such lovely people and friendships have been made that will last a lifetime. I would like to thank Jo, Jen Emma S, Emma B, Eliza, Emily, Rachael, Amelia, Grant, Luke, Harry for being such a fantastic group of people to work along side. Both Think Pacific leaders Luke and Lulu were also an inspiration, keeping us organised so efficiently for the five weeks and working harder than anyone else making sure the project stayed afloat. Think Pacific is such a brilliant organisation and does so much for the people Moturiki and Batiki and without Ronnie, Simon and Harry it would quite simply not exist, so thank you guys and keep up the amazing work. Lastly despite them probably never being able to read this I would like to thank the people of Savuna for welcoming us into their close knit community for four weeks and making us feel so at home in the village. Their trust in us was so very reassuring and gave us all the determination to see the project successfully through from beginning to end. You are all already sorely missed by us twelve volunteers.