Random acts of generosity

Usually I would hope that it was me showing these random acts of generosity to strangers, but I don't know if I am capable of actually being so generous as many people around me are being. I would have to say I need to learn something from people who are capable of showing kindness at random to even the most undeserving of guests. Because really I haven't done anything to deserve this treatment.

First before the generosity there was a speed bump where I could forget how nice people are when it is overshadowed by the constant heckling from all the stand owners in the largest fruit and vegetable market known to man. Because I am a minority, which still is sinking in, but still am white which automatically implies I am there to spend loads of money on anything. It is a barrage of an individual opening a bag and placing a potato in and saying only one dollar per kilo as I maneuver around them in order to get to the mango. Thanks to the exchange rate and the abundance of competition in the market for selling everything prices are dirt cheap, which is very enjoyable to me. And this isn't an exaggeration when I say the largest fruit and vegetable market ever. Try and imagine a Wal-mart completely full of different stands selling every produce product capable of growing on the island. There is also a second floor which sells spices and the oh so desirable kava, which I haven't had the urge to buy yet, it may be the flavor or lack of any effectiveness. I did hear though I need to drink about 100 gallons before you really start feeling the effects. Tolerance is opposite than alcohol, which is very weird to me.

After Edgar and I bought enough fresh fruits to indulge ourselves for hopefully a week, but I've been really hungry and continue to lose weight, so bring on continuous eating!! Later that day the entire study abroad community was invited to some random house for a bar-b-que. I was rather impressed, because it really was just a school kid who just likes to hold gatherings for the foreigners. I don't know entirely their motives, but I was happy to find there are some people in the world who prefer some classic rock over "Party in the USA" as amazing as that song is I guess I can find a few songs I enjoy a little more. Also I have discovered that no one in the other American group, who originated from UW Platteville, LAME, have absolutely no interest in talking about me. If my sentences doesn't start with bar, beer, or drunk I have nothing of interest for them. My favorite response to me talking is the no looker. This involves the receiver of communication to ignore your existence while you talk and when you are done turn, for only a moment and say either oh or yeah?, either way I get the message. I didn't need to talk to enjoy myself. I have free food to exploit, and I did. It involved eating 6 lamb dogs and all the chips and cucumber slices I could get before they were gone. All of this due to some guy who just wanted to meet me because I'm different. I like that feeling now and then.

Afterwords it was a Danny style weekend that somebody else planned. Game Night, simple safe and a great bonding mechanism. One of the girls in our program has a house and invited us over, and again free food and I wasn't shy. First we played bannanagrams, which I recommend to anyone who enjoys a good family friendly game. It is speed scrabble pretty much. We played in a team and I found out the hard way the language and education gap between some people is unbearable. Never again will I team up with an Aussie for a word game. Not only do they make up tons upon tons of words, but they don't believe in the real one's that are over 3 letters. Little did I know but jeer is an exotic word that only exists in the literary masterpieces of old english, therefore it doesn't exist. I enjoyed her contributions to the teams by pummeling our opponents with a constant no, and, the, you know only the real words. After the humiliating defeat it was my time to shine because I control my destiny in charades. The use of entertainment as the category really made things simple because we only missed a total of 1 in about 50. There would have been another, but somebody had to break a few rules by pointing to the sky in order to aquire Star Wars, unbelievable.

Sunday adventures of the new churches was successful. My church going entourage placed ourselves in the castle of Fijian cathedrals armed with a fantastic pianist and chorus we have one heck of a service, if only all the songs were in English and not Fijian then I could have fully busted out the vocals. Due to the obvious fact that we were not regulars to the church, which every pastor finds a need to point us out, also the other churchgoers are intrigued by us and this time it really paid off. This 60 or so Canadian and his Fijian wife instantly offered to take us to lunch. Not wanting to be rude of course I accepted free food. We drove all the way to Lami town and it was definitely worth the numbing effect on my entire left leg, a side effect from jamming 4 into the back of a little car. Turns out he worked for Habitat for Humanity but because things were not functioning as he pleased they are attempting to begin their own charitable organization. More to come later, but for now it is bedtime Moce ya'll, I'm a culture blending machine.

Something I forgot to mention, all of this occurred during a tsunami warning. Believe it or not I was completely confident in my safety and that if there was a true state of emergency someone would come to my rescue and explain the need for immediate action. Little did I was completely oblivious to the danger I was in. I read the paper the next day and I felt it was actually talking directly to me when the article is titled "No care in face of disaster," and people going to church was specifically stated as one of the ignorant actions to have taken during the day, so I just feel like the reporter was driving in a taxi to higher ground and watched me specifically enter church writing this article. Whoops!! Luckily the island of Fiji was spared and only 1 meter high swells were recorded on Venua Levu, the large island directly north of mine. Sorry family for allowing the stress levels to rise because I was completely unworried about the apparent danger. Specifically to Dad I need to apologize, because on skype I just felt you fall out of the conversation into a deep worst case scenario vision, something I feel you have come to master throughout the years.

When it was safe to wonder the island of Fiji I decided to go for an adventure on my own. I packed my bag and set out, only to be seeking shelter from the rain within a mile. My sanctuary came under a nearly dead tree where a Fijian about my age had hunkered down also. The probably had a better chance of getting me struck by lightning than actually keeping me dry, but I made due with what I had. Anyways turns out his name the Fijians name is Ruben who is 18 and heading down to the TFL national stadium with his uncle Mogil and cousin Ben to watch his older brother play soccer for Lautoka. He invited me, and after a second of comprehension, because I couldn't decide if making a friend was worth dealing with a soccer game, nevertheless I decided to join. When we got to the stadium I got some odd instructions to stand by his uncle and cousin by a tree on the other side of the parking lot while, what looked to me, Ruden scouted out the perimeter of the ticket gate. We stood for about 30 minutes usually ignoring me by speaking Fijian, which sounds similar to just mumbling a lot of l's and vowels together. Each minute only made me more suspicious of what actions we were going to take. Finally the group ventured forward to a closed gate and began watching the first of two games through the holes. On the way there Ruben asked me a question that only worsened my suspicions. He asked "are you worried?" A little startled I gave a negative, but obviously I'm not very good at hiding my emotions. After a while I found out they had some sort of hookup in the fields staff who let us in at halftime of the important game.

After some discussion of ticket prices and by deciphering the clues given to me I think his family is really poor and unable to afford the $3 entry fee into the game, so they figure ways of getting in even if it means watching half the game from behind a distant fence. I felt very accepted when I was allowed to pass as one of the privileged to enter the game for free during the half. When we sat down I laid my bag next at the full distance of my reach and Ruben asked me to move it closer, which will be relevant later on. His brother's team ended up winning 4-0 beating the champions of the league. On the walk back he wanted to see my place, so I invited him to our 2nd annual pot luck between the Australearners. He was very appreciative, but he is actually very shy, and he doesn't have the greatest english so I thought he was a little uncomfortable.

Later on we sat and talked about life and he explained his ideas of the Fiji islands. His suggestions involved all of us to stay in as much as possible because he sees Fiji as being very a very dangerous place. Two years earlier he moved to Suva and while downtown someone threatened him with a knife. He attempted to run and fell into a hole in the road, but found a rock while down and scared off his pursuer. He has a very large scar on his leg from the incident. Along with that and knowing people who will just beat and rob people at random he is very suspicious and cautious of everyone. He explained to me that when it was raining he called me under the tree, because he was worried about me being in that neighborhood because it is very rough, and that is why he invited me to the game. He also advised me to move my bag because there is always a possibility that someone would snag it. I found this to be a very thoughtful gesture almost on the level of a good Samaritan even though I felt free of threats at the time. I don't have any way to contact him anymore, but hopefully I will see him around because he told me he would show me how to climb a palm tree and because a little inside Fijian insight is always helpful.

The fact he considered the safety of a complete stranger, who is much more privileged than he, and he was aware of that because he mentioned it in discussing why I would be a target, shows a level of care and kindness that someday I can only hope to reproduce in my own actions. I am thankful that I have finally made a Fijian friend and even though he looked miserable at the potluck hopefully he feels good about meeting me also. I don't think he really enjoyed the food, but that was ok because then there was more for me, and trust me I took full advantage of it.

Responsibility?

This new concept has hit me pretty hard now that I am Fijian and time has completely lost its meaning, but finally after 2 days of cancellations and meaningless classes first week classes I had my initial class today. Really I cannot say I was impressed with the teacher. When she first showed up the doors were locked to the room, and let me tell you this was completely unacceptable. The lady who came to unlock the door was just getting an earful from my professor about how unbelievably ludicrous it is to have to go and find someone to unlock the door before a class, and blah blah blah. I found it very hard not to laugh at her attitude, which I did when she wasn't looking of course, because I thought she really blew this out of proportion. Unfortunately because of her boisterous entry into the room I felt it very difficult to converse with my classmates, something that rather disappointed myself, but there will always be more classes.

I was actually reminded of a very important detail about my trip and that is I am a proud owner of 2 man skirts called sulus. One I received as a gift from the international student organization on campus. I wore this around a number of times, but decided I was in need of an upgrade when another man skirt wearing friend of mine and I got a lot of awkward compliments from the women around the markets and stuff. It was a constant "nice sulu" and then hidden chuckle. We concluded the only way people would seriously compliment us so often is if we were being mocked. Then we figured we were wearing girl sulus, but had no idea. At that point I really haven't seen any other male wearing a colorful one. So that day we found a couple of formal sulus which is made of the same material as slacks. Super comfortable let me tell you. I don't have a choice but to wear this back in the states because it is so awesome.

I am truly afraid of school because I cannot figure out if it is going to be hard or not. I'm guessing I will soon find out. Wish me luck!

And the Real world... Darn

So classes were scheduled to begin today and I wasn't the least bit prepared of course. I went to campus around 9ish and found that I had class at noon. Perfect, because this will give me plenty of time to work on responding to a number of people along with actually finding where my class would be. About 11:20 comes around and I say to myself maybe I should head on over so I can find where I need to be. Well my schedule shows 014-014B, and I was told that the first number is the building followed by the room number. Because this campus is so large I spent nearly 20 minutes in search of the building. One thing that didn't help is that on the map of the school they label buildings with real names not numbers. I found the building and room number S014 completely empty and a room for accountancy according to the sign. I looked everywhere all over the building and finally decided to ask a friendly looking older gent who is a student at the school. Turns out he didn't know where the room was, but he knew the office he needed to talk to in order to get a print out of all the rooms and what buildings they are in. He really never told me where we were going, but he stopped and asked a number of people where a certain place was. Turns out he took me all the way back to the international student center, the one building I knew where it was. He gave me his name Peceli and phone number in case I needed anything. At that time I probably could have used a glass of water if anything, but at least he tried.

The office sent me right back to where I was and since I was 10 minutes late I knew there must have been some students in my room, but of course I could not find it and S014 was completely empty. On the 2nd floor I found an office, and when I asked they gave me a odd look to say what is 014B, but then they remembered 014B is the other half of S014, because they split a lecture hall into two, but the entrance is on the other side of the building. Turns out that class was canceled anyways. I went to take a look and when I returned one of the professors who I have later in the week actually asked me if I saw with my own eyes this room in order to confirm its existence.

The first day of school was semi depressing because I found that it is true that all Fijians know each other. I did not see a person alone for more than 2 minutes, because if they were not around anyone they would text them and meet up. It makes sense that everyone has friends already and there are no awkward new kids who need a friend like me. I sort of prey off of them because they are vulnerable, and scared therefore easy to talk to. So, I found it hard to talk to anyone today rather lame, but tomorrow will be another day and hopefully full of random conversation with many people.

Last fun thing! Us American crazies set up a pot luck and it was amazing! how cool are we I made Savatots because mashed kasava isn't very good. So prepare yourself for the ultimate frying machine when I return.

Initial Experience of Getting my Color

At the beginning of the most epic adventure of my life, go figure something had to go wrong. It all began with the adventure to the cities to stay with some family the O’Malley’s. Turns out the sun was fairly bright in my eyes. Noticing this my mom, who was riding with me, decides to be helpful and offer me sunglasses. Her preference of sunglasses wearing wasn’t going to fly with me even, because she chooses to have them over her regular glasses, and let me tell you looking good. By holding onto the scrap of dignity I have I refused and decided to take my glasses off. Again Mom being helpful noticed I did not have a glasses case and gave me hers, God bless your generosity! Throughout the night at the O’Malley’s I kept reminding myself to snag my glasses, in fact I was in the car one time and looked at the case and said “I should grab those,” but because my hands were full I decided to wait until later. The next morning at the airport I was sitting waiting for my gate. I thought, hmm it would be nice to see what it says on the display by the gate, “I’ll just put on my glasses.” Whoops!?! What do you know I happened to leave them in the car only to doom me to a semi clear Fijian adventure. Because I lack acceptance of blame I initially blamed my dear mother, but after 10 hours of reconsideration in the Tom Bradley International Terminal I have decided to give my mom another chance when I see her at the end of June. YAY!

Flying was as exciting as I could have ever imagined. I could have chosen better accommodations for the ideal flight experience, but I made do with what I had. I entered the plane with a fear of what lies ahead because I noticed I was seat 16 B. I knew B was between A and C so this could only mean bad things ahead. Of course my fear was correct and I had the middle. Trying to be positive I thought this could only mean more friends for me to make. This I was mistaken with. The young woman I sat next to was at least skinny, but I could tell I hated her from the beginning judging by the size of the pre ripped hole on the knee of her jeans. To follow up with that the head phones were in and Danny Dunn and his encyclopedia of very interesting conversation was out. My revenge came when the food cart came around and she obviously needed to buy everything that cost money. A large container full of an assortment of snacks with 2 little bottles of vodka mixed with some can of something I’ve never seen before, and before you know it she ate everything. HAHA enjoy the spare tire someday you stuck up, think you are so cool with your iPod stinkface (thank you Caitlin for teaching me the art of inoffensive insults).

The other character I had sitting to the lift of me next to the window happened to put a damper on my good mood even more than lamo. I would begin by saying this guy never laughed a single time in our conversation, which many may find reasonable, but beside laughter he never even smiled which was completely unacceptable. Anyways our conversation made it to “I’m studying in Fiji” in response he says “ oh yeah that’s nice, you should have a good time” repeat repeat repeat. That is a true synopsis of what has happened with him. After our intro he turns out to be a avid traveler and proceeded to shut the window and fall asleep nearly instantly. As I attempted to peek out the window I found myself preoccupied by his gaping mouth, because I couldn’t see out the sliver of window provided.

When I landed in the lovely town of LA and entered into the terminal I walked back and forth in this enormous room consisting of about 10 different gates. I had no idea where Tom Bradley International airport was located, but it seemed my flight wasn’t anywhere near my location. When I actually found the door out of the single terminal specifically for that airline, I found a mile stretch of airport filled with the other airlines. I began walked to one end and then the next not seeing air pacific, and then again and one half the other way. Finally I inquired a worker and it turns out there is another terminal around the corner where the international flights were. I went and couldn’t check in because the AP doesn’t open until about 3 hours before the flight. Needless to say I had quite a time attempting to fill up 10 hours of overlay. I walked the entire Airport one full time, which let me tell you is some hike. I bumped into a whole slew of Australearners studying in Australia and not Fiji who turned out to be from none other than the great state of Wisconsin. Whoopy! I met most people before the plane, but once we actually boarded we noticed one of the seats was open and finally our last flying companion arrives Eli. I introduced myself because he sat directly across the aisle, and he says “judging by your accent I would guess… Wisconsin?” That statement was probably the biggest culture shocker ever, because I was completely oblivious to the fact I had an accent compared to anyone else throughout the US, because most people in my program have agreed with him at one time.

The plane flight seemed actually very short for a 12 hour trip, and we were all well fed. I actually was very pumped when it came to the Flight meals, because it was one of the many firsts I have enjoyed since departing on the trip. First flight meal, first flight on a passenger airplane, first Boeing 747 airplane ride, and if anyone doesn’t know they are absolutely enormous. After many hours of having my arms clamped down and profusely sweating we arrived at Nadi Fiji only exacerbating my perspiring predicament. When we entered the terminal everyone scattered into a frenzy of confusion towards whichever line the individual felt had the greatest possibility of taking us to our proper destination. Eventually, after nearly 30 minutes of wasted time we spotted a very small and poorly advertised line that said domestic transfers. Obviously being our destined path through customs we quickly moved on only to find a number of our group members were unable to locate their bags. When we finally made our way to the check in area we were shocked with the response “that plane has already left.” Fortunately we were very understanding, since we had nothing to be upset about because the air service provided us with bus transport to our destination of Pacific Harbor a two and a half hour ride. The little old British lady wasn’t pleased and in her very soft voice she weezed out “we’ve been on planes for 24 hours and this is the last straw!”

The bus actually was very fortunate because at least we were able to see a whole lot of Fijian living. We drove through a number of small villages with smiling, waving, friendly people yelling “BULA!” There were some who did not catch the memo of being friendly to the tourist buses that drive through. One child was screeching a warcry holding a stick up similar to Tuskan Raider style and then shot us with his stick. Our arrival at Uprising resort “it’s not perfect, it’s paradise” was a very nice surprise. Our accommodations were nicer than I could have ever expected. It was a single room hut called a Bure. The bathroom was out the backdoor on the porch and the shower was outside with 8 foot enclosed walls. Like most days if Fiji it was rainy and windy, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying my first swim in the super salty ocean. The first day was somewhat uneventful because it definitely wasn’t the nicest of days and there really wasn’t the spunk and energy necessary to make things happen.

The next day we had a 30 minute boat ride to the “small” island visible from shore. Turns out the island was large enough to support a village and we were completely oblivious to its whereabouts because of think jungle and large hills. The island was your stereotypical sandy beach paradise with palm trees and hammocks running amuck between them. Instantly I jumped into the whole new world of the magical underwater universe of the saltwater creatures. Being so close to fish in their coral haven is unbelievable. I could swim down by them and amongst the crevices as if I were a fishy, but only for about 10 seconds because me and holding my breath do not go well together. Most of my entertainment consisted of me chasing around a larger purple and green fish that was munching on the choral for some reason.

In Fiji it is very common for people to walk around barefoot, and of course since I intend to integrate myself as one of them then I should be like them. Unfortunately I have found that lacking shoes has its disadvantages. For example; the Fijian equivalent of a sand burr turns out the be a vine one thorns that grows along roadways, something the will definitely ruin a quarter mile walk. This beach happened to be the land of dead choral wash-up and boy does it make your feet tender. My feet have taken a beating and to add to the pain my dedication to exploring the underwater kingdom gave me a fairly large blister on my toe, but there could have been many other things to have gone wrong. For example a sting ray stabbing me, which there actually was an opportunity because I saw one. I knew better than to mess with it because it got Steve, but apparently Aaron one of the other guys on the trip didn’t know any better because he went right after it, luckily he lives to see another day.

I experienced a plethora of new things on this trip to the ocean: riding in a boat on the high seas, eating a lamb dog (something I have had a number of times since then), underwater adventures, and also truly painful sunburn. Being the awesome bronze god I am I knew that the sun would have little effect on me so I applied minimal amounts of sunscreen. Fortunately the burn did not slow down my snorkeling whatsoever, but for a few days afterwards I dreaded moving any part of my upper body or my calves because those were the worst to burn because they were never even considered for sun screening. Now I am fortunate enough to watch my entire back age 110 years where my body slowly flakes away, and itches very badly. From then on I cannot leave without applying a very liberal amount of Mary Kay’s timewise SPF 15 with age fighting moisturizer. A quick note that provided a proper environment to burn Danny is that it was the first day that had clear blue skies all day. Fiji is like all tropical climates where it is sunny one minute and down pouring the next giving you a quick cool down if you needed one.

The next day was our trip to an indigenous village about a 20 minute boat ride up a river on a very long wooden boat chugging along with our 40 hps evenrude. At the village we were greeted with a individual dressed in their traditional drag carrying a large wooden ax and his colleague trumpeting the news through a conch shell. We were so blessed to see a reenactment of a traditional Kava ceremony and drink the fabled Kava. Rumors are true it does have a slight numbing effect in your mouth and tastes and looks like muddy water. After a tour of the village and a meal prepared with the underground oven called a lovo with music and dancing as our entertainment we departed on the most dangerous and thrilling tour of my life.

There was another 30 minute boat ride to the location of another depositing river where we would walk to a waterfall. Sounds easy and they have a paved walkway to the end. Maybe not. Turns out the river is slightly flooded and our pathway was covered by gushing water, so the tour group of 40 people or so slowly waded through knee deep water finding our way. This was intense because one person actually broke her toe. Upon arrival at this amazing 60 meter waterfall I noticed the swirling pool underneath the falls and how terrible it looked. Our guide noticed our reluctance to enter the pool and leapt in. I followed shortly after. As I entered into the pool and moved into the waters I could not touch I began feeling movement towards the falls. As my Olympic swimming skills kick in I notice I am not going anywhere and proceed to paddle faster towards the shallow end only to be sucked back in. After about 5 tries going straight out of the water I found a very convenient handle on the rock wall next to me and pulled myself out. I stayed there for a few minutes to fish out the people who were being sucked to their doom. This involved a number of my fellow study abroaders and I am proud to say I saved the lives of two Aussies who were stuck in the current.

That evening we enjoyed another kava ceremony except this was a more social one put on by the resort. I cannot say that I truly enjoyed such an event because it was fairly slow with conversation and the Fijians participating in it did not really enjoy my sense of humor. Everything I would say usually wouldn’t get much in response, so I don’t know what to think. And then, making me even more self conscious I asked if I could play pool with one of the locals who participated with drinking kava. This was probably the biggest mistake I made the entire week. He destroyed me, but did not seem to enjoy it one bit, and every time I would make a comment about my skills being as awesome as they are his frown actually dropped further. Probably not the way I need to begin meeting people in Fiji.

The next day, Tuesday the 16th we actually were able to move into our places on campus which are actually going to spoil me besides having the fear of roaches on a daily basis. We are so blessed to have the cheeriest house cleaning woman. I don’t know why, but whenever someone says anything to her she giggles hysterically. If anything I believe I am the funniest person in Fiji at that moment. There is also a bathroom for each person in the apartment, which is a very pleasant change from sharing with 5 different people, not that I didn’t absolutely love that, but it is always nice to have some change.

After emptying my bag which I believe was starting to mold because it seems that no matter what or where you hang something it will never dry because of the humidity, our group was oriented and given tours of the campus. If there was ever a campus that I could get lost on every single time I enter it this is it, because it nearly has. The landscaping seems very natural in many places. The big difference from home is you cannot see the entire thing. In fact you cannot see very far at all on campus because there are many more buildings and it seems we are in the middle of the rainforest. Anyways tour completely pointless because I cannot find anything on campus anyways. I believe I got my days mixed up because I’m a little behind on the whole writing down everything that happens in life, but this happened on Wednesday. After unpacking we actually toured Suva, which consisted of me seeing things and never remembering where they are. We went grocery shopping, and I really struggled, because with the exchange rate and attempting to figure out what is actually necessary is very hard. One thing I found when comparing prices grams are much simpler for me to use than ounces when bargain shopping. Edgar and I decided to go halvsies on all of our groceries and only got the bare essentials: rice, sugar, tang juice mix, bread, butter, and tuna. For the first number of days I lived off buttered toast and that was about it.

Edgar and I were ready to leave, and since we have never been in Suva before we needed assistance of getting home. We found Anne our connection of information in the city. She happened to be with a number of the other girls in our program. The others felt the need to continue shopping and asked Edgar and I if we would take their groceries back. Feeling it would be rude to refuse we accepted their proposal to take things back. I think I had about seven or eight bags on me, even though they were rather small the weight adds up after awhile. Anne shows us the bus we were to ride to the USP from downtown. We get on and sit in the front. Another passenger asks us where we are going when the bus begins to depart the driver over hears our answer and lets us know we are on the wrong bus. Fortunately we did not ride to the wrong town that we would have if we didn’t depart. Anyways, back to the bus station, which at the time would be their rush hour. Hundreds and hundreds of school children in uniform, who happen to all be bigger than me, were rushing in and out of buses, and dozens of buses where worming their way through the lines in order to be the first to exit the depot. We had no idea which bus would ever take us back; we begin asking the people around us, which only resulted in just a big bashful smile from everyone. By then the sweet that had been slowly dripping entering my clothes had begun saturating them in certain areas, because mind you it is always 80+ degrees with 100% humidity in Fiji.

Finally we found a bus that was happening to be going to the USP, which I was told is supposed to be every other bus in the terminal, but we couldn’t find one to save our lives. When we finally left the depot our feeling of relief quickly subsided into discomfort and annoyance, because on every corner and every person who waved their hand the bus would stop. This bus ride of about 3 miles turned out to be a good half an hour. And to add to the pain these buses don’t have any a/c in fact they normally don’t even have windows which keeps a steady breeze but not enough to cool you effectively. Upon arrival to the University I said “hey, why not do a nice thing and walk a little so we don’t have the bus stop for us at our house, and get dropped off about a block away. Big mistake! Turns out that block was about a half of mile up hill. The sun was beating down on us and our butter was melting and to add insult to injury when the bus passed us it stopped directly in front of our place. When we finally arrived with completely drenched t-shirts we found the girls actually beat us back. Lucky the bus is so inexpensive or else I would have been mad. They are actually only 70c FJD, which is wonderfully cheap.

So, ever since I have come here I have been trying to write down what I have done on each day. Unfortunately I have fallen a few days behind and I am unable to keep up. So, in order to not forget that this stuff happened I will give you a number of titles of events that I will need to run over with you because they could actually be good stories, but I don’t feel there I will be able to catch up if I write every uninteresting story I have to tell. So please if you are interested you can ask about a number of experiences I title:

1. Forgetting English with the English learning students.

2. Misunderstandings of the awkward kind.

Well one sunny Sunday I come up with the idea to go on the adventure of a lifetime. There happens to a very convenient trail to the peak of a mountain about 4 miles away from where I live. So I rallied the troops and we set out. We arrived at the cement factory in Lami Town as the directions told us and I began looking for a finely groomed about 2 foot wide trail. What we found was a mud, and really mud because nothing is ever dry here, and only the width of my foot path following a stream. I have actually seen better trails made by deer. Anyways after climbing into a crick bed and out again and walking up this clay hill we stumbled upon the coolest waterfall ever. It made steps and at the bottom was about a 6 foot pool, and low and behold there were 5 little locals diving into these pools about 20 feet above the water at the highest point, really cool to see. I of course had to join them. We continued or hike and because we talked to the locals they must have felt it necessary to be our tourguides up the mountain. They led us all the way up even though I could tell they were pretty annoyed how slow the group was taking, because they would run ahead and have to wait sometimes 15 minutes or so and to pass the time they yelled at us in Fijian I think making fun of us. This hill was trecherous. If you weren't slipping on the wet wet clay you were tripping over tree roots which at some points became your only means to continue up the hill. When I say slippery I really mean it. I know one explorer in the group faceplanted four times, and on the way back down the kids were sitting on their butts and sliding about 30 feet down the hill. I joined in the fun and because I was bigger than them I launched myself over a rock at the bottom. I must have yelled pretty loud because the kids kept going down impersonating my reaction as I fell. We did not encounter any problems besides fatigue and being grossed out by a six inch millipede, which was enormous, but completely harmless. The view was stunning and I am happy to say it was probably the best hike I have ever gone on in my life. I am also happy to say that I did it all barefoot, because I noticed the little kids were doing it on the way up and there's no way any 8 year old punk is going to show me up, and besides I didn't want to ruin my shoes.

Now to catch things up today is Monday the 22^nd at 12:30. I start classes tomorrow and have no idea what classes or when they may be. If you happen to be thinking that this is my fault think again for I checked just yesterday and they were not posted and no one in Fiji works on Sunday they are all for family and church time. I even participated in this by going to church which was Presbyterian. I liked it because they gave us tea and snacks afterwards, but they completely butchered one of my favorite hymns “All thank we all our God,” but there was an organ which I enjoyed, so was a pretty nice experience. The organist is a bit eccentric, and the people are very friendly I think because they smile a lot when they talk to us the only problem is their accent is strong and they talk very very quiet, at least relative to me.

When writing right now I took a break to do laundry because I have completely ran out of underwear and completely forgot until this late of hour. Funny thing, I can’t get the dryer to start. When I was in there our security guard, another thing they have provided to spoil us, snuck up on me and scared me to death. We tried for about a half hour and couldn’t figure the thing out even with Cliff and Eli, two of the Study Abroaders help. So the security guard said I should hang my clothes out, so there I was 12:30 at night hanging my laundry with a man I just met with a name I couldn’t pronounce so he told me to call him either “Blacky” one I may not be comfortable saying, or “Taxman,” and because of the accent I really didn’t catch why I would, but he helped me hang my underwear while telling me jokes or else giving me his views on life, I really couldn’t tell. Interesting though and I hope that my rambling isn’t the worst thing you have ever read, but hey you asked for it. Keep in touch, in other words write to me and I will write back. I found a fun quote in my room taped to my mirror and I found it a nice parting message. Jerry Seinfeld says his three rules to living are “bust your ass, no matter what you do. Second, pay attention – learn from everything and everyone all the time. One of my favorite expressions is, “Wherever you look, there’s something to see.” Finally, fall in love. Fall in love with your street, your pillow. Don’t let life pass you by.” Thank you Jerry.