Farewell to Fiji

Once upon a time, I went to Fiji. I stayed there for 2 1/2 weeks and had many an adventure during that time. Unfortunately, even 2 1/2 weeks comes to an end, and the time came to say goodbye.

On our last day at the village, we worked for a couple of hours. Some groups got to actually see their toilets flush, which was really cool. I didn't actually get to, the plumber guy hadn't gotten to our site yet.

After working, we had a final dance party, and we gave the women a garbage bag full of clothes that we wanted to leave behind for them. I left my old trainers behind for them, and they were so excited to get my "canvas shoes," and we took a ton of pictures.


After pictures, we went to the community hall for the goodbye celebration they had prepared for us. They presented each of us with a lei, sulu and t-shirt. And I got a piece of plywood that had the names of everyone in my group on it.

I know it's crooked, I apologize

The kids danced for us, and some of the adults too. They also had a couple of planned parts where they just wanted us to all come up and dance with them, which was crazy fun. I can't seem to get the video to upload, no matter how hard I try. So, sadly, you don't get a video of our dancing.


After the dancing, the chief talked to us for a little bit. He was thanking us and started crying as he did. Pretty soon the entire village was all teary-eyed. After talking to us, the villagers sang us a goodbye song. I love them. Their singing is so beautiful - it reminded me of when the islanders sing on The Other Side of Heaven.

And, as much as I didn't want to, the tears got going then and they never really stopped. We took some final pictures, gave away our "lollies" to the kids and made our way down to the bus for the last time.

Just as I was about to board the bus, I heard someone calling my name. I turned around and saw Nasoni and Eddie standing and calling me back. During the last couple of days, groups had started to lay the cement that would be the lids to the septic tanks. Our group hadn't done it yet because we were waiting for the supplies that we needed to hold the cement in the right shape. The groups that had been laying the cement were putting their names and hand prints in the lid like so:


I had been bugging Nasoni about laying the cement because I wanted to do this too. He kept saying that we would get to it tomorrow and eventually we ran out of time. Not a huge deal, but a little disappointing. But when Nasoni called me back, he said something that I will never forget. "When we lay the cement for the lid, I will write your names in it so that it will always be there. We will never forget you, Dani." That was when it really hit me that I had the opportunity to make a bigger difference than I realized. I knew that I would be making a difference in their lifestyles by providing them with a bathroom that they were not able to have before, but I had never thought about the possibility of making a difference to the people themselves...if that makes any sense. I guess I just never expected to hear the words "we will never forget you." If I had to pick a favorite moment of the entire trip, that would be it.

We boarded the bus, yelled "mothe" as they yelled "bye" as we drove down Mau Village Rd. For most of the ride back home, I had "Go Ye Now in Peace" playing in my head.

Go ye now in peace
and know that the love of God will guide you
feel His presence here beside you
showing you the way.

In your time of trouble,
when hurt and despair are there to grieve you,
know that the Lord will never leave you.
He will bring you courage.

Know that the God who sent His Son
to die that you might live
will never leave you lost and alone
in His beloved world.

Go ye now in peace.
Go ye now in peace.

It was a bittersweet moment. I was so grateful to have had the opportunity to spend those weeks with such amazing and wonderful people, and it was hard to leave. But at the same time, I was ready to come back home.

The next morning, we all hopped on a bus that would take us to a resort to swim for half a day, then to the airport. This bus was a definite improvement. It almost resembled the charter buses we take on school trips!

Lots of space. It was heaven on earth.

The airport was interesting, to say the least. As we explored the gift shops to kill time, we came across some interesting labels on the merchandise.


Towers upon towers of these. Hey, at least they can't say they weren't warned!

We all sat around in the airport for a very long while. We played games, and took pictures, and talked in attempts to keep ourselves occupied. In the end, we all boarded the plane singing Neil Diamond's "America." 10 hours later, we landed in Los Angeles and immediately broke out singing, "Hopped off the plane at LAX..." We made our way to baggage claim, got through security, fought the urge to say "bula" to everyone we saw, and went our separate ways. I was saved from a 5-hour layover in Vegas by a very kind lady, and eventually I made it to the SLC airport and back home.

Fiji was an absolutely incredible experience. I took over a summer to try and write about this, and I haven't even covered everything. I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to experience the culture of Fiji and grow to truly love the people. As Nasoni said to me, I will never forget them.

Little Island Adventures

While the main purpose of my trek to Fiji was to build bathrooms, we did get a couple of chances to alter our day-to-day routine and have an adventure.

Pictured below me is at Uprising--a nearby resort. We got to go there and see a bit of the ocean, drink some smoothies (mine turned out to be...interesting), play games, and climb coconut trees. Let's just say, I was pleased with myself and my ability to make it to the top.

One of the members that we got to know pretty well owned a piece of a beach, and he invited us over for lunch and to learn to net fish and swim and have some fun. So, after the rugby game, we did. Pretty much, it was insanely fun. I went out on the boat both times to help pull in the net, and we even caught a stingray! It was the same kind that Steve Irwin was killed by - they pulled the "thorn" off, then I got to hold it. It was sweet. We also brought in some swordfish-like fish, and had some sword fish fights with them. The beach was absolutely beautiful, so we couldn't resist taking some pictures. Here's what I've got:

We found this guy asleep on the beach--we thought it was pretty funny

This picture begs an explanation. It's not a very good shot, but look closely and notice the brown things poking out of the beach. Those are headstones. Due to rising ocean levels, they are actually completely underwater when the tide is high. They stick out when the tide goes out, as pictured. These are his ancestors buried here. A lady was even there making a movie out of it, which she hoped would make it to the Sundance Film Festival. Let me know if you see something about it--I may or may not be in it.

Same spot, new guy

The boys all found machetes around town--they were excited

Once upon a time, we were walking through a dark parking lot. There was a hidden sidewalk, the kind that have small pebbles in it for decorative purposes. Not knowing it was there, I jammed my flip-flop clad toe into it. We were on our way to a dance, so I spent my time at the dance with a bloody toe and shoe--it was still fun. I cleaned it up when we returned to home sweet home. Nice, eh?

We went shopping in Suva. Turns out, it was the same day a cruise ship was in. (As a side note, it was a rather odd sensation to see so many white people that weren't a part of our group. It had been a while.) Apparently some reporter thought we were from the cruise ship, because here we are in the Fiji Sun. Two and a half weeks in Fiji, and I already made it into the paper. Not too shabby.


"When I say 'tiki' you say 'pool!'" This was the chant that Mary yelled on the way over here. It was fun--a slide came out of this guy's ear, and the boys all climbed to the top of his head and jumped off...until they got in trouble.

A lot of the time we were working, it was raining. A lot. And as we all know, when dirt gets wet, it turns into mud. Lydnsy and I shared a sort of love for the mud, and one day she came up to me with some very muddy hands. I went with her to find the source of such lovely mud and, before we knew it, we were in a full blown mud fight. Soon we pulled Seth and Zander in, and the village men were sending us to go get men at other work sites. We were throwing chunks of mud at everyone we came across, Zander was dumping water buckets on all the men, we were all running and slipping all over the place, and it was the craziest, most entertaining thing ever.

Eventually, John came walking around and found us. Let's just say...he wasn't happy. He immediately sent us off to the spigot to wash every speck of mud off. Or at least, as much as we could manage to get off without a full blown shower.


I have to say, this was one of the most epic mud fights I've ever participated in. And I had an absolute blast.

On our last day in the Mau Village, a few of us went around taking pictures. Tasha and I especially wanted pictures of us on the bridge of death.

"Let's see if I can make it look like I'm falling off without actually falling off..."

Nope.

The fact that I caught myself like this was amazing. I honestly have no idea how it happened. One minute I was falling backwards off of the bridge, and the next I had somehow flipped forward and caught myself with my arms as seen in the picture. It was a closie.

If barrel rolling is something that you've never done before, you've gotta give it a try. It is so much fun.

Almost every day, we had a dance party in the house Lyndsy and Zander were working on. The villagers who lived there had a stereo, and one single C.D. We listened to it all day during work, every day. My Fijian, quite obviously, doesn't extend past a simple bula, mothe, vinaka...you know, the basics. But I could sing along to some of those songs cause I heard them so much. Every day at the end of work, the music would turn up. That was my cue. I'd go to the door and see a bunch of women dancing inside. I'd kick off my muddy shoes and join them. It was so fun. Soon, girls from other worksites were joining. Then the kids would come home from school, and they'd come in too. Some days that one and a half room house was insanely packed full. What a blast.

Mary was continually going around the village making sure the villagers were actually letting us work. So, when we had our dance parties the men always served as our lookouts for Mary. Whenever she came down the path, they'd come running to the door and yell, "Mary's coming!" Then they'd turn the music from blasting loudness to completely off (very discreet, I know) and hide us in a mini room. Once Mary had passed, we kept dancing.

One time in particular, we had practically every AYS girl in that house, plus the village women, and some kids. We had a giant pile of muddy shoes at the door. We were rockin' it out. Then, someone came running in and yelled, "Mary's coming, Mary's coming!" The music disappeared. We were rushed off to the mini-room. They brought our shoes over, and we scrambled to put our shoes on. I army crawled across the floor, snuck out the back door, ran across the way to my worksite, grabbed a saw out of Seth's hand and attempted to look natural. Sadly, this was not quite as effective as it could have been. There wasn't much to be sawing at the time, and Mary called me out on it.

"What are you sawing, Dani?"
"Oh, I'm just practicing the motion in the air - you know, build up the muscles so that they'll be ready when the time comes."
"Oh, okay. What's Seth doing?"
"He's coaching me."
(Cue eruption of village men laughing.)

Okay, I didn't get away with it. But, I did manage to get everyone else out safely. I waited until Mary had her back turned, then motioned for everyone else to run by. We successfully got everyone else back to their worksites. And Mary never knew they were there. Prime.

These little adventures were some of the best moments of the trip.