Lice Attack

Update on the life and times of me…

Housing:
Sadly, I have moved out of my host family’s house. Happily, it was so I could move into my own apartment with the other three girls in my program. Although I will greatly miss my host family, I still get to see them whenever I want and plan on having them over for dinner and going over to their place for dinner as well. The new apartment is great! It has a full kitchen, nice family room, two bedrooms, a bathroom, two balconies, twenty four hour security, and is close to town. So far, living together with the other girls has been really loud and musical as well as research stimulating. I already have a somewhat clear direction of where I want to go with my research but I will get to that in a second. Monday night we had our Academic Director, her aunty and Momma T (our Fijian language teacher who is probably my favorite person in all of Fiji) over for a belated Mother’s Day dinner at the apartment. We prepared mashed potatoes, pasta salad, sausages, and garlic bread for them. It was gratifying to prepare a meal for them and have the opportunity to say ‘thank you’ for all of the hard work they have done on our behalf to benefit us and our educational journey. Emily, one of the girls on my program, is doing a research project on music in Fiji so we have had a variety of different musical artists over to the house to play and record their songs. It has been an interesting way to learn about Fijian culture while getting to enjoy it firsthand and up close. The best things about the apartment are taking hot showers and rooming with Emma, another girl on the program with me. The only downsides are the lack of free homemade meals and not having the two little girls around with whom I loved to play.

Sickness:
I was unaware that anyone over the age of about 10 years old was at risk for getting lice. I was unaware until I, at the ripe age of 21, found a bunch of little black bugs crawling around on my scalp. Never having had lice as child, I had literally no idea why my head had been itching for days. When I spotted the first bug, I assumed it was a random one that had fallen into my hair from the outside. Then, I realized there were many bugs crawling around. Because I still had no idea that getting lice was a possibility, I had a friend google it and what did I discover?!? It’s LICE! I had to go to the chemist and get a lice killing shampoo. Unfortunately, that didn’t work so I had to go and get ANOTHER treatment that conditioned my hair so I could comb through it with a fine tooth metal comb. The most disgusting part was the amount of bugs and eggs that were pulled out of my hair. Thankfully, Emma was there for me every step of the way, combing and combing until all the bugs had been taken out. Everyone is now nervous that they are going to get it but we are trying to be extremely precautious so it doesn’t spread. I still have no idea where I contracted it from but I definitely know how to identify it now so hopefully I can steer clear from all the itchiness.

Research Project:
For my research this semester, I have decided to investigate the water system in Fiji and conduct a case study on the company of Fiji Water (an American owned company that bottles water from a depleting fresh water aquifer). I plan to look at global bottled water statistics as well as water accessibility statistics universally and nationally in Fiji. Once I get an overview of the international community, I will delve into water issues in Fiji. These issues pertain to who has access, how clean the water is, etc. Then, I hope to give rough statistics on the bottled water industries present here and conclude the research with a case study on the company of Fiji Water. All the while, I hope to address issues of poverty, the economy, the environment, and advertisement/marketing schemes. I am really excited to start researching and from what I have done so far, it seems there are many sides to the same story and that I will have the opportunity to learn a lot. I also plan on traveling to the other side of the main island I live on to take a tour of the Fiji Water plant, interview people, and inspect the source from which the water is gathered. Personally, this is a really interesting topic for me to research because it supplements what I learn at Miami through my major and minors while also pushing me in new directions. It’s a rare occasion that I get to cover topics of the environment, global and national economy, advertisement/marketing and business models while intertwining those topics with the main and underlying theme of culture and anthropological perspective. Needless to say, I am really excited!


If you are looking for a way to entertain yourself… you should watch Planet Earth: Shallow Seas (which I believe is Episode 9). Not only is it breathtakingly beautiful but you will get to experience some of the things I have seen snorkeling through video. Although it covers other areas, and not Fiji, I have taken pictures of many of the things you can see in the episode but my pictures aren’t nearly as good as the Planet Earth episode. Gotta love the shallow seas and coral reefs of the world!!

Love. Sarah

Breaking the Bubble

I am working on writing more... ENJOY!

Most Westerns have an idealized version of what characteristics make up Fiji and how it fits into the scheme of all the countries in the world. I have to admit, due to my laziness I have let the idealized imagine of Fiji stand through my writings and photos but… no longer! Fiji is more than a postcard perfect image of a beach, sand, resorts, and tanned beauties dancing in the sunshine. It is extremely complex and multilayered. It plays host to multiple ethnicities and unlike places akin to the US (where we claim to be multicultural but truly share a homogeneous culture) these differences are a large part of what makes Fiji so diverse. With hurdles like multiculturalism and living life on a tiny island, come other challenges that have had the salt of colonialism rubbed into their preexisting wounds.


History lesson:
The islands of Fiji are home to many different ethnic ancestries. Originally inhabited thousands of years ago by natives who sailed their way through the South Pacific from Southeast Asia, these ancestors dropped off descendents on many different islands including Samoa, Tahiti, Papua New Guinea, etc (there are TONS of island countries in the South Pacific). Eventually making their way to Fiji, different groups inhabited different regions of the island nation. This influenced the different ethnic groups of native Fijians and is the reason there are MANY dialects of the Fijian language as well as many varying details in rituals/customs. Following colonialism by the British, sugar cane farming was introduced to the country. Because the British felt the native Fijians were “unable”/”too lazy” to work (due to their laid back culture), they brought over indentured servants from India to work in the British sugar cane plantations. Indentured servants became the new politically correct term for slavery once slavery was outlawed in Britain and all of its colonies. It was overly cheap labor based on exploitation and broken promises. This practice, which happened for over 40 years, brought a huge influx of Indians into the country. Because the British practiced the concept of divide and conquer, they went out of their way to enforce policies that divided the two main ethnic groups. This divide ensured the two groups would not gang together to turn over British rule while increasing racial tension and hatred. Once the British gave the colony its freedom, the ethnic tension remained and created huge barriers for the countries journey toward peace. So far there have been multiple coup d’états including the two most recent being in 2000 and 2006. These coups were produced from the desire for change. Depending on which coup you are specifically referring to, the change desired can either be good or bad. In the most recent coup, what most people consider the “people’s charter” coup was a military takeover of the former government due to the racist policies it was enforcing throughout the country. The population is roughly divided 50/50 on ethnic lines with almost half of the population being Fijian and the other half Indo-Fijian (or of Indian ancestry). These ethnic lines also dictate religious lines and facilitate religious intolerance as well. The three main religions found here are sects of Christanity (roughly 50% of the population), Hinduism (roughly 35% of the population), and Islam (roughly 15% of the population). Ethnically, the three religions are divided so that almost all Fijians are Christians and the Indo-Fijians are either Hindus or Muslims. (Please keep in mind that these numbers are very rough estimates based off of actual statistics calculated by the Fijian census bureau)


Poverty:
Poverty has many factors globally and Fiji proves no exception. In most eyes, poverty can seem like a straight forward concept but in actuality the word poverty is a blanket term that encompasses many different types of issues that can sometimes seem unrelated. Not all poverty has to do with just being hungry. In fact, Fiji would be able to feed itself even if it were to be cut off from the global market completely (a trick most countries would never be able to pull off, no matter how much magic they used). Due to cultural networking and familial support systems, most people don’t go hungry. So you might be asking yourself… what does poverty really look like in Fiji? The inability to provide basic needs other than just food also defines elements of poverty. Poverty of accessibility, poverty of opportunity, poverty of freedoms, poverty of land, poverty of the mind and so on, label different types of poverty that can be just as debilitating as the inability to feed yourself or your family. One of the biggest contributors to poverty is in conjunction to land leases. Native Fijians generally own most of the land in Fiji causing large problems for anyone who is not a chief. The chiefs reside over all of the rights of different pieces of land. They then allow their people to live on their land. Let’s pretend one day you wake-up as a native Fijian and decide to move from your village to let’s say the urban city so your kid can go to school, you will have no place to build a house. You then move into a squatters settlement, or more appropriately deemed “informal living settlements”, which is simply defined as ‘unused’ land and thus free for people to use to live on illegally. These settlements, because they are unofficial and thus recognized by no one, typically don’t have running water or electricity and are built on the land that no one else wants to develop… also known as landfills, hazardous areas, or lands prone to natural disasters. Because you have little to no money (due to the fact that you moved from a small village maybe from an outer island or up in the mountains), you can’t build a house with traditional materials or hire a contractor so you’re forced to build a one room home out of whatever material you can find. The city is overcrowded with people in your exact situation and you have just as much luck as them to find one of the few jobs that are available. You’re uneducated because the government doesn’t regulate schools and you grew up in a rural village with a school that most of the world would call a joke (hence the reason you want to move to the city so your kid doesn’t have the same situation thrust on them). The money you make from working odd jobs adds up to the cost of your child’s school, bus fare, uniforms, and books… thank goodness you have one kid, because if you had two, they would probably have to attend school on alternate days so they could share the one uniform you have and only use one persons worth of bus fare (a very common thing among the impoverished trying to send their kids to school). Don’t even get yourself thinking about the health hazards caused by your living conditions. With a lack of money, your kids aren’t inoculated and if they get sick… getting to the doctor is going to be hard considering that the kid spent your bus fare money to get to school that morning. And all of that is if you are an indigenous or native Fijian… if you are an Indo-Fijian you automatically leave the starting gate of life 10 seconds late with 50 less cents in your pocket (figuratively speak, of course). And poverty doesn’t end there. The inability to access work, no matter who you are, is stifling. The most likely characteristic of someone who is unemployed in Fiji? Having a college education. Seems backward, right? If you have a university degree you are expecting to work a more skilled job for a higher salary and because of that, no one wants you. They don’t have a challenging enough job for you or the salary to pay you. With an economy dictated by the IMF, World Bank, and Western world’s standards it’s difficult to change the country’s economy so that its people prosper.


The good news is…
At the end of the day, you live in Fiji. It’s ecologically beautiful, the weather is nice, there is lots of sunshine, and life is relatively simple. And above everything else, you’re happy. It’s funny to think that statistically the happiest places on earth are typically the poorest, most underdeveloped and undernourished nations… is it because they don’t have the capacity or ‘standards’ to realize what they are ‘missing out on’ or is it because they’ve found some secret happiness to life that we can’t find because we are all too busy paving our own material path in pursuit of the always indefinable and unachievable ‘happiness’? Just some food for thought—

I am heading to the island of Beqa (pronounced Benga) for the week to spend time living in a rural village. I am really excited to get out of the hustle and bustle dirt of the city for some relaxing down time with the nations only fire walkers while also getting to practice my Fijian language skills, snorkel, and play in a waterfall. There will be plenty of pictures, don’t worry!

Love. Sarah

Newspaper

Hey all!

So... Fiji is extremely small and thanks to that, as American students, we get a lot of exposure. Last week I spent everyday in a youth forum designed to promote peace building for a more unified multicultural Fiji. Is was really interesting and gave me an entirely new perspective on the Fiji culture as well as a unique view of the youth. People from the Fiji Times, which is the main newspaper, came and took photos for an article they were writing about the conference and guess whose photo was put in the paper?!? If you guessed me, you're right :) GOOD JOB!

Here is the link: http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=145104

And if you think that is funny, wait until you see the actual newspaper... my photo is half of an entire page. Now I can't go anywhere without people staring at me and asking me if I'm "that girl from the paper". Going out this past weekend was made very interesting thanks to the article and the unwanted extra attention.

I thought you all might like to know. I will try and update this sooner rather than later with some cool stuff I have been doing... like I said before, because Fiji is so small and we are unique, we get a lot of exposure which has allowed us to do a lot of really cool things and I can't wait to share the long list of things with everyone!

Miss you all!!
Love. Sarah

I Love My Host Family

“There’s no combination of words I can put on the back of a postcard, no song that I can sing but I can try for your heart. These dreams, they are made out of real things… like a shoe box of photographs with sepia-toned loving.” Better Together by Jack Johnson

I don’t write on my blog for one simple reason… I am doing other stuff instead. Fiji is incredible and there is something to do every free second of the day. If you’ve facebook stalked any of my pictures, you will quickly learn how in love I am with Fiji and my life here. The pictures do a great job of describing what I have been doing and what it looks like here but due to many requests to keep writing my blog, I will write about a few things going on in my life.


QUICK BACKGROUND:

I live in Suva which is on the west side of the largest island that makes up the Fiji Island nation and go to school at the University of the South Pacific. Although there are many students from all over the pacific that go there, I have class with the three other girls on my program in a secluded hut at the back of the campus. We have our own classes because we have specialized subject matters that we study. Lecturers come in every day and debrief us on different aspects of Fiji including the history, language, economy, political situation, religion, identity, gender relations, customs, etc. In the afternoon we have Fijian language class and then the rest of the day we have free. Typically I go to a coffee place down town and we sit together and work on language homework or do our long readings to prepare for the next day’s classes. I am not going to lie, after studying we typically go to happy hour at our favorite bar where we have befriended all the bartenders. Then make it home for dinner and then typically go back out. Some weekend we travel to different islands and thus far we have visited the cities of: Labasa, Savusavu, Nadi, Lautoka, and Levuka, which are all on various islands. I love the other three girls in my class and our three teachers (Mrs. Quiliho, Faira, and Mrs. Taubere)... because of the unique dynamic of everyone being female, the semester has been especially helpful due to our gender intensified interactions.


HOST FAMILY:

I have the BEST host family. The other three girls like their home-stays but it is unanimous that mine is by far the best. Although they start out really shy (like ALL Fijians), once they warmed up to me everything fell into place perfectly. My host dad, Tui, works for his father’s business which is sort of like an accounting firm for other businesses. My host mom, Kata, works with Tui but from what I have seen… really she just takes care of the kids, which leads me to my host sisters. I have two little sisters, Tia, who is 5, and Emily, who is only 2. Tia goes to kindergarten for half of the day while Emily stays home with Kata. Although it has been suggested that Emily go to preschool, Kata has explained the impossibility of that situation to me. Due to Emily’s badass nature (envision a SUPER sassy version of me as a child), inability to communicate in any language other than her own made-up one, and overall authoritative demeanor, my host parents don’t want to subject the teachers and other students to her destructive nature. I have been able to reassure them though… relating to Emily, I have let them know that children like her, although seemingly difficult as children, typically grow up to run companies and governments. The two little girls are one of the best parts of my day, greeting me EVERY morning with a running and yelling hug into my arms and every evening with the same affection. I play with them, read them stories, and have even taken Tia on a “sister date” into town to get milkshakes and see a movie. I have definitely integrated myself into my host family and feel like they are a true extension of my own family, not just a group of people that have given me a place to live. My host family actually functions much differently in real life than how they are supposed to on paper. My host mom is more like a big sister, making Tui (my host dad) more like my brother-in-law and the two little girls are like my nieces. Funny thing, its not just me that thinks that way… because of the unique way I look people in Fiji actually think I am related to Kata and Tia because I look so much like them. They live with Tui’s parents, in the bottom floor of their house. It’s a locked off portion so really it’s more like an apartment in the lower part of the house. I have my own room with a dresser and mirror with an incredible view. Our house sits on top of a hill that overlooks the ocean so sunrise is a pretty incredible site.

I have been able to participate in a few fun activities with my family thus far:

CHURCH- With two little kids, the hilarity of every ‘normal’ activity gets amplified. Take church for instances… I went with them to Palm Sunday to watch Tia perform in the children’s production. Tia did NOT want to be on stage and decided to stand in the far back corner still, frightened and not singing. But because I had woken up after only 4 hours of sleep still drunk I MADE sure she saw me and MADE sure I got pictures of her cute little self standing up there with all the other kids. Emily, of course, was ban from performing with the other children but instead decided to yell my name out in the middle of church because she was sitting far away from me. By the end of the production, due to my overexcited disposition emulating from my sweaty pores, Tia was reassured and eventually made it to the front of the stage to sing and dance along with the other kids. At the end of church, Tia and Emily yelled and ran over to me and hand-in-hand I walked back to the car with my two little sisters. After this interaction, I was no longer some girl living in their house but their sister which was further confirmed later that evening. Kata asked Tia to pray for all the people in their immediate family and Tia said “Mommy, Daddy, Sarah, and Emily.”

BIRTHDAY PARTY- In fiji, when the oldest child in a family turns 21 it’s a BFD. Kata’s niece was turning 21 years old which put everyone in the family in charge of something. Kata’s job was to emcee the entire production which included speeches, a slide show, the presentation of the key (it’s a Fijian tradition to present the birthday person with a huge key that says happy birthday on it which symbolizes their freedom from the house), and cutting the cake. Everyone in the entire family comes, donates money to the party process, and gives gifts. This particular party, for Sarah, was themed “green and yellow” so my family decided to get clothes made in the same pattern so everyone would know we were all together… much to my surprise, this included me! I got to go to the party, sit with the important people up front and wear a dress that matched the other people in my family. I spent the entire night dancing and laughing and getting to know my extended family. AND, I got to get to Kata and Tui so much better because this was not a kid inclusive event so the little ones stayed home with Tui’s mom.

VACATION- Over Easter weekend, I went on vacation with my host family to the West side of the island that we live on. It was about a 4 hour car ride to the beautiful Denarau Island. Although I had previously visited it with my class to observe how “touristy” it is, I was really excited to return with my Fijian family and see what it was like to vacation with them in a very Western destination. The entire weekend was a blast! I brought my friend Emma (she is on the SIT program with me) along for the weekend and we both felt 100% like part of the family. Friday night we cooked dinner for everyone and sat outside with the extended family members who live in the west and drank and shared stories. The next days we went to the pool, laid out, hung out with my family, drank (my family really likes drinking and partying), and just talking about all things Fijian. I learned SO much about the intricacies of Fijian culture and customs. It may seem like a pretty straight forward place of paradise but the truth is, Fiji is extremely diverse and rich with culture and customs that seem to get more complicated and intricate the more we learn about them. By the end of the weekend, Emma was my families adopted daughter and we both decided that we had never smiled or laughed so much in one weekend in our entire lives.



Fiji is rich with so many different cultures and heritages and histories that I wish I had the patience to type out and share with everyone. I will try and write more often, I promise, in those blogs I will include different aspects of the culture as well as what I am doing, eating, seeing, etc.

Until next time!
Love.
Sarah

Love letter to my Headlamp

Dear Headlamp,

When I asked for you for Christmas, my mom wasn’t sure what you were. I placed you at the very top of my list after being inspired by the camping-experienced peers that accompanied me on my journey through Mali. I jealously watched as they used you in an unthinkable amount of situations—them needing some light and you so gracefully shedding some for them.

Much to my delight, Christmas morning I unwrapped you from your box and tore open your casing. I observed your LCD light setting, red light setting, sturdy yet soft elastic strap, and forehead cushion with excitement. As I turned off my bedroom light, crawled into bed, opened my book, and turned you on during my long winter break… I longed for the moment I would have a viable excuse to use you.

Little did I know, but you were about to make your practical debut in a whirlwind of necessity.

When my class was told our two week excursion was getting cut short halfway through due to a potential tropical cyclone, we laughed. After having already lived through a tsunami alert, we felt Fiji was an island full of over-eager weather forecasters who were desperate to keep their jobs—I mean, how often can you repeat the phrase “sunny” before they replace you with a parrot? Because our next destination was a small island community, the three other girls on my trip, our three professors, our friend Stuart, and myself headed back to Savusavu, a city on the northern island where we were having our excursion. Although we had previously spent two nights camping out on the beach in this city, we were forced to retreat to the Budget Lodge… and after one blissful night of watching movies in our air conditioned hotel rooms, the plug was figuratively and literally pulled from our fun.

Hurricane or tropical cyclone Tomas was not a joke, he was a real, category 4 weather phenomenon that forced our “guaranteed to be an awesome two weeks hopping around the most beautiful islands of Fiji” down the narrow and cramped rabbit hole of “shit, we are stuck in the middle of a hurricane without electricity, water, entertainment, or much food”. And then, you turned up and turned on. Being the always prepared Girl Scout wannabe, I packed you secretly hoping for an excuse to whip you out with an enthusiastic “TA-DAH!” and not only did I get the chance once… but I got the chance to show you off for 6 straight primitively powerless days. Being locked in doors for that amount of time, without showering and only eating peanut butter with bread, one becomes somewhat delusional, frustrated, pent-up, bored, and at times even certifiably insane. Thanks to you, our prayers were answered and you provided light in the most ingenious ways—you not only helped me read, write and see to walk around, you helped me use the bathroom, find clothes to wear, and visualize the person talking to me. But, I cannot only speak for myself. On behalf of everyone in my group, thank you for shining light on our lyrics so we could conduct band practice, creating a spotlight so we could reenact our favorite scenes from our favorite Disney movies, producing a strobe light for our dance party raves to Christmas carols (most notably our remix to “The Little Drummer Boy”), and most importantly, for allowing us to see what we were eating—no one likes the magically unexpected crunch when you are consuming creamy peanut butter.

Although I started wanting you for a green-with-envy reason, it turns out, you have been the single most useful thing I brought with me to Fiji (well, besides a swimsuit I guess). And for that I am not only deeply thankful but truly indebted to all of the light you have shed in my life thus far and the potential light you will shed in the future… (fingers crossed on the life of your batteries!) You have proven your usefulness but unlike before, I no longer yearn for the next time I get to use you. When the sun shined again after those 6 long days, I was not sad, but instead rejoicing for your current retirement—natural sunlight is necessary, no one can live from only an LCD light forever… which might be a life lesson only the characters in the movie Wall-E and survivors of natural disasters have had the privilege of learning.

Once again, thank you for ALL that you do… Hurricane Tomas couldn’t get the best of us with you by our side!! Until next time my dearest headlamp companion!

Love,
Sarah

What’s so great about Fiji anyway…?!?

In Letterman’s “Top 10 List” fashion, I’ll break down what all the fuss is about:

10. Fijian men sport skirts and rat tails to attract the ladies… AND IT WORKS!
9. You can hear island reggae music mashed up with various American artist, like 50cent while shopping, riding the bus, eating dinner, walking down the street, etc inducing a dance-comma 24/7.
8. Basically every single fruit is in season here year round… you want it, you got it. Fresh AND cheap!!
7. The term “fresh fish” is forever understated here and you can get it for less than a few dollars. A plate full of sea scallops is one of the cheapest things on a dinner menu.
6. The only time you don’t see flowers is when your eyes are closed.
5. My 2 year old host sister whispers the word “fuck” to me when her mom isn’t listening.
4. Going to the 7th most beautiful beach in the world and then playing on sand dunes is classified as a ‘typical’ day.
3. The hospitality here is out of this world and people constantly insist on feeding you with their extremely delicious food that they made from scratch with the veggies from their gardens.
2. My bedroom window faces a sunrise over the ocean and mountains every morning.
1. Google Image it… and you’ll never wonder “what’s so great about Fiji” ever again.


If it’s not already obvious, I did arrive! My flights went great until I actually arrived in Fiji at 1 AM… that’s where the drama began. The immigration people did NOT like me. I wrote down exactly what I was told to write on my custom form and yet I was still stopped and harassed about why I was in Fiji and why I didn’t have the correct permit. After explaining that Fiji does not give American students visas to study in their country until AFTER they arrive they finally let me go and gave me one month to get everything figured out. I must have done something they liked though because the other three girls on my program were only given 14 days. I then moved onto getting my luggage… which was problem number 2 because bag number 2 was a no show. While filling out their “missing bag” form, one of the guys from the airline that had been helping me walked over with a huge plastic bag covered in tape in his hands. Turns out… the $3 duffle bag I so proudly bought from the Goodwill was not made to travel. Every zipper on the bag was destroyed, all of the contents of my bag where smashed, broken, thrown all around, and I was left with the hot mess-- customs didn’t even make me pass it through the X-ray machine, they felt too bad for me.

Finally making it out of the airport I realize… no one is there to pick me up. I search for all of about 30 minutes before deciding that sleeping inside the airport wouldn’t kill me and that I would be able to sort everything out just as easily after I had slept. It turns out my program had been given the wrong arrival time and arrived at the airport around 5 AM. They eventually found me and took me to the hotel we are staying in for orientation… and that was how this Fijian adventure started.

Eventually another girl showed up, Emma, and we spent the day hanging out while we waited for the other two girls to show up. We went to lunch and the open-air market with our Academic Director and Program Assistant (who are two INCREDIBLY kind, loving, and outgoing women). Later, we went swimming and hung out by the hotel pool.

The next day we had an adventure to the city of Lautoka, or the Sugar City. The four of us ate lunch, wandered around buying forgotten essentials, and eventually rode the bus back to our hotel. That evening, we were invited to eat dinner at a Muslim farmer’s house. He showed us around his entire farm, we accompanied him to the mosque where he goes to pray, and enjoyed dinner at his house. His name is Abdul and for some creepy reason he was in love with me… it is supposedly because I look like a person from India with some European blood but none-the-less, it was rather hilarious—I show up in his dreams every night…? What’s new.

I am so far behind on my blog at this point I don’t have time to write in detail the other things that I have been up to and I really want to post this sooner rather than later so I will leave it with a short list of the other things I have been doing…

-Visiting the world’s 7th most beautiful beach
-Touring sand dunes
-Going to a youth group for a kava ceremony and dancing the night away (I will explain kava later!)
-Visiting South Sea Island, or a secluded tourist island
-Surviving a tsunami alert
-Touring a Hindi temple
-Meeting my host family!!! (Super young mom and dad… plus a 5 year old sister and 2 year old sister. I already have tons of great stories to share)
-Going to the Fijian national museum
-Running around Suva acquainting myself with my new city

I have collected a million incredible stories so far and I will try to write again really soon so I can reflect on how my orientation went and give more details on the new things I am doing. I leave Friday morning for a two week long trip around the islands so hopefully I will keep better record of what I am up to. For more information, you can stalk me on facebook and look through my pictures which will explain many of the things I did not have time to write about.

The number one reason this blog post totally sucks: Fiji is incredible… so, don’t worry about me. I am living the good life—

Love, Sarah

Paradise... three weeks away and counting.

Hello… I am back!!!

So I am starting this a little early but I figured my blog is an easier way to mass communicate than emails and texts. I leave for Fiji, my next abroad destination, on the 22nd of February and arrive there on the 24th of February to start my program. Obviously, I am beyond excited and upon hearing that I get to spend an entire week camped out on a secluded beach has amped my excitement to an obnoxious level.

My new mailing address for letters is:

Sarah Pontier
SIT Fiji
PO Box U9
USP Laucala Campus
Suva
Fiji

And my new address for packages is:

Sarah Pontier
c/-PIAS-DG
USP Laucala Campus
Laucala Bay Road
Suva FIJI
(office behind the bure)

I also now have a skype address now which is: sarah.pontier

Once I get to Fiji, I assume I will be acquiring a cell phone as well and will post that number once I know it. I have the same magicjack telephone number… although it does not directly connect to me, if you leave a message on it, I can listen to it like a normal voicemail on a cell phone.

I will let you all know once I have arrived safe and sound in Suva on the 24th of February!!! Wish me luck with my travels, I typically have the worst flight luck but… that just adds the experience. Right?!?

Love, Sarah