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