Blogs from Vanua Levu, Fiji, Oceania - page 3

Just a really really quick entry. We have been in Venue Levu now for nearly a week and have been in homestays for all that time. The fijian people have been so welcoming and we have had a really good time. The last week has been packed with many school visits and some leaders training workshops. We sart a camp tonight for the weekend and are expecting over 300 girls!!! so should be a fun challenge!! Thats all I have time for at the moment but the time is flying and the sun is shining!!! Kez x... read more

Bula ! Walking on to our Air Pacific flight and seeing that all of the air crew were wearing brightly colourful flowery shirts we got the feeling we were really going to enjoy Fiji. We have been to lots of places since leaving home but no where have we met people like the Fijian's. They are so friendly and welcoming. Our first stop was the Sky Lodge in Nadi where we spent two nights before heading off to Tribewanted. We used the time to catch up with some other tribe members and get all our stuff organised for the island. We also made a quick trip into Nadi town itself which is a crazy place and not really for the faint hearted. On Saturday we arrived back at the airport for our internal flight to Labassa. ... read more

Hey guys... so i made it over ok to Labasa...this is pretty much a non-tourist zone so i'm already starting to feel like a local (in an internet cafe! hahah)....anyway...i'm really excited i've met ben who is the coordinator for tribeswanted... it sounds really exciting...when i told him about my studies in public health he was really interested to hear about it and has encouraged me to discuss with some of the tribe members about some of their health histories and that kind of thing just to get an idea of what type of issues they deal with here (from what I understand so far mostly bacterial infections from open sores particularly in children who often acquire bug bites and rashes that have a hard time healing due to the tropical climate and the salt water..) ... read more

Today was a travel day. Taxi early in the morning to Somosomo, followed by a trip on a car ferry across the strait to Natuvu on Vanua Levu. There were two movies playing on the ferry, which was a bit of a surprise. Both were black-market DVDs, which wasn't a surprise. Everywhere you go in Fiji there are street stalls selling illegal copies of the movies playing at the cinemas (at the present time for example The Simpsons Movie, Die Hard 4, The Bourne Ultimatum...). The two on the ferry were "Catch A Fire", a very good apartheid movie starring Tim Robbins; and then something really really bad called "Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever" directed by someone called Kaos which probably tells you all you need to know about that movie's credentials! Once off the boat we ... read more

Maka na leka = "No Worries" in Mali dialect of Fijian. "I'm sorry sir, your flight has been canceled" ...and so it began. I went into this trip with the mindset that no plans are solid and I expected some unexpected twists and turns in the road. However, I didn't expect it to begin within seconds of getting out of Melvin's car at O'Hare. I'll do my best to give the compressed version of the travel details so I can get to the good stuff (Fiji). In short...I was supposed to fly to LAX and then on to Fiji (Nadi - pronounced "Nan-dee"). The flight to LAX was canceled and I was routed through Aspen. My flight out of Aspen was overbooked, but I managed to stay on the flight to LA despite being a last ... read more