Here are some fun Fijian words!

Bula=Hello

Vanaka=Thank You

Vanaka Vakalevu= Thank You Very Much

Yandra=Goodmorning

Moce (Mothey)= Bye/Goodnight

Sota tale= See You Later

Oele= Oh My Gosh!

Eo=good/yes

 

Bula Vanaka!! Our first week here in Suva Fiji was filled with lots of fun things. There are about twenty of us living together in a decent size house. We all are working on various projects. Some people are working on tutoring for students, some are teaching music, some are doing health programs and workshops, some are teaching dancing, some are teaching people about saving money and business. Everyone is up to great projects. Taylor is currently working on helping Hilton Special School plant and take care of a garden of vegetables. He is gonna teach the kids and teachers how to garden and take good care of it. He is also helping out a guy named Penny who works at the Ministry of Health and teaching people about gardening and saving money. This work is being done through the Ministry of Health so Tay is also helping the Ministry to do multiple health surveys and health workshops for people in smaller rural villages throughout Fiji.

I’ve been working on projects at Hilton Special School. It is so cool to me that the place Taylor and I picked to travel, Fiji, happens to have a school full of deaf kids within a mile from the house we are staying in. It has been a great opportunity for me to interact with the deaf, even though they don’t speak American sign language, they speak Fijian Sign language. It has been fun coming up with ideas to better their school. It makes me so happy to see the deaf being taken care of well here. One thing I’m trying to do is set up a Best Buddies program between Hilton and the Gospel high school. There are deaf kids at the Gospel high school and oftentimes the kids from Hilton transfer their once they become of age. Best Buddies will help Hilton kids prepare for the transfer of schools, give them community experience, and hopefully great friendships. It will also teach the Gospel high kids to reach out to others and be kind. Both schools are interested and I have gotten it passed by the Ministry of Education so now I just gotta write the calendar and get it rolling this first Friday of July. The Gospel school even has their own transportation and they have a specific club time that they can fit it into on Fridays. It is working out so perfectly! I’m excited to see how it goes and I think this will be very sustainable after I leave Fiji. They will continue to have it the first Friday of every month. I think it will provide the kids with a lot of great opportunities to reach out to others and serve.

Other projects I am working on are “Beautification projects at the school grounds at Hilton, American sign language classes at Hilton, Fijian sign classes at Gospel high school, and finding a deaf teacher or a fluent signer to teach at Gospel high.

Best Buddies- A program where the highschool students join a club that visits a school with physically, mentally, hearing impaired children. They go once a month to be with them for forty minutes and build lasting friendships.

Beautification Projects- The Hilton school asked us to do a few projects to beautify their campus. Landscape the garden (Taylor is doing the crop growing part of the garden), painting/organizing the Cantene (lunch) area, adding signs around the campus, etc…

ASL Classes at Hilton- Teaching the teachers and students at Hilton special school American Sign Language while they teach Kate and I Fijian Sign Language. This will help them be able to communicate with more Americans throughout their life, (volunteers, etc…)

Fijian Sign Language Classes at Gospel High School/Club- There are multiple deaf students at Gospel High School. The students there who are hearing want to communicate with the deaf students, but they don’t know sign language. This will build more unity between students at the school and make more people aware of the deaf and able to communicate with them.

Deaf Teacher for Gospel High School-  The deaf students are not able to get as good of education at the Gospel School as the hearing students because the deaf students’ interpreters are not educated enough to translate chemistry, economics, math, etc…past form 6. We are hoping to find someone who is able to teach the deaf students all these subjects directly in sign language and erase the need for interpreters. If there isn’t a teacher like this, we are hoping that the Ministry of Education will pay for someone to go get the schooling in order to come back and teach. The cycle has to be broken somewhere or there will never be teachers who can teach the deaf.

The weekend before this past weekend, we travelled to Singatoka. It was beautiful! We spent the day at the beach. Taylor and I got cut on some coral reefs because the tide was coming in so strong. They made everyone get out of the water because it was getting pretty wild. It was fun to watch the crashing wavers though. Something really cool about the people here in Suva is that they make sure to come up to you, shake your hand, say hello, and/or say God bless you. Pretty much everyone here is part of some denomination. There are Hindu people, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists etc…It’s almost like a mini America in this way.

These past few days, some of us went to a smaller villages.  It took us about four hours to get there. We stayed in Tavua with the president of GOLDs. GOLDs is an organization for woman to learn and gain knowledge and independence. The president’s name is Irine. She is a very forward, powerful, influential, and giving Indian woman. On the way over here I would wave at the people in the tiny villages as we passed in our bus. Some of them would spread both arms out and yell excitedly. They loved saying hi! They were so enthusiastic about it! It reminds me of one time when Taylor and I were running in Suva. All the little kids were riding home on their buses after school got out and as we ran by they would all reach outside the bus and wave their hands frantically while laughing and yelling “helloo!!” It made me so happy!! I love the children here. They love so easily and happily. As we continued to ride the bus to Tavua, at one point we stopped at a bus stop. Some ladies came up to our bus to try and sell watermelon and filled roti (tortillas).  I wasn’t going to buy anything but I was just watching the women sell. Suddenly the watermelon woman walked up to my window and held up a watermelon slice to me. I said “no, I can’t buy,” and she said, “you have” gave it to me, and walked away.  It was amazing to me that someone with so little who has to sell food they cut and made themselves on the curb of the road would share some with me. She had so little yet felt prompted to share. I had trouble accepting it, but decided to graciously. It melted my heart. I blew her a kiss as we drove away and her face brightened with a smile. That is just how many of the people tend to be here. So giving and loving. Not all of them, but many.

There are so many chickens and cows that roamed freely in Tavua. Where we were staying, there were especially a lot of chickens. I love how simple the people live here. Their houses are very similar to worn out hippi beach houses. The colors are very bright and they make use of everything they can. For example, their brooms are made from twig like bendy sticks that they tie together. Taylor, Audrey, Susanna, Grey, Brittany, and I all stayed with this sweet white haired old Indian lady. We call her Amma, which means grandma in Hindi. She didn’t speak very good English but she was happy to have us stay at her home because usually is pretty alone. Amma is Irine's mother.

All the women here wake up every day and do tough housework and take care of their families. This is tiring work too.  Something I really liked about the kids in the villages here is that they did this little hand shake where they give a thumbs up and press their thumbs to yours and one another’s. It means friends.

Sunday in Fiji is neat because things shut down. The people treat Sunday as rest. It’s very refreshing to see and helps me understand part of why the Lord created the Sabbath day and asked us to keep it holy. The people work so hard here that when they take Sunday off, you can feel the rejuvenation they all are receiving. It helps me better understand how the Sabbath day and the commandment to keep it holy is all for our benefit, just like every commandment the Lord has given us. It’s all out of pure love for us, His children.

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I am getting ready to make sure my last two weeks are filled with what i came here to do. I have taken advantage of lots of good service opportunities here and it feels great. I also love the weekends though because we travel. This past weekend was my favorite. We went to a beach called Mango Bay. The water was magnificently blue and clear. We snorkeled, made coconut jewelry, caught hermit crabs, found star fish, collected shells, and weaved baskets out of palm tree leaves. Wish you all could be here to be a part of the experience!