First Day

So the group is awesome. We have four boys and 10 girls. This past week everyone has bonded really well, which i am extremely happy about because the group is extremely diverse. There are kids from all over, one from Colorado, Minnesota, New york, Boston, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin, La, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Westport and Long Island. I cant say that I don’t like anyone in the group because every person brings something to the table. I can see how we will get on each other’s nerves during the trip but so far I love it. The first day we were all together we went into Nadi and walked around together and shopped. Later we just went back to the hotel, had a couple meetings, swam and then went and got dinner. The second day we went into Nadi again and went to a Hindu Temple. This was a very interesting experience because the guide who explained every mural to us seemed to hate Americans. He blamed all evil in the world on White Caucasian Americans. This got a little awkward and I didn’t follow anything he was saying because learning Hinduism in about 15 minutes doesn’t really work out very well. There was a Buddhist tree outside that was for women to walk around with yellow string to promise good health for their husband and a long life together. After we explored and took all the pictures we could, we separated and each had a buddy for the day.

We were supposed to eat lunch somewhere where we wouldn’t normally eat and then find out way back to Tokatoka, the resort. I ate lunch with a couple people and had lamb curry and some vegetable rice fried balls which were all amazing. We left lunch, walked around and then Gillian, my buddy, and I found the bus station and made our way back to the hotel. We all wound up swimming for a couple hours. After our group took a very bumpy ride in a large unsturdy van (that we traveled around in the whole week) to a Muslim man’s house. His name was Abdul and he had his own farm on his property that he grew all of his own vegetables, herbs and fruit. He also had a honey house where he made his own honey. We had the privilege to eat a honey comb for desert. That was the best tasting honey I’ve ever had. I will try to bring some back for everyone to taste. His house was right next to a mosque. This is a picture of Abdul in his garden.



This was an amazing experience. He greeted us by showing us every vegetable and spice he was growing. Then he sat on the floor and chatted with us for a while. He had been fasting and the meal we were about to have was going to be the one breaking his fast, so while the women prepared the meal for all of us, Abdul and the rest of the men went to pray in the mosque for an hour or so. The meal was the most delicious meal I have ever tasted. We sat on the ground on mats and ate with our hands. We had soup, rice, chicken, fish, vegetables, salad and many other things. The women could not eat with us because in their religion women have to wait for the men to finish eating before they can eat. We sat around all night eating, laughing, playing with his grandson’s and having an amazing time. We all left with such a great sense of welcoming. I loved the sense of community and family I felt when I was there.

Here is a picture of the mosque down the street.