OHMIGOD OHMIGOD OHMIGOD is all i say. okay let me start out with something coherant i guess.

so I arrived here really early in the morning once again. jeez, im becoming a pro at this all night flight deal. so i went to sleep and woke up..thought today is the day i own this town. I went into town to find the bus station. since i was tired and only had a day until i would fly out to a smaller island, i figured id do somethign local. On my way to the bus station, i got cornered into doing a kava ceremony

These kava ceremonies are a ritual for fiji islanders. Kava is this mild narcotic drink made from a plant, which looks like dirty dishwater, and doesn't taste to good either. It isn't bad, but it's kind of unpleasant. Tons of people drink LOADS of it all day and love it, but i don't like it. STOP MAKING ME LIKE IT! So i winched winced with each bowl i had to drink, which turned out to be about 5. It's disrepsectful not to finish the whole ceremony..so the less people involved, the more you have to drink. ugh. i eventually made it to the bus station and hopped onto the bus to go to the Sigatoka sand dunes

Now the dunes are cool as hell, and you go on an hour hike through grasslands, then dunes, then beach, then forests. The angle of this one parabolic dune was enough to make you puke. I kept losing my sandals in the sand, and then when you would think it's best to take your shoes off, the sand would burn your feet so damn hot. I made it up to the top with pink feet, and turned around to lend a hand to my other friend Dianne. We walked the rest of the way, and then i received an AWESOME badass text message from my dad right when i found a cool shark tooth in the sand. IT was quoting bob marley and this is why my dad rules. DAD YOU ARE SO AWESOME.

so i made it through the dunes, and was on my way home, when all that damn kava was sitting really wierdly in my tummy tum. I had to ask the busdriver to pull over, and then i became the entertainment for all the local bus villagers. They all had to watch me puke up their ceremonial drink. ew. so i get back on the bus and realize i have to puke again. This time i was too embaressed to ask him to stop again, so i just kind desperately tried to think of things to take my mind off of it. pineapple-kira-homework-diving-butterflies...NO LUCK..but i did manage to find the worlds TINIEST zip lock bag..and you would think oh god thank god for her. no, the little bastard had more holes than my underwear..oh..wait..

so it became a balancing act, to hold this bag, and not tip it too much or id have kava barf on me and the bus..don't you just love me?

made it back, and the next day took off for kadavu, a small remote island south of mainland fiji...jesus mother of god...talk about vacation...

I arrived in Vunisea, to meet up with a friend of Aimee Griffith, who is in the peace corps..her friend..not her. Brandon, his name, and his friends met me at he airport and took me to their lodging. Brandon actually lives in a small village which is about a 2 hour hike away from Vunisea, which we would eventually go to two days later. So Vunisea was pretty quiet, and they persuaded me to go for a swim in this bay, where it took me a good 20 minutes to jump in the water becuase of how afriad of sharks i am..but yet im obsesssed..go figure. Brandon later laughed at me for taking so long, where i was so proud i even jumped in the water! hahaha..so we swam to this post, and i hauled some serious ass back cause i kept imagining flashes of gray and teeth and blood, MY blood thank you very much.

no shark bites..all is safe. early night, and i watched finding nemo. that movie is so good!!!

so the next day was much of the same thing, until we left about 4 pm to hike to brandon's village. man what a hike, it was hot and humid, but none the less, not too bad. this would be NOTHING compared to what id deal with the folllowing day on another hike. The village, Solendamu (or that's at least how you pronounce it), is just so damn cool. You have to do a ritual kava ceremony with the village cheif where you present him with a gift. Fortunately for me, he was out of town, so i never ended up having to drink that crap again, but i did present him with a present..

what else but with kava. ugh. I HATE IT. anyhow, i was staying in a bure, which is a small hut. when i say hut, i mean hut. im talking grass walks, bookshelves made out of it tree trunks..windows that are covered by woods on hinges..no light other than what came out of a lantern or the sun...the works. The bure was awesome, except for the rats in there.. now brandon warned me about them..and i thought..okay i can't very well kill it like i would a roach, so ill just not look at it. So every night, id go to sleep, and wake up up the scurrying sound of rats on the ground. Now realize, had i turned on my flashlight to see what it was, i would have probably gone insane..so i woudn't look. Id just wrap the mosquito net tighter around me and pray to god it woudn't climb up the bed. This is such a change for me huh?

The whole village shared one shower and one bathroom..which consisted of sheet metal frames held together by planks of wood. It was so real it was amazing. I mean people go away on vacation and do the tourist deal, but I was actually living the life that these people live on a normal basis. It was like watching a movie.

There is a family in Solendamu that has taken brandon as their host child kind of, so they pretty much feed him every day and junk.. They were so kind to take me in as well..and i felt like i was a part of a real family. I helped the mom do the washing, and hung out with her and her friends. They day consisted of doing the dishes from the night before (becuase we only had running water 4 hours a day), then she showed me how she weaves mats. She invited me to the village women's club, where they all sit around and weave mats together. It was like golden girls!!! well kind of...i even had lunch with them..but the mom ended up making me a little mat as a present which is just so cool. It's made of our leaves that they dry and bake in the sun. They then straighten them with sea shells from new zealand. It's much like when you curl a ribbon. Ever notice how after a while, you curl it so much it becomes straight? that's how this process worked. then they bunched them in groups of ten for later use. Upon later use, they sit in a long ling, and just weave away. They finish mats in like 2 days, that are like 20 by 20 feet!

So after working on the mats for a while, i joined brandon on a hike up to the nature reserve where he had to do some bird recordings. I had no idea we were going to hike the whole trail. It was an amazing hike, but let me tell you, several times i thought i'd die. If i wasn't too hot, i was dying of thirst. Since i didn't know we were doing this hike, i barely had any water on me. Not to mention the angle of some of the hike, which was NOT on a path. I could just see myself plummeting down these cliffs..and thinking on the way down I DIDN"T EVEN DO A SHARK DIVE YET! all in all, i saw an amazing sunset, hiked a good hike, and when i got back to the village, all i could do was drink about 40 oz of water immediately, hurried into the shower before the water was turned off, eat some dinner and pass out asleep. you want to know what time? 8:30 PM. FREAKING 8:30 pm i was in bed. when was the last time i went to sleep then? probably when i was up and out the whole night before.

This whole trip has made me feel like a new person so far. Completely reprogrammed to be the way nature intended. Asleep at normal hours, up with the most annoying birds on earth..roosters. I SWEAR to god, i now am officially claiming roosters to be the worst animals on earth. i hate them i hate them. they remind of a 5 year old throwing a tantrum. if you ignore them, they scream louder. and louder and louder until you think your ears have bled off. so lets all join me in hating roosters. stupid good for nothing animals.

my last day in solendamu was good, i had breakfast with the family and took a boat back to vunisea, rather than doing that 3 hr hike again. i had to decide if i was going to stay in kadavu longer, or head back to mainland fiji. i decided to stay longer.

I got back to Vunisea and read some more, and decided to go on another hike. this time to a waterfall, about an hour away. It was extremely hot and humid the whole way there, and all i could think about was how good it would feel to go swimming there. i got there, and coudn't believe i was doing this for real. Here i was, witnessing a real fijian waterall. we had to boulder hop for quite a bit to make it to the lower waterfall which was nicer, but it was fun.

i sat there for a while, and decided to update my journal as so much had happened in the past few days.. after a while, evans, the other peace corps volunteer i was with, said we should head back..the sky was a bit dark. We barely made it up the boulders before the sky ripped out holy hell on us. I laugh when i thnk about this, because EVERYTIME any of you now drink fiji water, IM IN YOU! i am in the water you are drinking. so of course i danced around in the rain, as to spread more of my molecules to infest more water..but HA! so there! ill be asking for copyright payments soon!

i made it back to the house, but not after losing my sandals to the ever so deep mud. the torrential rains were not helping the fact that there were already 4 landslides we had passed on our way up. stupid mud. i then had to pretty much wade home barefoot which is hard on big rocks. my feet hurt so bad, and then i had to still contend with sensitive grass. This is like a tame version of a venus fly trap. This really small delicate grass that when you touch it, all the leaves fold inward and all is left is the twig..yeah well cute or not, that bitch hurts.

so im cut up, im gravelled up, im scootered out, im drenched..but life is grand, cause im in your water!

so now we are back to today..where i took a plane back from Kadavu, to mainland Fiji. Im back with phone connection and internet (well to an extent). When i turned my phone on, i had like 15 txt messages. i LOVE you guys!!! if i didn't get some of the, its because i had no phone service out there..

Anyhow, the adventures of fiji aren't over..becuase i have decided to do my open water certification here! today the company delivers my books to my hostel! imagine that..i have to study tonight..hahahahhaha yeah well at least it's not meteorology. so tomorrow, i start my dive course..and by sunday, ill be out in the open water...diving the Mamanuca area, just west of Fiji. There is one dive site out there known as Shark Reef...so hell yeah here we go. I hope i don't chicken out. i could see me getting as far as the water and freaking out that i can't do it. but none the less, im getting an open water certification which means i an dive anywhere in the world! so who wants to join me somewhere equisite next year?! by the time i get to australia and new zealand, i hope to be a dive wench!

so wish me luck, i start tomorrow..i'll be in fiji until march 23rd, which is when i leave for new zealand. I might even get to attend a full moon party on the south island of new zealand..HELL YEAH!

i'll probably check my email again before i go, so ill be in touch. Thanks so much you all for everything. The days of lonliness are surely gone, as I have really grown acustomed to this backpackers lifestyle.

I must say, my idea of luxury has once again fallen below what i would deem normal anymore. it's amazing.

so take care everyone, and ill let you know about the diving soon enough..well assuming i don't die of the bends or something..

hey hey!

okay so i am now an official self contained underwater breather with an apparatus or two to spare..for all you NON DIVERS, that means im a scuba diver. man this rules.

diving was probably one of the coolest experiences i've ever had..and let me tell you..the only two reasons i know i was able to do it without being afraid was how i did that one scary swim where i kept thinking there were sharks, and i watched finding nemo. funny how watching that movie makes you LOVE fishes like they matter..i mean they do but come on.

and yes i did see little nemos all underwater, jellyfish, cool clams, awesome stripes, and you know i wanted to touch everything...but the only thing i did grab was the jellyfish....go figure huh? i didn't get stung, cause i saw someone else do it..i just wanted to know what it felt like..GET OFF MY BACK it's so funny to think of all the animals under the water, doing what they are doing, without giving a crap about what we do on the surface. they have it made! all the colors of blue are enough to make me want to trade my lungs for gills any day...although i do have a nice set of lungs!

my last couple days in fiji were filled with dives every day from like 9 am till about noon. it was amazing..all in all i did 5 open water dives and wished i could have done more, but with flying out that night, it woudln't have been safe. all that nitrogen decompression sicksness bullshit...but the last thing i need is extra nitrogen while flying..who would save me then? certainly not bea arthur, or the captain of my spaceship..so yeah..you understand then..

where else could you stay where you managed to sneak starfruit off a tree to each for breakfast and lunch every day. i found a starfruit tree in the back of my hostel, and stole the housekeepers homemade broom in order to knock the highs ripe fruit down..what can i say...im a jerk. but at least i didn't steal all the mangos.

so all in all..fiji...yeah. do it. it's not like i expected, and it was just plain fun..mainly cause of what i did and who i spent it with, but for real..

by the way, if i hear the phrase Bula one more time, im going to kill someone. bula meaning "hello" and "welcome" at the same time..but i think i heard that more than you would normally hear the word "like" from an american. ill tell you, that's how you know you're talking to an american... the word like is as natural as breathing

i love you all..see ya in da zealand!