A DiAmOnD in the Rough

My Creepy Crawly

OK, so there is this tarp above my bed to catch the dust from my grass hut. Well, the other night I am laying on my bed trying to fall into a restless sleep and I hear a LOUD “thunk”. I lay still for approximately 5 seconds before scrambling out of bed terrified of what was lurking above. I grab my flashlight, but the tarp is solid black and therefore reveals nothing of immediate interest. All I hear is a constant scuttling back and forth, back and forth. Finally, I decide it can’t be a rat, because it isn’t heavy enough, it can’t be a lizard, because it would have scurried off by now, so it must be a spider with an egg sack, and now the egg sack is stuck in the tarp, spreading little baby spiders all over my house. Yuck! I grab my can of aerosol Mortein and start spraying uncontrollably. Within seconds a nasty, intimidating centipede comes crawling across the makeshift rope connecting the tarp to my roof. I was horrified! I immediately grabbed my broom and started whacking at the poor thing. He’s dead! I succeeded in saving my life from the deadly creepy crawly. I am pretty sure they are poisonous you know.

Another Day in Paradise

On our way to our beach!

One of my favorite counterparts, lots of his family, and I, went on a picnic at our beloved beach, Conino! When we arrived the tide was coming in, perfect timing for a nice long snorkel. At first we snorkeled a fringing reef only accessible by boat. The coral was beautiful, but nothing compared to Vatu-i-Ra (Bird Island). I saw a swimming feather star for the first time. It was so angelic with its monotonous oscillating arms as it moved to the beat of “She wore a yellow polka-dot bikini”. Ok, not really, but it was a beautiful site. After that Sio drove us around the outer island and dropped two boys and me off on the barrier reef. I did a large, intertwining swim back to the picnic beach, totaling over 2.5 kms of snorkeling! Getting ready for our 2nd Annual 2.5 km Big Bay Swim across Na Viti Levu Bay at the end of this month.

After arriving back at the beach, one of the boys walked up with a young sea turtle. I made sure they had plans of releasing the turtle back into the water before I would even begin to amuse them with taking pictures. They agreed, we took pics, and I got to release it back into the wild! The rest of the day was uneventful, but an extremely enjoyable beach visit!

Visit to the Gold Mine

Kavaia

Inoke

The night before picking up Megan I went to visit a Fijian that is like my little brother. He went with mom, sis, and I to the bird island and we became immediate friends. Kavaia lives in a town attached to the only gold mine in Fiji. At night we walked to the mine to enjoy the place lit up at night. It works 24/7, pumping in mud, filtering, pumping mud out, melting the gold, etc. I don’t really know the whole process. The neighborhood was soooo nice! There were beautiful wooden houses with huge shutters that lifted up. They were mostly built on stilts and had well thought out landscapes. Lots of people walked around at night, but it didn’t feel threatening at all. I really enjoyed my stay!

Megan is here!

My best friend Megan, who is a returned Peace Corps volunteer from Peru, has finally arrived! She came in early on Thursday morning and we headed straight to Rakiraki for lunch with all of the volunteers. While on the bus a current Peace Corps Fiji volunteer boards and just happens to know Megan from two years before. They met at a family member/mutual friends’ house in Ohio. How crazy huh!?

Everything went smoothly for the day, we arrived in the village and she took the grand tour. She fell in love with my straw hut and really enjoyed the views from around the village. During her week visit we snorkeled twice, hung out at the beach in the crystal clear water during a lightening storm, went to my exhilarating waterfalls, gave leis to a few men (the flower necklaces were given to the leaders working on the footpaths and we were given huge, beautiful ones as well), enjoyed trying a few Fijian dishes, succeeded in catching prawns with traditional nets, and were serenaded by the kindergarten! All in all, an impressive visit!