Last Week in Nananu

We finally arrived in Auckland last night but we'll never forget our amazing last week in Nananu. We started off the week by finishing our part of the road. Hopefully, another group will be able to come next semester and complete it. Ideally, the road should go through the entire village. We celebrated that night with one of MANY dance parties with the villagers. The next day we rode horseback to an awesome natural waterslide/waterfall outside of the village. We can all agree that it was one of the best days we had in Fiji. We spent about five hours trying crazy jumps and combinations off the slide and rocks. We were all amazed by how daring the Fijians were! It was great to see them let loose and just enjoy themselves. They have a FANZtastic work ethic and they certainly deserved a day of sun and play. We may have a had a little too much fun though. When we returned to the village we were exhausted and in pain from riding horseback. On Wednesday morning, we visited the Fiji Water Plant. The tour was pretty short but it definitely showed the positive impact it has on Vatukaloko, an area made up of the five surrounding villages, including Nananu. Fiji Water pays for these villages' electricity and water bills as well as employing 480 Fijians at a time. Many of our maqus and uncles even worked at the plant making $5 per hour, one the highest paying jobs in the country. We also managed to go to Tavua, the nearest town, to buy supplies for the suprise we had been planning for the villagers. With some cloth and paint, we were able to make two banners for them to hang up in their soon-to-be built community hall. We didn't have any paintburshes so it was definitely interesting fingerpainting the entire thing. Our final day in the village was Family Day. Some of us went back to the first waterfall we visited and some of us just spent the day lounging by the river with our families. That night we had one last dance party. We were all pretty tired but when the Fjiians want to dance, they will make you dance. Some of us retired early while others stayed up until 4:30 AM dancing and drinking kava. It was a great way to spend our last night in such a beautiful country. Our final morning was a bittersweet one. While we couldn't wait to move on to the next part of our trip, we didn't want to say goodbye to our new families either. There was a little more kava, a little more dancing and lots of tears. While we thought we would never see them again, four of our closest Fijian friends had a little trick up their sleeve by surprising us at the Nadi Airport. We were all really excited and touched by their affection for us. We'll never forget the love the whole village had for us!

P.S. - This is Tyler and Kay-Lin. The last three posts were made by Elizabeth and Reid. We'll be rotating various duties throughout the trip. Keep checkung back for more on our adventures!!