World Red Cross Day

Last Thursday (the 8th) was the long-awaited World Red Cross Day.  We spent all of Wednesday doing the final preparations; last-minute rehearsals of the puppet show and meke, making the compound and office look presentable, and transporting all our equipment to Shirley Park on the back of a truck.  Once at Shirley Park, the work did not stop; Kate and I were there until 21.30 putting up marquees and decorating the VIP tent before heading home for our dinner.  Some of the volunteers even stayed all night to keep watch over our equipment.

On Thursday morning, I wore my new chamba which I had had made.  It is lovely; the material is white and cream coloured, with pink and red leaves.  When we arrived at Red Cross though it was before 8am, the compound was already teeming with people, all dressed in red.  While we waited for the march to begin, I helped to hand out Red Cross stickers to all the marchers.  At 8.30, we set off, carrying banners and armed with stickers.  Once we reached the main shopping drag (Vitogo Parade), a few of us broke away from the march and walked along the pavement instead, informing people about World Red Cross Day and handing out ‘I support Red Cross’ stickers.

Things went a bit downhill when we reached Shirley Park.  There were some technical difficulties with the sound system, and it was starting to rain.  Some of the marchers kept everyone cheerful by singing songs, which was nice.  Eventually, the event got underway and after all the speeches it was time for my meke!  By this time it was raining quite hard, so we performed in one of the marquees.  I was pretty nervous beforehand, but it was actually great fun.  One of the marchers – who I didn’t know, but who was a brilliant dancer – came up to dance randomly halfway through, which was quite entertaining!

After this, the VIPs went to have their morning tea in the Council Chambers, while we started preparing for our puppet show.  Unfortunately, the rain was getting heavier and heavier, and finally broke into a full-on thunder storm!  The ground quickly became soaked, and there was a power-cut, so we all ran into the Council Chambers for shelter.  Luckily, there was more than enough tea, cake and sandwiches to go around.  Lautoka Branch President Ganpati then announced that we would not be continuing with the program, unless “Whoever is responsible will turn off the tap!”  The rain continued, people went home, and us volunteers stayed to pack up the equipment, dismantle the marquees and wait for a truck to come and pick us up!  It was disappointing for World Red Cross day to end this way, but at least it was memorable!

For a couple of weeks now, the Doulos has been moored in Lautoka.  I have placed a linked to Doulos’ website in my link bar.  Doulos is a floating bookshop, run entirely by volunteers, who also visit churches and do community/mission work.  For $1, you can go on board and look around in the bookshop, so after work on Friday we went to have a look.  The ship is elegant, and also very old – she was built just two years after Titanic!  The books were reasonably priced and there was a decent selection (though a high proportion are Christian titles).  I didn’t buy anything, but I enjoyed looking round.  Twilight was just beginning, and I got a beautiful view of the water from the deck.

I would have loved to have had a lie-in on Saturday, but I had to get up at 6am to do Rugby League First Aid standby at the Methodist School Ground.  For ages, I have been looking forward to being part of a first aid team!  The games started at about 9am with U13, then U17, U19 and finally two senior games.  Luckily there were no really serious injuries; mostly there were just bruises and strains , for which we gave out ice-packs.  I really enjoyed the experience, and hope I’ll be able to go again soon.  In the evening, Kate and I went to see the Soweto Gospel choir perform at Churchill Park.  The singing was amazing, but what I loved most were the costumes.  For the first half, all the performers wore big faces – on the skirts for the women, and on the shirts on the men.  The colours were really vibrant and bright, and the women wore huge bands of tassels round their waists.  The dancing was also fantastic – some of the men could move like rubber bands!

At church on Sunday, we met a small team from the Doulos ship, who had come with a program for the church.  It was really interesting to hear about the different backgrounds of the Doulos volunteers, and their mime-acting was really funny.  Afterwards, we got chatting to one of the volunteers, who invited us to come on board the ship for a free tour and dinner the next evening.  So along we went yesterday.  It was fascinating to learn in more detail about the origins of Doulos and what life on a ship is really like for the volunteers.  They even have a school onboard so that children can continue their education on the ship, while their parents volunteer!  This time, I bought an inflatable globe from the bookshop.  I think it may come in handy with the students in our Junior Red Cross Clubs.

Yasawa Trip

Well I’m now back from my lovely little one week holiday in the Yasawas.  Its actually a bit like coming home to Luxembourg after a holiday abroad – you spend a week wearing just a bikini, and its still too hot!  Then you come home to the cold and the rain.  Yes, Lautoka is cold and rainy right now.  I have actually been wearing a jumper all day, and still felt a bit chilly.  Though since it is still comfortably over 20 degrees, I think this may be a sign that I am getting acclimatised.  Probably when I go to New Zealand in September, it will feel as if I’ve traveled to Antarctica!

The day before I left for my holiday was a special day – the opening of a new temple, where Shalen is a priest.  We all went along – Sharene lent me a lovely blue kameez for the occasion, so we could all be dressed up indian-style, which was a lot of fun!  Once we got there, I was amazed by all the beautiful clothes that the women and girls were wearing; so many colours and  patterns!  The temple, too, was covered in all kinds of bright lights and decorations.  It was truly an awesome sight.  For a while we just sat and chatted and soaked up the atmosphere, until the ceremony started.  Then there were drums and rituals, including people walking round the temple with pots of fire on their heads.  We stayed back for a while and watched, before heading home at around 11pm.  I still needed to pack, and I had an early start the next day.

It was interesting to see the other islands in the Yasawa chain, as I traveled to Waya Lailai.  I went by the Awesome Adventures catamaran, the Yasawa Flyer.  Some of the islands – like South Sea Island – are absolutely minute!  It looks as though a big wave could just wash it away!  There sea was quite rough when I arrived at Waya Lailai, which meant that instead of landing on the beach (which apparently they normally do), our boat landed further down, so we walked through the village on our way to the resort- it was nice to see where the locals there live, and see their church and so on.  When we got the the resort, I felt that I had chosen it well – Waya Lailai is very picturesque, with little thatched bures, a big clean dorm, and the a terrace out across the beach.  Straight after checking in, I went down to the dive shop to inquire about doing my PADI open water certification.  Rabua Travel, who booked the resort for me, had assured me that the diving course was booked, but when I spoke to the dive instructor, it was the first he had heard of it!  Clearly the message had not got through!  However, it all worked out for the best I think: the dive instructor kindly agreed to accommodate me (though I would be his last student there, since he was due to leave the island for good on Thursday- the same day as me), and it turned out that the course was 90 dollars cheaper than the price that the travel agent had quoted me, so I was very happy!  Since the sea was too rough to dive, the instructor gave me a theory book, and told me to start reading!  There was a lot of theory to be learned!

It took me the best part of Sunday to get through the theory, but I managed to finish the relevant chapters in time for my first dive on Monday morning.  Another girl from the resort, SJ, also wanted to try diving for the first time, so I was glad to have another beginner with me.  The instructor told me that we would ‘only’ be going to a depth of 12 metres… but that still seemed pretty deep to me!  I remembered when I used to swim at Ponds Forge in Sheffield, where the dive pool was about 5 and a half metres deep, and it seemed like the bottom was very, very far away.  I couldn’t quite imagine being twice that distance under water!  The funny thing was, though, that once I was down on the bottom, looking at all the pretty fish and coral, I didn’t notice the depth at all.  Even when I looked up, the surface didn’t seem very far away.  I realized that I feel more comfortable right down on the bottom, breathing from a tank, than on the surface with a snorkel!

The only bit of diving that I didn’t enjoy was my ’skills’.  I did most of these on Monday afternoon.  The instructor took me down to a flat patch where there were just some stones and dead coral, and signaled for me to watch him.   He signaled for me to watch him; then took of his mask, and put it back on again.  Then he signaled for me to do it.  I just shook my head violently.  No way!  I had a similar reaction to a few more of the skills that he showed me, but I needn’t have worried.  When I did eventually try, it was completely fine.  Some skills, like clearing the mask of water, and taking the regulator out and in, I had to practice on every dive, which was good because by the end of my course, I felt pretty comfortable with it, whereas at the beginning I had been so scared!  One of the hardest skills I found was taking of my BCD (the diving vest to which the tank is attached), then putting it back on.  I had to do this both underwater and at the surface.  When I did it underwater, I couldn’t find the arm-holes, and then the whole thing started to float upwards, which was pretty alarming.  When I did it at the surface, I was supposed to ‘just straddle it, then lean back and put your arms through’.  Well, it was much more difficult that it sounds, and my instructor was in hysterics watching me try to straddle the damn thing!

I was sad to leave Waya Lailai on Thursday.  During my 5 days there I had met some really nice people- both fellow travelers, and staff- who made my stay really memorable.   Everyone was very friendly and open, and the staff did a good at entertaining us in the evenings (Monday evening- the guys from the resort dancing half naked and covered in coconut oil- was probably the highlight!  With the ‘broom dance’ coming as a close second).  My final night there was also the diving instructors final night, so this was a pretty big occasion- people had even come from surrounding islands.  The evening kicked off with a traditional kava ceremony, followed by a lovo dinner (which was delicious), then traditional entertainment by a choir and dance group.  After that, it was a relaxed evening of beer, kava, cards and conversation until bedtime.

On Thursday, I caught the boat up the chain, to Tavewa, where I had booked myself into the Coral View Resort.  I had high expectations- Coral View received a good write-up in the ‘Moon’ Handbook, and I had also heard good things about it from other travelers.  Maybe thats why I felt a bit disappointed.  It wasn’t as picturesque as Waya Lailai, and the main building was a concrete eyesore on the beach.  The food was neither as good nor as plentiful, and although the staff were pleasant and had an outstanding ability to remember everybody’s name, they didn’t seem as friendly or genuine as the ones that I had just left behind.  I spent most of Thursday, Friday and Saturday just sleeping, though I did go on a walk to the summit, which gave a good view out onto the surrounding islands.

Though the Yasawas are outstandingly beautiful, I wish that I’d known quite how touristy they are.  Awesome Adventures seems to have these islands on a complete monopoly- I didn’t meet anyone who wasn’t travelling on an package tour sold to them by Awesome, and on these packages, people generally only stay two nights on each island, and they do not choose which islands they go to, or which resorts.  Most of the travelers were not going to see any more of Fiji that these islands, which I found a bit sad;  while lovely and relaxing, the backpacker resorts of the Yasawas do not represent what Fiji is really like at all!  Still I had a wonderful week, and can’t wait to go diving again soon.  I really want to see a hammerhead shark!