On the daily.....

I thought I would post what a typical day is like for me in Fiji during training.

6:15am Wake-up (to the sound of roosters & this very strange habit that many Indo-Fijians have...when they brush their teeth they make this gagging/hacking up a lung sound. The first time I heard it I thought my host sister was throwing up.)

6:30am Go for a sunrise jog or try & do yoga in my room. (there is NO privacy. We jokingly call what we have the coconut wireless...literally the other people in my village know what I ate for breakfast 10 minutes after I ate it, so doing yoga outside means I have an audience.)

7:00am-8:00am Shower & eat breakfast ( Meaning I fill up a bucket with cold water (I have not felt hot water out of a faucet since I’ve been here) from a spicket inside the shower room & use a small bowl to dump water over myself to get clean. I can fill up a tea kettle & heat up water to warm up my bucket & that helps tremendously.) My mom prepares my breakfast & serves me, niiiccce. Breakfast is always roti, an unleavened flatbread & some kind of curry, pumpkin, egg, eggplant.

8-10am Language class (I am learning Hindi-Fijian. Its like broken slang Hindi- a mixture of Hindi, Fijian, English. Its held outside on the porch of the house next to mine.)

10:30am-11am Tea time (A tradition held over from British rule. Usually served with biscuits...what they call cookies.)

11-12:30pm More language (We've only got 7 weeks of training to become conversational)

12:30pm-2pm Lunch (Again, host mom is a wicked awesome cook & makes my lunch. Usually roti or rice, a different curry, left overs from dinner & a piece of fruit.)

2-3:30pm More Training (It varies from learning how to garden in this environment, to cultural differences, to learning about the water, health & trash problems in Fiji.)

3:30pm-4pm More tea & snacks (they like to eat)

4-5:30pm More Training

5:30-6:30pm Relax, go for a walk, read, talk to my family


6:30pm-7:30pm Have Dinner (Mom makes dinner too, another curry. She goes fishing everyday, so we eat fish everyday. I am happy with that.)

7:30/8pmpm-8:30/9pm Write letters, take a bucket bath (we only have running water a/b 30% of the time), talk with my family, rest, have tea

9:30pm Go to bed

On Thursdays we go into the nearest town called Nausori & have class with our entire group of 35 volunteers. On the weekends I spend time with my host family, work on homework, go into town, wash my clothes and relax.

So much love to all of you from south of the equator. And yes the water does flush down in the opposite direction :)
xoxo
Sara