Day Eight - Leaving the Village

We had to say goodbye to the villagers. I did not expect to cry or feel so sad to leave but that was one emotional goodbye. Not a dry eye in the place. I lost it when I saw Vao with hands covering his eyes talking to Ms. Hartman and Mrs. Simon. I came closer and saw Vao was bawling because he was going to miss us. I think part of what made it so sad for the villagers was that they had been preparing and expecting us for 6 months, and it was finally over. A lot of the kids missed the school bus on purpose in order to spend a few extra hours with us. I hadn’t seen Sala all morning, and I was worried I was going to leave without saying goodbye. We loaded our things into the vans before the big goodbye. I looked to the top of the hill and saw Sala with a huge smile on his face. He sprinted to the bottom and jumped into my arms for a big hug. All of us sat under the shed one last time and they thanked us for helping them and for staying with them. Then they sang us a farewell song that killed us. I turned around to see if I was the only one crying but sure enough every single kid had tears in their eyes. When the Fijians waved goodbye in their song everyone lost it again. They were all crying too, and it was so sad! When we finally managed to get in the vans at 10:30, (exactly one hour behind schedule of course) I saw Sala running up and down the sides of the van trying to stand on his tippie toes looking for me. When he finally found me in the back of the van, he waved and yelled BYE MEGHAN! It was so cute omg. The vans pulled out the village and tears streamed down everybody’s faces. We talked about how we couldn’t believe that we could be so connected and touched in such a short amount of time. I went in expecting to help them and make their village a better place, but I never expected them to touch my life in such a big way. When I said everyone was crying, I mean everyone. Yes ALL of the boys were crying too. On the bright side, it was a treat to come back to Tovutovu because we were all looking forward to sleeping on a real bed. We dropped our stuff, ate lunch, and set out for an afternoon of snorkeling. The water was freezing cold. Bora finally got to go swimming and get wet because it had been enough time since his surgery. the guide gave us a briefing before we went out in the boat. She said there was a 90% chance of seeing a shark. Fun fact: the biggest fish in a clownfish group is the female and the second biggest is the male. When the female dies, the male quickly turns into a female and becomes the queen of the clownfish. The guide compared this to Bruce Jenner. Lmao. The water was “refreshing”. ie I was shivering the whole time in the water. A lot of people swam in way too shallow of water and got cut my coral. Ha. I didn’t. I swam down really deep and might have popped a blood vessel in my eye.. for dinner we got to have american food, and it was the greatest pizza of all time. I seriously ate 11 pieces. Everybody was so wiped out from the day that nearly have the kids fell asleep at the dinner table. I was one of them. oh another fun fact: I finally found my passport and credit card that I have been missing for 4 days. And I found my upband that I thought I lost on the first day of the trip. Don’t worry, mom. Everything is coming back in one piece. Except for the sleeping mat. I ditched that ish at the village. I’ll miss my village friends, and all the laughs and dances and pure joy and sense of family I felt when I was there. My low today was definitely seeing Vao cry when we were leaving. My high today was dinner with the amazing view of the ocean. The best part was when Holly tried to explain the pronunciation of Fijian by saing YO G. like what holly….