Day Five- the first day in the village

Today was my first day waking up in the village. My hair was absolutely trashed and one giant knot. I was on the cooking team today. That meant I had to help prepare lunch for everyone while the other part of our group shoveled gravel and started working on our community service project. (sidenote: bugs are crawling all over my computer screen right now and I want to die) Spending time in the kitchen was a great way to get to talk to a few of the women of the village. I got to know “Aunty Emele” and Siterri really well. Basically I just got demoted to buttering pieces of bread with Ms. Hartman. Holly also made me smash hard boiled eggs later when she couldn’t stand the smell. We put together little sandwiches. I am surviving in Fiji only because of rice. God bless rice. I got to play with the kids all day today. I’m not having kids until I’m at least 30. I’m EXHAUSTED. One boy named Sella or Estella or Tella (I’m not sure I couldn’t really understand him…) became my shadow. I figured out later his name is actually salla. He followed me everywhere. it was s’cute. After lunch, a few of us were hanging under the shack on the mats with the kids. They were jumping and laying and playing and pulling my hair and tickling us and sitting on us and attacking us FOR HOURS. LITTLE KIDS NEVER GET TIRED. I watched Lusi sew sulu’s which we painted later. My sulu that I painted is turquoise (obviously). We used stencils to paint designs on them. Post sulu painting, the Fijian men challenged us to volleyball. I was up for the challenge, but I had no idea that Fijians were so good at volleyball. Someone please tell Gammill that I played volleyball in Fiji. After losing a game with only americans on my side, I decided to leave those teammates behind. The Fijians asked me to be on their team and we started dominating. I’m still kind of intimidated at how hard they hit the ball. We played in some rocky dirt down by the water. Everytime the ball went out of bounds and into the rocky water, a boy would hop down across he rocks as if walking on clouds. Their feet are so tough. In the middle of the game someone pointed at the sky and there was a double rainbow. It was dank sauce. After losing a tough game, I subbed out and let someone else have a turn. Around sunset, all the kiddos started swimming in the ocean. Realizing I couldn’t miss this shot, I ran up to the girls’ house to grab my camera. Little footsteps were behind me. I turned around and saw my little boy chasing after me. I slowed down a little and he ran up and grabbed my hand. SUCH A NUG. Back down by the water, Brett taught me how to take silhouette pictures and Chase taught me about white balance. So we took some dank silhouette sunset shots. SIDENOTE: Ms. Hartman said that our conditions in Fiji are rougher than the conditions in AFRICA. We are seriously roughing it out here in the village, which brings me to my next point: THE SHOWERS. There is literally only one shower we can use and there are I think 9 girls. Claire and I decided to shampoo our hair in the ocean. It was great to wash the dirt off, but my hair is a lost cause. There are knots in my hair that I have to chop out. Mrs. Simon and Hartman have created an on paper twitter caused village probs. I have a lot to add to that… for dinner we had some more Fijian food and let me tell you .. all I want at this point is a plain cheeseburger. That’s all. I got WAY too much food and I took one bite of something and didn’t eat the rest of my plate. SOS. Even the rice tasted like plastic today. On the bright side, my little Fijian boy found me at dinner and sat by me. #nug. Today was Jacob’s birthday!!! At dinner they had balloons and a cake for him. I’m so thankful it was his birthday solely for the cake that served as my dinner. After dinner the Fijians gathered for more Kava. occasionally we would get up and dance to the songs. The HIGHLIGHT of my day was when this huge jacked Fijian boy (probably in his 20s) came out of no where with a full length black dress on and came over to Lucy and made her stand up and dance. It was only them dancing. It was absolutely the best thing I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime. Chase and I just about wet our pants laughing. My low today was definitely the knots in my hair. My highs today were playing volleyball with the Fijian boys, making a sulu with Aunty Emele, and Lucy dancing the night away with her Fijian suitor.