Putney Student Travel

I have just returned to snowy Vermont from sunny, spectacular Fiji, where I spent ten days meeting with village Chiefs and coordinating the details of our new Community Service Fiji program. I had been to Fiji before, but my experience this time was different.  This time, I had plenty of time to settle in, strike up conversations with the locals, build friendships, and enjoy all that this amazing group of islands has to offer.

To orient you a bit, the Republic of Fiji is a collection of 322 islands in the South Pacific Ocean. The islands are located to the north of New Zealand and to the east of Australia. Although Fiji was a British colony for nearly a century and English is now its official language, the nation brims with unique indigenous customs and dialects, and each island has its own way of living and speaking. The majority of Fiji’s islands remain very rural, largely untouched by outside influence. Located roughly 8,000 miles from Putney, Vermont, this collection of islands is a treasure that we are thrilled to explore!

I spent the majority of my time in Fiji on the island of Taveuni, the third largest island in the archipelago. Taveuni is like something out of a movie – out of Return to the Blue Lagoon, to be exact, which was filmed here back in 1991. The landscape is a stunning combination of colors. The turquoise blue waters reflect the South Pacific sun and palm trees line the white sand beaches, slowly giving way to lush, green mountain peaks as you head inland from the water. I felt like I had arrived in the land where postcards were invented.

Eager to better understand the community in which we will live and work, I spent a few days volunteering with a medical team from the United States that was, with the help of the Loloma Foundation, bringing basic health care to some of the most rural villages in Fiji. I was tasked with recording all the necessary information from the people who came to the clinic – name, age, what village they were from, and the reason for their visit to the doctor. As we sat together in the waiting room of the clinic, I learned much more about them and about the Fijian way of life. I learned that James was trained as an electrical engineer but that he didn’t want to leave Fiji to find work, so he stayed behind and became a teacher instead. I learned that Sarai came from a big family – she was one of eleven children – and that she had seven of her own. I learned what they did for a living, where they lived, and how they had arrived at the clinic that morning. I learned that many of them had never left Fiji, nor did they have any real desire to. It was quite a different mentality than my own, as I am always looking ahead to the next trip. It made me think about slowing down and focusing on my immediate surroundings.

Village life in rural Fiji is quiet. In many of the villages I visited, electricity is scarce or intermittent. There are no TVs or radios blaring, no car horns, and no sirens. The most common sounds I heard were shouts from the boys on the soccer field, singing coming from the church, and occasional dogs barking. Fijians themselves are very soft-spoken. I found myself having to strain to hear at times during conversations with people I met along the way. Sometimes they don’t use words at all! I quickly learned that a slight raise of the eyebrows means yes and the most subtle shake of the head can mean no. Fijians don’t really have a need to shout, though, because other than the roar of the ocean, there does not seem to be anything one would need to shout over. Coming from a culture full of noise, I fully embraced this silence and settled right in.

During my time on Taveuni, I met with village Chiefs to discuss our partnership for the coming summer. We identified projects for our group to collaborate on, visited the houses where our students will live, and shared kavakava with some local musicians. Even in my short stay, I could feel a strong connection to the island and its people. Needless to say, I can’t wait to return to Fiji this summer and help Putney students to explore Fiji for themselves. I can already envision us heading out in the morning light to pour the cement foundation for a kindergarten classroom, or taking a cool dip in the ocean after a soccer match with the local children. I know that we will have a fantastic experience on our Community Service Fiji program this summer and I know that my ten day stay was just the beginning.