Site Announcement

Yesterday was what people here in Fiji call "America Day" (4th of July) and it was also the day of our site announcement. They made a big map of Fiji out of rope on the ground and called our names one by one and walked us to our site. All of our host families cried as they called out our names. They're going to miss us and even though my host family can be very challenging at times, I'm definately going to miss my village. I can only hope that my new village will be as cool as Naimalavau. I've also gotten pretty close to the other trainees in my village and soon we'll have to move far away from each other. They're my best friends here so I hope that we'll be able to visit eachother after we move to our sites. I'll also miss all of our Fijian training staff and hopefully we'll be able to hang out sometimes after training is over.

So here's what I've been waiting for! I've been assigned to Serua Island. We're all leaving tomorrow to go visit our sites so I'll have more to say about it when I get back next weekend. What I know so far is that it's a small island off the southern coast of Viti Levu (the main island that I'm on now) near the town of Navua if you're trying to find it on a map. There's only one village on the island and there're about 250 people. The island is close enough to the mainland that you can walk to it at low tide. It has 24/7 electricity and running water. There's supposedly a house there ready for me. My assignment is pretty vague and we've all been told that most people don't actually do what there assignment said. I do know that there's an environmental NGO already working with my island and I'm supposed to have a meeting with them on Tuesday. It's a chiefly island so the chief of my village is also the chief of the province I think. Everyone says that it's beautiful and I can't wait to go see it. My counterpart is the Turaga ni Koro (the village spokesman) and I'll meet him tomorrow and we'll go together to the island. I'll be back in my training village on Friday. Then we have two more weeks of training before we move to our sites. I'll try to get on the internet next weekend to tell you more about my site.