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My second day in Fiji started well. Scrambled eggs on toast, weetabix, tea, and a day ahead ending in finally getting to camp. We had the morning to finish off getting supplies, as we wouldn't be able to restock for another week and a half after getting to camp.
My roommates, Natalie and Hannah, and I headed into the town to get the last few things for our first aid kits, to buy our traditional Bula dresses we would be wearing in the Fijian villages we would visit, and any other supplies we needed. I even snuck off to an Internet cafe to send off my last emails before being Internet free for the next month.
Getting back to the hostel, I had started to feel rather full after drinking a cold fanta while out shopping. I hate shopping anyway and with the heat had gotten a bit agitated and lethargic so thought it best to chill out in our room. Unfortunately we had broken the air conditioner unintentionally and so had to make do with a fan on the ceiling. It was soon time to leave and we piled our rucksacks into the back of a large truck and clambered in after them. We had two wooden benches running the length of the truck to sit on with the bags at the top end and the back open to look out onto the road (pictured). We then picked up the foam mattresses we would be sleeping on for the duration of our stay and the boys quite successfully managed to stuff them around the bags out the way. The pillows made wonderful cushions on the benches to lessen the bum numbness we would have been sure to face on the three-hour journey ahead
About half an hour in we left the main tarmac road and turned onto dirt track that apparently would get gradually worse as we made our way from Savusavu around the coast to the 'port' we would get the boat from to the island where camp was situated. It was during the next half hour that I started to feel sick and by and hour and a half to two hours in, I was throwing up out the back of the truck onto the road. I felt horrific and it wouldn't let up so we stopped the truck and I got out for a breather, but still it didn't get any better. I moved to the front cab of the truck with another volunteer but had to get the truck to stop every five minutes so I could throw up out of the door. Feeling more than a little bit worse for wear the staff truck pulled up behind us and the doctor jumped out to have a look at me. It was here on the side of a dirt track road, in the middle of nowhere, in Fiji that whatever was happening to me would become a whole lot worse because it wasn't just coming out of one end any more. Realising that it probably wasn't carsickness, I was laid down on one of the foam mattresses across the back seat of the staff 4X4 and travelled the next half an hour, feeling rather sorry for myself, to the sea.
I was carried onto the fisherman's boat and laid down on the mattress across a bench while the other volunteers sat around me with their bags. We crossed the short distance to our island, Navatu, and my camp leader, Chad, carried me onto camp. He left me with the doctor on the decking that surrounded his hut and we worked out that I probably had food poisoning or some sort of gastro bug and hopefully it should right itself in the next 24 hours. I had to wait until the other volunteers had cleaned out the dorms we would be staying in and a bed made ready for me but soon I was showered and in my bunk.
The stomach cramps and vomiting didn't stop until about 3 o'clock the next morning and I was able to sleep on and off for the rest of the day. I was really rather dehydrated and so by the afternoon was able to take some ORS which perked me up a bit. The other volunteers left in the afternoon to visit the nearby village round the coast leaving Alessia, the GreenForce marine biologist, and I to relax on the dive deck, painting our nails, chatting and watching the sun go down.
It took a few days to fully recover and to be able to look back and laugh at my pitiful entrance onto camp, and my whole introduction to Fiji. It did mean though, that it was only going to get better from then on.
- comments
Ha Oh! Bless you. Hope you did not suffer from that food poisoning for too long.