Hi everyone!!!!!

So here is the much requested next update from life in sunny Fiji!!!!

It has been a great couple of weeks and I am really starting to settle into life here, I feel much more at home and the home-sickness has worn off for the time-being. That coupled with a great skype call with my parents and also some great news job-wise for when I return in January have all helped to cheer me up and get back to enjoying island life!

What has really become apparent in my time here in Fiji is that I am almost having 2 complete contrasting experiences and experiencing Fiji from 2 very different angles.

Firstly there are my fantastic weekend and evening experiences. On my second weekend here we visitied the most beautiful island I have ever seen called Mala Mala. It is a very tiny, uninhabited island...there is just 3 caretakers who stay there on a 3 week rotation basis, other than that the only people to visit the beautiful white beaches are the limited 20 people a day allowed to book a boat trip there. So it really was an experiece like no other. The island was so beautiful, natural and unspoilt, for me it really was the complete example of paradise. I went for a walk around the edge of the island and it took less than 10 minutes to arrive back where I started (to give some idea of the size!) and we spent the day lying on the pristine beaches, a snorkelling trip in the crystal blue waters mixed in with a BBQ lunch made the day idyllic and relaxing, just what I needed following my first week at school!!

Last weekend our group took a trip to the coral coast which is a beautiful beach on the mainland island where we are staying. We took an hour and a half bus ride through beautiful coastal scenery- although again an eventful experience with public transport as we ended up being squeezed on and sharing 3 to a seat!! I of course ended up sharing with 2 rather large Fijian women and spent the whole journey hanging onto the seat infront so as not to fall out into the aisle!!! However it was worth all the trauma when we arrived at the gorgeous beach awaiting us. We settled into our accomodation for the night- 5 of us sharing a hut almost right on the beach. We spent the day topping up the tans- although I ended up rather red.... but I'm sure it will tan!!! We headed off later in the evening to find somewhere for dinner and ended up in a small restuarant a little up the coast. They were a little shocked when a group of 16 of us arrived- and even more so when we all ordered pizza!!! After an hour of waiting the waitress came to see us and explained that they didn't have enough cheese and they were waiting for the manager to come and bring them the keys to the store room to get some more!!! Only in Fiji!!!!! Still we ate evntually and returned (by bus!!!) later the next day.

The group have had some great evenings out too- twice we have been to a local fire-dancing dinner show as well as visiting a japanese restaurant where they cook the food right at your table and cocktails at the Sheraton- the most beautiful 5-star resort I have ever seen, where you lay on large sofas and have drinks brought to you over-looking the pool!

This of course is the beautiful Fiji from the eyes of a tourist and as much as I am loving every minute of it, I am also enjoying being able to explore further than the golden beaches and souvenir shops and find what I feel is the 'real fiji.'

What a contrast it becomes after returning from our weekend trips and going into school on a Monday.......really brings you back down to earth again.

So I am starting to feel like things are working slowly at the Primary school where I teach in the mornings. My little class are getting there with learning their sounds and are doing well with reading and writing cvc words (sorry a little techincal vocabulary for the teachers reading this!!). The shiny stickers method is working a treat too in terms of behaviour!!!!! Far more positive effect than the 'stick'!!!! I have made a large chart on the wall and the children earn stickers throughout the week- whoever has the most on a Friday earns a prize- sound familiar to anyone???!!! Hopefully we will continue with the slow progress we are making there........

I am also getting used to arriving at the school each day with no clue whatsoever as to what will be awaiting for me. I will give some examples so far from the last 3 weeks.......

1. One morning I arrived at school to find my classroom locked, I went to find a teacher who explained that the headmaster has the key and as he had been 'out' the previous night they had no idea what time he would arrive!!! I was advised to perhaps have a wander into town and come back in an hour!! I decided to wait in the shade until he eventually arrived and I was able to start my lessons just in time from morning break!!!!

2. Last week I arrived and began organising myself when I was informed that a teacher had not turned up and I needed to cover for all of classes 3 and 4!!! However theair classroom was locked and the teacher was the only one with a key so I would have to have them all in with me- easier said than done when you only have 9 desks!!!!!! Anyway after a little creative planning with the seating arrangements we arranged ourselves- 3 to a desk and I asked them to get their maths books out..........to which a small child raised their hand and politely explained that all their things were in their desks.......in the locked classroom!!!!! Right...plan B.....which is again rather more complicated than it may first appear given that there is no paper in the school, let alone spare pencils!!!! Luckily someone was looking out for me that day as suddenly the teacher arrived and unlocked her classroom, the class returned and I was left with my lovely little reading class....again in time for morning break!!! I should explain by the way that when I describe morning break, that in itself is interesting. The bell rings at any number of different times during the morning and so far I have experienced breaks ranging from 15 minutes to an hour and 10!!!!!

3. The same teacher I found later in the week asleep across 3 desks in her classroom!!! Rather odd I thought....and even more strange...where were her class??!!! I then saw them all crammed into the next door class 1 and 2 room!!!! The PRINCIPAL then explained to me that she had been up all night drinking with her cousin who was visiting and needed to sleep off her hangover!!!!!

4. Another morning I turned up at school and found lots of children outside- and no teachers in sight!!!! Some children then started telling me that there was no school today.......a likely story so I thought!!!!! Finally I found a teacher who explained that the high school across the road were having their cadets passing out parade and for any children who turned up we would just go over the road and watch it. So we headed over and had quite a nice morning sitting in the sun watching the cadets march.....and finished school before 11!!!!!!

I must admit that i started off looking at it all quite judgementally and to be honest when comparing it with home I was viewing it almost as incompetance. But actually as time has gone on, I have come to realise that this is just the Fijian culture- the relaxed island life-style where life is not taken too seriously and we should be out enjoying the sun at every opportunity!! Now.....obviously being relaxed to this degree would not go down quite so well at home but it does make you remember to...for want of a better phrase...stop and smell the flowers! I wonder what will await me at school on Monday!!!

So my afternoons have been quite different. I have now spent 2 weeks working for a couple of hours each afternoon at the special school around the corner. Such a happy place with a great feeling as soon as you walk through the gates. I am working in the class SNC1+ DA (Special needs class 1 and differently abled) which is a class of children between 5 and 8 with a huge variety of needs. Again this is an experience and a half!!! Imagine a rather tiny room, with 14 children, 3 in wheelchairs, 4 with ADHD and the others with differing degrees of autism, 1 teacher and one teaching assistant.......who is also deaf and mute. As you can imagine the teacher is very glad to have my assistance in the afternoons!!! And amazingly it works very well- it really is humbling to see how well the teacher makes use of the very limited resources she has avaialble. Each afternoon we do a range of things from sports (outdoor playtime and for us the chasing of children who run off!!), colouring, singing or painting. The children are all quite happy playing with a few very old lego bricks or flicking through books which are falling apart and missing front covers and I am yet to hear 1 child complain about anything.....really makes you think. A few days ago another volunteer gave the class a picture bingo game and it was the most amazing thing ever for the kids!! They played over, and over and over and over again!!!! And the teaching assistant was almost as excited as the children!!!!!!!!

I am also loving my time at the special school.....really the children are teaching me a lot more than I could teach them. One afternoon I had a great time colouring with a little boy called Daniel who is in a wheelchair, he has limited communication, but we were getting there. Later the teacher explained to me that his mother had tried to do a home-abortion when she was pregnant which went wrong and he had ended up with his disabilites as a result. I was shocked and I asked more about this, the teacher explained that abortion is actually illegal in Fiji so a lot of women for different reasons try and do them themsleves at home. I asked how common this was to which she told me that about half the children in the special school were there because of home abortions which went wrong. This is probably one of the most shocking things I have ever herd and I was really upset to just think of the poor children who are actually the innocent ones in all of this. Again this reminded me that although there is so much I can't change...what little difference I can make while I am here is very important.

So again an eventful 2 weeks where I feel I am learning more and more about myself and the world everyday.

Love you and miss you all xxxxxx