Tea Time is now the epitome of my existence...

OK so this blog is just my thoughts on some random things---

Ok so a short a really choppy history of Fiji is this: The Brits came in olden times, messed stuff up a little bit, brought over people from India as indentured servants (not quite as bad a slavery but you can still see a lot of the effects from it aka a lot of Hindustani people are still working in the sugar cane fields), then the queen got her face stamped on all the money, they implemented tea time- thank god- and peaced out.

And now, I am happy to say, I can go through the day without my morning and afternoon tea. Seriously. This is true for both Fijian villages and Hindustani settlements, the only difference being that the snacks and tea's vary. Regardless though, you say you want white tea or white coffee you are going to get 75% full cream milk- hands down. Oh and of course expect 15 gallons of sugar.

As for the money...seriously Queen Elizabeth? I would personally rather see an extremely muscley Rubgy player on my 1$ coins. Better yet, put a different player on each kind of coin and those things would be a round 2 version of Pogs. :0) ooohhh Pogs. And of course if you put Serevi on a 1$ coin he would be the slammer.

I also do love some of the slang that the Brits left..for example- cheeky. Man of love saying that word. It's also funny how some things don't translate, for example in the US we would say someone was 'very good at something'. Here they say someone is 'very smart in that'...it's just funny.

Something extremely random- now I don't know why this is, but my best guess is that it's because of all the nutrients in the foods here, but my nails have been growing at a super fast speed AND they are virtually indestructible. (I'll be joining the X-Men team soon btw)

SO the fact that I'm a young single girl and because I am excited to learn about the Hindi culture, has apparently compelled someone to put an ad in the Fiji yellow pages with an article that says "Young saucy minx looking to date your son." Because for some reason EVERY older hindustani woman is extremely interested in introducing me to their sons. I mean, I expected this, being a young girl in general, so I end up just laughing off their 'half-serious but serious if I was serious' proposal. But when a woman goes and calls her son to drive to where I'm at just so he can meet me is ridiculous. Are Paguan (good god).

But on a lighter note, I seriously love how all the men hold hands here. Fijian and Indo-Fijian. It's awesome. I love this culture. For example, right when we were given our site placements and were able to meet with our contact people from our sites, I caught a picture of my friend Monte holding hands with a giant Fijian man whilst waling merrily to lunch. That's it- merry, this culture is so merry.

That brings up something else- I've never been invited ot more people's houses to dinner in my entire life. If I didn't want to cook for 3 months- I'm 100% positive I could make it happen. My favorite part about it is that most of the shop keepers are Hindustani- so I really make a lot of friends and get good prices for things. But something awesome happened the other day. I told my friend I was going to Colo e Suva ( cool rainforest looking place with trails and rivers you can jump into) and she marched right out from behind the counter, grabbed my hand, and almost begged me to come to her house to dinner because it was right there. I sadly couldn't that day but will definitely go back for sure. That's how nice people are here. Now I'm sure she has a secret motive and a son who is single, but I don't care.

I was even on the bus one day and was really hungry. A fijian lady sat down next to me with a big bag of twisties (cheetos). I'm pretty positive she didn't see me eyeing them. But just as soon as she opened them she turned ot me and offered me some. And heck yes I took some. I love Fiji. Where else in the world would you get offered some chips on a bus by a total stranger. (But let's not talk about the health problems in Fiji...oh my). No worries, I'm healthy. I do have a small sinus infection right now but I've already got the meds for it and am feeling better.