8:07am Fiji Time
The last 2 days have been incredible. I've been so busy living and experiencing everything that I haven't had time to think about it all. On my first full day in Nadi, I woke up to fantastic news, my teaching license had been approved! I was shocked and relieved about how my trip was back on its original track, I'm not sure how it was approved or why, but I'm grateful, just goes to show that you shouldn't give up hope too soon. After I got ready for the day, I visited Nadi Town, I went through the fruit market to buy coconuts, pineapple, bananas and oranges. I found everything for incredibly cheap, 3 whole pineapple for $1, a giant bushel of bananas for $1.50, 3 coconuts for $1. I filled my bag with fruit and moved on to the supermarket, I purchased instant noodles and some sweets. As I was walking through town I was approached by at least 4 different people who wanted to show me their shops, after the third time this happened, i realized that these people actually had a job doing this, they would wait along the sidewalk for tourists and then start up a conversation to find out what they were looking for and then take them to any store they had either friends or someone paying them. I headed back to the market to get some roti for lunch but I needed money so I started looking for an ATM, I found one and got my money, but then the old man approached me as I was taking t out of the machine, I was worried he was going to try to rob me at first, but then he handed me his debit card and asked if I could help him get money out because he didn't know how. He then gave me his PIN and I used his card to get his money out. I was almost shocked by how trusting this random man was of me, someone he had never met before. I guess that's just how Fiji is, people leave their bags unattended for hours, knowing they'll be there when they come back, they give strangers their PIN numbers. It's wonderfully refreshing to be so trusted and to feel so trusting of others. I took the bus back to my hostel and made my way down to the beach. I met a guy from Colombia named Andres, we talked for a while about our backgrounds and why we had both come to Fiji, it turned out he had been here for about 2 months already and I enjoyed learning and then went swimming in the ocean. Afterwards it was time for the nightly Kava, I sat in the Kava circle with other travellers and some locals. We listened to the guitar and we sang together, I met some other Americans and some people from Switzerland and some from Germany, we all talked about our past adventures and our plans for Fiji, how long we would be there, I sat next to an American named Johnny that hadn't been to America in 5 years, he had been travelling the whole time, going from country to country,making enough money to go to the next and then moving on. It was a similar story to other travellers' and I started to realize it was something I wanted to do. Once it started getting dark, there were several fires on the beach, I walked down to the first one and had a conversation with 2 guys from Switzerland, they were also here doing volunteer work in the primary school here in Nadi. I moved on to the next fire which was full of some very drunk and very enthusiastic Fijians. they were all singing and dancing and happily invited us to do the same. We all threw our arms around each other and danced and sang for awhile, it was an awesome and joy filled experience that I will treasure forever. I went to the last fire on the beach which was significantly colder than the previous one, I sat down on some cardboard and introduced myself, the group was made up of some locals from the nearby college. Most, if not all of the group were very "flamboyant", they warned me about sea snakes (men) and told me to stay away from the Fijian guys. We all laughed together and had a really great time until they all had to go back home, they promised to be back again and we said goodbye. I got to bed at around 2am and was asleep before my head hit the pillow.