Fiji25 Blog 25 - Emre





Emre

Blog 25


As I am leaving Nanuku, I can’t believe how much the people here have done for me, especially 

my homestay mom Luisa (my nene). Every single day, my nene wakes up early to make a huge breakfast just for me. Although the breakfast changes daily, it is somehow always delicious. I was worried coming here that I wouldn’t like the food, but it is some of the best I have ever had. She makes so much food that I almost always can’t eat it all, and I have a reputation for eating a lot. On the weekends she makes lunch and dinner too, and it is just as good.


But making food is not even near all that my nene does for me. She also does all my laundry, and I usually change at least once during the day because I am so hot and sweaty here. She neatly folds the clothes, places them in my room, and then organizes it, even though I have told her multiple times that she really doesn’t need to. 


My nene has also put up with my failures and never gotten mad at me, which I find impressive. One time, I locked her and my uncle out of our house at night because I had accidentally locked the door. She alternated between gently tapping on me and my brother’s windows for thirty minutes and saying our names at a low volume. She could have just screamed and woken us up, but she said that she didn’t want to be too alarming. Eventually, I opened the door, but I thought that I was dreaming the whole time because she was so gentle.


It would be very difficult for me to repay my nene for all she has done for me, especially as we only have two days left on this trip. And while I won’t try to repay everything because it would be nearly impossible, I want to help give back to the community in the little ways that I can. Lakeside has helped us students with this as they’ve given us opportunities like painting the school and helping the children learn English, but even with all that we do for Nanuku it feels like they do even more for us. Overall, the community of Nanuku and especially my Nene have been exceedingly kind hosts and given me and the other students more than we could ever ask for.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fiji Pre-Trip

Image
Pre Trip Days: Our first few days of Pre-Trip were a mix of learning and prep for our GSL trip! For the first few days of our prep we were in the lab and studied things like waterborne illness, Fiji's environment, and issues surrounding lack of water around the world. We all did presentations about sicknesses that stem from dirty water, and did a lot of experiments in the labs. For one we dripped water on a sloped box of sand to simulate the formation of rivers. It was interesting to see how the water carved different paths. For another, we filtered different materials from each other with different methods. The first box had marbles and coins, which we used our hands for, the second had poppy seeds and salt, which we filtered through water, and the third had sand and cloves, which we used a colander for.  In the next few days we focused on the GSL aspect of our trip and learned dances, Fijian language, and more about the culture. We all did presentations about an aspect of Fijian ...
Read more

Fiji blog 2 - Nate

Image
After 12 hours in the air, and 7 hours in the airport, we finally arrived in Nadi, Fiji. Immediately after stepping off the plane we could already feel how different it was from where we had come from. The air is humid and filled with moisture, and almost seems thick enough to choke on. Promptly after getting off the plane, and exchanging our useless US money for Fijian Dollars, we found out what Fiji is “all about”. Mr. Beast, the most famous Youtuber of all time, walked no more than 10 yards away from us. While we were all shocked to run into such a famous and rich person, this also reaffirmed a stereotype that we had about Fiji. That it’s where wealthy people go to “get away”. In our minds Fiji just seemed to be this mystical beautiful island with sandy beaches and tropical fruits, a dream vacation spot. At least to me. But this pre-accusative believe was soon removed from my mind, as in just one day I saw so much more of Fiji than I ever pictured. We left our hotel and headed strai...
Read more

Fiji Day 4

Image
Day 4 Abigail We woke up to many different sounds and aromas this morning. Some woke up to the sound of roosters cock-a-doodle-dooing much earlier than sunrise. Others woke up to the smell of delicious curry and Nene (mom’s) sweet singing in the kitchen. And the rest woke up to the beeping sound of alarms. The ones who woke up along with their family helped with preparing breakfast by putting and stirring potatoes in a pot or even swepted and cleaned up around the house. We’re all mostly used to sitting at a table to eat breakfast but here each family sits on the floor of the house and eats breakfast together. During breakfast many of us were asked to pray which is something that families do before every meal. Different families ate different things but some delicious common breakfast food items we had were curry with roti, PB&J, biscuits, banana buns, and eggs. A common drink we had was tea which was actually some of the best tea I ever had. It was SO amazing. I think we could a...
Read more