#carmenxfiji Part 1 - Volunteering
Can't believe I havent do a post on this. So much good times and I guess it's my first overseas volunteering experience, definitely gotta pen this down.
This was May 2019. I remember I was just trying to utilise the "volunteering" leave that I had and not sure how I had the courage to pick an overseas program. But I'm glad I did and seriously happy to pick this destination. And guess what, it's thanks to KPMG that I first learned of Fiji. One of our client has operations in Fiji and I started googling about this place and turns out it is one unique and beautiful place on earth and guess what Singapore is one of the few places that has a direct flight to Fiji! Everything just made sense for me to visit this country that I know little about.
So we managed to sign up for a volunteering program via IVHQ. It's a website that kind of gathers volunteering programs from across the world. You can look for programs based on your preferred destination and duration. They will show the fees upfront in USD. Given that the platform is more like an intermediary, the longer the duration, the average fees per week will be cheaper.
I chose to volunteer as a teacher for young children for a week. The local program coordinator is Green Lion who will assign volunteers to different kindergarten and schools (both elementary/secondary schools). During the duration of your program, these are covered:
Transportation from airport to accommodation - There will be a designated person to greet you at the Nadi airport and will make sure you board the correct bus to Suva city. It's just a public coach ride which takes around 5 hours if I remember correctly. Super tired from the 10 hour flight, guess we just slept through it despite it being kind of uncomfortable. I'm definitely not a XiaoJie kay and I usually can sleep anywhere but the bus ride was sure bumpy. The bus runs along the coastline and you get to see beautiful beaches in some parts of the ride. The bus stops in the city centre of Suva, there's another coordinator to greet us and will get a taxi to take us to the accommodation.
Accommodation - There's a house that serve as the headquarters which has the office and the dining hall. The volunteers will stay in different houses near to the HQ. Mine was just across the street. Unless specially requested and paid for, all volunteers sleep on bunk beds and are randomly assigned to rooms. Shared bathrooms. Same gender within the same house. There's wifi and power outlets. No aircon. Has fridge.
Food - 3 meals a day. There's a cook who works at the HQ. Food is kind of interesting! Breakfast is like usual toast and eggs. Lunch and dinner are more exciting. Will share some photos later.
Transport to assigned school - Vans and car rides will be arranged to transport volunteers to the designated schools. My assigned kindergarten is within walking distance so....maybe that's a good thing haha. Means more breakfast time for me I guess.
Orientation - There's two types of orientation. One is just a day and one takes up a week. The one week program includes cultural programs like cooking class and weaving class, day trips to some island and waterfall during the first 4 days and you will only start volunteering on Friday. Yes you can choose the one week orientation even if you only have a week there! But my conscience made me give up the one week program haha. I'm here to volunteer man. More details on the one day orientation below.
Everything else, fork out your own monneh.
Now let's go to where it all started:
Our flight was 10 hours long hence two meals!
Monday
Guess I was too tired on the day we arrived. Don't have many photos. Let's go straight the orientation. The coordinators kind of went through the essentials, like meal times, emergency contacts, stuff to note. Then we went to nearby shops to do some photocopying before heading to Suva city for a tour/necessities shopping trip.
We took this super cool open-air bus with awesome tunes! This is a public bus by the way. No, Fijians don't need air-cons on their bus, a good sound system is more important and I can't agree more!
My view after stepping out of the bus. Old school vibes is real strong.
I didn't take any more photos while we're walking because I'm paranoid over losing my phone. In fact there was a random lady who sincerely warned us to be careful with our bags the moment we stepped out of the bus.
First stopped at the Suva Municipal Market to check out the local produce and to buy the essentials of Kava ceremony!
See all them dhal here. Did you know apart from native Fijians, Indians are the second main ethnic group in Fiji? And there's also a significant population of Chinese too! Fiji is in many ways similar to Malaysia imo.
This is something that is almost like a national identity to Fiji -- Kava roots! These are used to make a drink that has similar properties as alcohol. I can tell you Fijians are really super nice people and are always so vibrant and positive. and I bet Kava has something to do with it!
Went to a shopping centre next and bought a sim card and changed for Fijian dollars. Note that USD is a preferred currency as compared to SGD and make sure your notes do not have any tear because they will not accept it. One of the things that we need is a sarong which is typically worn during a Kava ceremony. So if you didn't bring one, you can buy them at the shopping centre.
Head back to HQ and we had a Kava ceremony. To sum it up, it's a gathering to celebrate/to welcome/to enjoy. Everyone has to sit in a circle and the kava drink will be produced by mixing water and the powdered/pounded kava roots. There's etiquette to how you should receive the drink from the host. And yes everyone has to wear a sarong for this ceremony. As mentioned earlier, Kava is something that will improve your mood and hence the ceremony is Fijian's way of making sure everyone has an enjoyable time.
Brought my overpriced sarong that I bought at Wat Pho in Bangkok. Glad that I can reuse this haha.
Tuesday - Friday
Volunteering work begins and let me just sort of sum up how my days are typically like:
AM: Breakfast >> Teach at kindergarten >> Back to HQ before lunch time.
PM: Prepare teaching materials >> Cultural activities prepared by coordinators >> Dinner and free time >> Sleep
AM: Teaching
I was assigned to Narere Community Kindergarten which is just like 10 minutes walk away from the HQ. My coordinator Ula would walk with me, through the random houses and backyards of people, saying Bula to everyone we see and finally reach the quaint little kindergarten that is right next to a church.
Somehow part of me feel that it is not coincidence that I got assigned to a kindergarten that is next to the house of God. One of the best things about this journey is learning the fact that Fijians are mostly children of God (which was quite surprising to me given the rich culture here) and learning that you don't need a lot to build a relationship with God. No fancy churches, no concert-like service, no theater-like seats. All you need is to bring yourself to step through that always-open door.
These are the baby angels that I met! Typically the parents will accompany them to the kindergarten and will hangout before class officially begin. Got to speak to some of the lovely parents. They are so kind and warm. Class will begin with prayer! Can't remember the exact but it goes something like this:
Thank you Lord, for this beautiful day in my school. Please be with me all day long, through every story, games and song. May all the happy things we do make your father happy too.
There's only one class and the kids' are like a mix of 4 to 6 years old if I remember correctly. Hence there's no like fixed syllabus and it's more of like topic-based kind of teaching. We did colours, numbers and shapes. The 6 years old would definitely be more familiar with the topic and kind of guide the younger kids. There's workbook but it's more like a homework thing. During class, it's really just kids sitting around the teacher and listening to what the teacher says and interacting with the kids and having them speak up what they know about the topic.
Then there would be a snack time where the kids would sit in a circle and eat what their parents packed for them. It kind of breaks my heart a bit to see how some have really good meals (like sausages and fries) while some just brought biscuits. During snack time, the teacher would share her food with me and hence it's like my second breakfast haha. I can't say no seriously, the teacher brings really awesome food. Like roti, chickpea curry, tuna curry, lamb sausages. I swear they are not something I've ever tried and they are all so special.
After snack time would be activity time. There's like painting, doing some worksheets and also game time. Speaking of worksheets, part of the teaching also involved helping the teacher to like manually draw worksheets. There's no printer/photocopier, so....I was kind of like the human copier haha.
So do I get to teach? Yes! Like I mentioned, the teaching is very topic based so there's a lot of freedom to how you wanna present the topic. The teacher would let me know what is the topic for the next day and if you want to present something, you will just need to prepare accordingly. Can you not teach at all? Yes you can. I guess the main volunteering work here is to help the teacher out. Entertaining the kids, guiding them while they do worksheets or paint. But disclaimer, different school would have different teaching style I suppose.
Sigh I feel like a loser man. Why am I doing such an outdated thing haha.
Will you need to OT? NO. The coordinator will make sure you head back before lunch even if the class is still ongoing. So I'd say, it's really super easy work and I feel like I'm receiving more than what I'm giving.
The kids, are just super adorable. Although some can be quite mischievous but they are not spoiled brats for sure! I miss how some of them would just greet me with a hug every day. I remember I randomly sang Moana's How Far I'll Go and the kids joined me (and yes they can really SING!), it was so magical I almost cried T.T I wished I had a video of it. One of the best memories definitely. I guess it really hurts whenever I think of how I'll probably never see them in the rest of my life and how they will probably just forget me.
PM: Preparing materials or cultural activities
It's basically free time after your placement. But most volunteers would be preparing materials for teaching. For larger schools with more volunteers, you will get to discuss and work in a team. Since I'm the only volunteer at my kindergarten, it's really up to me on what I want to do and the teacher is generally ok with any activity. There will be papers, stationery and cardboards available at the HQ. But it's really manual work, like a craft project to me which I totally suck at.
Other than that, I recall having certain activities in the afternoons of Tue to Thur. Tuesday was a weaving class, which I remember I die-die asked to join as this is actually part of the one week orientation program.
Wednesday was a group singing kind of activity where we learn some local rhymes. If it's not obvious enough, music is really huge here and I think every Fijian is born to sing. It's like everyone can instantly form a choir group and produce the best melodies. It was pretty fun to just gather around on the mat and sing together.
This is my coordinator Ula who would accompany me to the kindergarten everyday and share many awesome things about Fiji in general.
Thursday is typically the farewell ceremony for volunteers who are leaving that week. The coordinators would sing a farewell song in perfect acapella. Those who are leaving get to speak a few words. Part of me felt really paiseh since I was only there for a week LOL Can't imagine how would it be if I stayed longer, must be super sad to leave this beautiful place.
No programs on Friday PM as usually everyone would be off for weekend plans.
Quick sightseeing:
Had some time on Thur PM and decided to visit some tourist sites in Suva. Visited a forest park, a museum and a seaside park. But have to say they are kind of underwhelming. If I can go back in time I'll probably just go for food hunt in the city centre instead haha.
This is the Colo-I-Suva waterfall which I was told is a must-see. Sorry but this was quite underwhelming for me. Like there's definitely larger waterfalls with clearer waters. But I guess it's a great hangout if you just want to have some fun splashing time.
This is the Fiji National Museum in Suva City. Sadly this museum is pretty basic. Don't expect any interactive displays or beautiful lightings (MY/SG museums well done!). But it still feels like a crash course about Fiji in case you really don't know much, like me! Hope they get to upgrade the museum and get to effectively showcase all the wonderful things about Fiji.
This is Thurston Garden which is like a small area in front of the museum which has this iconic clock tower. I guess this is the most touristy spot of the day.
As we were kind of underwhelmed by what we saw so far, we asked the taxi driver if there's anywhere else with a good view and he brought us to the My Suva Park which is a seaside community park. There's like children's playground and benches for people to hangout. Got a glimpse of the ocean in a very deep shade of blue with loads of fluffy clouds on top. Pretty calming to observe but was kind of affected by the pungent fish smell at the coastline.
But oh wells, I'm still happy I captured this view. Loving how the clouds are forming a line at the horizons.
Karaoke night on Thursday
Night out on Thursdays after dinner. I obviously FOMO coz I'm so curious about the party scene in Suva and definitely curious to see how a bunch of mostly angmoh young kids (yes I call them young kids coz they are mostly college students) party. Before we head out to Suva city centre, the coordinators held another Kava session. We'd be blastin' awesome music and drinking kava, which is essentially your pre-drinks sesh to get everyone into the party mood. The coordinators would help us get cabs to head to the Karaoke place which is actually a section in a club. Can't bring myself to sing coz I just can't sing in front of strangers haha. Part of me knew it's not gonna be like going sing k with friends since i barely know everyone there but it was still kind of fun to sing along to the familiar tunes. So if you're worried that volunteering = no party, that's not true!
That pretty much sums up the activities during the program.
Random bits:
Food
Although some of them don't look super appealing but I fell in love with these. The roti with chicken curry was so delicious. Then there's tapioca fries which is so crunchy and extra starchy and sweet. I'd say the food here has like pretty strong Indian and Chinese influence. So if you're from MY/SG, don't think you'll have any problems with the food.
Surroundings
By the way Fiji's weather is very interesting. It rains a lot but there's always sun too! And hence rainbows would appear. In terms of the climate, day times are pretty hot, not as humid as MY/SG and it gets very chilly at night hence no aircon is needed. I'd say I kind of wish MY/SG's weather can be something like this.
So as I mentioned, our HQ and the houses for accommodation are located in a residential neighborhood named Narere. There's like a mart, some eateries and a gas station just 5 mins walk away from the HQ. So whatever necessities should be covered. There's a mall with cinema that takes around 15 mins to reach via taxi if I remember correctly.
This was taken exactly at where we stay and you can clearly see the sky was both grey yet shining with a hint of gold!
Yes there's Kava shops everywhere. That's how important Kava is. Another term that you'll see pretty often is Milk Bar which is basically a snack shop that sells like drinks, packaged snacks and also fried items like fish and chips. One of my favorite things to do was to shop in NewWorld, the supermart nearby our place. Like the products are pretty different! You'll find interesting chips, biscuits and drinks. You'll also find a lot of AU products and they are very cheap. I rmb stocking up on Grain Waves and I had almond milk everyday man! I didn't have much time to go shopping during the weekends hence I think it's best to stock up on the snacks that you want to bring home from NewWorld. It's definitely cheaper and loads of stuff to buy.
That's pretty much everything that happened during my too-short volunteering program. But I'm still grateful of the experience. Interacting with the always smiley kids, their warm and welcoming parents, the hardworking teacher and our friendly coordinators turns out to be a strong reminder for me to always be kind and find joy in life. Also grateful of the chance to speak with some of the volunteers and learned about their amazing life journey. Yes the young kids! They are like at least 3-4 years younger but damnnn everyone seems to be very independent, motivated and full of ambitions. Damn I can't help but to doubt my life decisions and wondering what am I doing with my life. I am super certain that everytime I say that I'm a tax associate they probably be thinking this is boring af. But anyways, it's definitely good to learn about others and remind yourself that there's more than 1 way of living your life.
Will I still do volunteering at Fiji? YES YES YES. Awesome people, meaningful work.
Left Suva on Friday and our weekend of beaches and sea begins. You'll see why Fiji is a great travel destination.