One Month

Today is the one month anniversary of my arrival in Fiji. So far my favorite highlights are: the swing at the beach house, sea kayaking, water fall jumping, eating fish in coconut milk, learning how to make curry, and tossing the disk at Natadola Beach. It's been one hell of a ride. We leave tomorrow for a two week excursion to a traditional village, the Indo-Fijian community of Labasa, a fancy yacht city called Savusavu, and Taveuni. Taveuni is known as the garden island. I'm ready for some intense experiences.

Things have been a little better with my family. I'm trying to focus on my time with my siblings, especially my brothers. Today we had a guest lecturer who is a high chief. He used to be the vice president of Fiji but was deposed during the coup. He was an incredibly intelligent man who had some very forward thinking about the problems facing his country.

Today I also lucked out in terms of my potential research here. I got contacted about working with a collection of artifacts from the Bourewa site, which has the oldest documented occupation of people in Fiji, roughly 3500 years ago. The site was inhabited by the Lapita people, who are most well known for their pottery style. I would probably be working with a lithics collection, which is stone tools and my advisor would probably be a phd student here at the university. I got some books at the library today and I'm pretty psyched about the potential of the project. I also might get to travel to the site with this project, which would be awesome. I also might be able to finish early, which would be perfect since I want to travel more. It feels good to be in the process of researching again.

I'll try to update from the excursion, but no promises.