Volcanoes, Tsunamis, and Curry.

Today was intense. On the ride to school this morning, the radio show was interrupted with an announcement that a volcano eruption/earthquake of 7.7 magnitude had occurred in Tonga and that all of Fiji was on tsunami watch. My host mom started freaking out about how close that was. The DJ said all people near the coast should get to higher ground immediately and apparently they canceled school for all the kids in the area. She dropped me off at school and told me to call her if our activity was canceled and I needed a ride. Campus was pretty deserted, which freaked me out. Someone on their cell phone near my class room was talking about finding the highest point on campus. Then I heard if we were going to get hit, it would happen in the next 20 minutes, which freaked me out. Morning classes were canceled at the university. We had a field excursion planned for today, and since I hadn't heard anything else, I decided to just go to the designated meeting spot, at Cost-U-Less, aka Fijian Costco. There I met up with my friend Austin, which was a relief. I kept glancing towards the coastline trying to catch sight of a wall of water. Austin and I waited together for people to show up, but we didn't see anyone else from our group. We jokingly made up a safety plan, which consisted of buying a raft at Cost-u-less and riding the tsunami across Fiji. We decided to call some of our friends, and found out that they had been told to meet at someone's house in the hills, but we hadn't recieved the text about it. A few minutes later we finally heard that the warning was removed, and that a tsunami wasn't going to hit. It was pretty anti-climactic, but it had been a terrifying half hour of my life. The worst part of it was the uncertainty. I didn't know if it was gonna hit or what I would have done if it did.

Since the natural disaster was non-existant, we ended up going on our planned field trip to and Indo-Fijian community to cook with some of the women there. We learned how to make curry, chutney, roti, purri, vegetables, and these little bits of fried dough. It was a great experience. The women were really kind and patient. Most of the food was pretty tasty too. Indian food is still not my favorite, but I'm slowly developing a taste for it. There were also some adorable kids there, who we got to play with. They were so much fun. I have a great video of one of them dancing that I will try and post soon.

Tomorrow some of us are heading to the Coral Coast for a couple days of relaxing at the beach. It should be really fun. I'm ready to get out of the city for awhile. It's been a stressful week. I also hit my head really hard yesterday. I was sitting at a desk in my classroom and a projection screen fell on top of me. The metal pole that held the screen hit me square in the back of the head. I don't think its concussed but my head has been killing me.

I put pictures on facebook. Email me if you would like a public link to the album.

-Al