Playing Chess With Pigs (ask Justin!)

After only two days on our paradise island we packed up our swimsuits and snorkels and ferried back to the mainland. We spent the night at a low-budget hotel near the Nadi airport and woke up early to catch our flight to Vanua Levu, the second largest island of Fiji. Before leaving we purchased a Fijian Sim card for our cell phone and made first contact with families and EWB team-members. (This purchase has since proved useless as in order to get cell phone reception near the Mission you need to drive 15 minutes up a treacherous rocky road and stand on one leg while wiggling your left pinky).

A brief 1 hour flight in a small twin-prop airplane gave us amazing views of the lush island and sparkling ocean below and landed us at the SavuSavu airport. The airport was so small that after landing on a short airstrip the plane had to turn around and drive back to reach the ‘terminal’.

Waiting at the airport for us was a Budget rental employee who left us with a 4x4 pickup (thanks for arranging that Animesh!) In Fiji drivers are seated on the right side of the vehicle and cars drive on the left, so after a couple minutes of turning on windshield wipers instead of turn signals and reaching for a stick shift in the wrong location, we were on our way. Justin made sure to shout out “Cow!… Goat!… Pig!… Chicken!” while Deborah tried not to hit the identified animal wandering nearby.

Our first stop was downtown SavuSavu, a “city” with one main strip of stores. After parallel parking (oof) we walked the main drag to find the hardware store filled with PVC pipes and fittings (we took photos of the stock, confusing the store owners), a sulu (traditional Fijian sarong which ironically was made in China), kava roots for gifts for the village chiefs, cases of bottled water to drink, and cheeseburgers and tarot-root burgers for lunch.

From there we hopped back in the truck for what we thought would be a quick drive to our destination – the Mission at Natuvu Creek. Unfortunately the 80 km drive ended up taking 2.5 hours due to the conditions of the road. Most of the road was unpaved with large cobble-sized rocks and gargantuan potholes. Along the way we stopped for directions (“keep going straight on the one road” being the standard answer) and ended up taking some school children back to their home village, along the route. Little did we know that picking up one group of girls would lead to an endless stream of friendly hop-ons catching a ride home.

It was dusk by the time we pulled into the Mission parking lot. The Mission itself turned out to be a hidden paradise of comfortable beds, clean water, delicious food, a swimming pool, and free wireless access! The Mission property is owned by the Toomases – a dentist and ophthalmologist couple who founded the Mission clinic – a state-of-the-art free clinic for the villages of Buca Bay. The Mission is staffed by Dr. Anibal and Nurse Nani a husband and wife team who run the clinic. Currently staying at the Mission is a Seventh Day Adventist Youth Group from Southern California, who make an annual trip to help out.

Upon arrival we were greeted by Roger Lutz of the Dream Machine Foundation (DMF), one of the NGOs that has been working in Buca Bay for the last few years. Roger immediately arranged a 6am meeting with us for the next morning, to introduce us to the village leadership and locations of the water supply systems. We were off to a running start and we hadn’t even unpacked yet!