Fiji

I've been thinking about Fiji all day. This morning I was looking around workaway.info, one of the various sites I've been browsing for working holiday opportunities, when I found an ideal position. It's an eco-resort that accommodates only 12 guests at a time. They have kayaks and rowboats to explore local lagoons and to reach private beaches, boat rides for snorkeling and surfing exploration, hiking trails, Fijian cooking classes, driving tours of the island, on site organic farming to supply their onsite restaurant, onsite goat raising (2010 Fijian award winners of goat raising, who knew?), and local ceremony, sites, and crafts to experience. I would be more than happy to help facilitate any of those activities, or even to clean the rooms once guests leave just to get a little of that action. Then I found a second opportunity that specializes in scuba trips. I would clean any number of toilets to learn how to dive.

The first site said their high season was May-November, and then December 15-January 15. I'm thinking about contacting them and seeing if I can get my name down for the Christmas season. I would have to play in Hawaii and New Zealand until then, head to Fiji for the holidays, then to Australia. I would finagle something if I got a positive response back.

Buck List Item- Kill a pig in Fiji
I don't remember the exact movie or book I read that used Fiji as their vacation get away destination, but it has been stuck with me for awhile that it's where I would want to honeymoon. I am deeply attracted to the Oceania area and the cultures and scenery of the islands. Fiji has been high on my list for a long time.

To kill a pig. Why? Again, I can't remember what book or books portrayed pig hunting as such a heroic event, but it has been there burning in my brain since I was probably 10. Unfortunately, I have developed a fear for pigs over the years, and might consider it an irrational fear if pigs weren't so dangerous. They will eat you. They will eat all of you and your shoes. Scariest part of Wizard of Oz? First 20 minutes she falls in the pig pen and everyone freaks out. Why? Because she would have been eaten. Hannibal? Didn't take much training to make killer pigs. He just got them to crave human. That pot belly pig that screamed when I tried to pet it at the zoo when I was 12? Battle cry. I'm surprised there aren't public safety announcements on PBS about this problem.

The Mary Russell series by Laura King is my favorite at the moment, and The Game featured Mary on a dangerous boar hunt in India that pulled this long seeded desire back to the top of the bucket list. The hunting scenes were both exciting and under-the-bed-coveres-reading-between-my-fingers scary. Despite the terror of seeing a wild pig, hairy, crusted, and mostly likely slobbering with rabies, I still want to kill one. Of course I then want to eat it and share the meat with as many people as possible. And I certainly won't be doing this alone. In fact, if I end up on the net crew and only get to poke it with the butt end of a spear, I would consider myself part of the killing and cross it off my list.

I linked these two desires (Fiji and pig hunting) a few years back when a fellow teacher had visited Fiji over the summer break. He told me that while staying at a hostel, he was able to sign up to go on a pig hunt for about $20. They tok him up the mountain, handed him a spear and a machete. They killed a pig, roasted it, and fed the whole neighborhood. Ever since I heard that story, I was ready to go to Fiji and kill my own porker.