The Countdown Begins

There are officially 23 days until I leave for Fiji!! The first wave of volunteers left close to two weeks ago and our country directors found a house for us in Ba on the island Viti Levu.



I have to admit, I didn't know a ton about Fiji before I decided to go so let me give a little bit of background information. There are a few "official languages" including Fijian, English and Fiji Hindi. The population is split between Native Fijians and Indo-Fijians (those of Indian decent). Fiji has a tropical climate - its warm season is between November and April and the cool season is from May to October. Even though the temperature during the cool season averages about 72 degrees, I hear that it's unbelievably humid and I'm pretty sure I'm still going to sweat like nobody's business. They use the Fijian Dollar (F$) and, as of today, 1 U.S. Dollar is worth 1.78 Fijian Dollars. HELP International first started volunteering in Fiji during the summer of 2009.

Anyway, I'm excited to learn more first-hand and hopefully I'll be able to post lots of pictures.



Finally (and most importantly) I just want to thank everyone who has donated to HELP International in support of my trip to help the Fijian people. After sending out 70 fundraising letters, $2,138.94 was donated to HELP International. I'd say that's pretty amazing. I really appreciate everyone's generosity! I truly couldn't do it without you. THANK YOU!