Hi

Ok, so its been one month in my village. There are a lot of lazy, do nothing kind of days and there are some crazy things that happen that leave you asking yourself, "what the hell was that." Here's one story from my first month.

There is this waterfall out in the bush that I've been asking about. Last Friday, Solo - the chiefs eldest son, decides he's gonna take me out to see the waterfall. Great! I didn't do much last week so I was glad to be going out and doing something fun. Solo, myself and Masi (my 15 year old sidekick) set out early Saturday morning for what is sure to be good clean fun. We walked about 3k down a dirt road before we stepped onto the trail.
This first trail took us through about 4 or 5k of dalo fields and banana plantations. I was surprised to see so many farms and houses that far out into the bush. Eventually the trail became slippery red clay, coincidentally the trail became more narrow and steeper. "Ok, thats cool. Just be careful," I says to myself. We cross many rivers and go up and down many small hills.
we come to a river valley where I am told the waterfall is nearby. Solo follows the river up to its source while Masi and some boys that were out in the bush take me on a 'shortcut' further into the bush. There was a trail or path or any sign these boys knew where they were going. Soon we found ourselves scrambling up incredibly steep hills with nothing to hold onto. The boys swung their cane knives into a tree and pulled themselves up. I thought, "hey this is kind of dangerous. but the waterfall is close by, it'll be worth it." We approach the last hill (or so they tell me). I wasnt paying attention to how high we were climbing or how steep the hill was because I was too busy trying to breath. about halfway up i look back and Holy Shit! This hill is practically verticle with nothing to hold onto, just wet grass. Masi grabs my hand and starts pulling me up and another two boys start pushing on my rear end to make it up this friggin hill. So we get to the top, but the top keeps going up...strange and miraculous event. So now we're at the top, and now we have to come down. That took a while. by the time we get to the bottom my knees are killing me and i just want to see these damned falls and go home.
the waterfall was not a waterfall at all. It was a 20m high rock face with one trickle of water falling from the top. They said the bigger falls is over that cliff. I said, "no thanks." I sit down and rest and try to see the humor in it all.

So now we start walking down the river. I found out in about 5 minutes how slippery therocks in river are. I fell about a dozen times, tore my thumb open on some bamboo and busted my elbow open. this descent took about 3 hrs until we reached the river valley once more. Here, a bush woman came out and boiled me about 2 dozen prawns which I ate with some enthusiasm. Solo says i'm too banged up to walk the trail back to the road. So I'm gonna ride a horse. (and yes Peace Corps they brought a helmet). I get on this horse with Masi and we take off through the bush, going upand down river banks, through bamboo forests and muddy swamps. I've never ridden a horse before, and riding bareback is quit rough on your whoo-ha. I thought we were gonna get thrown off at least 10 times. I felt bad for this horse too because I'm sure he is not used to the weight of one large white man and a Fijian boy to boot. Eventually we get back to the road where I walk back to the vuillage aching from head to toe. But I was very happy, glad to be alive, glad i hadthe adventure.
Get backto the village and start drinking grog with the men. Solo and I tell them everything that happened to me, and everyone was laughing. Turns out I'm the first white guy they know of to go out to see those 'falls', and most ofthem have never been there because it sucks so hard to get there. haha, awesome. Now they want to see my pictures from the day. So I go get my camera, turn it on and....no pictures. One of the boys was playing with my camera at while i was eating and deleted ALL OF MY PICTURES. No pictures from me in Fiji for the last three months. You'll just have to take my word for - i'm here.

Contact Info

Mike McGlone
P.O. Box 407
Savusavu
Fiji

you'll have to find the country code but my number is
905-2773