Life in Vunivaivai

Well, we are officially villagers in the 'koro' of Vunivaivai. We are staying with our host family who has adopted us already as their own. We have a host grandma we call Bu Lo (bu is grandma in fijian and Lo is her name) and she has 7 grandchildren that live in our house with us and a smaller house next door. They range in ages 5 - 22. Ranuku, the youngest, is our best friend! He follows us everywhere and pretty much everyday Ranuku and Drew play touch rugby with all the boys. All the other children help out with cooking, cleaning up, and helping teach us fijian. Our room is quaint, but we have electricty and cold running water. Brrrr, fijian morning showers are the worst. Fortunately Bu Lo is a fantastic cook, as she was a professional cook in a boarding school for 10 years. We spend most evenings with the family talking or playing cards- we just taught everybody "go fish" and they loved it! During the day we go to language lessons in the village for 4 hours in the morning. After that we have community time which we learn cultural crafts and activities. Late afternoon we usually exercise with the rest of the kids and villagers. Melissa has been teaching yoga to the chief's wife and 6 daughters, when Drew has to teach 8th grade at the local school. Today we learned how to make brooms out of palm leaves by braiding them between your toes :) We are really enjoying the village life so far. There is only about 200 people in our little village and they are all so welcoming. The first day we walked into our house they draped us with flowered lai's with long pieces of fabric tied on like capes. That night we had to eat dinner with the chief of the village, and drew had to spend the evening drinking kava with him. We are so glad to hear about Dad Loganbill's news of being cancer-free! Good luck with everything and we love you all so much!