But what's it like living like a Fijian everyday?

You wake up to the sound of scraping pots. Your Ne-ne (mother) is outside making breakfast. She usually wakes up at five on the dot, to get things ready for you. Her body-clock accuracy surprises you every time; so far, you haven’t seen an alarm. The cockerels are awake too, squawking the moment you wake, as though you’re in sync. Sometimes it occurs to you that it was probably them that woke you in the first place. If you're Hanna or Lucky, you might also wake to find a chicken laying an egg in your bed, or that a child is watching you sleep. Or if you're Andrew, you've already woken up several times that night to chase rats out of your room. But, for you the mornings are never bad. The sun streaming through the bitten curtains reminds you every morning that you're in a foreign country. It's peaceful and it's tranquil, but not always comfortable; your back is still wincing from whatever hard surface you just slept on.

First thing I usually check for is the spiders. So long as there’s not one directly over my head or adjacent to me, then I can remove the blanket from my face. After that, its the bladder that hits you first. If Haz isn’t awake, then I’ll tip-toe to the toilet. If we’re both wide-eyed and desperate, we say nothing and hope that the other doesn’t beat you to it.

Breakfast smells like dinner sometimes, as you walk to the outdoors. It could be anything from pancakes, to rice, to fried egg sandwiches. Through the kitchen you call ‘Yadra’ (pronounced ‘yandra’ – ‘Good morning’) to Ne-ne, who is on the patio. We’re lucky enough to have a seat on our toilet, not all houses do. Sometimes, when it doesn’t flush, you have to pour a bucket of rain water on top until it’s gone. When you go back to fill the bucket several times, that’s when it gets embarrassing.

A few minutes later, Ne-ne will call ‘Kelera? Arieta?’ and we'll sit around the table with whoever is present. This can Ne-ne or Va-va, or Rechelli or Pete, but sometimes it's a completely different child. The youngest ones wonder through half naked, and always, they will be offered food. Harriet loves to play with them; she makes puppy eyes at me whenever a particularly cute one is present. By the end of the first week, we are beginning to recognise some of these kids. They have scabs and blisters on their legs from a lifetime of trampling bare-foot through brittle grass, and their hair is tousled or cut short, but they are happy and curious all the same.

Sometimes while we eat, I'll see Rechelli ironing her unifrom in the living room. She kneels on the floor, lays her clothes out on a bed sheet, and irons them flat onto the ground. This is how I too learned to iron, later on.

If it's a school day, after you wash, your Fijian parents hand you a lunch box. You don’t dare ask what’s in it but say 'vinaka' and let them wave you off from the doorstep. On occasion, if your parents hadn’t the time to make lunch, they will walk to the school themselves and deliver it. Luckily school was only five minutes away, but such generosity was still astounding.

At the end of a long day, there is almost always a snack laid out on the table. Sometimes crackers, sometimes a bowl of rice, a thick sponge, or some fruit. In one of the early days, Haz and I made the mistake of assuming our snack was our dinner; we filled up on what we could, said ‘vinaka na kakana’ ('thank you for the meal') and returned to our rooms. An hour later we were then called for our actual meal.

Our family spoke little English, but Rechelli was better. Every night, or as much as possible, Haz and I would try to learn some new Fijian phrases. When announced at meal times, these efforts went down very well; often they would help us with our pronunciation.

In the evenings, they tended to leave us to our own devices. Our Think Pacific leaders organised games for the team and these usually started at seven. Some days we had the option to spend time with our families or go visit others. But, like the sun itself, lights would be out by about nine on most nights. When the day got dark, it was often nicest just to be in the solace of your own room. None of us had any interest in staying up much longer than that anyway, for we usually felt very tired.

You find a lot of peace in Fiji. You don’t look at your phone because you have no one to call. Everyone worth talking to lives within a hundred yards of you, and everyone you love is so far away, it's expensive to call. Social media is irrelevant, everything going on back home doesn't interest you, or if it does, then it only makes you feel like you're missing out so, best not to look. You’ll be playing rugby with a bunch of Fijian kids on a dry field at 12pm, thinking of nothing else but the stick of sweat and the agile opposition, and someone somewhere on the other side of the world is having shots in a bar at 11pm. It doesn’t compare. For now, it doesn’t interest you.

Your work is tiring but enjoyable. At the end of the day, there's no homework or late night assignments; just family and friends and the sky that gets pinker and cooler as the sun sinks. Crickets are screeching for miles on end as they rub their legs together. Somewhere nearby, the sound of water is splashing as someone takes a bath in the outdoors. It’s peace. It’s simplicity. And somehow, it’s much easier to get used to than you think.