In motion

After collecting our luggage and leaning on our numb feet in passport control, Danni and I were met at the Exit by Leah, one of our new Team Leaders. With a brisk, warm welcome, she led us straight to the taxi outside and the Fijian air came hot and stubborn. ‘You’re second to last to arrive,’ she said. ‘There's one more boy on his way but he’s been delayed 24 hours in Hong Kong.’

‘That’s horrible!’ we said, sympathising only too fiercely with his frustration.

Inside the taxi, the seats were covered in plastic, and I had to laugh at how sweaty we were expected to be. Not so funny, was that the journey, which should have taken us fifteen minutes, took forty due to the early-morning traffic - which was of course, eleven hours ahead of our body-clocks. Leah, with her grand smile, spent the duration of the trip twisted over the front seat, bringing us up to date on the day’s schedule.

‘So, are you excited? Nervous?’

‘Quite nervous.’ I offered, presuming it was the more appropriate answer.

‘I’m well excited,’ said Danni, and I left her to answer most of the questions. Closing my mouth soon proved to be the more sensible choice anyway, as I tried to control my travel-sickness.

‘The volunteers are really excited to meet you,’ said Leah. ‘Once we get to Smugglers Cove, we’ll head straight to Viti Levu for Team Briefing.’

‘Cool. Is that another drive away?’ asked Danni.

‘Yeah, we'll take the coach. It’ll be about another hour and a half.’

My stomach churned.

Smugglers’ Cove was the closest resort to Nadi Airport (pronounced Nandi). The volunteers who had arrived a day or two early had been lodging there until we arrived. Every Think Pacific team began their project at Smugglers’ Cove so, during the summer (or Fijian winter), packs of very pale looking people in TP shirts are constantly bustling in and out of there. As if to demonstrate, no sooner had Danni and I heaved our bags into the reception, were we loaded into a bus with our fellow teammates, who were dragging their suitcases into the hall as we arrived. It was a tight bus, with thirteen passengers and no boot at the back, so our luggage was piled up behind the driver. And yet, despite having no room to stretch our legs, fan ourselves or even reach into our bags for a sip of water, Danni and I were chatting away gaily, soon getting to know everyone.

‘So where are you from?’ I said to Harriet, whom I would later discover almost always managed to secure a window seat.

‘Preston. But, we go to the same uni.’

‘No way?’ I said.

‘And so does Amelia just next to you.’

I waved to Amelia just next to me.

‘We Facebooked you.’

I laughed. ‘As you do.’

We had a lot to talk about, clearly; each comparing our favourite places, clubs, and even some of the same events we'd been to. Then just as I was beginning to wonder if we knew some of the same people, I suddenly found out that her boyfriend was the social sec of one of my societies. By the end of the journey our small world had gotten very small indeed.

The journey to the resort took took two and a half hours. Sometimes the driver would stop, exchange a few words with one of the locals and move on. He took a long windy road, tracing the outline of the coast almost to the exact; and everything around us seemed to be trapped in slow motion. On one side of the road, corrugated-rooves, washing-lines, laundry and palm trees protruded from a cocktail of greens and yellows; Fijian men and women were swinging their legs over their porches, waving at us as we went by as though they had been waiting for us all along. On the other side of the bus, an expanse of blue, tropical sea hushed against the sand, for the most part, flat, where the waves didn’t start for miles out, and the water up close, being shallow and transparent. Fijian women, with their skirts tied between their legs, were bent over the water searching, washing and fishing with their bare hands. But every so often, on both sides of our vehicle, voices began calling out, making us jump.

‘Bula!’ they shouted. We cowered in our seats.

‘It means “hello,”’ said a voice from the back of the bus. It was Ferg, our other Team Leader. ‘They recognise your Think Pacific t-shirts - lots of teams travel around in buses like these - and they respect you. You’ll get a lot more of this when you go into town to buy your clothes.’

It was a wonderful piece of information, how Fijians held Think Pacific in such high esteem, but I didn’t quite feel like I deserved their respect just yet; not after being a volunteer for two hours.

Half way there, we parked at a shop for a toilet-stop, and we each enjoyed some variation of ice-cream or fizzy drink. Then, having cooled down only a little, we were back in the sardine tin, spending the last hour playing “Would you rather..?”

‘Would you rather have legs as long as your fingers or fingers as long as your legs?’ said Sarah, Queen of the questions.

‘Would you rather die freezing to death in the Arctic or burning to death in the Sahara?’ said another.

‘How about, would you rather have a permanent snot-bubble or wet yourself every time somebody greeted you?’

A silly game maybe, but it increased our entertainment on the trip astronomically. Besides, you’d be surprised at the level of theoretical analysis we dedicated to each one.