The End of One Journey and the Beginning of Another, Kavaholics, Parental Peer Pressure, Teacher Deportation, Wilsonnnnn, and Calling the Dawgs

Bula!

Alas, the trip to the Land Down Under, Middle Earth, and Paradise is now coming to an end. I have been away from home now for exactly one month, but a part of me feels I’ve been away a year. It’s been an unbelievable trip that many people will never have the opportunity to partake in. I could post thousands of photos, videos and write as many blogs as I wanted to and I would never be able to fully explain the relationships I’ve made with the people I would have never met if I had decided to stay in Athens and not do something extraordinary.

So the last time I wrote to everyone we were still in New Zealand getting ready to climb Mount Cook and swim with dolphins in Kiakoura. However the weather kept us from doing both, needless to say we traveled over 18 hours on a bus to hear 4 hours of lecture. Everyone from the other groups said this was the highlight of their New Zealand trip; however I was more upset about the fact that I was parting ways with some of my closest friends that I have spent every waking moment for the past four weeks with. Make no mistake, when you spend all day, everyday with the same people you learn a lot about them; and you decide really quick if you like them or not. However, our group of 36 people was something special. Everyone enjoyed everyone’s presence and at least tolerated mine. Our last night in Christchurch we all met up at a local Irish pub for dinner and gave out superlatives; things escalated quickly and a few people were called out. However, being the oldest of the group I was always the one to keep everyone together and make sure nobody got into too much trouble; hence I was awarded “Most Likely to Keep It Together.” Not my personal favorite but it fit, besides… I left all my wingmen back in Athens.

So about Fiji, for me, and probably 90% of you, the most I knew about Fiji was they have very good bottled water and the fact that Vijay Singh came from here. Maybe you have seen it on a post card with all the huts out in the water with glass floors…. Don’t worry, I wasn’t fortunate enough to stay in those but we were close. The actual country itself is considered to be a third world country. However we only spent 2.5 days in the city of Nadi, visiting the markets and fighting out swindlers who would try to sell you the shirt off your own back if you gave them the chance. For instance, in Fiji it is custom to wear what is called a “sulu” or basically a skirt that wraps around your waist…. Men and women. Yes, that is right I wore a skirt for a week. These photos will probably never make the Internet, sorry for the disappointment. Well when I went to buy the sulu, the guy’s asking price was $40 or $25 American. Now some of the group members paid this…. But not me. Being the astute businessmen I pride myself in being, I made a hard counter offer at a solid $2. He shot back at $10. This is when I knew I had him; so I walked away and right I was at the door I heard, “Ok buddy, I’ll give it to you for 5 bucks.” SOLD!! To the big American, who, regardless of where he is in the world, will get his price. Capitalism is a beautiful thing.

Next we went to the market, now many of us have been to a “farmer’s market” or grocery store. This was a little different. Imagine a huge market with every type of fish or vegetable outside in the sun trying to be sold by the very people who grew those crops or caught that fish earlier in the day. Only problem is that for most everything is covered in flies or would make us sick from the water used to grow the crops. Everything except for this one demon root called “Kava.”

Now let me tell you a little about this thing called Kava. It is considered a substance and is not sold in U.S. It comes from a root that is grinded up into a fine substance and mixed with water. The locals drink it at ceremonies. However, it is considered to be rude if you refuse it. Well you all know me; I’m the furthest thing from a rude person so needless to say I was first in line to try this drink I had heard so much of. To describe it I would say it was a mix between pond water and dirt and it looked the part, too. One of the guys in our group bought a kilogram and needless to say our group had drank it all by the end of our first night…. When in Fiji, right? It makes your tongue go numb and puts you right to sleep, but other than that it was not bad. The locals referred to us a “Kavaholics.” However, because alcohol is illegal in the village we stayed in, many of the tribesmen seemed eerily similar to some of the patrons of Downtown Athens on a given Saturday night.

After we were finally getting ready to leave Nadi, we were to set out for Botaira, a remote and exotic island in the Yasawa Islands. However, to say I was hungry would be an understatement. It had been a while since I had a slice of America in my life and I was starting to have withdrawals. However, there was beacon of hope in the not so far distance, the second closest thing to an American Embassy; no not McDonalds, rather the… Hard Rock Café. Yes, there is a God. But as He gives, and He also takes.; and we were on a tight schedule and we couldn’t indulge ourselves. A little part of me died that day. Needless to say, we left from Port Denaru and docked next to Tom Cruise’s ship “Suli.” Honestly I had my doubts. Especially due to the fact that right next to Cruise’s 70ft. yacht was in fact an 85ft. party barge that was calling my name. Moral of the story, you can go halfway around the world and boys will be boys and there will be some sort of pissing contest to be seen (Gazaway & Houston). To the man with the 85ft yacht, I tip my hat; I see what you did there… Well played, Sir.

Now we weren’t exactly riding in style of that magnitude but we did get to island hop on a catamaran and see all the primitive islands that paradise had to offer…. I know a rough life, huh? Highlight of the boat ride didn’t go to Tom Cruise…. It actually went to Tom Hanks. Halfway to our resort we stopped at the island where Cast Away was filmed. No, I didn’t see Wilson, but for those of you who know me this didn’t stop me from throwing a few obnoxious “WILLLLLSOOOOONNNNNN!!!!” quotes out there. Once again in true fashion, I was able to throw out a few other random quotes from a very unquotable movie. It’s a gift; what can I say?

When we finally arrived in “Paradise” or the Botaira Resort, we were literally located on a reef with our backs to a remote island overlooking the Pacific Ocean and a front row seat to a phenomenal sunset. We stayed in huts on the beach and had our meals at the local bar and dinner area overlooking the water… jealous yet? Wait until I finally get around to uploading all of my photos. Snorkeling, scuba diving, paddle boarding at sunset, kayaking with my friends, catching some rays and enjoying some of Fiji’s finest beers and umbrella drinks is hard work; very tiresome to say the least… Don’t worry, I did have to work my butt off for this course; three credit hours in one week is not simple, regardless if you are in paradise. We ended up staying in these huts that housed five beds, four of which were twins and one was a queen size; five people in each hut. If you do the math, you understand that four little Indians get the short end of the stick while the big Chief delights himself to the spoils of war. Needless to say, It pays off to be an Alpha Male. Well actually I wont lie, it just pays off to be extremely good at “rock, paper, scissors.” However I still liked my chances, regardless what you may be thinking.

Now the unique thing about this trip was the fact that we actually left our resort to stay the night with the local villagers on the other side of the island. None of us really knew what to expect, we didn’t know if we would be dealing with grass huts and half naked men who were chucking spears at their neighboring tribe or if we would be with people who are not so different from us. After hiking up what we were told would be an hour hike, we ended up making it in two hours. Flip-flops and hiking aren’t ideal, regardless what you think. However, I refuse to buy Chacos. So I roughed it and got in touch with my inner Tom Hanks and lost the flops.

When we arrived to our village, we first participated in the “Sevusevu” which is the traditional ceremony of welcoming outsiders into the village. Generally an exchange is made between the visitors and the villagers, I was fortunate enough to be chosen by the group to go before the elders and present our gift,; yeah you guessed it…. Kava root. It was quite the experience and I will never forget it, I felt like Meriwether Lewis going before the tribes and asking for their blessing to pass. Don’t worry, no peace pipes were passed; however, there was a lot of kava passed around and apparently because they recognized me as the Chief I was given double the amount everyone else was given. A reminder: this was 11:00 am that morning… when in Fiji right? After all of the ceremonies were finished we met our families and made introductions and were told that out of respect we had to call them “mom and dad.” Needless to say the villagers were a little confused when my southern drawl came out and they heard “momma and deddy.”

Also, apparently “Dustin” is a foreign and unheard of name for these people; every time I would introduce myself as Dustin, I received in return “Justin Bieber?” After a while I just quit fighting it, you pick and choose your battles. This was one of them. We interacted with our families throughout the day, got to play with the kids and had some of the best Spanish mackerel I’ve every had for lunch that day—caught earlier in the cove that very morning. Apparently these kids thought I was some type of savior because when I pulled out my iPad and iPhone, you would have thought Christmas had came early for those guys…. Especially the photo booth app, they were mind blown with all the photo effects.

That night we met in the village common area where we were given a ceremonial dinner and shown a “Meke” which is tribal dance that displays stories and the history of the local village; it was a once in a life time opportunity. Now reciprocity is a very common theme with these people and they will literally give you the shirt off their back and the bed they sleep in; but seriously they gave me their best shirt and their beds to sleep in while they slept on the dirty floor. So after their dance, we returned the favor of our own dance and songs. Now, I lobbied extremely hard for “Wagon Wheel” and “Fresh Prince” however there is always one in every group who has to have their way so we settled on “Lean on Me,” “The Electric Slide” and of course I personally led the group in the “Calling of the Dawgs” to end the ceremony. Yes, that is 3/3 countries I’ve led the chant in. Mission accomplished.

So after the dinner, we put the women and children to bed and the men stayed up for a “Mombotuo Family Tradition” of Kava drinking. Now I will say that “Dad” may have had one too many Kava bowls to drink that night and wasn’t using his best judgment. In fact, I would even venture to say that he was trying his damndest to get his “kids” (me) Kava-drunk. Now, I’ve dealt with peer pressure before during college from Houston, Gazaway and Long and been fine but when 15+ kava-drunk Fijians start giving you a hard time they make y’all look like housewives. I guess because I was the “Chief” of our group I bared the burden of the group as well. Needless to say it was a long night. And somewhere along the way one of those Kava-drunk Fijians thought it would be cute to use their tap water instead of our bottle water. Yes it’s just like Mexico down here. Nevertheless, Montezuma’s long lost Fijian cousin came to visit me that next day and the few days after. He’s every bit as cruel as ole Montezuma and packs just as strong of a punch—especially when the plumbing is outdoors. I was not a happy camper climbing back up that God-forsaken mountain. Once again folks, I can’t make this stuff up. However Paradise was not all lost.

After the once in a lifetime experience of being able to stay with Fijian locals and being accepted as one of their own, we returned to the Botaira to resume in the usual snorkeling, sunbathing, scuba diving, paddle boarding and of course the occasional lecture… depending on cloud coverage of course. To say it was awesome would do it an injustice, I really can’t describe it. Houston, I would have loved to have you out there to help storm the beaches like Normandy. Long, I made sure to request Wagon Wheel as the closing song every night at the beach bar, and Gazaway you would have thrived in the environment given your actions at Cancun. However all good things come to an end and we returned to Nadi to spend our last days there to finish up projects and take our final—probably should have studied a little more for that one…. Just kidding mom.

Oh, and how could I forget that our teacher was deported from Fiji because his visa was expired? The funny thing is that Fijians have a saying called “Fiji Time” where literally they are the most carefree, contempt, non-hurried people on earth. It’s like waiting on Gazaway and his girlfriend when we have to be somewhere on time and always end up 30 minutes late.  But apparently the Fijians take the time you stay in their country serious, Dr. Terrant found this out the hard way. But for the rest of us this wasn’t so much fun when we waited at the airport for an hour and a half for the bus…. But hey, its Fiji time, right?

We just touched down in LAX and I’m waiting on a connector flight to Phoenix for another four-hour layover before I can leave to go to Atlanta. So if all goes well I’ll be arriving in the great state of Georgia around 6:30 in the morning. You can find me at a Chick Fil-A as I grab a few chicken biscuits and multiple sweet teas. A month without sweet tea does strange things to a southern man. After that, I have a feeling that I’m about to have some serious jet lag that I wont get over until I board my plane for London in less than two weeks.

It’s been one hell ride over the past month, from climbing mountains, to scuba diving two different reefs, to jumping off a perfectly good bridge and of course making some damn good friends along the way. This was the first summer since I was 10 years old that I have not had obligations to football, baseball or basketball; I’ll be the first to admit that I felt like I was a fish out of water. However, I wouldn’t trade my experience for a million dollars; and to think that I still have one more trip halfway around the world only motivates me to continue living my life one day at a time with no regrets. You have heard me say, “Take a leap of faith;” I’m not just saying that for my health. One of the main reasons I started this blog was so I could somehow share my experiences with my friends and family; but also I wanted to somehow motivate everyone to do something extraordinary. This doesn’t mean traveling the world; it can be anything out of the ordinary. Go against the grain for once and have no regrets. For the past four years, I lived a very structured and demanding lifestyle where every detail of my day was planned out to a T. However, when football ended for me I felt like I no longer knew what my purpose in life was, and honestly I wasn’t even sure who I was as a person. I knew I needed some type of change; so I took what money I had saved and decided to take a leap of faith by seeing the unknown and forging relationships with strangers I would have never met had I not stepped out of my comfort zone. For all of you back home, I can’t wait to see you over the next couple weeks. Look for my photos to be posted on Facebook within the next 2-3 days. For all my friends in Athens, I’ll need a sofa to crash on. I’ll see yall soon. Stay classy San Diego.

Cheers,

-Dustin