Taveuni, the "Garden Island"

On Saturday we got up at 5am, skipped breakfast, and raced to catch the 7am Ferry to go to Fiji's third largest island, Taveuni (known at the "Garden Island", due to it's beauty).  Unfortunately the Ferry was 2 hours late in arriving that morning.

Lomaiviti Princess arriving at the
Savusavu Harbor.

Connecting at the dock.

People sleep anywhere they can on the Ferry

...Even young children...

Th

Once we arrived at Somosomo, Taveuni,
we checked into our hotel, The Garden 
Island Resort. It was located in a beautiful
 setting, right on the ocean.

In front of the hotel, we found this
unusual type of tree.

We did, however find that there were a few
hundred huge "Fruit Bats" in the trees at
the hotel.  Their bodies are the size of cats!
If you look carefully, you will see them.

Unfortunately, the bats were also very noisy.

That same evening, we ate out with the senior
LDS missionary couple, John & Karen
Vermeeren,  at a picturesque restaurant over
looking the ocean, watching a beautiful sunset.
They are friends & patients from Calgary, and 
have been serving on this island for one year now.

On Sunday, we went to this LDS "Bush Chapel"
in the remote area of Vuna.  It's a single open
air building used for church services for this
small (but growing) Branch of the Church.
The youth classes are held under the shade of
a tree, or a canopy they would later set up.

They did have an adjacent toilet to use.

Here are some of the cute children
arriving to attend Church with their parents

This is the bare footed (as is the custom)
Branch President doing the finishing
touches so he'll be ready for church.

Children love to pose for photos.

The Fijian people love to sing, and do
an outstanding job of it.

The Branch President asked both 
Ann and I to speak in church.

Following the meeting, there was a baptism
of two, 8 year olds, and one 12 year old

We all walked about half a kilometer in the
very hot sunny and calm day toward the sea,
where the baptism was to take place.

You can see that one lady put a cloth
on her head (as is the custom here) to
shield herself from the hot sun.

The Baptismal Service was conducted right on
the beach. Did I mention it was a very hot day?

A fallen tree limb made very comfortable
seats in the shade on this hot day.

Because it was low tide, they had to walk out
quite a distance to get water that was deep enough.

The ocean water is almost as warm as the
air temperature, so it's very comfortable.

We are able to witness all three baptisms.

These young children were very interested
to watch the proceedings from the shoreline.

"Mission accomplished"

Following the meetings, a flat tire had to be
changed. It was amazing to see this young
man in a white shirt crawl under the vehicle
to help change the tire. He loved to help.

The job is almost finished.

Following the meetings and the potluck
dinner, the Vermeerens gave out suckers
to all the kids & adults. They loved them,
both the Vermeerens and the suckers.

The two missionary Elders needed a ride,
so they hopped in the back of the truck
on this very hot day!

We stopped at this beautiful seaside spot
with the Vermeerens. Here's Ann & Karen.

John & Karen Vermeeren; such great people.

Here we are, standing in the hot sun
in this picturesque location.

Another picturesque scene, near where
the Vermeerens live.  It's still hot!

The Vermeerens live in this beautiful
area called "Taveuni Estates".

The beautiful walk-way to the Vermeeren's home

What an amazing view from the Vermeeren's balcony

The Vermeerens were kind enough to prepare
a wonderful Sunday evening meal.
Great company, great food, & great scenery!

On Monday morning, we went to do eye
exams in the Somosomo School.

When we arrived, the principal had all the
kids lined up, standing in the hot sun to do
their morning devotional. Their singing was
simply amazing; but we felt sorry for them
not being able to stand in the shade

I couldn't turn down the opportunity to speak
and joke with the kids before we started.

We had a nice big room to work in.  Thank
goodness for the fans (powered by the Vermeeren's
generator, since there was no electricity in this remote
area) to help keep us comfortable on this hot day.

These kids are sure cute, especially
with their braided hair.

Nothing like a "Hi-5" to make them feel
comfortable. We ended up setting a record
by seeing 254 patients in one day! To speed
things up and make this possible, Ann worked
as my scribe, while our other helpers did
everything else to make sure the kids moved
exactly where & when they needed to be.

The Vermeerens were a great help, as they
were the ones who set up and guided us to
all the different locations to do eye exams
during our week in Taveuni.  They were on
their feet all day checking patients in, directing
them to move to the right place at the right 
time, and they provided us with cold drinks, 
and a wonderful lunch each day.  

On Tuesday, we went to this school in the area 
of Matei, found in the north part of Taveuni.  

The missionary Elders played an important
role in helping us do as many exams as possible

This Elder enjoyed helping to keep the kids
looking at the eye chart, rather than at my
light while I tested their eyes.  This was
another reason we could see so
many patients in a single day.

This is the Czeips.  They also helped us this day,
included providing a wonderful lunch, with fresh baking.

Ya gotta love these cute kids.

These are the kindergarten kids.

This photos shows how hot it is.
You can see the sweat on this boy's face.

Many of the boys keep a small
handkerchief in their shirt pocket
to wipe away the sweat.

This is called a Lali. The student beats the
wooden canoe shaped drum to inform everyone
that it is lunch time, or recess, or whatever.
This has been used in villages for many years.

It was interesting to see how all the students
lined up after lunch, to brush their teeth.

They need to brush only the teeth they want to keep!

These boys loved chatting with Ann
after we had finished our eye exams.
We ended up doing 184 exams today.

One day, Ann & I went for an hour walk
with Karen Vermeeren at 6am.  She 
enjoys walking almost every day.

It's so peaceful and beautiful
at this time in the morning.

Beautiful flowers, birds & trees...

This was an interesting sight along the way.

This spider is about the size of my hand;
which made it the largest I've ever seen.

An interesting bird found on our walk.

A beautiful home along the coast.

Look at the size of those leaves behind Ann

We are standing on the official International
Dateline that runs through the center of Taveuni.
It's like we were traveling in time.  If we forget a 
birthday, no problem; we just step across the line

On our day off, we took a four hour boat ride &
hike to some waterfalls and walked along the coast

We walked with our friends, the Vermeerens

This was our guide, Simone, who had amazing
knowledge & skills and helped us so many
times in many different ways along our hike.

These are the triple falls we came upon while
riding in a boat along the coastline and up the river

Rub-a-dub,dub, 3 or 4 people in a tub.

This "white banded sea snake" is the only
deadly poisonous snake found in Fiji.  Our
guide found it in the water, and asked if any
one wanted to hold it.  You can see that I
volunteered.  As long as I held it by the tail,
and kept it away from my body, it was safe.
Just call me the "snake whisperer"!

This was a waterfall we found on our hike.
We all swam to the waterfall, enjoying the
cool refreshing break from the heat.  I
even slid down the falls like a water-slide.

One of the unique birds found along our hike

Interesting rocks found along the beach.

Some spectacular views & colors found
along our Lavena beach walk.

Ann found herself between a rock and a hard place.

This suspension bridge created
some excitement along the way.

We all enjoyed a taste of sugarcane our
guide found for us along the way.

This is the beach where they filmed
the movie, "Blue Lagoon-2".

Ann was in her glory, as she collected some
beautiful and amazing seashells along the way

Here's one of the big shells our
guide helped Ann to find.

This gel from the flower of a Ginger tree
is used as natural hair gel in Fiji.
We didn't try spreading it on our heads.

This interesting plant sure has a close
resemblance to some kind of lizard.

We had a good laugh at these signs.

We did find out that periodically people
of all ages do actually die from this.

We found these cute kindergarten kids
playing in the tree along our walk.

It kind of makes us miss our own grandkids

We ended our hike with a great lunch
in the shade, overlooking the ocean.

On Thursday, we did 235 eye exams at this
school near Vuna on Taveuni.

In addition to testing lots of kids,
we examined some of teachers
and parents in the community.

While we were playing some good dance
music to pump us up throughout the day,
Karen Vermeeren and the school's dance
teacher had a little fun dancing along.

This is one of the girls who was found to
need glasses for her first time.  It was
actually quite amazing to me, how few
children on the island, needed any glasses.

This is the Principal, who was thrilled to
receive a well needed pair of reading glasses

After the day of work, we drove to see
these "blow holes" along the south coast.

Taveuni is known as the Garden Island, named after the many unique varieties of flowers found on the island.  I thought I'd share a few photos of the flowers we found on our various walks.

This is the rare Tagimoucia flower, which is found 
only on the island Taveuni.  It blooms for just two 
months of the year, and is found up in the mountains.

This is called the "cat whisker" flower.

This flower blooms only at night, and then
falls to the ground before daylight, so they
are found only around the tree trunk.

On Friday, we examined a record of 146
adults at the local LDS Chapel in
Somosomo.  Although we stayed late, we still
 had to turn away about another 100 people.

While I did eye exams, I had Elder Amisone
clean the finger prints off my trial lenses.

This patient was found to need a very high
glasses prescription:  -10.00   He has been
without glasses for 7 years!  Of all the
different places we have worked in, we have
felt that this island of Taveuni needed us more
than any other.  They have no optical stores or
any eye doctors on the island.  We felt like
the people really appreciated having us there.

On our last day (Saturday), we took the day off to
take a 4 hour hike up to three different waterfalls.
It pushed us to our limits of endurance, as it was a
very high vertical climb; but the amazing
beauty made it all worthwhile.

Our Canadian friends, the Vermeerens
took us on this challenging hike.  They
have done it a few times before.

This was the stop at the first of three falls.

What a view!

We turned around to find another
outstanding view!

Half way to the top, now.  We've worked
up quite a sweat in the heat & humidity.

We saw many frogs & lizards along the way

This land crab wouldn't back down as
we came upon him on the trail.
He almost didn't look real.

Nearing the end, you can see the
exhaustion setting in.

It felt so good to cool down in the water
at the waterfall, after the long hike in
such hot and humid weather.

This sweet lady, who I examined and found
needs cataract surgery, gave us this gift,
called a Tapa.  The flower in the painting is 
the rare Tagimoucia flower.  Despite her poor 
vision, she did a wonderful job of painting it, herself.

Well, that's the end of our full week in Taveuni.  We had a mix of hard work and fun exploring the beautiful "Garden Island".  We felt so pampered and taken care of by our friends, Karen & John Vermeeren from Calgary.  It turned out we did 820 eye exams this past week, which is almost 10% of the total population of Taveuni. We also felt our services were needed on this remote island, more than any other place we have been in Fiji.