The Island, Vanua Levu

This past week, we took a 12 hour Ferry ride right through the night from our home in Suva up to the second largest island in Fiji, called Vanua Levu.  We will be gone just over two weeks as we reach out to other islands to provide eye care to many who would normally never have access to any such eye care.

This 50 year old boat used to be part
B.C. Ferries in Canada until 2011.
It can hold up to almost 1000 people,
and many trucks and cars.

This is where we drove onto the Ferry.

This is where they had us park our vehicle
for the journey. The boat was later filled with
trucks and cars all around our SUV.

As you can tell from Ann's face, our 6'X6'
cabin was not in the best of shape. 
It felt like a prison cell.

The toilet room was not too inviting, either,
and was actually worse than is looks, here.

The ceiling was "nicely" decorated!

Most passengers didn't have a cabin to
sleep in, but just slept on the floor.  Whole
families would lay out a mat and play and
sleep there through the night.  It was a real
sight to behold.  It was also a very hot
journey, as the air conditioner broke down!

To get some fresh air before we ate and
slept in our cabin for the night, we watched
the sailors preparing for departure.

A beautiful sunset saw us off, as we
sailed away from the port in Suva.

As we sailed away, we were both nervous
and excited for the adventures ahead of us.

This is our Ferry boat after we arrived at our
destination, the seaside town of Savusavu.

There are pockets of natural hot springs
releasing steam all around Savusavu, 

Here, I almost burned my hand on the hot
water coming up from the ground.

This was the amazing view from our hotel
room at the Savusavu Hot Springs Hotel.

This is our hotel nestled along the bay.

We found this unusual flower as we
drove around to discover the island.

More amazing flowers...

Hibiscus were also plentiful.

Beautiful bouquets of flowers are made
from the many local flowers on the island.

On the day we arrived, we drove up the
Hibiscus Hwy to Buca Bay through a
beautiful Fijian rain forest.  It was amazing.

We stopped at a remote beach along the way.

We found several unique seashells
to add to our Fiji collection.

Some of them were naturally polished,
and looked "store bought".

We came upon these three galloping horses
during our drive on the Hibiscus Hwy. 

We had a good laugh at this "Pac Man"
island we found along the seaside.

Time to cool down at the wharf
on this very hot day in Savusavu.

It was such a picturesque harbor.

You can see the locals nearby, smiling and
wondering if this "white" guy was going
to fall into the water, below.

These Fijians were sitting out in the hot
sun selling their piles of clams.

We went to church the next day, and were
met by these loving & friendly children.
Some of them sat on our laps during the mtg.

We were also greeted, and invited to dinner
with the Roths (from Switzerland) who are
 doing humanitarian service as missionaries
of the LDS Church in Savusavu.  They
were the ones who arranged everything, and
advertised our eyecare mission to Savusavu.

This was the very small LDS church we
attended on Sunday, and did eye exams on
Monday.  When we arrived for church, the
leader there invited us to speak in the meeting;
so Ann & I stood at the front and took turns
telling about our story of eye care, and gave
a little gospel message.

Standing beside his grand daughter, is the
oldest patient we have examined in Fiji.
He is 101 years old.  Since the life expectancy
in Fiji is much lower than north america,
it is quite remarkable that he is this old.
We had a busy day, seeing 98 patients.

On the next day, we drove out the village, Vunivesi, to do eye care in this nice little meeting hall.  We took some photos of the people waiting their turn in the hot weather to have their eye exam.

What a happy grandpa.

One lady was too crippled to get out of
this car to come in for an eye exam, so I
came out and did the eye exam right there.

This was a first, and probably the last time
I'll ever do an "in-car" eye exam! Her eyes
were healthy, but she needed reading
glasses, which she was happy to receive.

Ann was kept busy keeping up, as we did
108 eye exams in this hot building in 6 hours.
Luckily we had two fans blowing to help
make it a little more comfortable to work.

After a busy and hot day, we sure enjoyed
cooling down in the hotel pool before supper.

On the next day, we took a tour of the one and only pearl farm & factory in Fiji.  We then snorkeled in the Savusavu Bay and saw huge 6 foot diameter clams, something I've never seen before in real life.  They are remarkable.  Later that day drove up to the north part of the island to the city of Labasa (pronounced "Lambasa"), where we were to do our next day's eye care.

On the way, we thought we may have taken
a wrong turn when we came up this village!

There were some beautiful views of the
ocean as we drove to Labasa.

This funny, and somewhat scary sight of
this guy balancing a boat on top of his
vehicle was kind of interesting.

Because of the extreme heat here in Fiji,
many kids and adults use umbrellas to
provide shade as they walk the street,
especially here in Labasa where it is
considered the hottest city in all of Fiji!

Once we arrived in Labasa, we checked
into this "interesting" hotel....

The hotel had a good looking pool where
we could swim after a busy day of eye
examinations.  The only problem was that
because of the extreme sun and heat, the
water felt like a warm bath - not quite as
refreshing as we had hoped, but still okay.

On our first day in Labasa, we did eye
exams in the local LDS church.  Here's
some photos of many of the interesting
people who were waiting in line outside
in the extreme heat waiting to see us!

As you look at these photos, you'll see there is
a good mix of both native Fijian and "Indo-Fijian".

Some of the people watched a video while
waiting for us, but since the room wasn't
air conditioned, it was still very hot.

We felt lucky to work in the only air conditioned
room in the church.  It felt like an oven
when ever we stepped outside our room.

We ended up doing exactly 100 eye
exams on this particular day.

At lunch time, this generous senior missionary
couple (the Woodwards from Idaho) treated
a number of us to a great Chinese food lunch.

The next day, we drove about 30 minutes
outside Labasa to do eye exams at this
somewhat remote town.  By the way,
it's pronounced "Sea-Gonga".

This is an outside look at the health centre
as we drove up to it.

Today, we weren't quite so lucky to have
air conditioning.  We worked the whole
day in rather sweaty clothes, but everyone
expects that, so we don't have to worry.

This man told me that his face & head are
shaped like this because of his mistake of
drinking & driving 17 years earlier.

This particular day, the lunch was provided
by the Lions Club of Labasa. They (as well
as some workers from the health centre)
also helped us with organizing the crowd
of people and helped check them in for us.

This 5 year old cross-eyed girl was
brought in by her mother, concerned
about the left eye crossing in.

It was found that she needed glasses in the
worst way, as her left eye was +7.00.
We have to special order her glasses from my
office in Calgary, but gave her some glasses
that were her partial prescription to wear in the
meantime.  We hope that when she gets her
proper glasses, that her left eye will straighten out.

Ann is writing up the order and getting the
contact information for this 5 year old girl.
Ann also gave her some M&M's which she
seemed very happy to eat. We just love children.

Well, this raps up out week on the island of Vanua Levu, exploring different places, staying in different hotels, and eating out in various places, and meeting all kinds of new people, both patients and those helping us to make our visit successful.  We will always have great memories of our week on this island in Fiji.