When Lees-McRae science professor Fiona Chrystall led a travel course to Fiji - in January - student recruitment was not the problem. Twelve students (and I) rushed to sign up. The harder part was convincing everyone else that the trip was not just an elaborate scheme to escape the Banner Elk winter.
“It looks like you snorkel every day,” my wife pointed out, perusing the itinerary.
"Well, we’re researching life on the reef,” I replied, a bit defensively.
“And there’s an awful lot of sea kayaking.”
“Kadavu has no roads. That’s how we’ll get around.”
“And cliff jumping?”
“Well, you know, geology and stuff…” (raised eyebrow) “…well, we have to have some fun while we’re there.”
“Uh-huh. And Day Five: swimming under a waterfall?”
Okay, I see their point. But as someone who has led travel courses for fifteen years, I had no doubt about the academic value a trip like this would offer.
How better to study marine life than to snorkel the fourth largest barrier reef in the world — especially when supplemented with pre-departure prep meetings and lectures at the University of the South Pacific once we arrived in Fiji?
What I hadn’t counted on — and what the printed itinerary could never convey — was the depth of the cultural experience we would receive.
For this, we have to thank the people of Kadavu, the remote island where we spent much of our trip, and our guide company, Tamarillo Tropical Expeditions.
With no roads or permanent power sources and few tourists (we saw six in ten days), Kadavu consists of traditional villages subsisting on surrounding forests and reefs.
For well over a decade, Tamarillo has cultivated relationships with Kadavu’s villages and families.
The company invests in the local economy, hiring native guides and even having their t-shirts manufactured in Fiji. The result of such an approach in such a place is one of unparalleled authenticity.
For ten days on Kadavu we lived like locals, experiencing the island through the lives of the people, not through someone else’s filter.
We stayed on a farm where we slept on mats in a bure (a thatched hut), camped at local “resorts” (not the right word, but I’m not sure what to call a collection of family-built huts powered by a generator), and slept on the floor of a chief’s house in the village of Vacalea.
We gathered food in the forest, spearfished on the reef, and learned that the village would be wise not to rely on us for food.
We wove baskets, prepared meals in a traditional lovo (earth oven), and studied Fijian language. We played volleyball with the men and frisbee with the children. We held a feast to celebrate the circumcision of a chief’s son, and sang and drank kava — a drink made from a root and served in a coconut shell—each night with our hosts.
And yes, we snorkeled and kayaked, but we did so with Fijian guides who showed us more than where we were going.
And, yes, we went cliff jumping, but as I told my wife: It is one thing to jump off a cliff beside a waterfall. It is quite another to do so with local children, whose fathers had just invited you to a kava ceremony to welcome you to their village.
Finally, you know a travel course has been successful when upon returning students continue to engage in work related to the experience. To return the kindness shown to us, our students are raising funds to purchase needed farm equipment for the village of Vacalea — adding a service-learning component to complement their academic research.
Not bad for something that started out as an elaborate scheme to avoid the Banner Elk winter. Wait, did I say that?
[end].
by Scott Crawford, Global Community Center director, Lees-McRae College, Banner Elk, North Carolina.