Yesterday we were up, washed, changed and had our second complimentary coffee, before checking out of the Rainforest Lodge and boarding the bus by 8.45am. We had a 2 hour journey, stopping for food provisions en-route, along bumpy roads to a secondary school. We had a tour of the facilities, including library (containing a book about Britain that was so old it described Buckingham Palace as the place where the king lived!), dining room (which was really basic, there was only one pair of curtains on the glass-less windows that was hanging off and they cooked the food on a make-shift stove fire and the 'yard' / 'outside area' was open directly into the kitchen area where chickens happily clucked about, which made us appreciate our school dining hall, kitchen and dinners!) and dormitories, before entering a classroom. The 15 year old students sang us a couple of songs, then we had the opportunity to chat with the and have photos taken with some of the students. Sarah was given an address to send copies of the photos to, for some of the school kids and was told she was pretty (!?!) by one of the younger boys, bless! - Probably thought she was 15, too! You could clearly see that the school lacked the facilities and commodities that our schools have, but they certainly made the most of what they had. As the school is out in the sticks they have lack of funds and government support, so everyone in our group bought some stationary and gave it to the school, to lend a hand. It was also nice to find out that part of what we paid for our FEEJEE Experience tour/ trip went towards the school, as the company is a sponsor.

After the school we headed to a local village where we took part in a Sevusevu Ceremony. Before entering the room/ hut/ 'commuity hall', we all had to yell "Doo-wah=ooul" as a way of asking permission to enter. We were granted permission on reply and removed our shoes before entering. Bola made a speech in Fijian and handed the chief the root of a kava as a gift from us (the whole group). We had a kava ceremon, after formally introducing ourselves, then the boys and girls split up into separate groups. The guys had more kava and us girlies weaved a bracelet out of natural materials. As we left we said "thank-you" ("vinaka") to some of the younger (and cuter) members of the village - very sweet and polite - shaking our hands. From here it was a short journey down the road to the river where we had a fun time Bili Bili Rafting! The raft was submerged a couple of inches before we even got on and we squeeled as we sat down in the cool water. As we set off the raft seemed rather unsafe and we were rocking from side to side as we attempted to balance and even out the raft to try and keep ourselves from capsizing - queue more girlie squeels! Before we got to the other end of the river, with help from Rolando (one of the Swedish guys) the raft was successfully capsized and we even jumped and dived in several times (see, we're not that bad!) before Rolando steered us back - more into the banks than down the river, however! We changed out of our wet clothes and set off on an hour and a half drive to our final stop-over.

We arrived at Voli Voli beach resort at 6.30pm and settled into our en-suite (two bathrooms, no less!) dorm before making dinner of beans on toast. We had to stick on bread on a folk and a knife and toast it over the hob, as we didn't realise that the strange triangular contraption was actually the 'toaster'. After beans and singed bread we joinned the rest of the group in the bar and enjoyed some group games (including stone and spoon race, pass the bottle and pass the rugby ball), both of us winning a cocktail in the 'musical positions' game! After the games we enjoyed a couple of dances/ skits courtesy of the camp employee, Sasha, then had some kava before heading down to the beach for a bonfire, songs (including national athems!) courtesy of Bola and his guitar and chats. Before we knew it it was 2.00am and ready to hit the sack.

This morning we were allowed a lie-in! We were up after 9.00am and enjoyed singed toast for breakie (using the triangular thingy!), we slowly got ready adn made the most of the dry, sunny weather by having a paddle in the sea and a wander on the beach. The bus left Voli Voli at 12.00 noon and drove a couple of hours through the Indian villages (whilst falling asleep to our driver, Arvin's Indian stories) to the Ba town where we enjoyed lunch, at an Indian restaurant - Sarah had chiken satay and Laura had fish in coconut cream. After we finished it was another couple of hours back towards Nadi, stopping en-route at the Sabeto Mud Pools. We bathed in the warm mud before cleaning ourselves off in the bath-temperature water of the nearby hot spring. Back in Nadi, we called at the office to make island bookings before being dropped off at Nadi Downtown Backpackers. We wandered the empty streets of Nadi for a snack before retiring to our dorm.