Frozen Photons

My Scholarship entry - Two Years in Fiji: Snapshots of Service

FIJI | Friday, 21 November 2014 | Views [592] | View Larger Image

A Norwegian tourist and a village elder join forces against the wind to light suki- raw tobacco rolled in newsprint. The tourist was staying at the backpacker's lodge in the village that a resident Peace Corps volunteer helped establish. The income from the lodge is indispendable in providing food, education, and electricity for the village. Lavena Village, Taveuni, Fiji.

A long exposure of the ferris wheel at Labasa's Festival of the Friendly North. This yearly festival draws tens of thousands from all over the island of Vanua Levu, and the ensuing crowd is a racous blend of villagers and city-dwellers amongst the rides and food stalls. At the time the photo was taken Fiji was a military dictatorship and large, non-religious gatherings were outlawed, so state-sponsored events like this one gave locals the rare opportunity to congregate en masse.

Labasa Town, Vanua Levu, Fiji.

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The arson-scarred ruins of Naria Primary School- a relic and reminder of Fiji's racial tensions. The school was burned down in 1987 and again in 2000, each time on the night following a government coup. Fiji was a British colony for almost 100 years, and the indentured Indian laborers that the British brought to work in the sugarcane fields still have descendants in Fiji. However, tensions between the Native and Indo-Fijians are thinly veiled, as Naria Priimary School stands as a testament to. The school was torched because it was built on native Fijian land but the students were primarily Indo-Fijian.

Naria Settlement, Viti Levu, Fiji.

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My Scholarship entry - Two Years in Fiji: Snapshots of Service

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