Infinite

                “And in that moment, I swear I felt infinite.”

                This quote, from The Perks of Being a Wallflower, is one of my favorite quotes ever… And it basically sums up my weekend. I thought last weekend was great, but my time in the Yasawa Islands was truly over the top. I apologize for continuously sounding like my trip has reached its’ peak as far as joy and excitement levels go, but I’m somehow constantly outdoing myself! What a wonderful problem to have!

                Eleven of us volunteers decided to embark on this adventure, so we all boarded a bus that would drop us off in Lautoka, a city about 5 hours away on the other side of the island. From there, we stopped and had dinner, then boarded a fishing boat which departed at 10:00 P.M. and would arrive at the island that our resort was on about 6-7 hours later. It had two levels (but only seating on the bottom level) and some of us thought that it’d be cool to hang out at the top for a little bit.

                It. Was. Beautiful.

                I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life. Here I was, at the hull of the ship, with my legs dangling over the edge, just staring out into the Pacific. Since it was dark outside, you couldn’t tell where the ocean ended or where the midnight sky began. When I would lie down, I looked up at a sky that was twinkling with more stars than I had ever seen in my entire life. I ended up falling asleep while looking for shooting stars (In case you were wondering, I saw twelve that night. TWELVE!). Each time I woke up, I felt like I was still dreaming as I would open my eyes and feel like I could see the entire universe. It was incredibly peaceful, calming, and magical. Not only did the sky, the universe, and the stars seem infinite, but I felt infinite, also. 6-7 hours turned into 8 ½ hours. I slept terribly on the hard surface of the boat, but I didn’t mind the time or the lack of comfort because I wouldn’t trade that view for anything!

When we finally arrived at our destination at 6:30 A.M., the staff greeted us with a song and served us breakfast. After putting our belongings down in the room, I spent the rest of the day reading and dozing in and out while lying out on the beach. At one point, when we were on a “private beach,” several local small children ran up to us and randomly started playing with our hair without saying more than three words. I thought they just wanted to touch our hair since they’re not used to the texture of it, but I soon had a full head of mini braids. While the girls braided our hair, the boys were twirling sticks and playing games. After saying goodbye (mainly because we were so exhausted that we couldn’t continue to entertain these adorable children), we went to a different beach to continue with our agenda of doing nothing.

That night, the resort put on a show featuring Fijian Fire Dancers. I loved seeing something so different and cultural, and was especially surprised when two of the little boys from the beach earlier were participating. (Yes, they were practicing twirling sticks because they were performing an act later that day… with fire burning on either end of the sticks. I suddenly felt stupid for commenting on how talented they were earlier because it was nothing compared to the show!) As soon as it ended, the Fire Dancers went out into the crowd and grabbed people to dance as current hits started to play. Next thing I know, I’m whisked away, having a Fire Dancer teaching me Fijian dance moves to very American music. (The hilarious irony of this situation kills me!) Soon, all of the volunteers were dancing with the kids from earlier in the day and with each other until very late in the night. It was fun, hilarious, and incredibly carefree. I made an awesome game of showing everybody ridiculous dance moves just to see if they would actually do them, and I don’t think I ever failed! At one point, I realized how much power I had when I suggested playing the Dance Game (shout out to the post-college Beach Week crew!) and the entire dance floor started playing. I have no idea what happened or how I gained so much control of everybody, but it was awesome and hilarious!

On Sunday, I spent the majority of the day reading and laying out again. Ben, Lucy, and I decided to go on a snorkeling trip which was beautiful and then several of us took a sunset hike to the top of the island. It took about 45 minutes of travelling through tall grasses and overgrown weeds, but when we finally got there, it was breathtaking. I was at the highest point of the island and, by doing a 360, I could see the entire island and several surrounding ones. On one side of the island, I was watching the setting sun glow over the water. On the other side, I felt the wind blow the tall grasses towards me. I was so awestruck, that if I closed my eyes and lifted my hands up, I honestly felt like I could have flown. That’s about the best that I’ll be able to explain it, but just know that this moment was beautiful, perfect, and wholly mine. I’m not sure if or when I’ll ever experience something like that again, but it was another point in time when I felt completely alive, free, and “infinite.”

We left the island early on Monday morning and took our long boat ride back to the main island. Despite the fact that this one was during the day, I remained in my “spot” on the top deck. It was incredible to be in the exact same place, but to this time see the water, the islands, and the rising sun dance across the water. The highlight of our boat ride back was the 5 minutes or so that two dolphins raced along the side of the boat. How cool!

Today, I took my last vacation day of the trip to go on a shark dive. That’s right -- I was swimming with sharks! I thought I’d be terrified, but, for some reason, it was oddly calming and majestic as the sharks didn’t even seem to take notice of us. I literally could have reached out several times to touch a bull shark that was swimming in front of me or over my head and there were DOZENS of them swimming around, but I was more fascinated than anything else. Here I am, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, watching sharks (many of which looked frighteningly similar to Bruce in Finding Nemo!) in their natural habitat. What a cool experience… and one that is now up there on my list of craziest things I’ve done. Good news: I survived!

Overall, you can tell how fantastic my long weekend was. In fact, Ben started making fun of me for the number of times that I said something like, “I’m SO HAPPY right now!” or “I’m absolutely elated!” over the past few days. Honestly, I don’t blame him though. I’m seriously loving everything about Fiji… The small moments, the big moments, the volunteering moments, the trips, the people, the moments where God’s presence is so apparent, and the times where I feel infinite. Why wouldn’t I be happy? Why wouldn’t I feel elated? And why wouldn’t I feel incredibly blessed and fortunate for all that God has blessed me and for how big He is?

Fiji is my euphoria.