Upon my completion of high school, I reflected on what I had achieved in those four long years. It was then that I finally realized that I had never taken a chance, had never done something different, something that would set me apart from the rest of my class. I realized that I had not given myself the chance to enrich my character and grow mentally. It was time for me to take a chance and leave my circle of comfort for the first time; I applied for an internship in Fiji.
Interning through the Institute of Cultural Ecology and U.C. Santa Barbara allowed me the ultimate opportunity to be what it was to be an independent person. It taught me how to fend for myself and helped me to understand the world in which we live in. This was my first taste of the outside world. My internship was a reef study, but the true personal development occurred in my home stay in Votua Village and my interaction with its citizens.
The villagers were just beginning to come to grips with the world around them. They were learning about the new technologies and the every day current events in the outside world. They followed the carry-carry system of borrowing without the need for repayment. I realized that in order to survive in the world mentally and physically, I needed to take action for myself rather than to allow people to step in for me. I learned to support myself and to find ways, while involving the people around me, to get the necessary tasks done that better the group as a whole. I learned how to be a “team player.”
The villagers treated me like a long lost family member that had just returned home. They taught me the valuable skills that were needed to survive in their environment and at the end of my journey, I could spear fish enough to provide food for three families and at the end of my journey, I could use bamboo to build huts and other structures. And at the end of my stay I had helped a man in the village build his hut. At the end of my journey, I was able to travel with the men to the jungle to find herbs for their many natural medicines. They transformed me in to an efficient worker that could survive on his own.
The reef study was another wonderful experience. I got to see the largest variety of fish that I have ever seen in my entire life. From the crown of thorns starfish, to the French angelfish, I saw them all. My partner Eric and I decided taught a member of the village how to do the line-transect survey that we had been using to continue our research.
When I was doing my internship, the state of the Marine Preserve was improving. We were beginning to see more and more indicator species turn up on our surveys. We sighted a bump-head parrotfish. This species, especially in the area of study, is a very rare sight. When this species is sighted it is an indicator of improving reef health. The quality of the marine environment was stellar in comparison to the reefs that I had viewed in previous dives in Mexico and Puerto Rico. The experience in the marine protected area just outside of Votua Village was the best diving I have ever seen.
Coral diversity was evident everywhere. From massive field of fire coral to the many different types of Gorgonian soft corals, nearly every major species of coral is represented in that area. Inside those corals live some of the most vibrant parrotfish variations, the strange lionfish, and the imposing white tip shark. It is a complete ecosystem that is one of the most diverse in the world.
After seeing the types of cultures and landscapes that existed on the other side of the world in Fiji I gained a sense of myself. I was no longer the big child that I had been my whole life. I was now a thinker, a dreamer that was able to accomplish goals and to realize where people were coming
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