Courtney+B

Peter Dillon-1829

The gentle breeze that encourages me forward on my journey feels nice against my skin as I walk along the Fiji Islands. It is reasonably hot, with the temperature of 86 degrees Fahrenheit and barely going below 73 degrees Fahrenheit at the least. Even though the weather is hot, as I look up, I see cloudy weather. This is unusual, seeing that the sky is usually clear.....it will probably rain later. High hills are in my distance, and lush, green forests all around. The forests are thick, and I have heard people call them rain forests or tropical forests before. The forests are dense and thick, with extraordinarily hot and sweaty conditions and many animals inhabited there. I have heard many great things about some of the mountains known as Mount. Tomaniivi, Joske's Thumb Mountain, and Uluigalau Mountain. These mountains are the biggest and greatest mountains in Fiji, for both spiritual and beauty beliefs. I have heard of the many things that grow there.... of course some of the rainforests.

I have heard of cannibal tribes running around, and some foods that are cherished around here. Those foods include Cocoa- nut trees, Bread- fruit trees, sugarcane..... The food is greatly valued, some reasons for the high quality and deliciousness of the food but some reasons because of how thickly populated this area is. We need food to spare, and food to go aorund but sometimes thats not possible, considering of how the children of some of the tribes are very hungry at times.

I have noticed that there are a lot of whalers around this area.... I can watch them from the sands. They go way far out into the water, and I have seen what they do to those poor whales. After they manage to catch the whales, they put them on their sea crafts or "boats" as people say, and haul them onto land. Here, they use the whales organs for weapons and tools and such. I will not go into all the things they use, for it makes me sick to think about it. I do know though that they use whale teeth to ornament their clubs and spears and make neck and ear-ornaments out of bits of tortoise shell and whale bone. These are valued highly among the people, like gold to us.

The waters here are extrodinary, like nothing you've ever seen. Beautiful and turqouise, with reefs and fish scattering all over and making it look like a bright, colorful painting. The water is also quite warm, and it feels good to dip in on hot days like these. On my journey and stay here, I have found some wonderful treasures, such as timber and gold ( there are many gold mines around the islands), copper, oil, and fish.

The small area that I am staying at is thickly populated, with about 944, 720 people scattrered here and there. I have estimated and learned that it is about 52-134 persons per square mile. 53% of this population lives in urban areas and 47% live in the rural areas. There are streets and buildings, but those are found in the urban areas.

For government around these areas, the island is divided into six- districts, all with one person ruling it. We are what I like to call an independent nation. (This happened on October 10, 1970). The currency on the island is known as "Dollar" but it is unlike a US dollar. It represents more of the US silver dollar than anything else. Fiji currency comes in coins or paper money, but is known as FJ$ and cannot be used anywhere else.

Some things around here are imported and exported to and from the island. Many of our imports include things such as manufactured goods, machinery and transport equipment, petroleum products, food and chemicals. These materials are taken and used to build things such as cities, transportation devices... and so on. The exports are sugar, garments, gold, timber, and fish. These items are greatly valued in other countries I guess.... for they pay good money for them and use them in almost everything that they have.

On the island, the Per Capita GDP is $4,275. The HDI ranking (human development index) is 72, which is medium and good. The literacy rate is 93.7% of the population, and the life expectancy is 69.53 years.