Fiji Islands Cultural Exchange and Service Adventure

I still think about Fiji almost every day. I had the most amazing time, and met the most amazing people. The first two days of preparation before the village gave us the perfect mix of down time to get to know one another, and time spent learning about what we were going off to do. I loved the big hike to the waterfall, it was very rewarding, along with the sunrise hike which was beautiful. At night a lot of the kids, myself included, would get to interact with the Fijians and sit around the Kava bowl, and hangout with the other teen agers. They were SO cool, and taught us a lot of cool Fiji stuff. Activities like that and snorkeling and scuba diving were great experiences I don't usually come upon in my daily life.
The service work we did was tough but worth it. We would spend hours mixing cement for the building, but when we got to sign our names in the stairs it made it feel like we really accomplished something big. Trash clean ups were fun because we got to go off with friends.
I did happen to be one of the group members that had health issues however. I got a nasty bug bite on my leg, but right once I brought it to my leaders attention I got taken to the doctors office. Afterwards, I caught a cold and they had me take a couple of days to rest. Last of all, I got hives all over my body, which no one really knew what to do about. That was the most aggravating because it was very itchy, but eventually went away. It all made me a lot tougher though, so I really didn't mind too much.
My group also did have issues with a few kids getting sent home. It was honestly so long ago that I'm not upset about it anymore, but at the time it was very hard to handle. The whole group was very upset with their leaving. I was just so happy I didn't do anything to jeopardize my trip, but I missed the ones that got sent home very much.
Overall, it was an amazing experience. I have such good memories from it, and would go back in an instant if I could.