Marata Village, followed by a Short Break

After a very busy week of doing many eye exams, we spent a  Saturday (without even a lunch break) seeing exactly 100 patients in the Marata Village, not far from our apartment in Tamavua.  It was once again extremely hot, and we came out of there, just drenched in sweat.  Many of the patients expressed their gratitude for our service.  It sure makes us feel needed, and loved, and makes it all worthwhile. 

This is Rick's "Big" friend, Ropate 
from the Marata Village.  His mom was the stake
Relief Society President and stayed the whole
day to help us out wherever needed.

Just one of the 100 patients
examined this particular day.

Although I am typically busy,
I can sneak in a few minutes here and there to
read or work on bracelets for the kids

This 4 year old boy, Mateneh, really needed 
glasses badly. We gave  him -7.00 glasses, 
which is very high prescription for anyone, 
young or old.  It's difficult to believe that he was 
functioning without wearing any glasses, whatsoever. 

This past week, we took a few days and took a ferry over to one of the Mamanuca Islands just west of the main island of Fiji, and spent some time exploring and enjoying yet another island before we hit it hard again this coming week.

This is the Mololocat Ferry we took.

This is the Bure we stayed in, right on
the ocean front. A stunning location,
but so very hot, with no air conditioning.  
We borrowed a fan from the laundry lady to 
put beside our bed, allowing us to sleep at night.

These next 3 photos are the view from our Bure.
It was great to wake up to that in the morning,
and to watch the sun set in the evening.

The ocean was beautiful but most of the time felt like
a bathtub and did not give us much relief from the
heat.  There was also a pool on site, which felt almost
like a hot tub!

It was a beautiful little harbour with boats
coming and going a lot of the time

We went on a couple of different amazing
snorkeling trips while we were there.

This was the boat we used to get us to this
little sand bar to snorkel.  This little sandy
island actually disappears at high tide,
so we had to time our trip just right.

Getting ready to leap out of the boat.

Here are some photos showing some of the amazing
fish, starfish, and choral we saw under the water.
It was simply remarkable!

Such an amazing variety of colors.

Stunning Blue Starfish!

We were surprised to see that someone
was having a real wedding on this
sandbar out in the middle of the ocean.

They had Fijians singing & dancing for the wedding

This was the boat that carried the
wedding party to and from the sandbar.

We attended a Fijian Cooking Class.
We learned to make Kokoda, which is an
amazingly great tasting raw fish salad.

We now have a nice shell collection.  I have
never seen so many shells when the tide goes out!
The grandkids would love this!

Rick's dad used to love to carve
so Rick took the opportunity to try it.
It's early in the process, so we will have to
show you the finished product, later.

We finally had a cloudy day, that was cool
enough for us to go for a walk around this
small island.  There were some spectacular
views from the top of the hills.

Stunning view of the resort area

There was even a small church on the island.
We were told that if the tsunami siren went
off, we were supposed to run up the hill
to this church.  We're glad we never had
reason to do that while we were there.

It was a fun few days in these islands to renew ourselves.  

We are now we are ready to hit it hard  again!   It is so nice to be able 

to schedule ourselves so that we can work real hard and then be able to 

explore and play in this beautiful area of the world!  We feel so blessed!!