Fiji Power 2015 Day 8 : 10-10-2015

“Alright students, what is the significance of today?” asks David. “The significance of today is it’s Fiji Day! What does this mean?”

On this day in 1874, in Levuka (old capital) Fiji ceded to the British and on the same day (10th October) in 1970 Fiji gained independence from the British. We travelled to Suva, the capital city and took a tour in the Fiji museum displaying the history of Fiji. On this tour we learned about how Fijians were converted from cannibalism to Christianity by missionaries from the UK. A significant moment in this part of Fijian history was that Thomas Baker was a missionary who was killed and eaten by cannibal Fijians. The remains of his shoe is in the museum.  The life of the village responsible did not progress very well and recently they invited the relatives of Thomas Baker to ask for forgiveness.

It was time for lunch, we went to a food court which was in a mall. The mall was so different from the villages that we visited over the last few days. In the mall everything was served immediately on clean plates with napkins and rubbish bins and was very westernised with air-conditioning.  Next, we went to the handicraft and food markets. We explored the markets and it was so different from the markets in Australia. In Fiji, fresh produce is just laid on the floor along the sides of busy roads and there were lots of flies. There were heaps of strange vegetables and fruits. Also, something very different were all the fish lying in the sun on cardboard. What a smell! It was a new experience for all of us.