Fiji, Australia, New Zealand ALUMNUS BLOGS

Fall 2007 FANZ Semester

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Life on the Farm at Soggy Bottom Holding

What a time is was at Soggy Bottom Holding. It is such a good feeling to begin to understand the farming world and the amount of work that goes into creating the perfect sausage. Most of our time at the farm was spent building fences around the 60 acre farm. These fences varied from just putting up wire fencing on posts to actually creating a fence from scratch. It was hard labor to build the fences but the hard work was followed by a rush of accomplishment after the work was done. In addition to building fences, the group removed gorse from the land itself. Gorse is a very prickly and thorny bush that was introduced by the British to build hedges a few hundred years ago. Today gorse has ravaged the land and takes over anything it touches. Everyday we either burnt dried up piles of gorse or pulled the gorse from the ground into piles to be burnt later. As much as it was awful to pull these thorny bushes the very feeling of heat from the piles burning created large smiles on our faces.

The highlight of the farm was definitely watching 6 pigs and a cow being butchered and then minced, seasoned, minced again and then stuffed into pig intestine to create the best sausage our tongues have ever tasted. The act of creating sausage and meat that is consumed by people was very interesting . We understand better the process the food that we eat takes before it is on our plate. Most people just consume and don't consciously realize what they are consuming. By understanding and participating in this process of creating sausage and meat a greater knowledge surrounding the way food is understood. Outside of the labor that we did at the farm, the meals that we received, cooked and served were incredible. Such good home cooking created by members of the group anxiously awaited consumption after a hard days work. The work and experience of WWOOFing (willing workers on organic farms) is something that will never be forgotten and hopefully something that some of us will continue to do in the future.

Posted by FANZ group at 3:56 PM 0 comments

Cleavedale Dairy Farm

Matamata (also known as Hobbiton) was the town where Lord of the Rings was filmed and our housemother was actually a hobbit in the first movie.

For the first five days on the dairy farm Chessye, Alex and Melissa worked inside with Marcia, our homestay mother. We did activities such as cooking, washing windows, watching Lord of the Rings and Whale Rider (two New Zealand classics), doing grocery shopping, and cleaning the kitchen.

Naima, Della, Anna, and Hayley worked outside for the first five days with Ron and Marcia’s grandchildren doing some farm work. Mainly clearing paddocks – hacking away thistle with spades. Outside we also did various chores such as digging up potatoes, weeding a garden, feeding a baby lamb from a bottle, collecting rocks for a rock wall, moving hay and seaweed, and picking up sticks. The groups switched after 5 days so that everyone got an opportunity to work on the farm and inside the house.

There were also baby calves that were born a couple days before we arrived and the group loved feeding them. We had a fun time watching the farm pig, Sweet Pea, (who was the size of a cow) eat our left over food.

On days off from farming our first priority was going into the town of Matamata to get some warmer clothes for the much cooler New Zealand climate. We also went on a hike to a beautiful waterfall, and had a chance to relax in hot springs. We, unfortunately, visited the doctor quite frequently to get antibiotics for an common sickness we all seemed to catch which we fondly named ‘the Fiji infection’.

We had amazing food each day - meals of chili, hoggart, a lot of potatoes, roast beef, New Zealand sweet potatoes, pumpkins, sweet corn and tomato stew, meat stew, and a load of cheese on the side. Marcia also always had very extravagant deserts; which always left us way too full each night.

So our stay at the Vosper Farm was amazing – we did a lot of hard work and also really enjoyed ourselves and loved staying with Ron and Marcia. We tried to keep communication with the other half of our group at the meat farm via e-mail. They seemed to have an unreal expirence just as we did.

Posted by FANZ group at 3:55 PM 0 comments

AUCKLAND!!!!

So we hit our first obstacle and had to figure out what to do: where were we going to sleep? It was raining so not outside. We took cover in a McDonalds while Naima and John e-mailed and phoned Ethan. After an hour and a lot of French fries later, we had found a new hostel.

We stayed at the Auckland Base Backpackers Center which was a great hostel filled with computers, phones, laundry machines, and food – a great place to end up after living with no form of communication in Fiji.

After a day and a half in Auckland the group sadly split in two and ventured off to our next community service task: The Farms. There was the organic meat farm called Soggy Bottom Holdery which; John, Cullen, Remy, Nick C., Nick H., Tyler, and Tara went to and then the Organic Dairy Farm in Matamata which Naima, Chessye, Alex, Melissa, Della, Anna, and Hayley went to.

Posted by FANZ group at 3:48 PM 0 comments

Apologies for Postings Delay

Hey all fans of the Fanz semester,

On behalf of the entire group we want to apologize for the delay in blog postings. We have tried numerous times to upload posts and have not been able to for some time. As you may well know, when one is traveling anything can happen. With 14 people traveling together...well, you get the picture.

There have been numerous computers available to us at various times; however, ability to create and upload blogs has proven to be a challenge brought to us cheekily by anything from super slow dial -up connections to computers defaulted to Chinese and not being able to understand how to switch the language, from living on Maori lands that do not have access to computer, to logistically involved transition days where focus needs to be more on where we ARE rather than what we did.

Everyone is reflecting and exploring with as much balance and focus as possible. We are having an amazing time. We are working on having a post up as soon as possible as Sydney seems to have much better and consistent access. We thank you for your understanding and patience.

Please stay tuned...

Sincerely,

Fanz

Posted by FANZ group at 3:31 PM 0 comments

Sunday, October 7, 2007

FANZ in FIJI

Fiji has been an awesome experience. The plane ride was long but the awesome sights from the resort we stayed at were worth it. There were tons of things to do at the Mango Bay resort during the “orientation” at the beginning of the trip. The activities included snorkeling, kayaking, beach volleyball and other various activities. Our time there seemed to fly by and then we were off to a Fijian village on the island of Beqa.

There was a fairly short bus ride followed by an hour long boat ride across the blue sea to the island. The island village was an interesting experience to say the least. The different “Homesteads” that we stayed in were all warm and welcoming. We were split into groups of two and spread all through out the village. The accommodations were more than ample. There was a generator that provided three hours of electricity every day so we were able to watch satellite TV, charge cameras and other electronic devices.

The service project consisted of extending a foot path to the furthest school building and side paths to the school bathrooms and a school teacher’s house. This project was not the hardest but weather complications such as torrential downpours for a couple of hours every day forced us to wait for better weather so that the sand we were using to mix the cement was a much more manageable weight. We worked with the village men every day. At the end of the project we laid approximately 200 ft of footpath.

The villagers were very out going and we joined them to drink kava either in the town hall or in a villager’s house. Kava is a traditional Fijian drink that is used at important ceremonies and social gatherings. During these gatherings there would be lots of card games played some of them were unknown to us but the card game bullshit was a favorite among the young villagers and everyone else in the group. We also watched Fiji beat Wales in the 2007 rugby world cup. The village stayed up till 3AM to watch one of the biggest rugby upsets in recent history. As the stay on the island came to a close there were lots of lazy days filled with socializing and card games. When it came time to go there was lots of smiling faces waving at us as we left on the boat headed to Nadi.

The car ride to Nadi was long but uneventful; the half day spent in Nadi was filled with lots of time spent in internet cafés catching up with family and friends followed by eating processed foods that were not available to us on the island. We tried to get to bed as early as we could considering we were facing a 4:30 AM departure time from the hotel to the airport. Everyone is looking forward to what awaits us in New Zealand.

Posted by FANZ group at 10:05 PM 0 comments

Friday, August 17, 2007

Attention: You are about to stretch your mind

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” Oliver Wendels Holmes’ words resonate with me as I look over the itinerary of our Fiji Australia New Zealand experience. We are about to undertake an educational experience that will stretch us in ways that we don’t even know. It will make us bigger; it will make us smaller; it will make us humble; it will make us truer examples of ourselves. Change sometimes can be a messy process. However, as a former professor shared time and time again, you’ve got to trust the process. For that is truely how our minds will be stretched.

If you read this post share something about the New Zealand Fiji Australia trip that you are looking forward to and, if you wish, something you are not really looking forward to.

Personally I am looking forward to exploring not just one amazing place, but three. I know that exploration will lead me to meet some great people (students and locals alike) and have some great experiences…most of which I’m sure will be hypereducational. (I’m not even sure that is a word…but it works.)

I do have to share that I will miss my community of friends. I have a great community of folks that help sustain me in so many ways. However, I know that my experience will lead to some great stories and to some great reunions.

Till next time,

sweet dreams…

John Arsenault

Posted by Ethan at 5:50 PM 0 comments

Welcome to the FANZ blog

Greetings and welcome to Carpe Diem Education.

Carpe Diem Education offers 3-month semesters designed for college students, GAP year students, and high school seniors.

Posted by Ethan at 5:44 PM 0 comments