party in the usa

yes, i realize that this is my second fiji post in a row. 

anyways, in my english class i had to write a memoir,
and this is what i wrote:

I walked into the LAX International terminal feeling refreshed, relaxed, and high on life. I had Dania on my right side, with her bright red hair flowing behind her, screaming ‘Party in the USA’ at the top of her lungs. Once we had our bags, she immediately grabbed her cell phone and showed me pictures of her little brother, Benny, who had just turned 18 months old three days ago. 

You’d never know it, but I met this flaming spark of red hair and big words only 16 days earlier. It began in the LAX International terminal, except the other side of it.  The side where you met the only white people that you’d see for the next two and a half weeks, the side where you ate Chinese food until you felt sick, and the side where you left everything familiar for a place that you’d only heard of in travel magazines.

I was on my way to Fiji; where the sky is deeper than the oceans, and the people are warmer than the sun. 

I had signed up for a humanitarian trip to a land where people hardly think of serving others. I was with AYS, Alliance for Youth Services, which is a youth humanitarian group now based out of Provo. They work year round to plan humanitarian trips for about 300 teens ages 16-19, to places all around the world such as Fiji, Belize, and Peru. Each trip consists of about 15 young women and 5 young men, accompanied by 2-3 adult coaches (usually a parent of one of the participants), and a trip leader. 

Our trip leader while in Fiji was Mary Wollenzein, whom we affectionately referred to as Mother Mary. She was a fiery ball of pent-up energy, and did everything she could to make our trip as fun and rewarding as possible. She told great tales of how when she was a teenager, she pretended to be a third-grader just so she could touch President Bush on the shoulder; and how she was forced to dress up as a Chinese matriarch and go out on stage, just because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

My job, while in the land of enchantment was to build a bathroom for one of the homes in Mau village, on the southern coast of Viti Levu. I, along with my rather handsome partner Ashton, was assigned to Seremaia’s (pronounced like Jeremaiah, but with an 's') house, at the top of the mountainous village, about a quarter-mile walk from the community hall in the center of the village. Sere (pronounced like Sara) lived in her top-of-the-mountain one bedroom home with her young daughter Etasa (uh-TOSS-uh). This is where, for the next 16 days, I would learn just how much my mother truly loves me, as I watched Sere and Etasa lean on each other. 

I don’t know Sere’s whole story, but what I do know is that she fell in love with a man, had the most beautiful baby girl in the world, and then he left her. I walked in to the story about four years later, when Etasa, the beautiful baby girl, was approaching her fifth birthday. She had the hands of a lumberjack, the face of a Greek goddess, and- like most four year old girls- the attitude of a pageant queen.

Etasa could spout out Bible verses better than some Presbyterian pastors (her favorite being Psalm 27:1), and give you a run for your money in a competition for best manners. She knew better than to walk out into a rainstorm, and could care less about what anybody thought of her.

Sere was the class clown of the village, and played a heck of a game of poker. She sacrificed everything for her pageant-queen-daughter, and loved getting her bright yellow rubber wading boots dirty in the clay mud. 

What I learned from Seremaia and Etasa was incredible, to say the least. I learned that life is hard, and it doesn’t get much easier once you grow up; I learned that if you put family first, it doesn’t really  matter what comes after; and I learned that in order to overcome even the hardest parts of life, you have to be able to laugh at everything around you.

(any suggestions/tips would be more than appreciated.)