UCC student spends ‘eye-opening’ summer in Fiji 
8/28/2008
If Jonathan Chiang told you he spent August in Fiji, you’d be inclined to suppose he basked on beaches. In fact, the Grade 11 (IB1) student was on a community service trip, working with those impoverished locals not featured in the glossy travel brochures.
“Everyone hears that Fiji is an exotic and beautiful place for travel,” says Chiang. “But no one sees the poor parts of the country.”
Chiang hooked up with Rustic Pathways, the Ohio-based, international, student travel program that teaches life lessons in leadership and global understanding. From August 5 to 21, he taught soccer to students in kindergarten through Grade 5. He also helped build outhouses for a model village and helped paint murals on a school. And, most memorably, he taught computer skills to village elders.
“These were people three times my age who had no experience with technology,” says Chiang. “They didn’t know what the keys were.”
He found it especially rewarding to hear stories that were completely outside his own experience. “I met a girl who was 19 and had a five-year-old child. She’d grown up without electricity or running water.”
Yet, the people also taught Chiang a thing or two. “They lack so much — and yet they’re happy. They say ‘Hi’ to everyone, even people they don’t know.”
Chiang enjoyed the trip so much he will be offering guidance to another group of UCC students who plan to make the Fiji trek over Christmas, in conjuction with students from Branksome Hall.
“I really encourage everyone to do this trip,” he says. “You don’t always see outside yourself and your own experience.”