Posted Jan 31st

Continuing our series of ‘catch up’ photos from 2011, featuring various aspects of our work in Fiji, along with interesting aspects of local Pacific island life.
Those of you who have been following our weekly blog, will be familiar with the story of Sanjiv—a very worthy young man who met with an accident & became handicapped in the course of his work. We’ve tried to help him as much as we can, & in this connection here is a photo of Sanjiv with a worker from the Ministry of Health that we arranged to visit. She’s taking measurements in order to make the home more suitable for someone with a wheelchair.

Sanjiv’s father is a priest & in fact part of his settlement house is a Hindu temple that becomes a major community centre during festivals, the most famous of which is the fire-walking ceremony! Seen here is the ‘Indian version’ of fire-walking at the main temple in Howell Road, Suva where devotees walk on hot embers.

Here below is the ‘Fijian version’ of fire-walking, as seen on the island of Beqa, (pronounced ‘Benga’). Here, the devotees walk on hot stones. While we witnessed the ceremony, just to show that the stones are indeed very hot, one devotee threw down a scrunched-up piece of paper that instantly burst into flames!

For more on fire-walking, please see the related wikepedia article:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewalking