{"id":3053,"date":"2013-08-15T11:55:22","date_gmt":"2013-08-14T23:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auip.wordpress.com\/?p=3053"},"modified":"2013-08-15T11:55:22","modified_gmt":"2013-08-14T23:55:22","slug":"student-perspective-fiji-homestay-familys-strong-bonds-impress-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/student-perspective-fiji-homestay-familys-strong-bonds-impress-student\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Perspective: Fiji homestay family\u2019s strong bonds impress student"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Sierra Mayer, the<\/em><em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.grizzliesabroad.org\"><i>Grizzlies Abroad<\/i><\/a> <\/em><em>marketing intern, writes:<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Aloha everyone! My name is Sierra Mayer, and I am the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.grizzliesabroad.org\">Grizzlies Abroad<\/a> Marketing Intern for this upcoming 2013-2014 school year. I am from Hawaii on the island of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gohawaii.com\/kauai\">Kauai<\/a>. I am excited to get the school year started as the new marketing intern, so I can share with people my study abroad program experience and get the word out there for more Griz students to have this opportunity.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3054\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/auip.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/08\/sierra-with-fiji-family.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3054\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3054\" alt=\"Sierra with her Fijian homestay family\" src=\"http:\/\/auip.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/08\/sierra-with-fiji-family.jpg?w=300\" width=\"300\" height=\"285\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3054\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sierra with her Fijian homestay family<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I studied in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.auip.com\/fiji\">Fiji<\/a> this past summer. Although I was going from one island to another island and similarities existed, there was also a lot to learn. Fiji is so rich in their culture, plus the locals are extremely friendly and the scenery is breathtaking.<\/p>\n<p>My favorite aspect of the whole program was the homestay. By spending two days with a family, I truly saw how the household ran. Although the household I stayed in had the bare minimum, it was refreshing to see the family\u2019s strong bond and lack of concern for material items. The kids didn&#8217;t have computers or video games; they simply wanted to play outside and throw a ball around, which my classmates and I thoroughly enjoyed doing with them. In the evenings, my homestay family and I would sit on the ground and share stories. I learned such a great deal by emerging myself into their daily lives and just talking to them. Not to mention, all the food they prepared was incredibly delicious.<\/p>\n<p>My experience was amazing, and I can&#8217;t wait to share it with other students at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.umt.edu\/\">University of Montana<\/a>. I am certain that I will be visiting the Fijian Islands again in the future. And now that my program is done, I can say it was the best way to earn three upper division credits and a great excuse to go out of the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sierra Mayer, the Grizzlies Abroad marketing intern, writes: Aloha everyone! My name is Sierra Mayer, and I am the Grizzlies Abroad Marketing Intern for this upcoming 2013-2014 school year. I am from Hawaii on the island of Kauai. I am excited to get the school year started as the new marketing intern, so I can share with people my study&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,6,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2013-14-interns","category-fiji","category-student-perspective"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}