Faye is from the Republic of Fiji Islands.
She grew up in Suva City.
She's the eldest of four children and now lives in Melbourne with her family.
When Faye was growing up her mum worked as a flight attendant and her dad was a seafarer.
So we weren't ... we didn't have the most traditional family set up where we'd have
parents at home in the morning and in the evening and in the weekends.
And so I grew up with my grandmother on a university campus and I really miss that place
because I actually got to graduate from that university.
When I was in university I was hired as a research assistant to do a number of geoarcheological
trips,
so I started to gain an interest in research and in general travelling and that's something
I'd like to do more of.
A typical day for me would be waking up in the morning,
helping my siblings gather their stuff together and get ready for school.
Drop them off in the morning, come back, do a bit of housework.
I've actually stopped work for a while and chosen to be in the house helping my parents
out while we're here in Melbourne.
After I'll stay here and hope to pick up career-wise when we do go back to Fiji, or we'll see what
opens up here in Australia.
Dinner-time.
Will you say grace?
Yesterday I met a girl on the slopes who was really friendly and her name's Jill
and she's actually invited me out tonight to have probably a couple of drinks and maybe
even some dancing with her and her friends,
so I'm really looking forward to it.
And we'll see what happens in the rest of the evening
but I'm not sure what to wear at the moment and things like that so I'm hoping she'll
give me some tips
but for now I'm really excited.
Faye.
Hi Jill, how are you.
How are you?
Good thank you.
Just getting ready.
So Jill, where are we going this evening?
Well, I thought we'd head down to Après bar, down at the Mt Buller Chalet.
It's just a little walk down the hill.
Sounds good, yeah, a little walk would be right after all the skiing and exhaustion.
All the skiing, how'd you go today?
It was good actually, the weather wasn't too bad in the morning but in the evening it kind
of got cloudy
so I was a bit too intimidated by that, but yeah, I'm looking forward to this evening.
Have a seat.
I'll just put on some ... put on my shoes, and well, I've one important question.
Is what I'm wearing okay or will they call the fashion police on me?
No, you look great.
Looking good as you are.
Might need to put a jacket on though.
It's pretty chilly out there.
Oh, really?
I have a present for you Jill.
Now I'm not sure if this fits you but it's an I Love Fiji T-shirt.
Oh, that's so cool.
I love it.
That's good, and ...
Something to remember you by.
Pardon?
Something to remember you by.
That's it.
And I heard you're going away to a tropical place soon.
Yep.
Awesome.
So yeah, I hope you get good use out of it.
That's so nice, thanks Faye.
Yeah, you're welcome.
So Faye, if we were going out in Fiji,
Yeah.
what would we do tonight?
Probably pretty much the same, dressed up.
We'd obviously be wearing some you know, less woolly things, but yeah it's be a hot night
in Fiji tonight.
Would you head out dancing?
That's it.
Lots of dancing.
The Fijians like to dance and have a lot of fun and yeah, laugh a lot
so I'm looking forward to this evening and seeing what the difference is and maybe the
similarities.
See how they do it in Mt Buller?
That's it.
So who are we meeting again?
Got a couple of friends that have been skiing all day so they're going to meet us down at
the bar.
Sounds like fun.
Should be fun.
Yeah, let's get out there.
I'm about to walk into the bar now and meet new people and hopefully have some dancing
but otherwise I'm just ready to meet some people and have a bit of fun.
Hi guys.
How are you?
Hello.
Everyone, this is Faye.
This is James, Linea and Cath.
Hi James.
I'm Faye.
Hi Linea.
It's Cath isn't it?
Pleased to meet you.
Cheers.
So what do you all do here on the weekends?
This mainly.
I could get used to this.
It's easy.
We had such a great time skiing yesterday, didn't we?
It was awesome although I must say you guys made me look a bit bad up there.
No.
You did really, really well.
Oh, thank you.
I did the best possible skiing a Fijian could do up there.
It was really nice out there in the sunshine too.
It was such a beautiful day.
It was.
Beautiful blue sky.
I was tired last night after that.
Really?
Bula!
When you're six foot two balance is, you know ...
You've got a long way to the ground, and precious.
Precious yes, that's a big compliment, thank you.
So guys, did you also know that 'bula' is 'Hello' in Fijian?
Oh.
So that's why I keep saying it,
but yeah, bula again to everyone.
Bula.
Tonight I actually had my first Australian glass of beer and I don't particularly like
it too much
and I might order another drink after this, but I'm happy to say that at least I've tried
it.
Are you guys from around here?
I grew up a couple of hours away, in the countryside.
Oh, excellent.
Do you own horses where your farm is?
Oh, no.
I didn't have horses.
I'm not a cowboy.
Oh okay.
Just in the country, yeah.
So how do people generally make friends here?
I'm interested to know because, you know, I am from Fiji and it's a bit different there.
Oh, at the pub, meet a few people there, there's many, yeah, lots of people there.
Just hang out, at work.
I think the people that I met this evening are really easy going and they're lovely people
and it was interesting for both of us to meet each other
and they were also interested to find out why I was here skiing and yeah,
we managed to swap a few skiing tips and I've had a really good night.
There you go.
Thanks for that.
Not a problem.
So no dancing tonight then Jill?
Not tonight.
You might just have to come back next year for some dancing.
Oh, darn.
Next year it is.
So how did you go?
Did you enjoy your first Australian beer?
That I didn't take a like too immediately .
Hey, so James was pretty cute wasn't he?
Oh, stop it.
No, I think he's actually engaged to Linea.
No, really?
Yeah.
I thought he liked you.
No, I don't think so.
I think it was the beer talking really, yeah.
So, no dancing for Faye but she did meet some people and have a good time.
After the break we'll go swimming with Michelle, as she tackles her fear of water, head on
and we'll find out why most Aussies love nothing better than to get wet.
Stick around.