Wow. Long day. I walked around the coast at high tide to our beautiful beach. I think I might not be explaining this feat very clearly. This involves at least 7 miles through mangrove forests, deciduous forests, beaches, ocean, rivers, ponds, climbing over bulky coconut leaves, large, rotten coconuts, massive mangrove stumps, heaps of leaves, and deep hornets nests. So the walk took about 3 hours, for one because I was with an older, slower crowd, and for two, it was a treacherous hike. By the time I reached the beach, food was cooked, so I ate boiled fish and tavioka. I cannot eat one more fish, one more bowl of rice, or roro (taro leaves, like a nasty boiled spinach). Fijian food is just not to my liking. Anyways, got lots of good exercise, rested on a beautiful beach in Fiji with good company, and had some cross-cultural conversations. Mostly about how Americans do not like being called fat and the different between an American conversation and a Fijian conversation, being as vague as possible.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
I gave my little sisters a choice, play cards, or go out on the bilibili (bamboo raft). Of course they chose the bilibili. After pushing my prized flotation devise into the water I noticed a sa musu na kau (break in the wood) towards the bow of my ship. I spent the next 30 minutes undoing my beautiful, intricate rope so that I could replace the wood. Finally I was done and we were off. The waves were crashing against us with the force of cyclone winds (ok, I am definitely dramatizing, just trying to make it interesting). We were fighting the current just a bit and using na cula (the stick used to push boats and bamboo rafts) was not working productively. Eventually I was in the water dragging the girls towards the settlement to visit the mangrove river. Upon arrival, inside the trees was frigid, but the coolness of the shadows was welcoming compared to the sweltering sun. I blew up my pampason raft and the girls played a bit while I snorkeled for fish larvae. I think because our mangrove forests experience the rise and fall of the tides they are not suitable for fish rearing. I only saw three adult fish swimming among the staggering mangrove (na dogo) roots.
Soon enough the girls were cold and ready to head back out into the sun. Easier said than done. We were fighting the current flowing into the mangrove forest in water deeper than I could touch, so dragging the rope was not an option. Eventually, between pushing with our stick and grabbing mangroves to pull our way through we made it to the ridge of the mangrove swathed coast. Moving along the coast back towards the village was invigorating. I was getting calf muscles while enjoying the company of my sisters, beautiful views of walled cliffs, and pure, flourishing reefs. Oh Fiji, maybe I should just build a house on the coast, buy a boat, and start a million dollar business. All of this is feasible and sounds like a good idea right now. Although, yes mom, I will come home and visit first!
After making it back to the village I showered from a bucket (water is not running again) and I read some of my “Marine Conservation Biology” textbook. Since I have all of this free time I have been devoting a lot of it to learning. Not sure what I will do when I get back to the states (or stay here ), but I am trying to prepare myself for anything I decide.
My cat, Mogli!
At night, the kids came over wanting to finish watching “The Little Mermaid”. I put in the movie while I ate a cucumber, carrot, and onion salad (with homemade vinegarette dressing) and did dishes. It ended, then I started Garfield for them. Both movies were a hit! Thank goodness for pirated movies (5-in-1 for $1 USD)!
Monday, January 4, 2010
Today was a lot of savasava… laundry. I cleaned my entire wardrobe plus both sets of sheets, all towels, and sunned my mattresses. Spent most of the afternoon “drying” the clothes by taking a nap kei wawa tiko ena siga katakata sara ga i (and waiting on the blasting hot sun to) maca na noqu i sulu (dry my clothes). Yes, you will start getting Fijian language lessons for all of those who I know will benefit from this knowledge for the rest of their lives. Lol. I wonder why I even attempt to learn it. I am told (by Fijians mind you) that over 75% of their conversations in Fijian are just “the weather is nice today” kind of conversations. From what I can pick up… 75% of what I understand is “she was seen with him by the river”. Oh goodness. Lots of laughter and happiness though!
Later in the evening when the generator came on I invited my younger sisters and brothers over to watch “The Little Mermaid”. They loved it and want to see the rest tomorrow night!
Sunday, January 3, 2010
It is much easier for me to type 2010 on my computer than 2009. 2009 always became 200- and I would have to fix the 9 each and every time. Thank goodness for a new year! Lol. Today I have been laying in bed all day long. Got up at around 9:30 am for tea, got back in bed, up again around 8:00 pm to make some dinner, of which was not very appealing. My family was very concerned for me today and I really appreciated the love and kindness they showed me. My Na was right there whenever I needed her, bringing me tea, company, and my Bubu, who massaged my belly with coconut oil. It felt so good. My Ta also checked on me a few times, making sure I did not need to go to the hospital. I told them I was pretty sure it was just a virus that I caught from a baby in the village. She was throwing up two nights ago and I had been around her a lot recently. I think it will pass by tomorrow. No worries. Thank you family for taking care of me!
I have been wanting to put together a list of cultural traditions (well, daily norms) beheld here in Fiji.
1. Closing your door is considered rude and not commonly done in the village.
2. People are welcome to walk into your house without asking. Sometimes without you even near your house. Oftentimes they won’t leave when you tell them to.
3. The village has a kerekere system. This involves a communal sharing of most objects and food. Even money is ‘borrowed’ from each other, but not usually paid back.
4. As a women you must wear a piece of cloth around your waist called a sulu. If you are not wearing a sulu then you are wearing a long skirt.
5. The women are commonly seen doing the cooking, laundry, dishes, cleaning, taking care of the children, making brooms, weaving mats, and telling stories with the other women.
6. Men are primarily seen at their plantations planting taro root, cassava, sweet potatoes, and kava kava. At night they are almost always around the kava bowl telling stories and smoking Fijian tobacco.
7. The kids are regarded as the prized procession. It takes a village to raise a child. Everyone gives up what they have for the kids. All food, candy, blankets, pillows, etc. are offered to the children first. Even at meal times the children often eat at the same time as the men. The women are last. It pleases the women to know that what they cooked is feeding their family and so they wait to make sure everyone else has had their fill.
8. Fijians are easy to please. They enjoy telling stories, swimming in the ocean or river, helping loved ones, listening to the men play music and sing, go boating, fishing, spear fishing, planting, smoking, shopping, weaving, playing, cooking and cleaning.
9. The children often help their parents with everyday chores. After the hurricane, my two eight year old sisters helped my clean my entire yard. They picked up mangoes, raked leaves, and disposed of the rubbish. They are often seen in my Na’s kitchen making dinner, often cutting vegetables for curry or kneading dough for roti. I have also witnessed them doing laundry on several occasions.
10. You are not to wear a hat indoors or in the village. The Fijians do not believe in placing anything on your head as it is a holy body part.
11. Get used to conversations that go in circles, repeat the same monotonous information, and never make you more intelligent for being a part of it. Today, I had a 10 minute conversation that went in circles about how I have shoes that are good for walking on the rocks and so my feet do not hurt, versus the boy I was with did not have any shoes on so his feet had pain walking on the rocks. This makes me faster. Again, I was wearing shoes on the rocks… and so on…
12. Last but not least, they are fascinated by: A candle, a cat’s purr, 16 lane interstates, how small Fiji is, my Skype dates, how I make toast (really, how I cook anything), my lack of vosa vaka viti (speaking Fijian), and my SCUBA booties.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Today a boat load of people showed up from Suva to pay their respects to Ta’s sister who had just passed away. They brought all kinds of food. The Fijian custom is for the guests to bring the food and the host village to cook it. So everyone was set to their tasks. I gave myself my own task of taking pictures. I have a good reason behind this task.
Early this morning I headed up to the community hall to help Na clean the hall’s laundry. As we were washing, one of the boys came up with a bucket of water and splashed Na, soaking her cloths. This is custom at New Years. You are only supposed to soak your cousins, but I have a feeling it gets out of hand every year. This event alerted my senses that I need to find a reason for people not to dump nasty water on me today. First, I must get a few cousins drenched. My first victim was my cousin, Billy Moce. He was hanging around about to go into the woods and I was standing right next to a tap with three basins at my feet. What better use than to saturate a close friend. He did not get mad, just explained that I would see a day of pay backs. Hmmm, I can wait. Na showed back up and we headed down with the laundry to hang. Soon after, I found my bucket of water in my kitchen and attempted to soak another cousin, Tai. My Na knew the plan so right before I got to him she yelled ONZ, alerting him instead of me (since I am not yet attuned to their vocabulary), so he dodged just in time. I tried again about 2 hours later and he did not receive the soaking with such vigor as Billy. Why get mad about something so minor? Oh well, bump on a log.
Finally I decided to help cook, but doing good deeds do not always get rewarded. I was dragged to a faucet by two boys with a small red basin. Of course, I fought, and was soon drenched to the core. It was a hot day, our water had not been working in most of the village, so the clean, cold water actually did more good than harm. Although, soon I was following a triage of people down to the watering hole to take a shower.
After playing in the river a while, I headed back up into the village and began feeling a little wheezy. I woke up this morning with a dehydration headache so I just chalked it up to dehydrating and started drinking lots of water. I tried to ignore the onset of sickness, but it crept up like a roach in the night. I wanted to be a good sport tonight so I tried to hang out with everyone down on the party porch, but my head was aching from dehydrating and my stomach was doing somersaults so I headed to my straw hut. No sooner than I laid down did my stomach tell me to get back up. I opened the door and gagged myself until I got some of the pain out of my tummy. I still was not myself, but felt well enough to fall asleep.
Oh, and two people called me on my land line today! My mom from America! Thank you mom for the random phone call! It makes me feel special when I hear from people back home, especially my mommy! The other call was from Filo in Nausori! She called to wish me a Happy New Year and to tell me she had been thinking about me while she was in Suva celebrating the New Year Mardi Gras style! Cool! Wish I had gone to stay with them for the New Year. I think I wasted a lot of vacation days staying in the village. Oh well, the village is my family.
Friday, January 1, 2010
We were the second country to see the light of the new year! We did not really acknowledge it though. My Ta’s sister had been in the village for the past several days and she happened to have been discharged from the hospital after 10 months. She passed away while everyone was in town yesterday. So the funeral was scheduled for today. Everyone was looming about and not really in the New Year’s mood.
My baby!
Soon enough, I found out that the boys were going to a nearby settlement to kill a wild cow for the funeral feast. I asked if I could go along to take pictures of the process. They said sure and we were off. Well, I did not walk into the woods with them where the bull was supposed to be tied up because of my toe. The bandaid had fallen off in the ocean and I did not have tennis shoes, so I waited behind. To be honest, I wanted to stay behind. It turned out that as we approached the settlement I saw Sio’s boat so I knew he was at my friends’ house. I walked down to the house and they were all celebrating the New Year with Sio’s brother and family from Australia! There was even cold beer! I took several shots and enjoyed their company for several hours until they decided to head home. As we packed our things into the boat the boys came back down out of the woods with no cow parts, just a heartrending look on their faces. The ‘wild’ bull had run away and was nowhere to be found. So, they were off to a different settlement to find a different cow. I decided to head back to the village as I had not eaten a thing all day.
The hike up to their house was strenuous. I carried several of their things, plus my own, and the sun was shining hotter than possible in the US in July. My sweat was balling up on the tresses on my skin and teetering towards the ground. Blah. Salty sweat. Soon enough I recovered and headed down to my house to cook.
Later in the night I headed up to the community hall and visited with a few of the women, then went to a Bubu’s house where all of the boys were drinking grog and I said my farewells and headed to bed. Whew. They drink way too much grog! It turns out, the electricity came on around 10 PM and everyone headed to the community hall for more grog, music, and dancing. I of course was a party pooper and had already gone to bed. Oh well, next time.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
New Years Eve! Well, just another day in Fiji, just like Christmas Eve, although, town was not near as packed. None of the volunteers were in town today because they all had New Years plans somewhere in Fiji. I decided to stay back and save money so that maybe I can get a dive package soon. I guess I should get on top of that before my time in Fiji is up. Today I bought a settlement some new dishes, sponges, soap, and an air tight container for sugar. I don’t know what has come over me, but I have felt obligated recently to help people out with necessities. I know I am not supposed to be assisting monetarily, so I do it in the form of gifts. It has been making me feel better! I also bought an ice cream cone, which I die for every time I know Thursday is coming around. Then I saw a little girl in town from my village and she was eyeballing my ice cream cone, so of course, I gave it to her.
After coming back to the village a few of the younger boys came over and we watched The First Knight. I think they liked it, but Fiji’s taste in movies is quite different than mine. I have not figured out what kind of movies they like to watch besides Bollywood (for the Indians) and teenage movies like Clueless. While I was in town I also bought two dvds for the kids. They are often overlooked when it comes to movie time, so I got The Little Mermaid series and The Prince of Egypt series, plus Garfield as a freebie. The other day I was in a neighbor’s house and I asked about 30 people in the room if they knew who the character was draped over the arm chair in the front of the room. Not a single person had any idea… it was Garfield! So, maybe one night I will get the chance to show the owners who Garfield is.
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