5 october 2006

most of the resorts have planned activities daily, which you can participate in for a certain price, though all usually pretty cheap. today, in a better mood after a day hanging out inside because of yesterday's all-day rain, i signed up for a 'coconut demonstration' and a visit to the local village.

since i was the only one participating in the coconut demonstration (and the village visit at that), it was a much better time, and tailored to me! fun! coconut palms are prominent all over fiji and are their single most important food item-- it is even the featured logo on their rugby team's uniforms! so joe, a local, conducted the demo, with his younger sister and nephew giggling and watching on. he showed the traditional means for removing the outer, fibourous bit of the coconut, and then cutting the coconut shell open, etc. he showed me the semi-modern manual means of grating the coconut and i had a go for a bit, grating much of the two coconut halves. it was a nice workout, but fun!

i went to the local village next to sunset resort on waya. was shown around by suvi-- 300 people live in this village, which is apparently the smallest of the four villages on waya. essentially, they don't do much all day, money is unimportant, and they enjoy sitting around doing very little. they fish daily out on the reef for their meals (a lot of parrot fish, some barracuda, butterfly fish, and whatever else is caught) and most of their other food is grown/raised on the island. they raise chickens, goats, pigs, and cows-- though they very seldom eat meat other than fish. i sat with david (clan leader) and suvi and suvi and a set of three brothers, and an older man who did most of the conversing with me, named willie. i offered them my sevusevu (a traditional offering of kava [a slightly toxic/drug-like fijian root pounded into a powder and mixed with water and drunk from coconut shells] or money) of kava, which was mixed and presented with a small chant and i was greeted with 'bula aja!' each time someone took a drink on the first way around. i was previously under the impression that most fijans really enjoyed kava, as many of them drink it every evening, sometimes to excess, but as we went around drinking the kava, several of the men opted for smaller bowlfuls and/or made strained faces as they drank it. kava is, unfortunately, not delicious. it tastes like astringent dirty water.

while we were drinking the kava (the bowl the kava was mixed in is meant to be empty before the drinking can end), willie talked to me about the village, their culture, and asked me questions about where i'm from. several people here in fiji have asked me about september 11th, noting that they saw it on t.v. and i think, having not seen many tall buildings in person, likely, find it pretty fascinating in a way, i'm sure. willie also talked about how time is unimportant to them while in the village. in an "us" versus "them" type comparison, he noted that many of the tourists who visit the village are very concerned with time, always looking at their watches. he said it with a wise smile that i appreciated. i know what he means, and in my own way, in a city where having a certain idea of the time is pretty damn important, i don't wear a watch, and only mind the time when i've got a job or appointment (or want to see if i have time to avoid the rush hour traffic). otherwise, i shrug and try to go with the flow, feel my own beat.

when i was waiting for the little boat to come and pick me up to take me back to the resort, an old woman whose house was just near asked me in for tea, but since i knew they were already on their way to get me (so i could make the ferry back to the main land), i had to decline, but wouldn't that have been nice! however, i did get to see the haul that 'the boys' brought in from fishing out on the reef. they fish with a surface net, and they all were wearing snorkel gear (sans flippers). apparently they caught quite a lot for a church festival going on the next day. they eat a lot of parrot fish, as it is prevelant in the reef. willie said that they eat the fish guts raw, sometimes with a bit of lime juice. he invited me to have some, and though i am in a semi-"i'll try anything" mode, i just...couldn't do it. but i helped them toss fish onto the shore, as the tide was coming in very quickly and i was afraid their catch was going to wash away! it was kind of crazy to see this pile of fish that we would 'ooh and ah' at while underwater observing them, but here they were, making their last desperate gasps for air (if they weren't dead already) and about to become dinner. they gutted and cleaned them right there at the shore. by hand.

today was the first day that i really felt i was connecting with the locals-- first with the coconut demo, then with the desk manager (kitty) and then as the only one to visit the village. that and my 'local look' and similar easy-going manner makes it easy for us to relate to each other, i think.