Crazy days in Fiji

Ok…where do I even begin…

I’m healthy, minus some bug bites…eating well…and generally happy!

I’m living in a small village called Nukutubu about an hour from the capital in the Rewa province. I live about 20 yards from the river and the breeze from the water makes the heat and bugs bearable for the most part (mind you we are in the dry/cool/less mosquito-ey season)… I’m living in the same town as a guy from Albuquerque, a guy from New York, a guy from North Carolina, and a young married couple from Minnesota.

The night we got here (almost two weeks ago) they had community members and our family members gathered in the community hall down by the water. As we entered they played guitars and homemade drums and sang a welcome song in a mix of Fijian and English. Just expect that a general theme of this blog will be grog also known as yaqona or kava. In typical Fijian fashion we were prompted to give our offering of kava after they began the sevu sevu (kava welcome ceremony). This just so happened to be our 3^rd or 4^th ceremony despite being in Fiji for less than a week (yeah the Fijians are addicted). So the protocol during any grog session is to give the first bowl of grog to the eldest visitor, then to the community leader and then to the rest of the male visitors, then to the female visitors, then to the rest of the community. I was fully aware of this and was prepared to swallow my feminist pride and drink after the boys. I looked at my teacher as the third bowl was being handed out and she was trying to tell me something. In my state of nervousness I thought she was trying to tell me to signal (clap) that I wanted to have the next bilo (bowl) so I clapped and luckily the community just laughed and gave me a bilo before the last of the boys. After consuming the appropriate amount of grog, we were formally introduced to our host families who greeted us with necklaces made of flowers and leaves and a bunch of islandy floral fabric (mine just so happened to be bright pink – story of my life).

My host family is pretty small – my host mom also known as my qai (Rewan dialect for mom, pronounced “gay”…I know…pretty funny…) is a widow and she lives in a pretty big concrete block house with her brother my momo (uncle). Some of her brothers live in the houses surrounding ours and everyone in the community is related somehow. A lot of the time my other momo and his wife will come in from the farm for dinner and my nana (aunt) comes in from across the river sometimes for dinner.

photo: my host mom dancing with Connor, another Trainee

Thankfully…I have electricity. There are two outlets, one in the living room and one in the kitchen. I also have city water coming in from Nausori but the pipes are too small and the pressure isn’t enough to get the water up the pipe and through the shower head so we take bucket baths…and I might not even need to say this but there is definitely no hot water heater.

I’ve got my own room with the necessary mosquito net that I like to think of as my princess canopy….but somehow I still get feasted on on a regular basis.

Also, I got a cell phone!! My number is 011.679.864.7168. I would love to hear from anyone!!! Marissa found a pretty decent deal on calling cards so if you feel so inclined then give her a call to get the info. I suppose now is a good time to remind you all that I am 16 hours ahead of you so it is 6:15 pm on Wednesday as I write this and it is 2:14 am on Wednesday morning for you. It is so strange to me that I have now completed my Wednesday as you are beginning it…but…that’s how it goes. That said, the best times to call me (eastern standard time) are at 6pm, 8:30 pm, and at 1:30 am. I realize that 1:30 am may not be a popular hour to call me but I thought that I could sacrifice myself if any of you decide to do some drunk dialing seeing as it will only be 5:30 pm here.

The food has actually been pretty good. I’m still a little squeamish when a whole fried fish gets put on my plate especially since I know it’s coming from the river where they throw their trash and they wash away their pig poop from the pig sties (conveniently placed directly over a tidal creek). But I’ve had some really delicious stuff. I’m addicted to papaya, my momo went to the ocean last week and caught trevally which was amazing, and when I’m feeling fed up with Fijian food there tends to be a pack of oreo-like sandwich cookies and cold milk ready for me (my host mom is pretty cool).

On another note…I think I’m officially more Catholic here than I have been in the last 5 years at home. So far I’ve been to two church services (Saturday AND Sunday), live directly across from the village church, and have said grace more times than I can remember. However, in terms of religions here the Catholic Church is one of the milder ones, and at least mass is short and reminds me of home. My qai is a devout Catholic who is involved in pretty much every church function.

Every Thursday we go into town for “Center day” where we have training and get a chance to eat some “western” food for lunch. Our first day there I ravenously ate an XL pizza with another girl from the class. This pizza was glorious…and despite its glory, was comparable to the worst pizza in the USA. So…all you Gainesvillians who still have access to Satchel’s and Leo’s…think of me next time you bite into a delicious, cheesy, flavor-filled bite of pizza.

So comparable to the odds of my brother Kevin randomly seeing our cousin Katherine at the Paris airport once…I am randomly here with a family friend. IT IS SUCH A SMALL WORLD!!! This guy Dick who is training in my group and living in Nausori with his host family just so happens to be the uncle to a few of Kevin’s best friends from growing up. AND…he used to be a State Farm agent and therefore is friends with my godparents and godbrother. Who would have thought that I would have actually kinda-sorta known someone coming to Fiji!?

I’m really excited because Dick and I are taking a break from village life…and more specifically fish, skirts (guys wear skirts too sometimes), kava, and non air conditioned buildings…to go into Suva on Saturday to eat, watch a movie, and have a delicious frothy beer. The funny thing about Fiji is that they are literally 50 years behind the USA in gender roles and in intoxicants. The gender roles are obvious but…. Kava is a widely accepted way to get “doped up” as they say. Drinking kava occurs on weekdays, weekends, family functions, community meetings, welcoming guests, saying thank-you, resolving an argument…you name it…there’s kava. They even had a kava ceremony for the visiting Catholic priest this last Saturday. On the other hand…liquor and beer are serious taboos here unless you are in a city or it’s a very special occasion. Just me mentioning that I drink beer in a very rural, conservative village (more rural than here) setting is a serious no-no. Granted, it’s getting better but still.

On a side note…I’m not sure if my mom can come visit me. You can have constant entertainment here by playing a little game I like to call “Spot the geckos” (this of course is a game you can play right in your living room…WOW!! **as if said in a commercial). If you haven’t found at least 10 then you are not done!

SO…back to the gender roles (which really apply in the village only). I’ve worn shorts twice. Skirts are absolutely necessary and go just below the knee or longer. Women sit in the back during kava ceremonies and get served last. In general, women don’t really hold any position of power unless they are born into it (for example there is a woman chief in this province) and even then the chiefly system is archaic and they have little ultimate decision making ability. I was told that I could not husk a coconut (and proceeded to do so faster than the boys) and in general women are expected not to do hard manual labor outside. Of course there are exceptions to these statements. SO…any feminists out there…I’m expecting some inspiring feminist quotes in the comment section. It’s kind of tough now too because I’m only in this community for 6 more weeks and don’t feel that that is enough time to productively push the boundary on gender…HOWEVER…just wait until I get to my permanent site.

There are so many stories to tell and I can’t possibly tell them all… I will leave you with some photos. Some are from the first few days here at a training site in Nadave. And the rest are from my village during culture day when every trainee came to our village, ate food that our moms’ prepared, watched us perform the meke (local dance), and watched us demonstrate how to make coconut milk (lolo). Here are a few photos to tide you over until I can get a photobucket page up:

My roommates for the first few days at Nadave training center.

Doing our meke (local dance) for the other trainees during our village culture day.

More meke...

husking a coconut in record time...

and the general theme of this blog:

GROG...