Lessons learnt: Don’t sit on inviting piles of coconut husks, they contain horrifying arachnids, and root vegetables are better when eaten at infrequent intervals and in small quantities.
Well, I’ve survived my first few weeks in Fiji, and the rigorous *cough* process of In Country Orientation.
A highlight was a weekend spent in a small village about an hour (or 20 Fijian minutes) out of Suva. We went on a canoe trip to the mangroves where we learnt to catch 'mud lobsters' (a kind of crayfish), swam in the river and drank coconuts fresh off the tree.
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| Coconut grove in the mangroves. |
I was enjoying the serenity, when I looked left and saw a MASSIVE spider (I'm talking largish huntsman size) sitting on my shoulder. Here’s a picture of his (much smaller) cousin I found in my bathroom:
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| I shall name him Fluffy! |
You'll be glad to know I was brave and my screams of "GET IT OFF!!! GET IT OFF!!! GET IT OFF!!!" scared it to the middle of my back, where one of the guys flicked it into the water, and it was dispatched by our heroic paddler with a well-aimed whack.
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| Me hiding from spiders and sunburn. Man on left deserves a spider killing medal. |
Our adventure continued that night with (another) kava session, and a surprise dance performance from the guys of the village.
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| How was your Saturday night? |
Thankfully, we'd come prepared and already knew some Pacific island dances, and we threw in a few sweet moves of our own. One of our number inadvertently asked the chief to dance (as I understand it, a bit of a no-no) but he was a good sport about it.
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| You're in! |
The next day we were initiated into the great Fijian tradition of the lovo. We even helped (in the way a 2 year old "helps").
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| Grating coconuts: sweaty work |
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| Success! |
After church, we got to enjoy the feast. There was a truly epic amount of food, a great amount of which was the local staples: taro and cassava. Taro has the texture of Play-Doh, while cassava is like stringy potato. Neither is particularly offensive, but they are both really heavy and after 6 meals in a row of these, we were feeling it!
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| Us feeling it. Taro and Cassava centre right. |
The experience was certainly a real eye-opener of a lot of us. It is pretty easy to avoid a sudden culture shock in places like Suva, where you have the same services and even a lot of the same brands as back home (although in the case of a certain coffee chain, this may not be a good thing).
A weekend of sitting on the floor, wading barefoot through mangroves, cooking over a fire and washing with a bucket of cold water was a dose of reality. It was also an insight into the way many (if not most) Fijians live. Thanks to the wonderful people of the village for having us!
Good morning how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favour:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Fiji? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Fiji in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez