Fiji continued

After 3 lovely days on Waya Leilei Island I take the local boat back to the mainland. The small open boat is loaded with various things - my bags, a petrol engine, boxes of produce for the market and various other bags and boxes. They are all stored beneath a tarpaulin sheet. 11 men, women and children villagers are the passengers with me and we make ourselves comfortable in the bottom of the boat for the 1 hour crossing to Lautoka.

Onboard the Boat to the Mainland 

As we near the harbour, several other small boats pass us on the way out and waves of greeting are exchanged.

Lautoka Harbour

Lautoka is a busy port city and I spend the afternoon wandering around and through the market and keeping to the shady side of the busy streets. I also make my plan for how to spend my last few days on Fiji and arrange to go and stay in a small village which has an ecotourism programme, inland from Lautoka in the Koroyanitu National Park. An Indian driver, Riaz, picks me up from my hotel and drives me the 30 minutes or so to the village in his 4-wheel drive truck. The track is rough and steep and we have to ford a couple of streams. Along the way he flirts shamelessly with me.

Transport with Riaz

There is a story about how the village got its name. The village was originally called Nagaga, but in 1931 the whole village was destroyed by a landslide and all but 3 people died. These 3 people went in search of a new site for the village and as they were looking they came across the letters ABC written on a rock. In the Fijian language the letters represented A = Beginning; B = Eternal Life; C = Miracle Work; and so the new village was named ABACA (which is actually pronounced Ambartha).   

There are 84 people in this simple village and I am welcomed and taken to the house of the Methodist lay preacher, Nico, where I will be staying. I realise I have made a gaff by not having a sula or sarong to wear around the village and Nico lends me one. His house is made with a wooden frame, a tin roof and walls of woven palm leaf panels. Inside there are mats on the floor and sheets of polythene line the walls for insulation. In one corner there is a bed with a mosquito net above. Next to the door is a small kitchen area with a primus stove and some kitchen equipment in a sideboard; but Nico is usually cooked for by the women from the village. In another corner is a bookcase and a bamboo pole above where his jacket and tie hang. The rest of the space is empty. I will sleep in the bed and Nico will make a bed on the floor. Riaz, Nico and I sit on the floor and a woman serves us black tea, home-made bread and cake and bananas. The tea tastes smokey from the water being boiled on an open fire.  

Nico and his House 

Inside Nico's House

Riaz takes me to wander around the village and while he flirts with the young women and they giggle with him, I meet some of the villagers – mainly women, as the men are working in the plantations. Everyone is very friendly and welcoming and their ready smiles show that anyone over the age of about 30 has teeth missing. They all call me, ‘Miss Helen.’ The only children here are under 5 years old. The older ones stay in Lautoka, so they can attend school there as it is too expensive for the transport each day up and down from the village and they come back to the village during school holidays. Some stay with relatives and some families get together to provide a house in the city and they share the responsibility to stay and look after the children for a week at a time. Other village houses, or bures, range from simple tin shacks to those built of concrete blocks and wooden planks and the biggest building is the meeting house, cum church, which is in the centre of the village, with an open grassy area around.

Abaca Village

A neighbour of Nico’s prepares lunch for me, brings it to his house and lays the meal lout on a cloth on the floor. I have cassava and taro leaves cooked in coconut milk, with tinned fish.

Lunch

Later in the afternoon, once it has cooled down slightly I take a walk up the hill to see a nearby waterfall.  It is too hazy to get the views from here back to the coast. The landscape consists of dramatic cliffs and rocky outcrops formed from the remains of a volcano. At a river crossing I meet a young German couple who are the other two visitors to the village.

Walk to a Waterfall

In the evening Nico takes a short service and small bible study group in another village house and I go along. As we enter the family hastily clear away the meal they have been eating and 10 of us sit around in a circle by the light of Nico’s paraffin lamp. The whole thing is conducted in Fijian, other than a short welcome to me and the wish that the Holy Spirit will visit me and enable me to understand the service. There are some hymns, which I try and join in with, a bible reading and a sermon. Although the Holy Spirit doesn’t do his thing and I can’t understand the words, I do appreciate being involved and being part of it all.

After the service Nico takes me to a large house at the entrance to the village where there is to be a kava ceremony in honour of the Chief’s great- grandson’s 4^th birthday. Inside the block-built house there are about 20 people gathered sitting cross-legged on the floor, including the German couple. In the centre there are some plastic buckets and bowls and utensils for making the kava. A few official-sounding words are said with due deference and there is some ceremonial clapping and then the kava is made. Spoons of grey powder are put into a material bag and then water is scooped over the bag and the bag is squeezed and manipulated in the water, like washing socks and the mixture is scooped up and poured back into the large bowl. When it is ready there is some more ceremonial clapping and then a bowl of the grey liquid is passed first to the Chief, then the next to Nico, then to another man in the circle and then to me and the Germans and then to everyone else in the room. When it is my turn a small bowl is passed to me and I have to clap once before taking it, drink it down in one go and then clap 3 times, and they clap me too. The drink tastes slightly muddy, but does not have a particular flavour. More and more bowls of kava are made and then ceremony goes on and on. After 3 bowls I ask Nico if it is alright for me to decline and he says it is OK. I can’t feel any particular effects from it, other than my tongue seems slightly fuzzy. Everyone else in the room looks relaxed and they are chatting quietly and the women who are sitting together at the back laugh and giggle with each other. 

  

Kava Ceremony

Nico and the Chief

Today two wild pigs were killed and have been cooked on an open fire and then stewed. The Germans and I are invited to go into the back room, where some women are busy ladling pig soup into large bowls. Laying on mats and blankets on the floor watching the proceedings is the birthday boy and his mother. A meal of cassava, yams, taro and the wild pig stew is laid out on the floor for the 3 of us. I have already had dinner with Nico before the service, so I am not hungry, but I am keen to try the pork, which is tender and delicious.

Preparing Pig Soup

Someone asks me when I arrived in the village and at first I can’t remember – was it only today? By 11 o’clock, although no-one else is leaving, I say my goodbyes and make my way by moonlight back to Nico’s house, where he has left a paraffin lamp burning low. I sleep well until I hear him come in at 3.30am. At 4am he beats the village drum for prayers and soon after that the cocks start crowing.

Nico has only been in the village for 5 months and he will be here as the preacher for 5 years. He has been allocated some land at the side of the village and he has already cleared some of it and planted some cassava. I go with him to help clear another section where he wants to plant yams. He has already cut down most of the undergrowth and we drag the dry branches into a pile and have a huge bonfire. By the time we have finished the area looks twice as big and much more like somewhere where a crop can grow.

Clearing the Land

In the evening Nico has arranged a small kava ceremony in his house for my last night. We are joined at 9 o’clock by 3 men, a woman and her baby. We sit around in a circle and the kava is mixed and passed around as last night. They chat, mostly in Fijian and sometimes sing hymns in beautiful harmony. I try and teach them ‘Bella Mama’ a round, with some success. By 11 o’clock we have drunk the first bowl and I think that might be the end of the evening, but they mix a second. By 1 o’clock I am feeling very tired and make my excuses and retire to the bed in the corner and pull the curtain around while they continue. Although I can't say I can feel any particular effects from the kava, other than a slightly numb tongue, as soon as I lie down I am fast asleep. I do not hear the others continuing until half past 3, nor the drum at 4am, nor the cockerels crowing until I wake at 7.30. That must have been a kava-induced sleep. 

Kava Ceremony

I am almost at the end of my time on Fiji. When I arrived I had almost no idea about the place I was coming to. I have found it to be beautiful and varied and the people are probably the most friendly of all the peoples I have encountered on my travels.