Top Five Lists for Fiji

Deborah and I are back home now. We are slowly, sometimes awkwardly, slipping back into our old lives. We struggle to remember where in the kitchen we kept the measuring cups, how to work the scanner, and which buttons to push on the remote to watch a DVD. Eventually it comes back to us. And, as was the case last year, I have a mountain of paperwork to go through, which makes me instantly nostalgic for the simplicity of life in Fiji.

Here now, as promised, are our top 5 likes and dislikes for Fiji as we experienced it during the last five months. Keep in mind that this is based only on our experience on our island. For different people on different Fijian islands at different times of year the lists would be very different.

TOP FIVE “LIKES”

1) Friendly People – We’ve met many friendly people in our travels, but none more warm and welcoming than the Fijians. They live simple lives in a poor country, but they are happy and it shows.

2) Fresh Food – We loved the papayas, mangoes, pineapples, and many other fresh fruits and vegetables, including many new ones to us like the various wild greens, ferns, duruka, and of course fresh squeezed coconut milk.

3) Low Cost of Living – At least for basics like fresh produce, fish, clothing, restaurant meals, utility bills, health care. Some things like automobiles and consumer electronics are expensive, but that didn’t really affect us.

4) Interesting Flora and Fauna – Everything from leaf insects to fruit bats to tree ferns and barking pigeons, with a 365 day a year growing season the place was lusciously green and bursting with life.

5) Sunshine – Even though we were there during the rainy season it seemed the rain fell mostly at night, so we had plenty of sunshine while it was dreary and cold back home. This does wonders for my mood.

TOP FIVE “DISLIKES”

1) Humidity – The drawback to going to Fiji in the rainy season is the high humidity, which drains your energy and makes everything feel and smell damp. And it didn’t do Deborah’s hair any favors either.

2) Ants and Mosquitoes – We eventually learned to minimize mosquitoes bites with timely application of repellant and closing the doors at the right time of day, but they were still a constant annoyance. The ants, though, were unstoppable. Food had to be put away promptly after each meal or they would start carrying it away. Any tiny spot missed while cleaning the kitchen counters would quickly be surrounded by dozens of tiny ants. Keeping them off my wet paint surfaces was a challenge also.

3) Limited Entertainment Options – Being culture junkies this was especially hard for us. No museums, no concerts, no theatres, no libraries, painfully slow dial-up internet. Even no television or radio at our house. We had to rely on our limited collection of CDs, pirated DVDs and the limited offerings at the local laundromat book exchange for our entertainment.

4) Crappy Consumer Goods – Quality kitchen appliances, tools, pots and pans, etc. were not to be found. Deborah called it the “dollar store island.”

5) Claustrophobia – After awhile we began to feel sequestered up at the house. The wilderness came right up to the decks so there wasn’t really any yard to hang out in. We could walk down the steep dirt road into town and then up and down its one main street, but there weren’t really many other good walking options. Even when we still had the car the lack of decent roads meant there weren’t many places to go. It felt like a small, confining world.

Despite the ups and downs, despite the humidity, despite the disagreement with the homeowner over the car repair, despite the ants and the mosquitoes, we are both glad we came to Fiji. Although we never really considered it a likely future home for us, we always wondered what it would be like to live on a tropical island. Now we know. It’s been a great adventure and we’ve learned a lot about what we do and don’t want in a place to live. So the search continues. Next year? We’re leaning toward Europe, especially around the Mediterranean. But anywhere is possible.

So that’s it for this year’s blog. Thanks for following along. I’ll add one more post just before we leave again in November or December 2010 to let everyone know our plans, and the address for the next blog.

Hawaiian Stopover

I am writing today from Maui, which makes a convenient (and warm) stopover on the way back home. We left Fiji Sunday evening and, thanks to the international dateline, arrived in Hawaii Sunday morning. Apparently time travel isn't so difficult afterall. What is difficult is sleeping on airplanes. We must have managed to doze some since the red-eye flight went fairly fast for us, but we both felt foggy for the rest of the day. We are staying in Kihei in a very nice oceanfront hotel with a comfy bed, air conditioning, and television, none of which we've had for the last four and a half months in Fiji. So for us this is luxury.

We've spent some time on the beach, of course, but sometimes Deborah is just as happy to stay in the room and catch up on her Home and Garden Television. We did manage to visit the excellent Maui Ocean Center (aquarium) and also the town of Lahaina, which features many galleries showing mostly bad tourist art. Yesterday we took a long walk on the beach down to Wailea and strolled through some of the fancy hotels we couldn't possibly afford. They were shooting a movie on the beach in front of one of them and Deborah spotted Jennifer Aniston walking through the lobby. I looked up too late and only saw the back of her; however I can verify that it did indeed look like Jennifer Aniston's butt.

Maui lacks the exoticism of Fiji - in fact much of the developed west side looks like tidy but generic strip mall America, albeit with palm trees. Still, there is certainly something to be said for paved roads and level sidewalks. I'd like to see more of the wild areas of this island, but without a rental car or the inclination at the end of a months-long trip to spend large amounts of money on the many typical tourist activities, that will have to wait until our next visit.

Next up, in what will most likely be the last blog entry, I'll list our tip 5 likes and dislikes for Fiji.

Our regular taxi driver Ali gives us our last ride to the airport in Savusavu

Simoke (not smiling for photographs as usual) sees us off at the airport


Deborah uses elastic bandages as improvised compression stockings to combat thrombosis (they worked)



Our 19 seater that took us from Savusavu to the internation airport in Nadi, Fiji

Yellow Tang at the Maui Aquarium

Camoflage anyone?

Tulip or Jellyfish?

Beach between Kihei and Wailea

Whale season is just ending

The guy in the red trunks jumps on one end of the protruding part of the raft to send a kid at the other end flying.

Jennifer Aniston at the Four Seasons (or possibly Deborah)

Goodbyes

Today was our last full day in Fiji; we fly out tomorrow afternoon. Deborah has been living up to her domestic goddess status by giving the house a final deep cleaning – with minimal help from me – even going so far as to remove all the furniture and other large items to the deck so she could clean every nook and cranny inside the house. She went to these lengths despite the fact that we probably won’t get a good referral from the homeowner no matter how spotless he finds the house due to his unjustified blaming of us for the death of his twenty-year old car’s engine. But we still feel taking first-rate care of the house as we originally intended is the right thing to do.

These last few days we’ve been saying our goodbyes to some of the many people we’ve met during our stay here. Mariam came over for dinner Thursday, which allowed us to return the favor for hosting us and feeding us her amazing curry a couple of months ago. We also had dinner at neighbors Steve and Iretta’s again last week. And we’ve been seeing our favorite market vendors, laundry lady, and restaurant proprietors for the last time. Simoke (I just learned I’ve been misspelling his name Semoko all this time) we still see on a regular basis, along with his ill-behaved but lovable dog Bonzo. Everyone keeps asking when we’re coming back, as if it is a foregone conclusion that we will. It could happen, especially as a stopover for a trip to New Zealand, which is on our list for sometime in the next two or three years.

For our last hurrah we ate lunch at the one “fancy” restaurant in Savusavu, where the lobster and seafood salad served in a papaya shell was probably the best meal we’ve had here – even better than the much loved duck curry we had again this week at The Sea View Café. There we exchanged contact information with the friendly managers who, knowing our fondness for their duck curry, wrote as a reminder above our name and address, “Duck Man.”

_

Blake and Simoke having one last meal of duck curry at Sea View Cafe

(photo by Deborah)

_

Mahesh and Sarta - they call me Duck Man

Our laundry lady

Mariam and Kam


Deborah with Marie at the farmers market

Mahdu - she and her husband have the best selection of produce at the farmers market

Simoke's dog Bonzo ("Can I come in?")

Steve and Iretta

At Surf and Turf restaurant by the bay. Man, that guy needs a haircut.

Yum.

Fiji Critter Profile - Spiders

As far as we’ve been told, the spiders here in Fiji are not poisonous. That is a relief as many are quite large – some nearly as big as palm of your hand – and nasty looking. We seldom see them in the house, probably thanks to the geckos. They are certainly prevalent out in the surrounding landscape though, or up on the telephone lines, where the really big ones can be seen from 50 yards (62 m) away. Here are a few pics.

_

Not sure what's in that big wad; maybe someone's leg.

Interesting web

One of the big ones.

Deborah thinks this one looks like the almond mints you get at weddings. And yes, the web is yellow. Haven't seen that before.

Beautiful color on this one.

More nice color; looks irridescent in person.

Return to Labasa

Yesterday we returned to Labasa for the day. Semoko came with us and we stopped first at his village to say hello to his mom and, as it turned out, a couple of the kids who somehow managed to use the excuse of an earlier rainstorm to skip school to see us. After a brief chat and a cup of tea the three of us plus one of the children – seven year old Robert – walked into town, passing through some residential areas along the way and stopping by a couple of temples. Further into town we parted ways with Semoko who had some shopping to do, and agreed to meet up with him again at the Farmer’s Market. Young Robert stayed with us. Deborah’s efforts to draw the well-behaved but very quiet Robert into conversation were largely unsuccessful – probably not so much because of Robert’s shyness, but rather because of his lack of English. After touring the market and watching for Semoko, waiting for what seemed to us a long time – although I think Fijians have a much greater capacity to wait than we impatient Americans do – we finally gave up and took a taxi back to the village to drop off Robert.

We returned to town and the market, again finding no sign of Semoko, so we went ahead and ate lunch at a nice little vegetarian Indian restaurant. We emerged from the eatery to find Semoko standing on the sidewalk. He tried to help me in my fruitless search to find a Hindu calendar (I like the images) but ended up only with some tiny illustrated Hindu books. Semoko hadn’t eaten yet so we suggested he try the same restaurant we ate at, but they didn’t have his requisite fish and chips (he ALWAYS orders fish and chips) so he had to find an alternative establishment.

Labasa isn’t a tourist town at all and there wasn’t much else for us to see, so we did a lot more waiting around for the next bus. I was panhandled for the first time in Fiji, a total of three times that day. I must have stood out like a tall white ATM machine in a sea of dark skin. It was surprising because we’ve never seen anyone begging in Savusavu. While sitting on the bus at the depot waiting to head home we saw Semoko’s sister Caroline and two of his nephews walk by, including young Robert. I’m not sure why we bothered to hire a taxi to take him to the village when he just ended up back in town again. The nephews successfully begged a few coins from Semoko, so I wasn’t the only one to get panhandled that day – I just wasn’t related to my beggars.

The distance between Savusavu and Labasa is only 85 km (51 mi) but it took 2 hrs 40 min to get there and nearly 3 hours to get back. That’s a long time to sit on a bus. There were certainly numerous stops along the way, but another major contributor to the length of the journey is the snail’s pace at which the noisy old buses crawl up the inclines. Deborah thinks we could have gotten out and walked faster. Taxi’s take a third as much time but cost more than six times as much.

At one stop on our return trip we took on a mass of school kids of various ages, all dressed smartly in their school uniforms and little backpacks. Deborah was happy to put one of the smaller girls on her lap to free up an additional seat for a tired-looking woman, and was reluctant to give the little girl up when her departure stop came. We found it interesting how the bus drivers don’t bother to close the bus door, even when the bus is packed and there is someone standing on the very bottom door step hanging on to whatever he can. After seeing that I was glad for our seats, no matter how sore our backsides had become on our interminable journey.

Deborah reads "Thumbilina" to Semoko's nephew Robert and neice Tea (aka The Monkey)

_

The mosque down the street, complete with loudspeakers to announce the call to prayers

A Sikh temple


Hindu temple

Fashions for Labasa's considerable Indian population

Robert

Inside the market

Uniformed school kids head toward the bus depot.

Braids and bows seem to be part of the school uniform.

An Indian woman in traditional garb.

The (slow) road home.

Fiji Critter Profile - Birds

We were initially a little disappointed at the bird life here on the island, although it’s gotten better lately. It’s just that after seeing all the amazing birds of Australia last year we had high hopes for all manner of colorful feathered creatures on what is, after all, a tropical island. We had visions of big-beaked toucans and huge red parrots, maybe even a pterodactyl or two. Not quite. The birds we’ve seen have been more subtle in their appearance. Since the cyclone, however, it’s gotten more interesting – either because of a change of season or because the cyclone blew all the birds from Taveuni over this way.

We enjoy watching and listening to them from the decks around the house, especially in the mornings when they are most active. Deborah was most amused when I once blurted out, “My God, there’s that orange bird!” She suggested I had officially entered the realm of nerddom – or at least old-codgerdom – when the mere sight of a small feathered animal could elicit such an enthusiastic response. I try to take pictures of the more interesting birds as best I can with my point-and-shoot camera, but they’re seldom close enough to avoid blurriness. Below are some examples.

_

Kingfisher

_

Possibly some type of flycatcher, but I'm not sure

Fiji White-Eye

Golden Whistler



Goshawk. We often see these munching on insects, but apparently they take small chickens as well.

Myna Bird. Noisy, and commonly found in or near town.

Orange Dove (male). A rare sighting.

Possibly a female Orange Dove, which, unlike the males, are green, not orange at all.

Barking Pidgeon. Their call sounds not so much like a bark, but a really loud sneeze. You'd swear the AFLAC duck was out there somewhere.

Working

I’ve managed to finish several small paintings during our stay here, despite not putting in the hours I expected to. I completed ten pieces; well, actually eleven, but I managed to ruin one trying to put on a protective clear coat. Painting has not been without its challenges here. The lighting in the house is poor so I usually paint outside when possible, but that sometimes means contending with the wind or the mosquitoes. I also have to deal with ants crawling over my pallet and fruit flies making fatal one-way landings on the wet paint surfaces. And sometimes the heat and humidity is such that it just sucks the motivation right out of me.

Deborah’s work is somewhat less glamorous, but certainly more useful. She prepares the main meal of the day – usually lunch – and oftentimes breakfast or a small dinner as well, all without the benefit of an oven or microwave. She also makes hot tea, iced tea, and lemonade. She washes the dishes an numerous times throughout the day. She cleans and organizes the kitchen, puts away the groceries (not easy with our tiny fridge), cleans the bathroom, sweeps the floors, sweeps the outside decks, cleans up gecko poop, tidies the desk area, organizes our laundry, hangs the wet towels on the line, washes the windows, even scrubs the mold off of the outside wall surfaces. She also feeds our neighbor’s dog (probably more than she should) and occasionally bathes her. And there are an untold number of other small thankless tasks she accomplishes on a daily basis. Yet she still finds time to kill the multitude of ants that appear in the kitchen sporadically throughout the day. If I offer to help she usually waves me off saying she has nothing else to do. Such are the benefits of being an artist who is married to a domestic goddess.

Blake "working"

Shade


Tree of Wisdom

Life and Death

Watering

Smile