Labasa, Part 2 - The Village

Semoko’s village of Naseakula lies less than a kilometer (.6 mi) from the town center. His mother has a house there, and right next door is the house of his sister Caroline and her husband. They are also taking care of the seven children (six at home, one off at college) of one of Semoko’s and Caroline’s brothers, who is divorced and now living in Suva. The village is home to about 10 clans, 100 houses, and 200-300 people. Everyone knows everyone and most are related to each other.

An outsider can’t just wander into a village uninvited. We were guests of Semoko but still needed permission from the village chief to walk through the village. This is granted via the sevusevu, a short ceremony wherein a gift such as kava (the dried root used to prepare the popular drink of the same name) is presented to the chief. We were probably supposed to provide this ourselves but were spared from our own cultural ignorance by Caroline’s husband who handed a bundle of kava to the chief and said some things in Fijian we didn’t understand, whereupon the chief accepted the gift and said more things in Fijian we didn’t understand. He welcomed us and we were told the village was ours to explore.

While the lovo was cooking (more on that in a later post) Caroline showed us around the village. The houses were simple but hardly cookie-cutter similar. Some were vacant and in various states of disrepair. Others were fairly tidy with colorful landscaped yards. Veggie patches were everywhere. And the homes are situated not according some rigid plan with arrow straight rows, but as if the whole village grew organically. There are many connecting foot paths but few roads to cut off homes from each other, giving the feel of a close-knit community. Coming up in Part 3: The lovo. Yum.

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Semoko's mother's house

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Myra and Deborah don sulus for the sevusevu ceremony

Semoko's mother's house with Caroline's house in the background at left

Semoko's niece at the bridge




The village church


A sprawling place after many additions, which now stands mostly empty as all the children have moved away

The village school



Each week's instruction includes a moral lesson

Fancy neighborhood just outside the village

View from the edge of the village near the school

Labasa, Part 1 - The Town

Saturday was a very special day for us, probably the highlight of our trip so far, and it will take a few separate blog posts to do it justice. We travelled to Labasa with our neighbor Semoko whose family resides in a village there. During our stay we got a chance to see the town of Labasa, meet Semoko’s family, take part in the sevusevu ceremony with the village chief, tour the village, take part in the traditional lovo feast, and drink kava. In this Part 1 I will write mostly about the town of Labasa; subsequent post will cover the other topics.

Although it has a population of only about 24,000, Labasa is the largest town and the administrative, industrial and commercial center of our island of Vanua Levu. It sits on the north coast, directly opposite and about 70 miles (110 km) by road from our town of Savusavu, which is on the south coast. It isn’t a draw for tourists, but for practical things like seeing a dentist or getting medicine at a pharmacy it is the place to go. Semoko’s sister Caroline, who is a school teacher and speaks English quite well, led us around town. I needed some new lightweight shirts and ended up buying three – probably a record for me, although it is easier to do so when they only cost US$5-10. Deborah was proud of me for picking out somewhat colorful ones, as opposed the typical bland engineer’s shirts of my past.

We also visited the colorful farmer’s market, which is even larger than the one in Savusavu. We needed some supplies for the lovo feast that afternoon. We also stopped at a grocery store where we offered to pay the bill as we were feeling guilty at the expense and effort the village was going to on our behalf. While waiting in the checkout line Deborah had the excellent idea to also buy a couple of balls for the children in the village to play with, and these proved to be quite popular. Stay tuned for Part 2, The Village.

Outside the farmer's market

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Inside the farmer's market

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Caroline and Deborah check out the dalo (taro root)

The fish market

The fish

Another "interesting" business sign

Cruises and Curries

Friday we walked into town with plans to take a boat tour that also included transport to a nice beach area across the bay. Unfortunately, even though it was late in the morning, when the tour company called the captain he was found to be asleep. And no amount of encouragement could seem to arouse him. So we rescheduled for Monday.

A cruise ship was in the harbor tendering large quantities of white people into town. This only happens about once a month so it is a big event. The craft and souvenir vendors were waiting with their temporary tables set up on both sides of the main street in a kind of commercial gauntlet from which the tourists could not escape. Actually we didn’t escape either as Deborah asked, “Wouldn’t you like to buy me this bracelet?” There is no good answer to that question. We also noticed there were other cruise ship preparations including new flower and palm frond decorations adorning building fronts along with big signs proclaiming “bula” and “welcome.” By late afternoon the ship and its moneyed foreigners had sailed away and it was back to business as usual.

The owners of the island craft shop from which Myra bought her kava bowl and cannibal forks asked us to join them for dinner (not to make bona fide use of the cannibal forks, we hoped). Mariam and Kam love to host visitors. They are an interesting couple in that he is twenty years older and a Hindu, while she is mixed Indian/Fijian and a Muslim. We were also joined at dinner by a lively young French woman named Celia who had dined with Mariam and Kam the previous night as well. Celia had just finished working for 16 months in Australia and was on her way back to France. Having just been in Australia last year we enjoyed comparing notes on the Australians’ friendliness, disinterest in culture, and fondness for beer. Deborah is convinced Celia would be the perfect match for our nephew Jordan.

We showed up early as Deborah was granted her request to also get a cooking lesson in authentic Indian cuisine. Mariam and Kam treated us to three kinds of curry – fish, chicken, and lamb – as well as a fresh salad and roti, one of the types of Indian flat bread that I love. (We don’t normally eat chicken or lamb but have felt okay about straying from our pescatarian ways here a couple of times already given that the food animals here seem to all be free range and organic, not the horrible factory farm products of back home). Deborah and Myra picked up some good cooking tips and made imperfect but nevertheless admirable first attempts at preparing the roti.

Mariam and Kam thoughtfully prepared separate nonspicy versions of the curries for Celia’s more delicate palate. I thought our curries were plenty spicey, reaching the level of nose-blowing but not quite eye tearing, then Myra pointed out that Mariam and Kam actually added extra hot pepper to theirs. It was an absolutely delicious meal but I think that if it were much spiceier I would no longer have a tongue.

The town gets dolled up for arrival of the cruise ship passengers

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Cruise ship passengers go from one boat onto another

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Mariam and Kam work on dinner

(photo by Myra)

Deborah, Blake, and Celia wait for dinner

(photo by Myra)

Mariam works on her roti

(photo by Myra)

Curry anyone?

(photo by Myra)

Myra, Deborah, and Blake

(photo by Celia)

Cheers!

The Tale of the Tail

Some ripe pineapples in a fruit dish on our kitchen counter were attracting ants and a few flies, which were in turn attracting a gecko who had parked himself in the dish for the last couple of days. Deborah had apparently forgot this when she pulled a lime out of the dish and was quite startled when the gecko materialized where her hand had just reached. She shrieked and dropped the lime (the limes are big here – the size of oranges), which most likely landed on the poor lizard, who attempted to escape the citrusy bombardment by quickly jumping onto the wall. Deborah soon laughed with embarrassment at her overreaction as she realized it was just the gecko, which she then noticed lacked a tail. She thought little more of this until she reached for her glass of iced tea only to find a gecko tail floating in it. And it was still twitching. Some species of geckos have evolved this amazing escape mechanism that allows them to eject their tail when threatened, leaving any predator with a mere extremity to munch on as opposed to a more satisfying meal of whole gecko. The tail continues to twitch for several minutes after being dropped as part of the defense mechanism, as it helps to distract the predator. I’m not sure how long it takes for the gecko to grow back its tail, nor did I investigate the effect of a disembodied lizard tail on the flavor of iced tea.

Iced Tea with Gecko Tail

Kayaking

Yesterday we rented a pair of double kayaks to cruise the shallow, tranquil waters of Savusavu Bay. It was the perfect environment for novice kayakers, which most of us were. As the worst swimmer in the group, I was paired with Myra, who actually has some experience kayaking, and was therefore deemed less likely to capsize. She was in front so I had a good view of the cluster of mosquito bites on the back of her right shoulder where she missed applying repellent. Deborah and Semoko manned the other craft. We all wore life vests except Semoko who, being the hardy Fijian, scoffed at the notion of wearing such a silly apparatus.

The shallow waters of low tide made it easy to view the bottom of the bay and spot the coral and the impossibly blue sea stars scattered about. We circled some small islands which were mostly lined with mangroves, but found a sandy beach to pull ashore and do some beach combing. We found some beautiful bits of coral with unusual patterns and lots of interesting shells ranging from incredibly tiny ones to a couple of giant clam shells which are easily the largest shells I’ve ever collected. There were also a few unexpired creatures scurrying about the tide pools including spiny sea stars, urchins, sea cucumbers, crabs, and bizarre yard-long worms with probing multipronged mouth parts which I was disinclined to touch. It was a great day and Deborah and I feel confident enough to try it again later in our trip, even after we no longer have the benefit of Myra’s expert tutelage.

We felt too unsure of our ability to stay upright in the kayaks to bring our non-waterproof cameras along, so I don’t have any photos of our trip. Next time I’ll make use of a ziplock bag and take the chance.

Newest additions to our Fiji shell collection

Myra Arrives

Our favorite taxi driver Ali took us to the airport late afternoon Monday to pick up Myra. One thing to be said for these tiny airports is that it’s very easy to find your arriving party, especially when they are one of only six passengers on a particular flight. And baggage claim is a breeze too. One crew member unloads the plane’s tiny cargo hold onto one cart and pushes it all of 50 yards from the plane to the one waiting area, where you just grab your suitcase off the cart. Easy.

The house we are staying at is really only suitable for a couple due to privacy issues and limits to the septic system, plus the fact that the homeowner specifically requested that we not have guests (and of course he’s already peeved with us over the whole car issue). Fortunately, our neighbor Semoko agreed to let Myra stay at one of the empty guest houses where he is caretaker. We offered to compensate him but he wouldn’t take any money, however Deborah had the idea to have Myra bring him one of the Mexican hammocks like we brought which Semoko is always admiring. He hinted that he’d like a spare as well, so we order two hammocks online which arrived just in time for Myra to stuff them in her suitcase before flying out to us.

Semoko’s place is a complex of buildings including a couple of guest cottages and a main building where Semoko lives, which also includes the kitchen. This past week Deborah had spent several hours cleaning up Myra’s cottage, which has a good sized bedroom, closet area, bathroom, and a killer view (better than at our place). And, Deborah being Deborah, she also bought some new towels and fragrant soap, and she clipped flowers to fill two vases. The place polished up quite nicely.

Myra’s first evening was spent settling in and then parking on our deck to consume Deborah’s tuna cakes and fern lolo, plus treats from the Indian Sweet Shop, and lots of wine. Tuesday the ladies went into the booming metropolis of Savusavu. Myra purchased a nicely carved Fijian bowl which, though decorative, is in the style of the bowls from which they drink kava (also known as grog), a mildly narcotic drink made from the root of some type of pepper plant. The bowl also came with some utensils said to be useful in the consumption of human flesh. Oh, those wacky cannibals.

A little plane for a little airport

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Myra arrives

The girls take a dip
(Don't let them fool you;. It's not that deep; they're sitting down.)

Thermal vents in the beach sands keep the water toasty

Myra's bowl - Apparently she is planning some cannibalistic feasts

Fiji Critter Profile - Leaf Insect

I spotted this amazing Leaf Insect crawling around the bushes just beyond our deck. It was pretty good size, about the size of an actual leaf in fact, maybe 2.5 to 3 inches (6-8 cm). Deborah and I agree it’s one of the most remarkable little critters we’ve ever seen. Incredible detailing in the “leaf veins.” Evolution comes up with some astounding solutions to the question of camouflage.

Auto Immobile

The latest word from the auto mechanic is that he had to replace some blown hoses, which were old and worn, and the faulty temperature gage. He then replaced the head gasket, did some more testing, and now believes there is a crack in the head and/or the engine block. Not good news. Not inexpensive news either. Both the mechanic and the homeowner are now on the lookout for a replacement engine.

We’ve been emailing back and forth with the homeowner who has been trying to hold us partly responsible, claiming he told us to only drive the car to town and back. Well, I saved all the emails since we first started communicating and he never said that. If we had known about such a restriction – assuming we would have still decided to come here – we would have honored his wishes. But he didn’t so we couldn’t. He also never warned us about the cooling system as he claimed. In fact, the last email we had received from him regarding the car’s condition said it had a new radiator and was running good. Our agreement was that we were responsible if we dented or crashed the car, but that he was responsible for mechanical breakdowns, which, for a twenty-year old car in this tough environment, should not be unexpected. So we feel we were driving the car responsibly and have no intention of paying for any engine repairs.

Needless to say, this has put a damper on our relationship with the homeowner, and our chances at getting a good reference from him are practically nil, no matter how good a job we do caring for his house. Fortunately, all of our other house sitting references are good ones so it’s no great loss. And despite the strained relationship between us and the homeowner, he still needs us to look after his house until May, and we have agreed to do so as long as the dialogue remains civil and there are no more big unpleasant surprises. We can get by with walking more and using taxis. But unfortunately both Deborah and I feel this dispute over the car has cast a bit of a pall over our stay here.

On a brighter note, our computer has resurrected itself (for now) for unknown reasons, which will make life easier. And, even better, Myra is coming for a two-week visit starting tomorrow. Hopefully she is prepared to do a lot of walking.

Our new mode of transportation now that the car is in the shop

Fiji Critter Profile - Coconut Beetle

One evening after dark we heard a loud thump against one of the window screens. We rushed out to the deck to find this extremely large beetle scrambling along the eaves. After talking with some of the neighbors we can identify it as a coconut beetle. As one might guess, they tend to hang out in the tops of the coconut trees, but this one apparently decided to dive bomb our house. It’s hard to tell from the picture but it was a good 4 to 5 inches (10 to 13 cm) long; easily the largest beetle I’ve seen outside of a museum. As I was photographing it I wanted Deborah to put her hand by it for scale, but for some reason she refused.

Shells, Sweat, and Slobber

Today we walked down to Steve and Iretta’s place to see their impressive collection of sea shells. Iretta is an artist also and knew I might be interested in the shells for artistic reference purposes. From our house to theirs we attempted to take a shortcut down a grass covered road and overgrown trail but missed the critical turnoff entirely and ended up walking way too far down the steep road and then had to backtrack uphill. It’s been very hot and humid the last few days so we were both drenched in sweat by the time we made it back to the turnoff where Iretta, sensing our errant wanderings, ventured out to look for us, calling out our names. She led us back to her house through the bush. It was so overgrown – as things quickly get here – that we’re not sure we would have found our way without her help even if we had made the right turnoff.

Semoko’s puppy followed us the whole way, and was no less bothered by the heat than we were. Anytime we stopped for a rest she would just collapse on the ground, panting, and be in no hurry to get her stubby little legs pumping again. We had to carry her through some of the badly overgrown trail sections. She was nervous around Steve and Iretta’s dog Chacho, but they had a more or less well-behaved first meeting, with the puppy clinging to Deborah’s lap while Iretta tried to calm the excitable and much larger Chacho, who was very interested in the small creature of a familiar species. I put together a bag full of fine-looking borrowed shells and we made another sweat-drenched hike back to the house, where a cool shower beckoned.

It is fortunate that Tobi left his computer here for us to use as our laptop has apparently died. It has given us trouble from the time we bought it three years ago (bloody Vista operating system). Tobi’s laptop is an old one – it even has a floppy drive – but it works well enough for the internet. The problem is it doesn’t have any working USB ports so getting my pictures onto it (and subsequently onto the blog) is going to be difficult. I’ll have to find an internet café of some sort in town where I can transfer the photos from my camera card onto a CD, which Tobi’s computer CAN read. So, depending on how cumbersome this new procedure is, I’m afraid the photos accompanying the blog may become less frequent.

Martha Stewart Sighted in Fiji

Deborah retained her crown as domestic goddess by accomplishing the following today: mopped the floors, cleaned the kitchen, defrosted the freezer, changed the bed sheets, finished rebuilding the old hammock, fed the puppy, fed the hubby, used a cutoff portion of an old pair of pants to make a pouch to store clothes pins. Just another day for the Fijian Martha Stewart. As for me, I mostly just sat on my butt and painted.

This is vacation?

Puppy Sitting

While our neighbor Semoko is visiting his mother in Labasa for a few days, we are looking after his puppy. Not that the puppy doesn’t spend at least half her time up here with us anyway. The fact that we lavish her with attention and Deborah feeds her constantly may have something to do with her frequent visits. Today we walked to town and Bone-zo (my phonetic spelling of Semoko’s pronunciation) tried to follow us. Usually she stops at the end of the long driveway from her house, or is scared back by the barking of the neighborhood dogs. But this time the barkers were all inside or napping and she just kept following us down the hill. There’s no way she would survive an untethered trip through town without being hit by a car or scared off into the bush, never to be seen again. A leash would have helped but we’ve yet to see a dog on a leash in all of Fiji. Deborah tried to fashion one from her walking stick by inverting it and using the strap handle around the dog’s neck, but it just looked like she was trying to wrangle a snake. So eventually I had to walk Bone-zo back to her house and tie her up with some rope I found in Semoko’s yard.

We continued our walk into town to have our laundry done, do a bit of shopping, and have a belated Valentine’s Day lunch (remember, we’re a day earlier here compared to the US) at a newly opened restaurant by the bay. We had time to kill while waiting for our laundry so we walked along a stretch of beach that proved to be quite good for shell collecting. We also stopped at the grocery store to pick up some boney sections of lamb neck for the puppy. We called Ali again to taxi us back up the hill to the house. If Bone-zo was unhappy about being tied up, she quickly forgave us when we handed her the neck bones.

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Lunch by the bay

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School kids in their uniforms walking home

Our haul of shells and coral

"Thanks for the neck bones, Mom!"

More Strange Food

With the car still in the shop, Iretta was kind enough to drive us into town for a shopping day. This was mostly for groceries however we also needed to exchange an empty gas cylinder for a full one (the gas heats our stove and hot water). At the farm market we picked up some different items including freshly caught and cooked clam meat and a strange type of seaweed called sea grapes. They are little green clusters of bubbles slightly bigger than caviar. You just rinse them in cold water and serve quickly before they start to disintegrate. Neither Deborah nor I thought they had much taste; it was more about the saltiness and the soft crunch when you bit into them. You also need the right sauce, which may take some more experimentation.

We also picked up some “spinach,” which wasn’t really spinach. When we ask, the Fijian vendors at the market tend to identify any leafy green as spinach. What we actually bought was a huge cluster of what looked like clippings from a mature ornamental shrub with multi-pointed leaves the size of dinner plates. Marie ensured us they were edible and we’ve learned to trust her. In the end we found them to have a pleasant enough taste but they were a bit chewy. We might stick to the more spinach-like spinach in the future.

Sea Grapes in coconut milk

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A little salad anyone?

Tailored to Imperfection

Both Deborah and I were interested in supplementing our tropical wardrobe with some cooler clothes. We found a little clothing store in town with some nice, lightweight shirts for me for the very appealing cost of US$5. One I wanted wasn’t available in my size but they were willing to make one up for me the next day (still for only US$5). They were also able to take in the waist of my convertible pants for US$2.60. Love those low-cost labor markets.

Deborah has had a harder time finding clothes in town as they seem mostly fitted to the proportions of the stick thin Indian girls. She did however find at the same shop where I found my shirts a dress she liked which she asked them to shorten into a blouse. In fact she liked the idea so much that she wanted three additional tops made with the same design but in different fabrics. She picked out some material at a fabric store down the street, brought it to the tailor, and he went to work on the tops. The first fitting a day or two later was less than impressive, with the resulting blouse the very definition of ill-fitting. We returned two days later after he had nipped and tucked a bit, but there really weren’t any fewer of the unfortunately place sags and bulges; in fact there were more because they were featured on four blouses instead of just one, although each blouse seemed to possess its own unique quality of poorly assembled fabric. Deborah didn’t see the point of having him redo it again, given his apparent inability to correct his work the first time. She thinks part of the problem is that, in this conservative society, he was reluctant to get too personal with his measuring tape, thus dooming the prospects for a good fit from the start. I’m sure there are plenty of perfectly capable tailors in town; we just happened to stumble across one of the untalented ones. But Deborah believes she can modify the blouses herself when we get home. And because we paid less than US$10 a piece for them it’s hard to complain too much.

Which is more unflattering? The front...

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...or the back?

Ferns and Fish Heads

Neighbors Steve and Iretta came over for dinner last night and Semoko joined us a bit later as well. Deborah prepared fish, mashed potatoes, and a Fijian dish called fern lolo featuring onion, garlic, tomato and, yes, ferns in a coconut sauce. It was delish, and she got the thumbs up from the locals. We had bought the whole red snapper previously at the market and I had to scale and fillet it with dubious help from Semoko’s puppy, who was quite interested in the process. She had fish scales clinging to her fur for hours later. I saved the head and other boney detritus for Semoko. Fijians just love fish heads, and can’t understand why we throw them away. They also seem to prefer to leave the bones in when cooking and just pick them out as they eat, thus ensuring no morsel of meat goes wasted. So tonight Semoko and the puppy will dine on fish head soup. I think I’ll stick with the fern lolo.

Outdoor living room

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Outdoor dining room

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Outdoor bedroom