Blake and Deb in Fiji: Labasa, Part 1

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.