Coconuts

I successfully hunted and killed my first coconut. By “hunted,” of course, I mean “found along the road.” It was still a bit green – a sign of freshness – as opposed to the very brown ones you normally see scattered about. Like every good resident of Fiji, Tobi has a machete, or cane knife as they call them here. So I used that to hack away at the husk (the pulpy mass surrounding the nut, which, incidentally, is actually a seed, not a nut) all the while thinking of Tom Hanks’ first encounter with a coconut in the movie “Castaway.” Even with the benefit of the cane knife (which Tom didn’t have) this was no easy feat. But eventually I was able to strip away all that lay between me and nut. This exposed three dark spots at one end which are soft spots in the shell that are easily pierced to let the coconut water drain out. Supposedly, the greener the coconut, the sweeter the water. In our case the water was pretty good, although Deborah has more of a taste for it than I do. She even considers the mild laxative effect an added benefit.

Next it was a just a matter of banging the nut with a hammer to break it into manageable bits, and using a knife to cut the meat from the shell. Apparently, with green coconuts plucked from the tree the meat is really soft and jello-like and can be scooped out with a spoon. Our coconut was too ripe for any such “spoon meat,” as it is called, but the more conventional, harder meat was much to Deborah’s liking. Good thing since I spent a good hour and a half whittling away at the thing. Personally I would have to say I prefer my coconut shredded and cooked as a coating on a prawn, or maybe mixed with chocolate in a Mounds Bar. But that’s just me.

Step One: Remove husk, not toes

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Step Two: Peel away remaining hairy mess to reveal the nut

(which isn't really a nut)

Step Three: Poke holes in soft parts of shell to drain coconut water into glass

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Step Four: Take one unsatisfying sip of coconut water and hand remainder to wife

Step Five: Wrap drained shell in towel and beat to death with a hammer



Step Six: Spend hours tediously removing meat from shell to keep wife happy

Our Neighborhood

We have a very private spot up here on the ridge. Our nearest neighbor is Semoko who is actually the caretaker for a Dubai-based airline pilot and his wife who seldom make it over to Fiji. We can just barely see the roof of his house below us through the trees. Steve and Iretta are still further down the hill but we can’t see their place at all. There are other neighbors across a small valley toward town from us, but the thick vegetation prevents us from seeing them. We do hear them though. They are a mix of Indigenous-Fijian, Indo-Fijian, and Chinese-Fijian families and they all seem to have barking dogs, clucking chickens, crowing roosters, bleating goats, mooing cows, and squealing children (sometimes it’s very hard to distinguish the sounds of children from that of the goats). We also occasionally hear short bursts of Bollywood music from someone’s stereo, but not for very long.

The noise bothered us at first but now we hardly notice it. We’re not sure if we are just used to the roosters now or if they were slaughtered for Christmas dinner. Even the dogs, who love to chase each of the infrequent cars, serve a function as anyone coming to visit us must pass the barking gauntlet to reach our house so we have a good two-minutes warning when a visitor approaches. As the road continues past our house and up away from town, there are only vacant lots, many with killer views.

The road back down the hill to town is spotted with simple houses on gorgeous, green, palm-filled acreage. The fancier expat dwellings tend to be out of view up side roads and steep driveways leading to the best view property. When we walk to town we are inevitably greeted with “Bula” (hello) from almost everyone we see. Deborah takes her hiking sticks, which help her tremendously on the steep sections, but the locals, who have never seen such a thing, think there is something wrong with her legs. She imagines they refer to her as the crazy, red-faced blonde woman who walks with sticks.
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Semoko's house

Driveway to the Wong's

The Wong's house

Architectural Digest's 2009 winner for carport of the year
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Another neighbor


View from the road


Crazy, red-faced blonde woman who walks with sticks

Fiji Critter Profile: Stick Insects

Stick insects are common here. We often see them munching on the vegetation off the front deck. Occasionally they show up clinging to the sides of the house or in other odd locations. I think the males tend to be smaller and more colorful. The ones we’ve seen have varied in length from about 4 inches (10 cm) to 7 inches (18 cm). Despite their rather unaesthetic method of pruning the local flora, we think they are quite cool.

Sticks in love

Market Day

Food is cheap here, especially local fruits, vegetables and fish. Today at the farmer’s market we picked up from our favorite vendor Marie two mangoes, two avocados, a papaya, and a bag of shredded coconut that she scraped herself per our earlier request. Total bill: US$3.60. We also picked up a couple of Mahi Mahi steaks (about 1 kg, or 2 lb) for about US$2.20. Passion fruits are about US$0.10 each, bananas are US$0.13 each. A loaf of bread (albeit an unexciting one) costs US$0.50. Maria’s more interesting Fijian “bread” is US$0.52. A small fresh whole red snapper cost us just US$1.31.

Anything that has to be imported is of course more expensive. Grapes, for instance, are US$4.28/lb (still not bad, and they’re really tasty). A large 12 oz can of cat food is US$1.57. Boxes of cereal, what few varieties are available, are anywhere from US$3 to US$10 per box. Incidentally, almost every box you see on a shelf, no matter what product they contain, is dented, dinged up or partially crushed. They all look like they’ve had a rough journey on the container ship from Australia, New Zealand, China, or wherever.

Quality appliances, both large and small, are in short supply. To supplement Tobi’s sparsely equipped kitchen we bought a mixer with which to make smoothies. We were surprised and delighted when the merchant insisted on taking the mixer out of the box to test its function before completing the sale. Good thing, too, as the first model died a quick death at the nearest outlet. The second model worked fine. Much to our surprise they repacked the first defective model, retaped the box, and put it back on the shelf. ?! When we got the mixer home we completely unpacked it only to discover the glass pitcher was broken (they didn’t look at that part in the store). Deborah took it back the next day for a replacement part. You’d think they’d just use the pitcher from the defective model that crapped out the previous day, but instead they gave her an entire new box, but not until after arguing amongst themselves and then accusing Deborah of having broken it. Eventually they relented and we now have a mixer. It only cost US$20 but you can tell its a really cheap piece of plastic crap. Fortunately it only has to last four months, although if it even makes it that long I’ll be astonished.

All this for US$5.80

Globus Hystericus

Deborah’s medical ailments have proven stubborn. Her version of “our” head cold seems to be worse than mine. She started taking the antibiotics we brought with us, which seemed to help initially, but the last few nights she has had trouble getting to sleep. She has felt like she had a lump in her throat that made it hard to swallow and was very distressing. Last night she couldn’t get her antibiotic to go all the way down and was ingesting glass after glass of water, followed by cups of tea to melt the pill, and lots of soda pop to generate burps, which, however undainty, seemed to provide some relief. Not surprisingly, all that intake of fluids led to fourteen trips to the bathroom (yes, she counted). She didn’t get to sleep until 4am. Between all the flushing and belching I didn’t get much sleep either.

Today she paid a visit to the local physician Dr. Joeli, who is eighty years old but, according to Deborah, looks sixty. He patiently listened to her list of complaints and, while refraining from rolling his eyes and muttering “spoiled, high-strung, American hypochondriac,” he instead diagnosed Global Hystericus. That sounds like a psychiatric illness, and it is sort of, but it’s brought about by a physical condition related to acid reflux or indigestion or some other gastroenterological annoyance. Between her head cold, food allergies, and the fact that she was opening up certain capsules to make them easier to swallow, she may have had just too much irritation going on in her esophagus. And part of Globus Hystericus is that you feel this lump in your throat, get worried about it, which makes the lump feel worse, which makes you worry more, and so on. Dr. Joeli gave her some throat lozenges (or lozengers, in Deborah’s Maryland accent) and recommended she continue to eat a healthy diet (avoiding allergy foods of course), drink lots of water, meditate to lower her stress level, and get out of the hammock and exercise to ensure a feeling of tiredness at night. He wasn’t sure he would have recommended taking the antibiotics but thought she should go ahead and finish those anyway. And she should think about having her swallowing problem looked at in more detail when she gets home. The 25-30 minute doctor visit was only US$15 plus US$1.50 for the lozenges.

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When she got back to the house Deborah did some online research which mentioned the possible treatment with antacids and she remembered some Zantac she had packed and decided to take that to combat her indigestion and reports almost immediate relief, including the diminishment of the mysterious throat lump. We may actually sleep tonight. And from now on I can, when it suits me, point out to Deborah that she has been officially diagnosed as "hysterical."

Popcorn

It is inevitable that when you go someplace new you will discover new food items that quickly feel indispensible. I’ve always been lukewarm on papayas, but the local ones here are to die for. The pineapples are also probably the sweetest I’ve ever eaten. Passion fruit, I’ve discovered, is pretty good. Lettuce can be harder to find but there are small heads grown hydroponically that are quite good. Marie at the farmer’s market makes something called Fijian “bread,” which doesn’t actually look anything like bread. It is made from coconut milk and plantains and comes wrapped in a large leaf of some kind. It looks like a large glue stick left too long in the sun, but is actually really tasty. Marie is also going to make some homemade coconut milk for us using the liquid from inside the coconut plus scrapings of the coconut meat. She says it is good with cooked taro leaves, which will also be a first for us.

The Indian influence is widely felt in the markets here as well. They have all sorts of crunchy snack foods with names like Chevda, Fried Ghana and Mix Bhuja. I’m a sucker for crispy munchies and like most of these, although Deborah complains that certain ones give my breath a pungency that no amount of teeth brushing will remedy. She swears it even oozes out of my pores. I tell her it’s to repel the mosquitoes but apparently it is she who is being repelled.

Another really good crunchy treat we’ve discovered are dried peas rolled in soybean oil and salt. I don’t even like normal peas, mushy little green phlegm balls that they are, but these dried ones are delicious (and addictive). Unfortunately for Deborah, her many food allergies and sensitivities have a striking correlation with the types of foods that are available here, and her health has been suffering as a result. We think the soybean oil on the peas is a problem for her, as are all the split peas and lentils (Dhal soup), wheat products, MSG in some packaged foods, lots of dairy (no rice milk or almond milk here), beer (more wheat) rather than wine, which is expensive here, etc.

Deborah also misses a good cup of coffee and ice cream, although we did find a shop that had ice cream cones. You don’t get to pick a flavor; it just comes as a three-colored variety – white, pink, and green. We couldn’t detect any difference in taste between the different colors. I mostly miss the almond milk and a good selection of cold cereals. The choices here are really limited. Bread is mostly boring white; none of the hearty multi-grain loaves that I prefer. One thing we missed until spotting it today in one of the grocery store is popcorn. Deborah cooked it up with Ghee (clarified butter, another Indian favorite) and it tasted like decadence.

The cat likes popcorn too. She continues to come around more and more, and doesn’t just take off as soon as she is done eating. She is a little less scared of us and more interested in exploring the house. We are now even able to pet her a little bit as she is eating. It’s progress.

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Fiji Critter Profile: Little Black Vampires (aka Mosquitoes)

The mosquitoes here are black rather than brown, and a bit smaller than those back home. The size may give them an advantage because you can’t feel them biting you. You just have to be lucky enough to see them on you and then hope your hand is fast enough to yield a tiny but satisfying splat on your leg.

What the Fijian mosquitoes lack in size they more than make up for in number. Our first couple of days here we pretty much got eaten alive (I counted eighteen bites on my left foot and ankle alone) partly because of the rains the previous days, which always seems to make them more plentiful, and partly because we hadn’t yet mastered our pest defense techniques.

Now we know that personal repellant is best applied in early morning and late afternoon when the little vampires are most active. We know that the itch can be calmed with calendula cream or Purell (thanks for that last tip, Sandy). We know tea tree oil also helps with itching and is great as an anti-inflammatory and disinfectant. We are also now well-equipped with mosquito coils, which burn slowly and release an acrid smoke that deters the bugs, but smells so nasty that it also deters us sometimes. Citronella candles aren’t quite as effective as the coils but are sometimes enough and they smell much better. If we were veterans of lakeside summers in Minnesota maybe we would know all this stuff already, but our home in Olympia is pretty much mosquito-free so this is a new challenge for us.

Another interesting thing about the Fijian mosquitoes is that they typically stand on only four legs. Their other two hind legs, which incidentally are banded with lighter stripes, tend to sweep out behind them floating above the ground as if they were merely decorative. It’s as if the mosquito wishes not just to suck your blood but to taunt you as well by proving she can do so with two legs tied behind her back.

One of the unlucky ones