Sick Again

Just as I get over my head cold, give it to Deborah, she gets over it, along with her bladder infection and indigestion/lump-in-throat issues, I get sick again. At first I thought it was just an overdose of Fijian bread (which at first I quite liked but now will probably never eat again), which sat like a giant mango pit in my stomach. Then came more symptoms – though none particularly severe – which suggested something other than overeating strange indigenous cuisine was involved. I will spare you the gruesome details but suffice it to say that I am normally a very “regular” guy yet this malady was wrenching my bowels to alternate extremes of dysfunction.

Today nurse Deborah has taken control of my diet and force fed me bananas, which I do not at all care for (even Fijian ones), and plain rice, which actually tasted good despite the complete lack of condiments or sauces. She also went to town in search of Gatorade or some similar electrolyte replacement drink. The grocery store had no such thing, but suggested she pay a visit to the good Dr. Joeli. He was able to fix her up with some powdered drink mix which fortunately does what Gatorade does but unfortunately tastes much worse. He also offered some charcoal tablets, also to mix with water. I think that is the first time I ever drank anything black.

And now a random photo from Savusavu:

Fijian phone booth

(design courtesy of the Klingon Empire)

Kitty Update

We’ve asked around a bit more about our new cat. The consensus among the neighbors is that she is a “bush cat,” i.e., wild. Neighbor caretaker Semoko thinks he knows the mother, a grey bush cat. One of the other neighbors has two cats, one of which bears a striking resemblance to our little one. We don’t hold high hopes that this deadbeat dad cat will own up to his parental responsibilities.

She continues to stop by everyday, we’d like to think for the pleasure of our company; however, the fact that we feed her may have something to do with it. We try not to overfeed her so that she continues to hone her hunting skills, but it is hard to resist her rapidly developing begging abilities. I think the neighbors are slightly bemused at our concern for the cat, which they seem to think is perfectly capable of fending for itself in the great outdoors. They may well be right but this particular feline has successfully manipulated us into feeding her via the strategic application of large round eyes and pitiful cries of the proper pitch to appeal to our fellow-mammalian nurturing instincts. We are goners.

We do manage to pet her a little as she eats, but this is an activity she clearly views as something to be endured rather than enjoyed. She slinks low to the ground, away from our touch, and eats as rapidly as possible. She used to just bolt as soon as she had cleaned her plate, but now will stick around a fair bit. And now she will stop by multiple times during the day. We’ve even got her interested in playing with string, that seemingly universal toy of the cat world. It’s just killing Deborah that she can’t pick the kitten up and smother her with kisses, though. Every time she expresses this desire I have visions of driving Deborah’s scratched and bleeding body to what passes for a hospital here in Savusavu, followed by weeks of battling infections in a tropical climate. So hopefully she will continue to restrain herself. But so far the kitty has been very passive around us, and grows more and more comfortable around us each day. As long as we keep feeding her.

Like any good "bush cat" she can climb trees

(photo by Deborah)






Must.....get.......string.....

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."