Fiji Critter Profile - Earwigs

It’s funny how certain insects – ladybugs, for instance – seem at least benign if not downright cute, while other insects evoke instant revulsion and an attack of the heebie jeebies. Earwigs definitely fall into the latter category. That’s partly due to the name, which conjures up nightmarish visions of six-legged penetration of one’s ear canal. But it’s also due to the earwig’s appearance with its devilishly forked pincer tail. The Fijian variety of earwig is even higher on the creepy scale because it’s black, it’s fast, it will fly right at you, and sometimes when it scampers along it raises its tail and bends it back over like a scorpion.

As far as I know they’ve never bitten us, and are really just interested in fruit. In fact, they are also known here by the more affable name “banana bug,” and we do indeed see them in large numbers on the banana trees. But if one lands on Deborah it immediately provokes what we call her Saint Vitus’ Dance, accompanied by sufficient unintelligible screeching and wailing to convince any bystanders that she is experiencing either spontaneous combustion or an epileptic seizure. Fortunately there are seldom any bystanders apart from myself as she often pulls off her dress in an attempt to expose the offending earwig.

Earwig in pseudo-scorpion mode

Return of the Coconut

The first day Deborah gave Manassa a ride to his house he sent her home with five coconuts from his extensive palm-filled property. These were green coconuts straight off the tree, as opposed to the riper one I stumbled across earlier in the blog. Manassa thoughtfully chopped the husk away at one end to allow easy access to the shell for draining out the coconut water, which Deborah thought was sweeter than in the previous coconut. The green coconuts also gave us the opportunity to try the so-called spoon meat, the soft, jello-like lining inside the shell before it ripens into the more familiar hard white coconut meat. The texture is a bit odd but the flavor is good. Deborah blended it with the coconut water to make a sort of coconut milk which she used in a delectable peanut sauce.

The five coconuts we were given are more than we can use while they are still fresh. I suppose if I had been paying closer attention during all those reruns of Gilligan’s Island I could use the extra coconut shells to make radio receivers, headphones, or at least a handsome brazier for Deborah.

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The green coconut bares its spoon meat

Kitty's New Home

Deborah got it into her head that it was time to find kitty a new home. We had been making steady progress in socializing her. She allowed us to pet her when she wasn’t being fed, and sometimes seemed to even enjoy it. Also, Deborah was able to pick her up a few times without becoming a human scratching post. Kitty was definitely becoming more interested in hanging out with us, especially after discovering the comfortable confines of the bean bag chairs, and she couldn’t get enough of playing string. If we lived here, she would be our cat. But in three and a half months we’ll be gone and it’s easier to find a home for a younger cat than an older one. So it was time.

Deborah doubled her efforts of asking everyone she met whether they wanted a cat and hit pay dirt yesterday. She drove past a couple of kids who said they might be interested. The kids pointed toward their house up the hill and Deborah promised to stop by on her way back from town. When she did come back she couldn’t locate the kids’ house and asked a man walking by if he knew them. He didn’t, being just a visitor to the neighborhood, but it turns out he and his wife were also looking to get a cat, particularly an orange one. Bingo. Deborah brought the gentleman, a retired military officer named Manassa, back to our house to see kitty. After talking with him it was clear he could provide a good home for our furry step child.

Today after breakfast we bundled up kitty in the laundry hamper and drove her out to Manassa’s place, a beautiful 79 acre spread with neat rows of coconut trees. Manassa lives there with his wife and two teenage grandchildren – all extremely nice people. Kitty had a less than civil initial encounter with their friendly dog and then hid behind a large wooden chest for the remainder of our time there, so we didn’t get to say a proper goodbye. I’m sure it will take a few days to get used to her new surroundings and new people, but they are genuinely excited about having her and the property would make a fine playground for any cat. We left them with a big bag of cat food and her favorite play string. I’m confident we’ve done what’s best for her.

So now our house is strangely quiet and sad. It’s ridiculous how attached you can get to a member of an alien species in just a three week period. Good thing we didn’t wait until the end of our time here before letting her go – it would have been even harder. But I’m sure we will see her again as Manassa has invited us to come visit anytime. We will definitely take him up on that offer.

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Kitty's new home

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Manassa's "driveway"

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Manassa with Manassa Jr. and Carolyn

(photo by Deborah)

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The grandkids (photo by Deborah)

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Manassa sent us home with flowers from his yard

Kitty luxuriates in the bean bag chair before relocating to her new home

Paying Bills

We just received our internet bill in our post office box today. It says payment was due eight days ago. Welcome to Fiji. Never mind; they didn’t cut off service or anything. So we paid the bill at the Post Office – most bills are paid in cash at either the Post Office or grocery store – and we are good to go for another month of painfully slow dial-up service. The cost is only about US$15 per month so it’s hard to complain.

Our monthly telephone bill, which included a couple of awkward delay-filled calls back to the US was less than US$5. (Deborah’s sister Suzie made one such call to us and it cost her $95. Ouch.). Our electric bill is a little harder to decipher. The last one was for US$14, but the previous one actually showed a credit. It wasn’t because of any prepayment; the meter reading was actually less than the previous one. Apparently, if those in charge of meter reading don’t feel like making the long trek up your driveway they just “estimate” what it is. Personally I would have come up with an estimated reading that was higher than the last one so as not to indicate a negative usage, but that’s just me.

We have gas cylinders that supply the stove and instant hot water heater. Just yesterday we used up the first of two, and will have to take the empty into town to exchange for a full one. I don’t know what the cost will be yet. That’s pretty much it for utility costs. There’s no heating or cooling system, apart from the fans, and all the water we need conveniently falls on the roof and is collected in tanks below the house. There is no house-to-house garbage collection. People just drop off their bags of refuse at platforms spaced along the main roads. The platforms are raised up off the ground to eliminate a source of temptation from the local dog population, although they are usually too wiped out by the heat to do much mischief.

This is the garbage platform we used until they tore it down, replaced by a big, fancy metal one

Language

Fijians, not surprisingly, speak Fijian. That is their mother tongue and the one they use most of the time. There are some 300 different dialects but also one variation they all learn which is considered standard Fijian. In addition, the Indo-Fijians, those descendents of the indentured servants brought from India to work the plantations, speak a variation of Hindi known as Fiji-Hindi. Fortunately for us, nearly all the residents of this former British colony also speak English to at least some extent. And all the signs and official forms are in English. So we have it easy here. We try to say “bula” instead of “hello,” and “vanaka” instead of “thank you,” but if we forget it’s no big deal. Usually the locals take one look at our skin pigmentation and switch to English anyway.

All signs are in English, making it easy for "bona fide visitors"

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Where else can you get your photocopies, 2nd hand books and meat all in one shop?

Fiji Critter Profile: Miniature Ants

The ants here are tiny, maybe an eighth of an inch (.3 cm) long, and ubiquitous. You see long lines of them marching along the deck toward some mysterious destination. You see individual ones scouting for treasure, scurrying along the floor, across the kitchen counter, up the bathroom wall, along the rim of your drinking glass (occasionally falling in). If you are foolish enough to drop a crumb or leave an unattended nibblet of cat food they will promptly find it, alert their brethren, and swarm over it as if it were manna from heaven. If you don’t thoroughly clean the can opener they will swarm over that. If you only seal your bag of cookies by rolling up the open end and securing it with a clothes pin, they will find a way inside. If you rely on the individual foil wrappers to protect your bouillon cubes you will find them eaten right through. Better use a zip lock bag. And make it a good one, because the cheap ones leave just enough of an opening for the little pests to gain access anyway. They even like to traipse around my paint palette, especially if I’m using Transparent Gold Ocher. For some reason they find that particular color quite tasty. Weird buggers.

Deborah does battle with them daily in the kitchen. She places blocks of camphor at strategic locations to repel them. She wipes the counter down with eucalyptus oil. She seals up leftovers immediately and places everything she can in the small refrigerator. We’ve probably ingested a few by accident when they’ve crawled onto our plate or dropped into our cup. They’re so small you’d hardly notice. Just a little extra tropical seasoning.

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When not fighting ants, Deborah likes to eat at restaurants by Savusavu Bay

Bananas

I don’t know if was the bananas or one of the other substances Deborah force fed me yesterday but I feel normal again. Speaking of bananas, we had Semoko harvest the plant in our yard a couple of days ago. Some of the bananas were turning yellow so it was time. I didn’t know this but once you harvest the bananas, the plant dies. If you don’t harvest, it dies anyway. Sometimes it just falls over from the weight of the bunch. (Not a very smart plant if you ask me). I always assumed the same plant kept producing fruit but apparently that is not the case. They just reseed themselves and new plants pop up elsewhere. We have a couple others going on in the yard now.

Semoko had brought us a few bananas from one of his plants so we let him take the whole bunch from our tree, which we could never eat – especially now that I’m well again and don’t have to take such fruity medicine. I have to say though that Deborah makes a pretty good smoothie, even when she slips a banana into the mix.

Semoko with freshly harvested bananas

(photo by Deborah)