A letter from Fiji...

The Start of the Holiday Season?

In NZ the slippery slide to the end of the year seems to be marked by the arrival late October of all thing xmas into the shops. Not so here. But in this last term of school there seems to be an escalating amount of holidays and sales and suddenly! its Christmas. To my dismay I realised this week that we're on that final countdown already (and I haven't even paid all the school fees yet!)...

First sign... we were barely back in school and it was Fiji day! Fiji day like Ratu Sukuna day includes both a holiday for the kids, and a special mufti day and assembly. The mufti day is special in that you have to wear traditional Fijian outfits- the Sulu and Jaba- for boys a pocket sulu (the formal one) and for girls the long skirt and matching top with sleeves. It was frightening to discover in the seemingly short amount of time since Ratu Sukuna the girls have both outgrown their jaba (pronounced "chamba"), so a quick handme down happened- AK into one of mine that shrank in the extreme clothes drier (has been known to melt t-shirts) here, and AJ into her sister's blue pineapple number...

At Treasure the day was marked with a kava ceremony shared with the visitors (three of them invited to stand in as "chiefs"), prayer, and flag raising followed by singing of the national anthem. It was very nice!

Then I hopped on the boat and headed for town to catch the assembly there and watched as they summarised various parts of Fiji's history as part of the Fiji day presentation. Tom, unsurprisingly was a soldier! But the bit that really cracked me up was the re-enactment arrival of Lutu Nasobasoba at Vuda in his drua (a sailing boat they had sailed in from east Africa). I guess you had to be there...

The teachers all got up at the end and sang a song- one which was released last year after the sevens, but hit our tv screens around the time of the coup when it played before the news each night. It will for many people therefore always have that air of hopeful patriotism and more than a few people admitted to having a tear in their eyes as it played... Lucky for you all I haven't got a video of the teachers singing it (!) instead as Danny Rae Costello would no doubt prefer I found the original on U-tube to show... note that one of the shots at the start is of a real "drua" (a little different to the one above!). Like the music video in the post before last (Rugby Pride) it has elements of the national anthem in the chorus.

There's nothing like being put on the spot, but when one of the teachers asked for a group shot I did my best!!! A mufti day you wouldn't see in NZ...

The next events that should have started to ring alarm bells and warn how fast the year was flying were the school's library week, and Halloween. Actually the two reasonably neatly combined, capes doubling as Hogwarts uniforms and monsters/vampires capes etc etc. We had a lovely dinner at the Mercure Nadi, with their classic pizza's, and the kids all carved pumpkins which are luckily not too bad a price at the markets right now! The pizza's were so big that they adults contentedly finished them off while the kids went to watch a dvd...

Walking into school the next day for assembly was like dawn of the dead- but it turned out that was just AK's class... as Lisa said and I quote...
[QUOTE] we have such gorgeous children dont we... [/QUOTE]

As you went further into the school it thankfully became more wholesome, with classes studying such esoteric subjects as female intellectuals in roman times, and "a Midsummer Nights Dream". They were very good, but I suspect there would have been no chance of being bored anyway with the witch addressing assembly (I believe it was indeed the principal). Here's two more examples of class themes...

The problem of course was that while in town hunting the finishing touches for the costumes (the Gringotts goblin alone needed a lamp, key ring and false fingernails) you could not help to miss the sales- sales for Diwali! Yep Diwali is nearly here (it can't be- I only just got my birthday present from Mum!), so the next mission was to go out and get our sari's. Let me tell you as a Libran (yes I did have a lovely birthday thanks, we went to Daikoku and had teppanyaki) sari shopping is near impossible. Not only are you seeing the pro's and con's of every shape, fabric, colour and detailing, but you're also driven by a need to be cooly stylishly elegant. I suppose I should've been grateful that my complete southern bred intolerance of heat ruled out several fabric options thereby reducing my choice, but of course I wasn't... The interesting thing was that some of the sari's really are very carefully designed, with strategically placed colours and pattern to flatter the form when they're put on properly (something I am justifiably concerned about right now- its complex)... We basically tried on the whole shop. So a big thankyou to the ladies at Sogo Nadi for looking after us. We will see the results next week...

So by the time Diwali has finished (love the fireworks!) we'll definitely be on the fast track to terms end and Christmas. Town will empty out (though not as extremely as last year with the military action) and we'll probably stay quietly on the island. The weather is already totally summery- calm and hot and cloudy with rain in the evenings from time to time, so the writings on the wall for the year... until my next post for my buddies heading into winter (ok and those in the south of NZ too!) one last tease...(my summer view)...

There are many stories in Fiji

Continuing the catch up of recent events today's post is about Alice's school camp at Abaca (which is pronounced Ambatha). But first, not that we should joke about coup's today of all days, here is the cartoon from yesterdays Fiji Sun Newspaper yes that's right- more Diwali jokes. You can't beat the Fijian sense of humour.

Anyway so Alice had her year five camp, up at Abaca village in the Koroyanitu National Park. This amazing place is about 30 minutes up in the mountains behind Lautoka. You drive off past Kavatubu (a suburb/village/cemetery/police post) in Lautoka, then up windy gravel roads including  3 fords. The class went up in a 4wd bus operated by Tourism Transport Fiji, accompanied by one of tourism transport's 4wd Prados and our little Hyundai Tuscan stuffed to the brim with mats, food, toilet paper etc etc with Hannah our Gap student and myself. We pulled into Abaca village and had to firstly go and present some Kava. Of course we had to wear sulus- oops! Luckily as usual I had one in the car from the boat trip out in the morning (yes you may be surprised to learn I do try to dress modestly), and we managed to find a shorter one which Hannah borrowed.

Abaca was in the old times a large village of more than 200 people. Then one Sunday in 1931 a huge landslide came down, and buried the entire village. Only 3 brothers survived. They restarted the village across the road on the hillside, and it now has around 80 members. There are no cars in this village, but they do have horses.

The kids got to see the preparation for mat making, and also had to walk down the hill to the village and help weed the cassava patch. Good stuff I say. They also did team building games. Thats Alice on the right...

The lodge was further up the hill from the village, with two bunkrooms coming off a main room. No power and no hot water was a novelty for the kids, with our cooking by gas and lighting via kerosene lamps. The adults slept in the main room. Infact it was Hannah's first time in a sleeping bag. As the teachers were handing out reward cards throughout the trip Hannah of course received one for being open to new experiences!

 

The scenery up there was stunning, and with lots of ferns and tree ferns; even looked almost like NZ (except the banana trees which told me I definitely was not in the Catlins). Dot commented on the similarity to the Waitakeres too. We spent most afternoons at the river, where there was a swimming hole. It was just beautiful- but as you look at these pictures remember it was 30c or more... Actually there was even a tree a bit like the Rata or Pohutukawa, but pink??

(sorry about the big leaf in the front, I was hanging off the path to catch the pink flowers).

Scenes from the river...

 

That's the "Ben Bomb"!

The kids loved washing up- at last they knew why they had to bring a bucket each. They filled their buckets and happily washed and rinsed, finishing with Aseri (the teacher) rinsing them off with the hose! One girl came back twice. When Aseri asked her why she said "my mum told me always to use conditioner"...

I tag teamed with Dot, and left early on the last morning to get back to the island and finish some photos I had taken to send back to NZ the next morning (as it turned out I was up all night- but that's a story for another time). Bola (Alipate Bola, back here on the island) told me that the Abaca people are part of the Vuda tribe, indeed related to some of the Nakelo (who own the islands we live on- I guess the three brothers had to go somewhere to get wives). The three brothers had survived he said, because they were partying on a Sunday. He said "Marama you will find out- there are many stories in Fiji"...

(Camp photos all taken with my new lens...nikkor 18-200VR a pretty versatile lens for school camp purposes, and a big thank you to Digna for bringing it over for me. I only had one memory card, so all were shot in jpegs.).

 

That's not a coup, Mum, that's just Diwali!

...so the cartoon said in the paper at Diwali. Not that we should joke about coup's at this time... but we were just describing Diwali tonight to some visitors. Basically while large tracts of the western world prepare for Halloween etc in Fiji we are celebrating an Indian festival: Diwali (as we often say as we eat Lalita's delicious Rotis- 1 billion Indians can't be wrong!). Diwali to cut a long story short is a festival of lights and a celebration of the triumph of good over evil. But we were new to it. Just as thanksgiving means large turkey meals, we noted lots of giving of diwali sweets, Indian costume everywhere, and fireworks (yes that's what the cartoon was referring to)!

When we went into town all the ladies were wearing Saris, even at the supermarket and the McDonald's drive-thru. Here's Rita at the cafe at Vuda.

and just as the kids wore Fijian costume to school on Ratu Sukuna day, Diwali saw them heading off to school in their Indian outfits, though instead of Sari the girls wore Salwaar Kameez, bindi (jewelled spots for their foreheads) and lots of bracelets. Superb. Next year we thought the Mum's might wear sari's to assembly too ( we would have to have a long lunch first of course)...

 

Waiting at Vuda marina- with the MSA (maritime safety) marine checker...

And then of course the fireworks. We didn't have a huge show at the island, its very Fijian out here, and besides we hadn't had significant rain in months and we didn't need any fires. But we got the sparklers out and holy moly! They were great. 60c a bunch, and not like sparklers as we know it. They spat out sparks like Harry Potter's wand in an out of control moment. For some reason I can't find the pics of the kids, but here's one a few days later of Nicole trying not to set her hair on fire.

OK that's all for this evening, but I'll toy with another subject tomorrow, then unleash this creation on the world of my friends and family... night all, meg campbell-back (yes, I actually just signed that name there to see if I can google it! true).