TASHY TRAVELS
Every Sunday, I am going to upload a post about the different countries I have visited and/or lived in since 2002.
I can assure you of some interesting stories.
FIJI 1
If you remember last week, you're doing fine but if you remember my last travel blog you will recall I had landed in New Zealand in March 2005, ready to start all over again. My time in New Zealand lasted until 2009. In the middle of it all, I succeeded in visiting three Pacific Islands to try to further the aim of my project to tell young people more about their world. I have decided that these visits, although being straddled by my time in New Zealand, should come first. The simple reason is that, firstly New Zealand would be fragmented and secondly, I ended this part of my life, and my travels, in New Zealand so that is where you should end it too.
In 2007 I had the pleasure of spending 5 weeks in Fiji. At the time there was considerable political upheaval and the outside world (the EU, the US and the Commonwealth) were withholding all funding as they didn’t like the fact that a coup had recently taken place and Fiji did not have a democratically elected government. What the EU, the US and possibly the Commonwealth know about democracy I have no idea. However I loved my time there, the land, the people and the culture.
The reason for the visit was that by August 2007, I had secured some funding which would allow us to set off and visit these Pacific Islands. Those of you who have followed this from the beginning are almost certainly ready to be certified. However, if you can touch the end of your finger on your nose, or any test they give to prove you’re sane, let’s continue. You will also remember that travelling on an Eastern European passport can cause problems, especially to those travelling on a UK passport. Having got this much-needed funding, we set out on a journey to the Pacific Islands. Originally we were going to the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga but circumstances, political circumstances, meant we changed the plans and would start in Fiji.
We booked a ticket to Fiji and made our way to the airport. Then we hit a problem. If you were Polish, as my girlfriend at the time was, you couldn’t fly into Fiji without an onward ticket. We told the staff that we had a sponsorship deal with Air Pacific and would be picking up our onward ticket to Tonga in Fiji. Fine, if you’re British. No good, if you’re Polish. I had to do some quick thinking and we ended up buying a ticket, in Auckland, for the return journey from Fiji. We could, so they said, get a refund on the ticket once we were in Fiji, but it satisfied the authorities in Auckland.
Eventually, we touched down in Fiji at the start of a projected 16 week journey through four Pacific Islands. For those of you who don’t know, the Pacific is the largest ocean on our planet and there are thousands of islands scattered all over it. Many of the countries to be found over the vast expanse of ocean are made up of hundreds of islands and sometimes they can be spread over thousands of kilometres. Just loads of tiny islands miles apart, making up a country. If you think London is a long way from Newcastle, (sorry I am English), just imagine it with only water in between.
Fiji is one such country. Made up of over 300 islands, just over 100 inhabited and sprinkled over a vast distance and all ruled by a government in Suva, capital of the country and on the largest island called Viti Levu. Strangely, the main airport is in Nadi, on the opposite side of this island and about 200 kilometres away, on Fijian rads. My comment that Fiji was ruled by a government in Suva was a considerable bone of contention while we were there. In December 2006, the Fijian army, led by its commander Frank Bainimarama, had overthrown the government, saying there was widespread corruption. The Prime Minister had actually been installed by Commodore Bainimarama in the 2000 coup so there had been a bit of a fall-out. By the time we arrived in August 2007, various Commonwealth countries and the EU had begun to withdraw funding from Fiji, citing that its government was undemocratic. These powers told Bainimarama that he had to hold democratic elections. ( he did in September 2014, with his party winning almost 60% of the vote)
I must, at this moment, state my views on democracy. It doesn’t exist. It is a Utopian, unobtainable dream. The word democracy comes from a Greek word meaning power of the people. In England, we call our form of government democratic. Well, everyone above a certain age, excluding a few classes such as lunatics, prisoners and members of the House of Lords, can vote. Just to clarify, that is three separate categories. Of course, everyone doesn’t vote; at general elections it is often around 70% who exercise their democratic right. But the right is there. So, in that sense, the elected government is democratically elected.
Except it isn’t because we have a constituency system. A simple example to show how this immediately defeats democracy. Let's imagine we have a country of 100 people and 5 constituencies, each of 20 voters. There are two parties, A and B. In constituency 1, the voting is 11 for A and 9 for B. This is repeated in two other constituencies. But in the other two, the votes go 19 for B and 1 for A. In our system A is now the governing party as they have 3 MP’s and B only has 2. But 66 of the people, 66% of the country, voted for a different party. The democracy, the power of the people, is flawed; most people wanted what they didn’t get.
So while we, and others whose system may be even more flawed, rabbit on about democracy without really understanding the meaning of the word, we also criticise those who don’t hold these elections.. If they mean there should be elections where everyone can vote, say so. From my time in Fiji, and from the people to whom I spoke, the vast majority were happy with Commodore Bainimarama or else they were totally indifferent. He was certainly not, then, a ruthless, cruel dictator. His people liked him. Did I see neglect in Fiji? Yes I did but it stemmed from the lack of investment from these great powers who, knowing little about the internal culture and workings of a country, decided they knew how best it should be ruled. I hasten to add this is just what I saw, I heard, I perceived. I may have missed much.
But, you see, I’m just a little too old. I remember that our leaders, especially those with handbags, encouraged and could even be said in a roundabout way to support, the take over of a country called Rhodesia by a man named Mugabee, who was of course elected after democratic elections. Many people fought against apartheid quite rightly but didn’t see, or were unable to control, what happened next.
Okay, enough serious thinking, off to Fiji. We arrived in Nadi late at night. It was hot even in the airport but the bus, sent from our hotel to pick us up, was there, the driver very friendly and off we went, booked in and went straight to bed. It’s a hard life. Next morning, we got up, had a beautiful Fijian type breakfast and set out for central Nadi. We were going to stay there, in Nadi not central Nadi, for about four days. We would then make our way along the southern coast road, inland Viti Levu is almost uninhabited, to Suva, stopping at a few places on the way. We would then return to Nadi, head for the Yasawa Islands, back to Nadi and fly out to Tonga. I am accompanying this part of the text with a couple of Fijian sunsets. I love sunsets and those we saw in the Pacific were some of the most beautiful I had ever seen.
The first impressions of Nadi were that it was hot, dusty, busy and every one was very friendly. Tourism is the major money earner in Fiji and you could not walk 50 yards without someone saying ‘bula’, the traditional form of Fijian greeting. In the majority of cases, that is all it is, a friendly greeting but we did hear of two Australian girls, who had gone into a shop to look at some gifts, were asked their names and before they left, were presented with a carved object with their names on and certainly made to feel that they had no choice but to buy them.
Our experience was different and far better. We had only gone about 500 metres from our hotel when this guy came up to us and started a conversation. He told us how to get to the town, invited us back to his place for dinner that night, said he would come and collect us and went on his way. He was also living proof of a fact of which we soon became aware. Fiji has two distinct populations. Just over 50% of the people are Melanesian, not Polynesian who are more to the east of the Pacific but Melanesian, whose descendants probably came from the area around Papua New Guinea. These people had been living in Fiji for thousands of years.
Nearly 40% of the population are what is now called Indo-Fijians. Their descendants, in the most part, were brought to Fiji by its British colonial rulers at the end of 19th century to work on the sugar cane plantations. Our friend was one of these and, after our meal that night, he returned the following day with his family and took us to the beach.
But, on that first morning, leaving our friend behind, we headed into Nadi. It bustled. The main street was full of shops, buses, taxis, minbuses and cars of varying vintage. I will be telling you about transport later, but it was when you left the main road and walked into the markets that you noticed the big change compared to back home. Firstly, market day was everyday. Secondly, I came across fruit and vegetables I had never seen before. And thirdly, they were so beautifully arranged. We found out that the people would come in to the city, daily, from their homes, their plantations, and sell their goods all day. Then they would go home again.
In all of our visits to Pacific Islands, we would often find people sleeping during the hottest part of the day. At first it seemed a bit lazy. After all, I was moving around in this heat, why couldn’t they? It was only after we had been there for a few days, even lived in a little village, that we realised they may well have been up from 5 am on their plantations, tending to their vegetables, and then driving them into town. They would then stay there all day. This picture shows the paw-paw fruit, cheap at a plate for $1 and, in some countries, called Papaya. I often wonder how these fruits and vegetables got their names; well not for too long.
But let’s return to our friend, and his invitation to dinner. Much of the meal was Indian but we did try taro, pictured right, which like a potato can be roasted, boiled or baked and, like a potato, grows underground. Apparently, raw it is inedible. It is a main part of the Fijian diet although I discovered that if any one item could be found in a Fijian family home, it would be a tin of corned beef. With a slight change of tinned meat, Monty Python could have had a big hit in Fiji.
Our friend did have an ulterior motive in inviting us. He wanted us to find out if there was any work for him in New Zealand, as he couldn’t find any in Fiji. In fact his daughter, who was 19, appeared to support the household from her job in a shoe shop in Nadi. Our friend, you may by now have guessed I have forgotten his name, had worked on a sugar cane plantation but that had now closed. He actually took us for a walk to see where the sugar had been grown. He had engineering skills but, I think, he needed a sponsor to get into New Zealand. When he discovered we weren’t citizens of NZ ourselves and so couldn’t help him, his hospitality didn’t fail and we still saw him several more times and indeed had another meal with him, though we did provide most if it. The fact that he fell asleep while we were still there was, I think, a Fijian thing and not a deliberate snub. The rest of the family entertained us anyway.
After those days in Nadi, we headed off to Suva. Here we went on television and I had a meeting with the Minister of Tourism, who at the time was a woman, but I forget her name and also, accidently met Commander Bainimarama who I almost called Bananarama. Just re-read that; I am sure she still is a woman though no longer the minister. Suva seemed a little less crowded than Nadi, there even seemed to be some building work going on. We stayed at a hotel in the city and went out a couple of times at night. We were warned to look out for trouble but we couldn’t find any. We had several delightful meals, both in Suva and in Nadi. One restaurant was right next to the American Embassy and I am sure I am not making this next bit up. The entrance to the embassy was well guarded with your usual military police. However, if you entered the restaurant and went out the back door, you found yourself in the embassy complex, having by-passed security. Honest, I’m sure.
Back in Nadi, we had an interesting meal where they set fire to your food at your table. It wasn’t Fijian, it could have been Japanese but by now you probably think I am making this all up anyway.
But I have got ahead of myself here. The "left Nadi, arrived in Suva" comments were not without a few stops on the way. We actually stayed in two resorts as we travelled along the south coast of Viti Levu and a couple of nights in a tribal village. The scenery around here was stunning, the sunsets, which may appear later, incredible. But sadly, these stays made me very aware of the problems that occur when two cultures meet. In one case, it happened despite the best of intentions; with the other, I am less sure. Alongside my worries, there were many other amazing things we experienced but I will head down the gravitas route first before returning to the other things.
Our first stay was at Mango Bay Resort. The land for the resort had been bought from the local village and many of the employees on the resort came from the village. Sounds good. We made a trip to the village, which required a small donation, and met with various people who live there. The money paid for the resort had meant that the village had been able to build stone paths around their houses, which, in the rainy season, meant a lot. It had also helped in other ways.
We visited the local school, met the principal, and she will appear later in this blog, in a rather frightening way. We were supposed to meet the village leader but he wasn’t too well so a substitute gave us a talk about village life, hinting that their leader may have over-indulged the previous night in his kava drinking, something that will also appear later. Can you wait? We then returned to our little hut just as the sun went down. See, I said there would be a sunset soon. I now had the chance to sit out in the fantastic surroundings and think about what we had been told, and found out, in our time in the village.
For sure, everyone had welcomed the influx of money when the resort bought the land, they were able to improve facilities in the village. They welcomed the chance to have regular employment and an income, although, to me, the sum they said they were being paid seemed small but all things are relative. The problem was that, as the people were now working in the resort, they had less time to spend on their plantations, in their fields, on their animals, in other words providing their own food. The village, we were told, now had a couple of little shops which had sprung up and sold produce that normally the village would grow. The end result of having this lovely resort nearby was that the people now earned money but they then spent it in the shops on goods they never used to have to buy. As I said, the resort owners had the best of intentions but didn’t, or couldn’t, foresee the effects that their generous gesture would have.
Let’s return to that principal that we met in the village. We talked about education, we explained the aims of our project and then, I foolishly asked, whether anyone still climbs the innumerable coconut palms that you find here. ‘Oh yes’, she said, ‘meet us here at 4 pm and I’ll have someone to show you how’. We went off, did whatever we were doing for the rest of that day and returned, as instructed at 4 pm. She was there with her grandson and a few other kids and we sent off toward an area where there were plenty of coconut palms. As you may remember, I don’t like heights and, to me, these trees seemed pretty tall. I was waiting for some strapping guy to turn up, with some form of belt which he would connect to the tree and then watch him make his way carefully upwards.
Wrong. The tree-climber was her grandson, 12 years old, and, when he started climbing, quite alive. My first thoughts were he would maybe climb up 10 foot or so just to show how it was done. My second thought, which followed quite quickly, was, insurance. There is a big trend in the western world to sue anyone and everyone who may have been breathing at the same time you have an accident. As this 12-year-old boy climbed higher and higher, I hoped that this had not infiltrated into Fijian culture. As for Health and Safety, forget it. Navitali, probably spelt very differently, climbed to the top, knocked down a few coconuts, came down, threw them across, a potential Fijian scrum-half if ever I saw one, opened the coconut using a machete while his young friend held the coconut and then gave it to me to drink. I can hear you saying, ‘lovely story, I believe you’, then ringing the old people’s home to have me put away. Watch this.
Told you so. Later in the resort we found out something else to do with coconut palms, though less dangerous but, in a way, for me, more challenging. We went to a basket weaving session. Very early on in my planning I had talked to a guy who had been responsible for, I think, partly directing ITV’s coverage of the 50 year commemoration of the D-day landings. Quite a big job, but he knew in advance roughly what would happen next. There was a running order. He could plan close-ups, wide-angle and he had around a dozen cameras at his disposal. He told me that he could send out a film crew once a week, this was when my original idea of travelling through Europe was still intact, and they would shoot all footage in a day and then edit a strand or two from it. I told him that was fine but, if I came across the great weekly Thursday snail market in Orange, it wouldn’t be there on the day he came, unless of course it was Thursday. But then he would miss the Monday frog auction just down the road. Sorry for stereotyping the French; I love your country, I love your language and you have some of the most beautiful songs and singers in the world.
Eventually, he agreed that the small travelling group doing all the filming would work, although non-professional cameramen would probably need 5 times as much footage to edit down to a usable amount. With the basket weaving, we had one camera, because one of us was weaving, and no idea what would happen because when I had tried to ask if I could meet the guy who would be doing the weaving to get some idea of how he set things up, in true Fijian fashion, I was told they didn’t know who would turn up to teach. But we did it and the end result, with a scary bit added, is here. This filming an event when you have no idea what will happen, your own vague idea of a story-line, which usually completely changes, is one of the things I loved most when we were in the Pacific.
On our way back from the coconut episode, we walked through the village and came across these boys appearing to squash the root of something in a bucket. They told us it was kava and that their parents had asked them to do it. We stood and watched them for some time and, even once we had walked off, we could hear the sound of the wood on metal for a long time. For those of you that don’t know, kava is a traditional drink made in many of the South Pacific Islands. In Fiji, it is an important part of many ceremonies, especially if you are a stranger meeting with the tribal chief.
Funnily enough, that night, there was a tourist kava ceremony held on the resort. No chiefs were present but we were told of the protocol that should take place. The crushed root of the plant is strained into a wooden bowl of cold water. This takes some time. While that is going on I will fill you in on the ceremony details. The chief, or someone taking that role, as in our demonstration, sits at the head of the bowl. Now please don’t be awkward and say there cannot be a head of a round bowl, you know what I mean. His assistant takes a small coconut shell and dips it into the kava and offers it to the chief. Hardened drinkers get a full serving while our less experienced novices get a half cup. I think they are called high and low tide. The chief will clap once, take the shell, drink the kava, hand the shell back and clap three times while saying something which may be ‘bula’ but I can’t actually remember. Strong stuff this kava.
This process, filling, clapping, drinking, clapping and saying something is repeated until everyone has had some. To look at, it’s not particularly appetizing. I bet you agree on that one. To taste, it is a bit like muddy water, one of my favourite tipples, and a little spicy. It is said to have a numbing effect on the mouth and to relax you, allowing conversation to flow. It is a mild sedative, making sure conversation doesn’t flow too long. At this initiation, we only had one ‘low tide’ so I, personally, felt no effect at all. Later in my stories about Fiji, I will tell you of the time we spent the whole evening drinking the stuff and what the effect was. I bet you can’t wait, can you?
After the kava ceremony, we had a barbecue and bonfire on the beach. As by now most of the tourists were also consuming alcohol, and some were Australian, it is impossible to say what had which effect but I do remember some singing, lots of talking and the fact that we lit some bits of wood to keep us warm and give some light. It was actually our last night at Mango Bay and the beginning of the next stage in our Fijian journey. It would take something very special to equal the experiences we already had.
We moved along the coast to Beqa Island, where we stayed at another resort. They succeeded in getting rid of us for a couple of nights by arranging a stay in one of the local villages. I think one of the people who worked in reception lived there and she arranged for us to spend two nights in an empty house, which belonged to a relative who lived on the mainland. It was a 3 or 4 mile walk to the village, we didn’t take all our stuff, and I realized that those who worked on the resort did this every day. The village was situated alongside the water and looked as though it may have some time been prone to flooding. This was the home of the legendary fire walkers.
The house we stayed in was sparsely furnished but our hosts took great care of us, making sure we had everything we needed and telling us as much about village life as they could. It was one of these occasions when I knew I had made the right choice in doing these journeys as just two people and not having a large entourage of sound crew, cameramen, directors and make-up artists. They would have needed plastic surgeons to make me look presentable but two people are far more readily accepted and even when you produce a camera, if it looks like a tourist camera, then the villagers are less likely to perform or feel inhibited
Our hosts provided us with a typical meal the first night and a table to sit at to eat. The meal was corned beef, taro leaves and something called kasava, which was a root vegetable and I have to say, pretty tasteless though not unpleasant. They stayed with us while we ate and explained who we could meet tomorrow and what we could see. We explained that, as well as these meetings, we would like to just walk around and get a feel for village life. ‘Try and ignore us’, we said. The strangest feeling, though, was when we locked the door at night in completely alien surroundings in a village where we really knew no-one, although we had been welcomed so readily. Being ignored is very close to being isolated.
The next day we spoke with one of the village elders, pictured, literally, in his Sunday best, who showed us some more of village, including the local church. On the way to the village we had passed a new church, built by some American evangelical group whose name I forget, but the main church was in the village. And this is where my second concern regarding mixing cultures occurred. When we entered, I saw a list just inside the door with a load of names and monetary values next to them. It turned out that a record was kept, inside the church and in full view of everyone, of donations made by each family each week. These people, who had so little money, were, I felt, being shamed into donating to a church that probably had millions. I do not particularly like organised religion but this took it a stage further and I wasn’t impressed. The following day was Sunday and we attended the service and saw new amounts being written up.
It was not only the elders who dressed up for the Sunday service. These little kids also had on their best clothes. The skirt, as worn by the elder and the little boy, is called a sulu, a traditional garment in Fiji. We met a young man and happened to ask him if he drank kava with his friends. ‘No’, he said, ‘it’s evil to drink kava’. We kinda, there it is again Jenny, disputed this fact with him but he was adamant. ‘It says so in the bible’, he told us. Now this I found as hard to believe as the bible telling me computers were harmful. But, he told us to follow him and we went to his house, he produced a bible and showed us the relevant part. I can’t remember where it was, but a piece of the text did indeed say that doing certain things, including drinking kava, was wrong. I tried to point out that Jesus probably didn’t know what kava was but to no avail.
Our learned elder confirmed that this was true and that certain missionaries were now ruining the culture of his land. He told us that he had wanted us to meet the priest of the fire-walkers but the man concerned refused to see us and we were told he had recently decided that fire-walking was now evil. The problem, I think, may, in this case, lie in the fact that the fire walkers believe they can do what they do because of a little spirit, a dangerous word to use in religious circles. Had they believed it was a sprite or an imp, they might have got away with it. Anyway this spirit has the power to turn everything to its opposite. Hot is cold, wet is dry and so on.
We later witnessed a fire walking display and I honestly have no idea how it can be done. The first thing the men do is dig a pit and throw in lots of wood. They then place stones in the pit on the wood and let it burn. There can be no doubt that the stones get very hot. You may notice, by my tone, if one can have a tone in writing, that I was looking for deception. My mother, an-oft quoted guest in these blogs, once told me not to look at her in that tone of voice. The men, meanwhile, will stoke the flames and then, once the flames have died down, they will, in turn, walk across the stones, in some cases stopping and standing on the stones.
There are certain rules that a fire walker must obey. He can only eat certain food and must abstain from sex the night before walking on the stones. We were told that one guy hadn’t and he had burnt his feet. It must be a ‘mind over matter’ thing but what I couldn’t work out was why there were no burn marks on the feet. Sure you might be able to put the pain out of your mind but the power of thought cannot stop skin burning, can it?
Do they cleverly coat their feet in something? I doubt it. It is, to me, unexplainable and therefore of all the more interest and it should be allowed to continue. From what I saw in Fiji, the churches, yes all of them, are doing far more damage to culture, traditions and life than any undemocratically elected leader. Just think that this whole culture might be lost and no children able to carry it on. From what I saw though the fire-walkers who performed for us were young enough to keep it going for many years.
Talking of children, reminds me that I made a trip, when on Beqa, to the local school. I went alone, I was beginning to discover certain aspects of our work did not appeal to my partner, and it was a good 2 mile walk, in the mid-day heat, up the beach and, of course, back again. The school was situated in the middle of a vast open space and each classroom seemed to be a separate building. I spoke to a couple of teachers, learned a lot about education there, and sat in on a Maths class. The teacher told me they were desperate to get some computers in to the school. I told him that when I got to Suva I had a meeting with the education department and he gave me a letter saying how much he wanted to be part of our project but he couldn’t without computers. I duly delivered it but never learnt if it had any effect. On my way out of the school I noticed one class sitting outside their hut and everyone was working away. I looked into the hut but saw no teacher. I watched the group for ten minutes or so and they all continued to work, finding things to do, chatting and laughing of course, but no one was avoiding work.
Having watched children around Fiji playing, and realising they had little in the way of toys that western kids have, I wonder if this fact was the reason they seemed more inquisitive, indeed more able to find something to do. In the western world these days, everything is done for you. You don’t have to find games to play, you just have to play them. You don’t have to invent something, someone has already done that. You just spend loads of money on it. These kids, in the picture, had little spinning tops, that they wound thread around with string and then spin them off into a circle drawn on the ground. Hit another top in there and you got another go. I tried it and it wasn’t easy, for easy read possible, although with practice I might have done it. We stayed with them for over half an hour while the game went on.
I think my final observation concerns our last day on Beqa when our friendly elder invited us to eat with his extended family. Years of neglect, indeed years of abuse, have left my knees ill-equipped for their role in life. The elasticity, if there was any, has gone. I could no longer keep wicket for England as I couldn’t squat down. The fact I can’t bat very well, have never kept wicket and am not South African born, is irrelevant. But, I was somewhat alarmed when I discovered that we would eat on the floor. This is fine for most people but if the angle your knees will allow is extremely obtuse, or the pain extremely acute, you have problems. Apart from that, this was a superb time among friendly people and, as I said, I hope those who preach stick to that. Dictator is a very different word.
Oh, and here’s a last sunset, last one for Fiji this week that is.
Okay, enough serious thinking, off to Fiji. We arrived in Nadi late at night. It was hot even in the airport but the bus, sent from our hotel to pick us up, was there, the driver very friendly and off we went, booked in and went straight to bed. It’s a hard life. Next morning, we got up, had a beautiful Fijian type breakfast and set out for central Nadi. We were going to stay there, in Nadi not central Nadi, for about four days. We would then make our way along the southern coast road, inland Viti Levu is almost uninhabited, to Suva, stopping at a few places on the way. We would then return to Nadi, head for the Yasawa Islands, back to Nadi and fly out to Tonga. I am accompanying this part of the text with a couple of Fijian sunsets. I love sunsets and those we saw in the Pacific were some of the most beautiful I had ever seen.
The first impressions of Nadi were that it was hot, dusty, busy and every one was very friendly. Tourism is the major money earner in Fiji and you could not walk 50 yards without someone saying ‘bula’, the traditional form of Fijian greeting. In the majority of cases, that is all it is, a friendly greeting but we did hear of two Australian girls, who had gone into a shop to look at some gifts, were asked their names and before they left, were presented with a carved object with their names on and certainly made to feel that they had no choice but to buy them.
Our experience was different and far better. We had only gone about 500 metres from our hotel when this guy came up to us and started a conversation. He told us how to get to the town, invited us back to his place for dinner that night, said he would come and collect us and went on his way. He was also living proof of a fact of which we soon became aware. Fiji has two distinct populations. Just over 50% of the people are Melanesian, not Polynesian who are more to the east of the Pacific but Melanesian, whose descendants probably came from the area around Papua New Guinea. These people had been living in Fiji for thousands of years.
Nearly 40% of the population are what is now called Indo-Fijians. Their descendants, in the most part, were brought to Fiji by its British colonial rulers at the end of 19th century to work on the sugar cane plantations. Our friend was one of these and, after our meal that night, he returned the following day with his family and took us to the beach.
But, on that first morning, leaving our friend behind, we headed into Nadi. It bustled. The main street was full of shops, buses, taxis, minbuses and cars of varying vintage. I will be telling you about transport later, but it was when you left the main road and walked into the markets that you noticed the big change compared to back home. Firstly, market day was everyday. Secondly, I came across fruit and vegetables I had never seen before. And thirdly, they were so beautifully arranged. We found out that the people would come in to the city, daily, from their homes, their plantations, and sell their goods all day. Then they would go home again.
In all of our visits to Pacific Islands, we would often find people sleeping during the hottest part of the day. At first it seemed a bit lazy. After all, I was moving around in this heat, why couldn’t they? It was only after we had been there for a few days, even lived in a little village, that we realised they may well have been up from 5 am on their plantations, tending to their vegetables, and then driving them into town. They would then stay there all day. This picture shows the paw-paw fruit, cheap at a plate for $1 and, in some countries, called Papaya. I often wonder how these fruits and vegetables got their names; well not for too long.
But let’s return to our friend, and his invitation to dinner. Much of the meal was Indian but we did try taro, pictured right, which like a potato can be roasted, boiled or baked and, like a potato, grows underground. Apparently, raw it is inedible. It is a main part of the Fijian diet although I discovered that if any one item could be found in a Fijian family home, it would be a tin of corned beef. With a slight change of tinned meat, Monty Python could have had a big hit in Fiji.
Our friend did have an ulterior motive in inviting us. He wanted us to find out if there was any work for him in New Zealand, as he couldn’t find any in Fiji. In fact his daughter, who was 19, appeared to support the household from her job in a shoe shop in Nadi. Our friend, you may by now have guessed I have forgotten his name, had worked on a sugar cane plantation but that had now closed. He actually took us for a walk to see where the sugar had been grown. He had engineering skills but, I think, he needed a sponsor to get into New Zealand. When he discovered we weren’t citizens of NZ ourselves and so couldn’t help him, his hospitality didn’t fail and we still saw him several more times and indeed had another meal with him, though we did provide most if it. The fact that he fell asleep while we were still there was, I think, a Fijian thing and not a deliberate snub. The rest of the family entertained us anyway.
After those days in Nadi, we headed off to Suva. Here we went on television and I had a meeting with the Minister of Tourism, who at the time was a woman, but I forget her name and also, accidently met Commander Bainimarama who I almost called Bananarama. Just re-read that; I am sure she still is a woman though no longer the minister. Suva seemed a little less crowded than Nadi, there even seemed to be some building work going on. We stayed at a hotel in the city and went out a couple of times at night. We were warned to look out for trouble but we couldn’t find any. We had several delightful meals, both in Suva and in Nadi. One restaurant was right next to the American Embassy and I am sure I am not making this next bit up. The entrance to the embassy was well guarded with your usual military police. However, if you entered the restaurant and went out the back door, you found yourself in the embassy complex, having by-passed security. Honest, I’m sure.
Back in Nadi, we had an interesting meal where they set fire to your food at your table. It wasn’t Fijian, it could have been Japanese but by now you probably think I am making this all up anyway.
But I have got ahead of myself here. The "left Nadi, arrived in Suva" comments were not without a few stops on the way. We actually stayed in two resorts as we travelled along the south coast of Viti Levu and a couple of nights in a tribal village. The scenery around here was stunning, the sunsets, which may appear later, incredible. But sadly, these stays made me very aware of the problems that occur when two cultures meet. In one case, it happened despite the best of intentions; with the other, I am less sure. Alongside my worries, there were many other amazing things we experienced but I will head down the gravitas route first before returning to the other things.
Our first stay was at Mango Bay Resort. The land for the resort had been bought from the local village and many of the employees on the resort came from the village. Sounds good. We made a trip to the village, which required a small donation, and met with various people who live there. The money paid for the resort had meant that the village had been able to build stone paths around their houses, which, in the rainy season, meant a lot. It had also helped in other ways.
We visited the local school, met the principal, and she will appear later in this blog, in a rather frightening way. We were supposed to meet the village leader but he wasn’t too well so a substitute gave us a talk about village life, hinting that their leader may have over-indulged the previous night in his kava drinking, something that will also appear later. Can you wait? We then returned to our little hut just as the sun went down. See, I said there would be a sunset soon. I now had the chance to sit out in the fantastic surroundings and think about what we had been told, and found out, in our time in the village.
For sure, everyone had welcomed the influx of money when the resort bought the land, they were able to improve facilities in the village. They welcomed the chance to have regular employment and an income, although, to me, the sum they said they were being paid seemed small but all things are relative. The problem was that, as the people were now working in the resort, they had less time to spend on their plantations, in their fields, on their animals, in other words providing their own food. The village, we were told, now had a couple of little shops which had sprung up and sold produce that normally the village would grow. The end result of having this lovely resort nearby was that the people now earned money but they then spent it in the shops on goods they never used to have to buy. As I said, the resort owners had the best of intentions but didn’t, or couldn’t, foresee the effects that their generous gesture would have.
Let’s return to that principal that we met in the village. We talked about education, we explained the aims of our project and then, I foolishly asked, whether anyone still climbs the innumerable coconut palms that you find here. ‘Oh yes’, she said, ‘meet us here at 4 pm and I’ll have someone to show you how’. We went off, did whatever we were doing for the rest of that day and returned, as instructed at 4 pm. She was there with her grandson and a few other kids and we sent off toward an area where there were plenty of coconut palms. As you may remember, I don’t like heights and, to me, these trees seemed pretty tall. I was waiting for some strapping guy to turn up, with some form of belt which he would connect to the tree and then watch him make his way carefully upwards.
Wrong. The tree-climber was her grandson, 12 years old, and, when he started climbing, quite alive. My first thoughts were he would maybe climb up 10 foot or so just to show how it was done. My second thought, which followed quite quickly, was, insurance. There is a big trend in the western world to sue anyone and everyone who may have been breathing at the same time you have an accident. As this 12-year-old boy climbed higher and higher, I hoped that this had not infiltrated into Fijian culture. As for Health and Safety, forget it. Navitali, probably spelt very differently, climbed to the top, knocked down a few coconuts, came down, threw them across, a potential Fijian scrum-half if ever I saw one, opened the coconut using a machete while his young friend held the coconut and then gave it to me to drink. I can hear you saying, ‘lovely story, I believe you’, then ringing the old people’s home to have me put away. Watch this.
Told you so. Later in the resort we found out something else to do with coconut palms, though less dangerous but, in a way, for me, more challenging. We went to a basket weaving session. Very early on in my planning I had talked to a guy who had been responsible for, I think, partly directing ITV’s coverage of the 50 year commemoration of the D-day landings. Quite a big job, but he knew in advance roughly what would happen next. There was a running order. He could plan close-ups, wide-angle and he had around a dozen cameras at his disposal. He told me that he could send out a film crew once a week, this was when my original idea of travelling through Europe was still intact, and they would shoot all footage in a day and then edit a strand or two from it. I told him that was fine but, if I came across the great weekly Thursday snail market in Orange, it wouldn’t be there on the day he came, unless of course it was Thursday. But then he would miss the Monday frog auction just down the road. Sorry for stereotyping the French; I love your country, I love your language and you have some of the most beautiful songs and singers in the world.
Eventually, he agreed that the small travelling group doing all the filming would work, although non-professional cameramen would probably need 5 times as much footage to edit down to a usable amount. With the basket weaving, we had one camera, because one of us was weaving, and no idea what would happen because when I had tried to ask if I could meet the guy who would be doing the weaving to get some idea of how he set things up, in true Fijian fashion, I was told they didn’t know who would turn up to teach. But we did it and the end result, with a scary bit added, is here. This filming an event when you have no idea what will happen, your own vague idea of a story-line, which usually completely changes, is one of the things I loved most when we were in the Pacific.
On our way back from the coconut episode, we walked through the village and came across these boys appearing to squash the root of something in a bucket. They told us it was kava and that their parents had asked them to do it. We stood and watched them for some time and, even once we had walked off, we could hear the sound of the wood on metal for a long time. For those of you that don’t know, kava is a traditional drink made in many of the South Pacific Islands. In Fiji, it is an important part of many ceremonies, especially if you are a stranger meeting with the tribal chief.
Funnily enough, that night, there was a tourist kava ceremony held on the resort. No chiefs were present but we were told of the protocol that should take place. The crushed root of the plant is strained into a wooden bowl of cold water. This takes some time. While that is going on I will fill you in on the ceremony details. The chief, or someone taking that role, as in our demonstration, sits at the head of the bowl. Now please don’t be awkward and say there cannot be a head of a round bowl, you know what I mean. His assistant takes a small coconut shell and dips it into the kava and offers it to the chief. Hardened drinkers get a full serving while our less experienced novices get a half cup. I think they are called high and low tide. The chief will clap once, take the shell, drink the kava, hand the shell back and clap three times while saying something which may be ‘bula’ but I can’t actually remember. Strong stuff this kava.
This process, filling, clapping, drinking, clapping and saying something is repeated until everyone has had some. To look at, it’s not particularly appetizing. I bet you agree on that one. To taste, it is a bit like muddy water, one of my favourite tipples, and a little spicy. It is said to have a numbing effect on the mouth and to relax you, allowing conversation to flow. It is a mild sedative, making sure conversation doesn’t flow too long. At this initiation, we only had one ‘low tide’ so I, personally, felt no effect at all. Later in my stories about Fiji, I will tell you of the time we spent the whole evening drinking the stuff and what the effect was. I bet you can’t wait, can you?
After the kava ceremony, we had a barbecue and bonfire on the beach. As by now most of the tourists were also consuming alcohol, and some were Australian, it is impossible to say what had which effect but I do remember some singing, lots of talking and the fact that we lit some bits of wood to keep us warm and give some light. It was actually our last night at Mango Bay and the beginning of the next stage in our Fijian journey. It would take something very special to equal the experiences we already had.
We moved along the coast to Beqa Island, where we stayed at another resort. They succeeded in getting rid of us for a couple of nights by arranging a stay in one of the local villages. I think one of the people who worked in reception lived there and she arranged for us to spend two nights in an empty house, which belonged to a relative who lived on the mainland. It was a 3 or 4 mile walk to the village, we didn’t take all our stuff, and I realized that those who worked on the resort did this every day. The village was situated alongside the water and looked as though it may have some time been prone to flooding. This was the home of the legendary fire walkers.
The house we stayed in was sparsely furnished but our hosts took great care of us, making sure we had everything we needed and telling us as much about village life as they could. It was one of these occasions when I knew I had made the right choice in doing these journeys as just two people and not having a large entourage of sound crew, cameramen, directors and make-up artists. They would have needed plastic surgeons to make me look presentable but two people are far more readily accepted and even when you produce a camera, if it looks like a tourist camera, then the villagers are less likely to perform or feel inhibited
Our hosts provided us with a typical meal the first night and a table to sit at to eat. The meal was corned beef, taro leaves and something called kasava, which was a root vegetable and I have to say, pretty tasteless though not unpleasant. They stayed with us while we ate and explained who we could meet tomorrow and what we could see. We explained that, as well as these meetings, we would like to just walk around and get a feel for village life. ‘Try and ignore us’, we said. The strangest feeling, though, was when we locked the door at night in completely alien surroundings in a village where we really knew no-one, although we had been welcomed so readily. Being ignored is very close to being isolated.
The next day we spoke with one of the village elders, pictured, literally, in his Sunday best, who showed us some more of village, including the local church. On the way to the village we had passed a new church, built by some American evangelical group whose name I forget, but the main church was in the village. And this is where my second concern regarding mixing cultures occurred. When we entered, I saw a list just inside the door with a load of names and monetary values next to them. It turned out that a record was kept, inside the church and in full view of everyone, of donations made by each family each week. These people, who had so little money, were, I felt, being shamed into donating to a church that probably had millions. I do not particularly like organised religion but this took it a stage further and I wasn’t impressed. The following day was Sunday and we attended the service and saw new amounts being written up.
It was not only the elders who dressed up for the Sunday service. These little kids also had on their best clothes. The skirt, as worn by the elder and the little boy, is called a sulu, a traditional garment in Fiji. We met a young man and happened to ask him if he drank kava with his friends. ‘No’, he said, ‘it’s evil to drink kava’. We kinda, there it is again Jenny, disputed this fact with him but he was adamant. ‘It says so in the bible’, he told us. Now this I found as hard to believe as the bible telling me computers were harmful. But, he told us to follow him and we went to his house, he produced a bible and showed us the relevant part. I can’t remember where it was, but a piece of the text did indeed say that doing certain things, including drinking kava, was wrong. I tried to point out that Jesus probably didn’t know what kava was but to no avail.
Our learned elder confirmed that this was true and that certain missionaries were now ruining the culture of his land. He told us that he had wanted us to meet the priest of the fire-walkers but the man concerned refused to see us and we were told he had recently decided that fire-walking was now evil. The problem, I think, may, in this case, lie in the fact that the fire walkers believe they can do what they do because of a little spirit, a dangerous word to use in religious circles. Had they believed it was a sprite or an imp, they might have got away with it. Anyway this spirit has the power to turn everything to its opposite. Hot is cold, wet is dry and so on.
We later witnessed a fire walking display and I honestly have no idea how it can be done. The first thing the men do is dig a pit and throw in lots of wood. They then place stones in the pit on the wood and let it burn. There can be no doubt that the stones get very hot. You may notice, by my tone, if one can have a tone in writing, that I was looking for deception. My mother, an-oft quoted guest in these blogs, once told me not to look at her in that tone of voice. The men, meanwhile, will stoke the flames and then, once the flames have died down, they will, in turn, walk across the stones, in some cases stopping and standing on the stones.
There are certain rules that a fire walker must obey. He can only eat certain food and must abstain from sex the night before walking on the stones. We were told that one guy hadn’t and he had burnt his feet. It must be a ‘mind over matter’ thing but what I couldn’t work out was why there were no burn marks on the feet. Sure you might be able to put the pain out of your mind but the power of thought cannot stop skin burning, can it?
Do they cleverly coat their feet in something? I doubt it. It is, to me, unexplainable and therefore of all the more interest and it should be allowed to continue. From what I saw in Fiji, the churches, yes all of them, are doing far more damage to culture, traditions and life than any undemocratically elected leader. Just think that this whole culture might be lost and no children able to carry it on. From what I saw though the fire-walkers who performed for us were young enough to keep it going for many years.
Talking of children, reminds me that I made a trip, when on Beqa, to the local school. I went alone, I was beginning to discover certain aspects of our work did not appeal to my partner, and it was a good 2 mile walk, in the mid-day heat, up the beach and, of course, back again. The school was situated in the middle of a vast open space and each classroom seemed to be a separate building. I spoke to a couple of teachers, learned a lot about education there, and sat in on a Maths class. The teacher told me they were desperate to get some computers in to the school. I told him that when I got to Suva I had a meeting with the education department and he gave me a letter saying how much he wanted to be part of our project but he couldn’t without computers. I duly delivered it but never learnt if it had any effect. On my way out of the school I noticed one class sitting outside their hut and everyone was working away. I looked into the hut but saw no teacher. I watched the group for ten minutes or so and they all continued to work, finding things to do, chatting and laughing of course, but no one was avoiding work.
Having watched children around Fiji playing, and realising they had little in the way of toys that western kids have, I wonder if this fact was the reason they seemed more inquisitive, indeed more able to find something to do. In the western world these days, everything is done for you. You don’t have to find games to play, you just have to play them. You don’t have to invent something, someone has already done that. You just spend loads of money on it. These kids, in the picture, had little spinning tops, that they wound thread around with string and then spin them off into a circle drawn on the ground. Hit another top in there and you got another go. I tried it and it wasn’t easy, for easy read possible, although with practice I might have done it. We stayed with them for over half an hour while the game went on.
I think my final observation concerns our last day on Beqa when our friendly elder invited us to eat with his extended family. Years of neglect, indeed years of abuse, have left my knees ill-equipped for their role in life. The elasticity, if there was any, has gone. I could no longer keep wicket for England as I couldn’t squat down. The fact I can’t bat very well, have never kept wicket and am not South African born, is irrelevant. But, I was somewhat alarmed when I discovered that we would eat on the floor. This is fine for most people but if the angle your knees will allow is extremely obtuse, or the pain extremely acute, you have problems. Apart from that, this was a superb time among friendly people and, as I said, I hope those who preach stick to that. Dictator is a very different word.
Oh, and here’s a last sunset, last one for Fiji this week that is.
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