What else can I say? It was like the end of summer camp. The bus leaves and all the kids start crying, then the counselors start crying and pretty soon everyone has broken down in tears. That was the end of this evening. What a feeling to be so loved by such wonderful, beautiful people.

The day started out with Ann and Lisa going in to the village to say “personal” goodbyes, give a couple special gifts and then help Jasmine finish sewing a dress that she ended up wearing to the evening event.

Bob and John stayed on their respective boats prepping. John was finishing working on the village’s sewing machines he’s been fixing and Bob was putting the final touches on the slide show/movie that we’ve been working on showing the beauty that is Fuluga. It ended up at about 15 minutes of really wonderful, emotional, photos of the villagers from the three villages.

Saying our goodbye’s started with the Eta Tau which is the formal goodbye to the village. It is our showing recognition that we have been well taken care of and releasing the village of responsibility for our welfare. We first did it with our host family and then walked over and did a second one with the chief.

At our host family there we needed a LOT of tissues. Very emotional. I can’t really convey the sense of how we (and Orcinius) have become attached to them and they to us except to offer two little vignettes of the ceremony. The first is that Ann and I were presented with a carved wooden plaque. It is about 12 inches by 16 inches. In the middle it says; “Charisma” and all around the outside is carved very intricate Fijian symbols. Joe made this for us since he is an excellent carver and of course was my mentor in the bowl carving we’ve talked about in past posts. On the back is a special message to us using our Fijian names. It’s still in the village so I’ll have to translate later. The second was a wonderful speech from Tau’s mother (who we now refer to as “Pu Ra”, meaning Grandma Ray). I her speech she mentioned her embarrassment that they still; “Walked on dirt” while we didn’t back in our home country. For us it was a heartfelt and humble way to say how she hoped that we enjoyed their hospitality even though we were used to much more grand surroundings. We assured her that who they are and how they live is what we find so delightful.

Ann gave Joe and Tau a special wall hanging/quilt called; “Home is where the heart is”. They were speechless and I thought they were going to have a breakdown on the spot. John and Lisa also gave some wonderful/thoughtful gifts that I’ll leave to the Orcinius blog to detail.

Then we moved to the Chief’s hut to do the Eta Tau with him. This was more formal. We presented the ceremonial kava offering and made some speeches about how wonderful our stay had been. This is where the village presented us (via the chief) with gifts. A “pile” of gifts were then placed on the mat in front of Orcinius and us. Carvings and weaved purses and the like piled a couple feet high were placed as gifts. There were so many we’re relying on someone to come down with a wheel-barrow tomorrow to bring them. It was really overwhelming.

Then the real event. We went to the “community center” which is a large corregated tin hut next to the chief’s residence. The recently got solar energy AND Orcinius bought and brought a computer projector to the village so we were able to show the slide show/movie in large format and living color. I’m happy to say that it brough the house down. Everyone was hooting and hollering at the pictures and loving seeing themselves on the “big screen”. One of the things we said (so very true) was that we stopped measuring our time at Fulunga by days and weeks and started measuring it by the friendships that we were making. The slide show carried this emotion.

After two showings of the slide show (they asked for an encore), John, Lisa, Ann and I sang a song we’ve been working on customized to Fulunga. Lisa and I played our Ukes, John drummed his bongo and Ann sang with us. Another big hit! They were howling at the lyrics Lisa customized to Fulunga.

I could go on and on but will instead use a quote from one of the other cruisers who were present to describe the emotion: “Wow, how will we ever top that!” How indeed.

At the end of the evening to signal that it was time to go I called out that we would like to hear a Fijian goodbye song. They were ready and very soon were singing a beautiful tune that halfway through had everyone (which at this point was most of the village) in tears. Well that started us as well and by the time the song was over everyone was crying. At the end of the song we got up and went round the room one by one giving a hug, handshake, kiss – sometimes all of the above – to each of our friends and a hearty: “Soto Tale” which means; “Until we meet again”. At that point the men continued to drink some final kava (tradition has it that they “drown out” our tracks out of town with kava, and the women literally followed us halfway back to the anchorage before one last set of goodbyes, hugs and kisses. There will be more tomorrow as they all know that there is stuff yet to be delivered down to the beach before we can leave. It’s the Fijian way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, we’ve been here something like ten weeks. We’re moving on. We’ll leave this anchorage and move to the other side of the lagoon to prepare Charisma for sea and wait for a weather window. We may not actually leave for a few days, but we have definitely taken our leave from the village.

Summer camp is over. We’ve moving on to new adventures.