(by Ann) Location: Fulunga…still

At least that’s what Bob tells me. Personally I have never led my life based on Star Trek Federation rules so I am not sure. How could they not be laughing too?

Today was about gifts. Those that we have and those that we share. Today is Ma, the Grade 8 teacher’s wife’s birthday. And Ma wanted to celebrate with all of her friends, cruisers included. We girls in the anchorage decided that it should be a “Girls Day Out” type of celebrating. So Sue from Spruce loaded up her little dinghy with four of us…Kathy off of Mystic Moon, Carol off of Vision, me, and Sue herself, and off we went to celebrate.

The party was not until the afternoon so Weaving 101 was on the schedule. I was going along just to enjoy the girls and test my weaving memory. My memory was well tested and is full of laughter and giggles. The girls from Fulunga love to tease and laugh. And boy do my cheeks hurt! A good laugh is a gift that keeps on giving, with every fun memory of the day. I have many. These darling ladies patiently tutored my friends as they made their first woven mats while I goofed. I actually started another mat but got distracted by another woman weaving bookmarks. Ooh….that looks cool. Can you teach me? And so another gift was shared with me. And I can make a very cool bookmark out of pandanas leaves.

I made one for Ma for her birthday…we giggled at the ridiculousness of me giving a local weaver a woven item… we all smiled and giggled that universal language of laughter.

The party was attended by the local women and Tai, one of the go-to guys in the village. Tai was the babysitter, the dish clearer and even the dish washer. I am pretty sure this is not his normal array of talents but he was available and it earned him an afternoon with laughing ladies and leftover birthday cakes. Yes, plural. Ma made a full assortment of birthday goodies to go with our lemon leaf tea. So delicious. I learned the Fijian word for delicious today but it escapes me now.

As we headed back out of the village to the dinghy I saw that the weavers were now back in their usual spot and the quilting supplies had appeared. This makes me smile! I had promised one of the ladies a neat trick for chaining squares together while making blocks so I quickly stopped by. These ladies are amazing and quickly understood my instructions. Unfortunately the bus, I mean dinghy, needed to get going so I was not able to demonstrate the technique but I bet they have figured it out by now. A gift from me to them.

So it’s not that I want to change their culture as the Federation feared, I only wanted to share my gifts with them the way they so selflessly share theirs with me. Especially their laughter and joy.