Yes, living in paradise can be hard work. I’m continuing the Cipro for another day to make sure my intestinal disorder (to give a simple name to a beastly condition) is well behind me – so to speak. AND tonight I had to add three aspirin to counter todays’s aches and pains. Yes, I sat cross-legged for five hours straight and carved a bowl, Fijian style.

Getting started.

Here's the adze we used. The beginning of the bowl is in the background.

My hips and back are aching! How can these guys sit and do this all day long? I didn’t start until 1200 and I’m a wreck. OK, enough complaining. Bottom line, it was really fun. Basically we were sitting under a rudimentary structure – four tree branches holding up a corrogated tin roof. We’re sitting on top of a woven mat which is in turn on top of a mountain of wood chips from the carving. They carve bowls, masks and such and send them to Suva for sale to tourists. Fulunga is actually one of the best known areas for carving in Fiji. They give each piece that they carve to the store and get “credits” with which to buy commodities such as rice, flour, onions, etc.

Back to the bowl. Our host family patriarch, Joe – who is a few years younger than I at 50 – was my mentor. He picked out a gorgeous piece of vesi wood, a tree that to my knowledge only grows in Fiji and is more beautiful that mahogany or teak. Then we decided to just carve a simple bowl. This made him happy as I think he thought I wanted to carve a kava bowl which has three legs and takes quite a bit more effort. Nope. Just a bowl. I was really after the experience of carving with “the boys” and if I ended up with a serviceable bowl of beautiful wood, so much the better. Next he showed me how to lay out the shape with a compass that they created out of a pair of dividers, some string and a pen.

OK, the shape was drawn on the wood, time to hack away. And hack it is. They use a homemade adze about the size of a large hammer. Made from the crook of a tree branch, it holds a chisel and you basically “hammer” away to cut the wood. We used two different shapes of chisel adze. A flat one to do the rough cutting of the outside shape and a curved one to cut the inside “bowl” shape. You know, we would use a lathe, but given no electricity that’s not possible and it was really enjoyable to carve a bowl “the Fijian way”. And it looks great! (Confirmation from Ann-it is really lovely!)

Roughing out the bottom of the bowl.

Using all your fingers and toes to carve the detail.

Tomorrow, maybe, I get to carve some designs on it. With Joe, you’re never quite sure. He’s a man of few words. For instance – after carving for four hours he said, “Tools down”. Everyone dropped their tools and walked away. Joe said, “Come”. I followed. We walked down to the beach where the village was preparing a lovo, which is an in ground oven. Once we got there he said, “First you eat lovo, then go back to boat”. OK…That’s sort of how it goes with Joe, but he’s really a nice guy and we’ve been enjoying having him and his wife Tau as our hosts.

P.S. A little extra story I can’t help but convey. On the trail on the way back to Charisma around 1700 we ran across Mata. Mata is a 54-year old woman who we saw around 0800 in the water (with a spear!) walking neck deep along the reef looking for octopus. She was wearing a dress and had a snorkel and face mask and was often completely submerged with a five gallon can cut away on top to hold her catch on a string floating behind her. Fast forward to 1700, a full nine hours later – we crossed paths as she was coming up the hill. She was carrying at least a 50 lb. load of octopus on her back and was still wet from being in the water for nine hours!! The most amazing part was she was smiling and asked if we were going to be in town tomorrow as she wanted us to have some of the cooked octopus. Her only complaint was that she said she was cold.

Mata with 50 lbs of octopus on her back and still smiling.

From Ann – my day went like this: stop and visit with Batai (the nurse) doing some brainstorming with him, go eat lunch with Koro and Qele (my weaving/quilting friends), have 4-year old Lavinia escort me to Chico’s to drop off some empty bottles – just in time for a slide show of a fellow cruiser’s wedding, wander over and hang out with the women preparing the food for the feast that went with the lovo (and there was a lot!), wander back to my weaver friends and learn to weave a small basket and a bird. I was the Eloise of Fulunga!

Oh, and they made sure we sat and ate dinner before heading back to Charisma. Tough day, I know. But I do have homework…weaving practice!

How can we leave this place?