By Ann

Okay, I know that yesterday was pretty special. We worked on the pictures today so that we could put together a one-page collage to give Mele, the canoe artist, and one to the chief of his village. Our friends on Maunie said goodbye to the village and specifically the chief and he was very happy to hear about the canoe launch and wished he could see some pictures. We pulled together some great shots (there were many) and Maunie printed the page so we could share them. Many thanks.

Looking through the pictures we realized that verbal description hardly describes the feat. Seeing the angles that were required to get to the canoe through the trees to the water were amazing. Some parts were steep and out of control with everyone warned to move aside; others flat but through lava rocks with crevasses that men stood in up to their hips. The “rollers” made a path through these tortuous areas. The log rollers creaked and cracked as the weight of the great canoe was dragged across them. The teamwork of dragging was great to watch too. The playfulness of Fulunga came through again. At one point one of the older men in the village hitched a ride, surfing along the canoe that 10 younger guys were tugging across the flatter areas. Everyone squealed and cheered.

And then the celebration afterwards! Kava flowed. Bob stepped into the kava party, I stayed back with the women who had no idea what an accomplishment this was. Women are not included. This is when I learned that it really was a male-event. So glad I didn’t know that in advance.

Walking back through the village to go back to Charisma a fun thing happened….like I said. We met two of the girls from the second village, 20 minutes down the trail. These are two of the girls who were our companions on every beach walk last year. We have not had time to go for a beach walk yet this year so have only seen them at school. They we so excited to see us, their pulangi friends, back again. Qali (age 12) and Taubale (age 11) -I made them spell their names so I would not forget – were on their way to the store. They carried two small kava bowls (without the final finishing work complete) and a tin container with them. When we asked them what they were up to they explained that they were going to the store to get food for dinner. Yes, they were going to trade in the two bowls, receive credit and then buy some rice and noodles. Not the normal grocery store run we know, but typical of Fulunga.

We promised a beach walk with the girls next week when they are out of school for two weeks on break.

That was yesterday’s fun thing.

Today was a calm, low wind day….perfect for paddle boards. Of course we had to pull ourselves away from watching the two turtles that were swimming about 30 yards off of Charisma. Run, hide turtles…don’t be dinner!

We finally pulled away and jumped on the boards and took off. We paddled for about three hours. We went back toward the sand spit anchorage and our private beach. It was beautiful. The tide was low so the beach was pristine…until we walked on it. Don’t you love being able to put the first marks on a pristine beach! We found some coconuts hanging low on a tree and grabbed them. And in best “Survivor” fashion we peeled back some of the green husk using a seashell as a knife and tied them to our paddle boards for a future treat!

On the way back Bob called out that he thought he saw a manta ray and turned to his left. I slowly and stealthily followed. We thought we were being very stealthy until we realized we had just snuck up on a big underwater rock! Oh well. Onward. We were in the shallows again, about 2 feet deep, so I was kind of holding my breath to make myself lighter. I always fear I will scrape some coral and pop my board. And sure enough there was some coral ahead. As I attempted to maneuver around it the coral moved! And a graceful, but startled 20″ turtle swam directly under my board and over to, the right underneath Bob’s board as well! SO cool!

From Bob: For dinner I dug deep into our refrigerator for a couple of vacuum packed steaks we bought six weeks ago in Savusavu. I didn’t really have much hope for them, but it’s very cold at the bottom of the fridge and lo and behold, they looked pretty good. Two rib eye steaks. There was a little darkened meat that I trimmed off, but most of it looked really good and they smelled fine (this is my final test – if it smells at all “off” it goes to the fishies). So tonight I BBQ’d these two steaks with some sweet potato that Tai gave us from his garden (sliced, coated with olive oil and salt and pepper).

I was a little worried that the steaks were going to taste more than well aged and asked Ann what she thought. She took a bite and swooned. I said: “They really taste OK?” Her response; “Remember, I’ve been eating chiton”.

Look it up and you’ll see what she means.

Today we were so fortunate to have experienced something that few non-native people have seen or done.

Heading into a path hacked out of the mangroves.

A couple weeks ago we heard that one of the villagers (Mele) was considering building a new outrigger canoe. This is a big deal since the only way to build such a canoe out here where there are few modern tools is the traditional way. You fell a tree, hollow it out while still in the jungle, then drag it out to the water. Well, guess what? Turns out that’s what Mele has been working on for months out on a remote part of the island. Today was the day it was to be dragged out and towed over to the beach where he can work on finishing it. And we, along with the three other boats that are anchored here, were invited to attend.

Mele getting ready to pull his canoe out of the jungle.

The event started around 0900. Ann and I were sitting in the cockpit after breakfast enjoying a cup of coffee when we saw some of the villagers gathering on the beach. We jumped in the dinghy and by the time we got close to the beach, they were already paddling out and waved for us to follow. Out of the cove we’re anchored in, around to the right in the next cove we went a couple hundred meters then turned in toward the mangroves. As we were approaching shore all I could think was, “Oh no, we’re not going to fight our way through that!” Just then as we got within about 10 meters, we could see a narrow opening cut through the thick roots and branches. It was just high enough and wide enough to let a dinghy through at high tide. We followed in about 30 meters to a little pool where we tied the four little dinghies to the trees and we able to step onto a rock shelf then into the jungle. Wow, what a way to start!

We immediately set out on a thin trail. It was obvious that Mele had been trodding up and down as he’s been working on the canoe, but it was very thin and not used other than for that purpose. We were on an area of the island not often visited. As we worked our way inland and uphill, we could see that he had started felling small trees to use as “rollers” to get the canoe out. These were typically about 4 inches thick and cut about six feet long and placed on the trail about every 15 feet. Hmm, this is getting interesting.

Mele showing how he carved it with an axe and an adze.

The adze.

We progressed up in a single line – about 6 palangis and 6 Fijians until about ½ mile inland and a couple hundred feet up, I heard a hush up ahead and exclamations of surprise and amazement. As Ann and I climbed over the last bit of volcanic rock we were scrambling up, we saw it. A huge log that had been hewn to the shape of a canoe sat in the jungle just ahead of us amidst a pile of wood chips.

The canoe was carved from a single tree, the lower trunk of which was easily three feet in diameter. The bows were gracefully carved and the inside was roughly hollowed out. Mele showed us how he had used an axe and an adze to carve the tree, one blow at a time chipping some wood here, some there for months. It was 25 feet long and weighed about 1000 pounds (that was the consensus guess among us – it took almost a dozen people to move it).

So, here’s this amazing sight sitting ½ mile in the jungle away from the water. How are we going to get it into its new element? Well, you drag it. And no one brought a rope! No problem, Mele said it would be better to drag it with traditional rope. He cut a large tree vine. It was about 30 feet long and 1 inch thick. Then he made a couple notches inside the bow of the canoe and cut a small tree branch to fit athwartships between the notches, around which he tied the vine with a double overhand knot. I looked at it and thought, “Yeah, right. I’m not pulling that too hard just to see it break and all of us fall down the hill”. But you know it held all the way out.

The vine we used to pull it through the jungle and the knot.

So, how do you turn a 25 foot canoe in the jungle? You cut down the small trees around it so you can turn it downhill, that’s how. Once turned downhill with the path lined with the aforementioned logs that the canoe can roll over, eight of us pulled the rope and a couple pushed with one guy on the back end who kind of rocked it and steered it and off we went. Sometimes it was a little scary as the 1000 or more pound beast starting coming down on us on its own volition, but most of the time we pulled as hard as we could to get it going. On the steeper parts we looped the vine uphill from the canoe to keep it from going down too fast. After 20 or 30 meters, we would stop, go back and get the “rollers”, walk them up in front of the canoe and start the process all over again. About half way to the water, reinforcements showed up. Fresh and ready to go the new recruits brought lots of laughter, teamwork and even singing and by noon we made it to the water.

Once in the water, we all towed the new roughed out canoe back to the beach where Mele will work on it for some time yet completing the shaping, adding topsides, a deck (he’s already started carving it back up on the hill and will have to drag that down sometime too) and finally an outrigger.

Getting the beast moving.

Pulling it across the log rollers.

Moving the log rollers.

The final yards through the mangroves into the bay.

Now it's time for all the detail work like a deck and outrigger.

Of course once this was all done, everyone returned to the village for what else? Kava. Yes, there will be lots of kava consumed this night to mark such an auspicious event. We even brought a bundle in and presented it to Mele to thank him for allowing us to be part of this day as well as to bless his new canoe. He was very pleased and clapped his hands three times which is how they say “thank you” here in Fiji.

You read about this stuff in museums and books but to take part of it we agreed was stunning. We are all in a bit of a haze just trying to process what we just witnessed – or rather – were a part of. (We found out in the village that only the men get to partake in this activity…oops, no one told Ann-good thing!)

That’s what the sign said until Ann pointed out the little error. It was Adam and Cindy’s (from Bravo) 24th anniversary and the whole village put together a party to celebrate (complete with the sign which was corrected). Actually a bunch of folks from the other two villages showed up as well. Fijians love a party.

Adam and Cindy wearing the ceremonial tapa cloth (and corrected sign in the background).

First the kava. Lots of kava. Then there was lots of food. No party is complete without a feast and this one had the requisite mounds of great food. There was also singing. We never tire of the beautiful Fijian songs. Ann and I stayed until after dark enjoying the food, drink, singing and great camaraderie with our fellow cruisers and the village. Ann knows every single person here by name as well as their birthdays and who they are all related to. (I know most of their names, which for me is pretty good). We stayed until after dark and fortunately Cindy brought an extra headlamp and loaned it to us as it was pitch dark going back the trail. It’s still cloudy today and the moon wasn’t up yet as we headed back across the cove back to Charisma.

We went into the village earlier in the day so I could finish the bowl I’ve been making. I put about five hours the last couple days into sanding it smooth and shiny and when I got to the carving area (where the men were waiting for me) and pulled it out there was quite a reaction. Probably best summed up by Tai who said; “Bob, you sand better than we do!” That was the compliment I was hoping for. I didn’t want to disappoint them with a shoddy job. I pointed out in return that I wasn’t making this bowl to sell and could afford to spend lots of time sanding it whereas they of course make their bowls for commerce and have to balance time and money. Anyway, Joe (my mentor and host) was impressed. Then Tai said the next step is to burnish the wood. They use a boar’s tusk with which to do this. Tai took the bowl from me, someone handed him a boar’s tusk and he then spent the next 15 or so minutes gently and intently rubbing the wood with the boar’s tusk to give it an incredible polish. That’s also part of how they work. Everyone just naturally does their part and by working on my bowl Tai was actually complimenting me by wanting to be part of it. It is so shiny it doesn’t need any oil.

Burnishing my bowl with a boar's tooth.

Once suitably rubbed down and shining like a finished bowl, Joe took out a pencil and free-handed a couple lines that served as the basis for the design that we were to spend the next hour or two carving onto the inch and a half lip of the bowl. When I saw him free-hand it and then take a “v” shaped carving tool and start in on it I almost fainted. After all the work, I was initially worried that one little slip and it would be gouged beyond repair. Then I remembered where we were and who was working on this. They know what they are doing and sure enough, he expertly outlined the carving area. He would do a line around the outside of the lip and then say, “Your turn”. I would then do a parallel line around the piece and on it would go. Joe would do a part and then say, “Change”, and I would do a bit. In that way I can lay claim to having done a significant part of the bowl, but also learned how to do it along the way. Really fun! And one of the fun parts is that it’s getting a lot of attention from the other carvers in the village. I am getting “nods” of approval. Makes me proud.

Here's the almost completed bowl showing the carving on the lip.

The bowl carving team with "their" bowl.

So between Ann’s quilting and weaving and now my carving we really feel a part of live here. It’s really fun learning another culture from the inside out.

Oh, one bit of sadness. We are now officially out of wine. Yes, we’re not sure how we’re going to survive, but we’re hoping to “suck it up” and tough it out. Don’t know how we’re going to make it unless one of our friends comes through with reinforcements.

Here’s hoping.

We woke up to such a change in the weather from yesterday’s sunny day. It’s been raining off and on all day with blustery wind in the mid-twenties. Kind of like going from summer to winter in one day. It is winter here actually, but we don’t expect it to actually act that way! Hopefully tomorrow will be a nicer day as right now it’s cold and wet. Very un-Fiji like.

Ann with Penina and her new dress.

We did make it into church though. Magically (I would say – Ann of course has other ideas) the rain stopped long enough for us to jump in the dinghy and make it to the beach without a downpour. In church one of the speakers called us “People of the sea”. Has a ring to it I think. The rest was in Fijian so I have no idea what was being said other than they thanked us for coming to their service.

Sunday lunch after church has a special quality to it. The villagers spend all day Saturday getting food and preparing it while early Sunday is spent finishing it. It’s a big deal. We were invited today to go to Mata’s for lunch. Mata is the woman we spoke of a couple of days ago who spent the entire day hunting octopus. She heard how much we liked it and got another one and invited us to join her. She was thanking us (really Ann in particular) because Ann helped her daughter-in-law make a new dress for her granddaughter, Penina. Such a thoughtful gesture but as things go here we couldn’t accept. You have to lunch with your host family, so we were spoken for as it were. She understood but said she would send some food instead. That’s kind of the fun part of Sunday lunch. You sit down and your host spreads all the food she has made, out on the tablecloth (on the floor, no tables here). Then as she gets ready to dish the food out people start appearing at the door (which is always open – I’m not sure there’s even a door there) with dishes of food. Well, our octopus showed up, delivered by lovely Penina in her beautiful new red dress that she proudly wore to church, and was still wearing it later as she was escorting us back down the path to the beach. Our host, Tau, in turn sent a dish of lovo baked cassava back to Mata. And so it went. There were probably four others who showed up at the door with a cooked fish or something and they left with either a dish of baked cassava or pulisami. Crowd-sourcing on its most basic level.

Tau said that at the end of the day at dinner time, some of the houses will have run out of food and people will drop by asking if there are any leftovers (which at many houses there are) so none of the food gets wasted and everyone eats even if they weren’t lucky that week and didn’t catch a fish.

Village life at its best.

(I sit here writing this sitting in the cockpit under a very bright and almost full moon. It’s straight overhead just to the port side of the mast while the Southern Cross hovers in the sky over to starboard above the bow. There a gentle breeze tonight (a nice change from fairly boisterous winds the past week or so) nudging a few trade wind clouds across the lagoon. I can hear the quiet thunder of the ocean pounding against the reef on the other side of the motus that surround us. A true south seas paradise).

We did so much stuff today I didn’t know what else to call this post.

Is that clear water or what?

The day started (you know, “started” means “after coffee”) with a paddleboard ride around the motus. The wind was down for the first time in quite a while so Ann and I were eager to jump on the boards and have a ride. We had a lovely couple hour waltz around the area and then I stopped back at Charisma for some hammock time while Ann toured the local reefs for a while longer. It paid off as she surprised a large sea turtle.

Back on Charisma around lunch Mele, who is the Chief’s “right hand man” set up one of the outriggers with a sail and took off fishing in it. That was an exciting event as these are practically antiques – you see similar ones in museums in Suva and Wellington – made by hand out of hollowed out trees. Most of the villagers now use the more modern 18 foot “fibers” although since there is often no petrol, they can be seen pushing the boats with poles from reef to reef with the outboard hanging off the stern looking like a vestigial limb. Rumor has it that Mele has been working on building a new outrigger. Seems as he found a suitable tree, felled it “a while” back (no one can say how long ago including Mele), has been hollowing it out with a large adze and may be dragging it out of the jungle this week. We’ll see about that. If it happens, it will be a huge event.

Mele sailing one of the older dugout canoes.

Between coffee and lunch a fiber poled past Charisma with a group of young men who had been out all night fishing. They looked suitably cold but proud of themselves as they caught a LOT of fish. Ann called them over and gave each a granola bar which were eagerly consumed and they gave us three large fish that looked like small tunas (they aren’t but that’s the best description I can give for now). I gutted them and put them in the fridge with the intention of frying them in coconut oil this evening, but…upon going into the village Ann was presented with the largest lobster either of us has ever seen. It weighed at least 5 pounds and was cooked so we didn’t need to do a thing. Surprisingly it was also the most tender lobster we have ever tasted. One of the young village men speared it today and somehow it ended up with us. We’re going to try and find out how that happened when we’re in the village for church tomorrow. Amazing! (Update: we had half of it for dinner, but the whole tail is now in the fridge probably to be turned in a lobster and pasta dish one of these nights.)

A good fishing day.

Monster lobster.

This afternoon I stayed on Charisma and worked on my bowl. I have to sand it (and sand, and sand…) so it’s ready on Monday for Joe to put a pattern on it to carve. I might have to stop counting the hours I’m putting into this thing other than to show how long it takes to make something like this with relatively primitive tools. I dropped Ann ashore and she walked into the village where she immediately became a “kid magnet”. Always happens on Saturday when the kids are not in school. They adore her. One in particular wanted to make sure that Ann’s going to be at church tomorrow as she’s going to wear her new dress that Ann helped her Mom sew. She also wanted to invite us to join her family for Sunday dinner to celebrate but Tau would be offended. So Ann was honored by the request but had to politely decline. Penina, the little girl, understood.

Onward through the village on a mission – to show Alfredi and Bali how to play “Fulunga Train”. That’s what we’re calling Mexican Train now that Alfredi has carved us a Fulunga platform for the game and six little turtles to use as game pieces. We’re going to give the original train pieces to the village so they can play it as they love having new games.

On the way back to Charisma Ann was shanghaied by Tau, our host family patriarch who would let her go until “the bread is done” so she could send a loaf back to the boat. Yikes – we just thought we were running out of food. Anyway, what does Ann do when confronted with a wait like this? She pulls out a game of Pocket Farkel then proceeds to teach our family – Joe, Tau, Jasmine and Samu how to play. She left them still playing their new game once the bread was done and came back in time for sundowners with our new friends Graham and Diane on Maunie, one of the boats here that hails from the UK.

So, sorry for the long post, but it’s been a Fulunga day and hard to single out just one thing to write about. We’re always exhausted by the end of the day and wondering how being in paradise can be so tiring.

These dishes are part of what we’re calling the Fulunga Diet. It pretty much consists of what is being cooked when we’re in the village and when we’re on Charisma we cook whatever looks like it’s going to spoil next.

We left you yesterday with the picture of Mata hiking back to the village with a 50 lb load of octopus after spending nine hours in the water hunting them. Today at lunch time she looked chipper as ever and was serving the most delicious plate of octopus either of us have ever had. Cooked in the in ground lovo oven in coconut milk (what else), it was so tender with just a hint of a smoky flavor. Yum.

Back on Charisma this evening it looked like the pumpkin that I partially used last week before I came down with my um, disorder, was starting to mold and the tuna we froze from a couple weeks ago was coming due. No problem, thaw the tuna (not sushi quality anymore, but acceptable) and cut the mold off the pumpkin. Then add an onion, some vegetable broth, coconut milk and green curry paste and voila, you would have fish curry over rice. Pretty good too.

In between lunch and dinner Ann tooled around town with “her ladies” getting to spend some time with a variety of families just enjoying sitting out back and chatting while Joe found me and said we would continue to work on the wooden bowl.

The good news here is that it looks like a bowl. The bad news is the amount of sanding it takes to bring it up to finish standards. Joe is really looking for a high quality bowl so we spent at least two hours sanding today with 80 grit sandpaper and my homework for the weekend is to continue to sand with 150 grit and then 320 grit. Then Monday he will put a Fijian pattern around the lip and I’ll get to carve the final detail. He’s really putting in a lot of time helping me learn how to carve the Fijian way. We’re at something like 8 hours at this point. For me it’s a lot of fun. The other carvers are kidding me that I should just make it on a lath. My comment back to them is that yes it’s faster, but then you can’t hear what the wood is telling you. Lots of “io’s” on that (“yes” in Fijian) and knowing glances.

Ann also has homework. She is working on a couple pandanas weaving projects and brought back a bunch of the material to work on. The ladies really love her company and enjoy taking turns critiquing her work. Conversely Ann caught one of them making a goof the other day. Oh there were howls of laughter that a Pailangi corrected the master weaver!

We also had chats with a couple friends who are heading this way. Bright Angel thinks maybe a couple weeks and same with Orcinius.

Can we hold out that long? I’ll tell you one thing. There’s not a lack of things to keep us very, very busy.

Stay tuned (but send beer)!

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?

Yup, I’ve had a bad case of intestinal disorder. It didn’t respond to bland diet (BRAT) or huge quantities of Immodium, so we finally realized it as a bug of some sort, probably from the water in the village since there has been something going around. Anyway, once it was clear that simple measures wouldn’t suffice, we bombed it last night with Ciprofloxen. 12 hours later I’m finally on the mend. Not too much fun, but a couple days of rest.

Today we stayed on Charisma. Ann made bread and did some clean up, I pretty much just read and laid in the cockpit. Tomorrow though we’ll go back in the village. Ann to do some more weaving and sewing and me hopefully to do some carving under the tutelage of one of the village carvers.

JHAM posed a question yesterday that I thought I’d respond to. He asked; “Is there just no strife, anger, sickness, or negativity”? I would answer to that; “Yes. There is”. This is paradise through our eyes as it’s a simple way of life that’s so uncomplicated that it’s a delight. The strife, anger and negativity that exists is not distorted by politicians and interest groups and then all blown out of all proportion by the media and turned into entertainment and profit making. It’s a simple human condition. We all argue, get angry and such, but the nice thing here is it doesn’t go anywhere or get taken to extremes. People get over it.

Sickness is an exception. Life is great here until you are sick. Then it becomes misery since there is very little in the way of infrastructure to support medical care. There is one nurse who takes care of everything and they didn’t even have a nurse last year. He has access to the mainland for consultation, but not a lot of tools to handle pain, infection or an acute accident. Dental care is non-existent. If you have a tooth go bad, it’s going to come out. Very few folks here have a full set of teeth and some have only a few left. For major illness you wait for a boat to Suva (maybe once a month, but there’s no fixed schedule). Once in Suva you rely on extended family for a place to stay because this is a subsistence economy and Suva takes money. Two different worlds.

But despite the hardships (including having to gather food every day in order to eat) these are very happy people and we are enjoying being accepted as friends in their world even though they know we can leave at will and go back to ours. The goodbyes are emotional. The bonds formed are unique.

(by Ann)

For the second day in a row Bob has been feeling poorly. There is something going through the village and the boats in the anchorage. We call it the Fulunga La Funga. Not fun. The good news is that after two days of quiet and relaxation on the boat, while I went off and played, Bob seems to be recovering. Hard to be sick in paradise.

You might recall that we met an adorable 4-month old puppy named Lulu when we helped with the health screenings in the “third village” – Naividamu. Lulu is at that chewing stage but when Lisa of Lisa Kay (a dedicated dog lover) tried to play with him with a stick the dog cowered. Obviously sticks are not to be fetched in Fulunga. When Lisa heard that some of us might head back over to Naividamu to do sevusevu with Chief Moses she brought me a ball and a sock with a knot for little Lulu (they left today so could not attend).

Lulu!

When we were invited to join Graham and Diane on Maunie in a trip to Naividamu hosted by their “family” who grew up there, we were in. Well half of us anyway, because Bob was not 100% and the idea of a kava party full of polite, “No thank you, I am not feeling well”, by Bob, did not sound fun. So I jumped ship and took the Maunie ferry to Naividamu and back.

As we found out the last time we were there the village is full of delightful people thrilled to have cruisers paying attention to them. At our sevusevu the chief informed us that today they were celebrating a birthday and we were invited! When I asked whose birthday it was he replied, “A cousin in Suva, but we will celebrate without him!” I like their style. Ironically it ended up that it truly was the birthday of Baki, in fact his 50th. We had befriended Baki during the health screening so it was appropriate that we attend. It must be noted however, that Mattei was very disappointed that Bob was sick. Actually I was getting a little tired of having to disappoint Bob’s friends by telling them the sad news.

Sevusevu with Chief Moses (on right).

This kava party included the Pailangi women (i.e. cruiser women). The local women stayed in the house cooking a fabulous meal for us and playing with the babies. You know me, I jumped between parties. Oh, and played fetch with Lulu. He was very happy to bring back the ball repeatedly. Only the little boys in the village were disappointed because the ball was not for them. Some you win, some you don’t.

If there is one word that everyone uses when describing the people of Fulunga it is generous. Almost to a fault. But they love to do it. And frankly we love it too. But today I turned the tables on them…I gave a special gift to them.

Here're the mini quilts Ann presented to her friends.

You have read in prior blogs about the project I have been working on for the women I have been playing with every week. These are the ladies that have patiently been teaching all of the cruisers how to weave. And it has been wonderful. When they were interested in my quilt blocks I was thrilled to introduce them to quilting. When they expressed a desire to sew clothes I was happy to teach them how to cut out patterns and assemble clothes. But it wasn’t something I made just for them. I love making things with specific people in mind. They are in my thoughts as I work and it makes me smile.

Here's the special quilted sign now hanging in Koro's house.

Detail of the quilted sign.

I have spent the last few weeks hand stitching ten different quilt squares as examples. I brought these pieces in to show the girls because I knew they would visually dissect the squares to see how they were made. Now they are all part of a sign/wall hanging to be put up at every weaving session. And now quilting session too as each session starts with weaving and becomes a group of girls laughing and giggling and quilting. So the wall hanging proudly announces the Weavers and Quilters Club. I included all of the squares and one of the woven pieces that I made with their guidance. They loved it. My eyes filled with tears as I gave it to them and they all joined me. They were overcome with emotion and were initially speechless. Receiving is hard work.

I took it one step further too. I made individual small wall hangings for each of the 10 women who I have played with most often. These wall hangings were one simple square surrounded by lovely batik borders. The square is known in my house as “Bev’s Star” and was a square that my sister, Bev, and I loved to make. These women have become my quilting sisters so this seemed perfect. I shared the story of Bev’s Star with them and they each lovingly accepted their wall hanging anxious to put it up in their own houses. Forever these wonderful ladies of Fulunga and I will be joined.

Lots of smiles, lots of tears. Receiving is hard work. Turning the tables is lots of fun.