Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

I guess the rainy season started because it has been raining nonstop for 4 days. Seriously, it hasn’t stopped once as far as I can tell. It wasn’t raining on the way to Church on Sunday. It started during and hasn’t stopped since. The worst part is that tomatoes and bell peppers die when the soil gets too wet, and that will be happening when the wet season really kicks in. That isn’t supposed to be for another month though and yesterday we just ate our first home grown bell pepper and tomato from the garden. It turns out that it takes 3 months for tomatoes and bell peppers to mature. Well, we got one anyway. I can’t wait for next year! Back to the rain, this place sure does get muddy. There isn’t anything paved anywhere so all of the roads and footpaths have become a sloppy mess. It is supposed to stay that way from Dec-March. Sounds like Portland, no? Luckily for us, we just had some of our roof replaced where it leaked quite badly.

If you read my last blog, you will remember that we were in the process of stealing a kitten from a 3 year-old. Well, I am happy to report: Mission Accomplished. I am pretty sure that makes us the worst people in the world. Who steals a kitten from a small child? Well, we do. This kitten is going; historically, naming a cat has resulted in an untimely death. To be clear, he is my favorite cat so far because by and large, he does his business outside, and yesterday successfully killed and ate a mouse. I will gladly feed a mouse killer, outside pooper.

The first two weeks of every month yaqona (kava, grog) is not allowed to be drunk in any village anywhere in the Lomaiviti Province. This is a big deal. Yaqona is an integral part of the culture and left to their own devices, Fijians will drink grog every night. The ban on grog is in place so that people will spend more time with their families and clear their heads a little. But, there are a few loopholes to this ban and after some study, I have come to understand the rules surrounding this ban. In the Lomaiviti Province, in the first 2 weeks of every month, the drinking of yaqona is strictly forbidden in all circumstances and without exception, except:

• When you are outside of the village compound, someone is visiting from out of town, there is a fundraiser, someone is born, someone dies, there is a formal function, it is the month of December or
• You really want to.

We just had our first visitors and it was amazing. The Coffmans had plans to visit laid before we even left for Fiji and last month made good on those plans. It was really great to have them here, share a bit of our life, hear about their lives, and travel around a little. Mostly it was great to have them here because they brought us booze. Turns out that you can bring 2.25L per person! Please keep this in mind for your visits. Anyway, they were here for a good chunk of December and managed to time their arrival just right to get stuck on Koro Island for our first cyclone (what you call a hurricane in Fiji). That didn’t exactly play into their hands for their dream vacation, but it meant that we had lots of entertainment (remember, they brought booze), so we were thrilled to have them here for that. We split time on Koro with them between our house in the village and the resort on the other side for some diving. Then we headed up to Taveuni for a couple of days before they flew out. That place is amazing: crazy diving, waterfalls, hiking, AND S
STORES!!


Here is Sally and Brian C diving together. They are dive buddies. My dive buddy is my camera!

We played dress up and took Brian and Heather to village. Brian is wearing a skirt. You don't have to wear them, but we didn't tell Brian that. He seemed a little too eager to give it a try and now Sally is missing some clothes. (Seriously, we want the black skirt back.)

We also introduced Brian and Heather to the finer points of Fijian life, namely husking and scraping coconuts. They got pretty good at it and more importantly, we ate well.



One night we got drunk. Heather is pouting because she was too pregnant to get her drink on. Brian is also telling a story which may be another reason she is pouting.

A real puffer fish! And all puffed up!

We took them to church which is a strange experience even if you know what is going on. You can't see it but Brian is wearing a skirt again. He just wouldn't take the thing off.

Mmmmm, yaqona. Brian, in his skirt, looks justifiably fearful.

Look at this cute little guy. Can you believe this is real?





Holidays without family suck. Let’s be clear about that. The Coffmans left on the 20th and we headed back to our house a couple of days before Christmas. Luckily for us, Christmas is a pretty low key affair here. Basically you just build these outdoor bamboo huts and hang out in them for a couple of weeks, eating as much as you can and drinking yaqona when you are not eating. Lot’s of folks came from out of town to be with their families here so there were lots of new faces, but there are no isolated family units and no exchanging of gifts. So, we didn’t feel lonely or isolated at all. Sally and I just pretended that it wasn’t Christmas. We are working under the assumption that Christmas has been canceled until 2011. If you would all comply with this, we would be grateful.

Now it is January and there is no work. Everyone is still traveling for the holidays and people who are here are committing themselves to drinking yaqona full-time. It is also pretty dang hot so hunkering down in the afternoon is pretty much de rigeur. That being said, I think that we are both ready for school to start back up so people remember that we are going about the business of making Koro Island a better place to live. Until then, we will be working on making naps better.