I Will No Longer Play

There are many games that one must play in Fiji. There is the “Try-To-Figure-Out-Who-You-Are-Talking-To-On-The-Phone Game”, the “Guess-When-The-Meeting–Will-Actually-Start Game,” and my personal favorite, “The Kerekere Game.” I hereby declare that I am done playing them.

The first game, “Try-To-Figure-Out-Who-You-Are-Talking-To-On-The-Phone” goes like this. When you call someone on the phone, never, ever identify yourself. First, repeat the greeting, “Bula” as many times as you can get away with. Then, if you are making the call, yell the person’s name you are calling in the receiver repeatedly until they guess who you are. Do not, under any circumstances give the receiver of the call an inclination as to who you are or what you want. If they ask your name, respond by yelling their name into the phone again. Continue this until the person guesses who you are correctly. It is the part of receiver that I will no longer be playing. I will now limit my participation in the game to a maximum of two “Bulas.” If a name as to who is calling is not immediately forthcoming, I hang up the phone. Let this be a lesson if you are calling internationally to not trifle with telephone sporting with me.

The “Guess-When-The-Meeting–Will-Actually-Start Game” is one that I am more willing to play. Meetings start when everyone is there and not before. So there is plenty of time spent waiting for everyone to get there. The thing is, you don’t want to sit there waiting for everyone else to get there. So what most people do is to try to time it so that they get there just as the last person arrives, making them, you guessed it, the last person there. You know that there is going to be a meeting because someone blows the conch shell (davui). You would have to be a straight idiot to go to the meeting the first time they blow the davui. I used to go after the second time, but I soon found out that going then also made me a straight idiot. You go after the third one, but even then you wait a bit. I try to not be the last one there, but someone towards the end of the line is ideal. Sally is really good at this. She will often walk in as the meeting is getting underway.

The third game, called the “The Kerekere Game” is a game that I thought I was up for but almost two years into Fjii, I quit. Here is how it works. If someone asks you for something, you give it to them. Likewise if someone has something that you want, you just ask them for it and they give it to you. Simple rules, no? Now, we know that we have come out on the losing end of this, but the built in insurance of always being able to bum flour or sugar or a cat when yours ran out or died was in its own way, worth it. So, we played…for a long time…longer than most. It started out simple enough—people asking for a little sugar because theirs ran out, or an egg, maybe a little flour or if they could use our knife. No problem. I guess the turning point was the guitar. My rule with the guitar had been, you can use it, but I am coming with it. I made the mistake ONE TIME of letting some folks use it without me. That has meant that whenever a group of trashed (on grog) men decide that they want a guitar, they come a-knocking.

Let’s talk about knocking protocol for a minute. I bet that you didn’t even think that something like how you knock on someone’s door changes culturally. In the US, you knock a few times, wait about 30 seconds, and knock again. If you are familiar with the dweller, you may shout a name. If there is no answer after that, you leave figuring that they are either away or don’t want you. In Fiji, there is either time to kill or a very indomitable spirit. You go to your neighbors and repeat this pattern: Knock, knock, knock “Name.” Knock, knock, knock “Name.” This is repeated until someone comes to the door. Volume is not raised and the pattern is not changed. There is also no end. The knock is fairly quiet so that if you are sleeping, it may take a while to hear. And you may not ignore it. One time, someone came over to my neighbor’s house, the pastor (Talatala), before his house washed away in the flood of course, for something. I knew that Talatala had gone to town that day and wasn’t at home. The knocker did not. I kid you not, the knocker repeated, knock, knock, knock, “Talatala” for upwards of a half an hour with no interruption, no raise in volume or frequency, nothing. Like a machine. It sort of faded into the background for me and I decided that I wanted to see how long this would continue. So I didn’t tell him. 30 minutes, nonstop.

Anyway, back to the guitar. So there a group of grog-doped guys who want a guitar. They decide that someone should go kerekere mine. They had asked multiple times throughout the course of the day and I told them that if I go and drink grog, I will bring it but I won’t be giving it to anyone. (Lest you think that I am a selfish monster, Fijians are notorious for not giving a damn about material things and things just aren’t taken care of like you or I would.) I go to bed at 10:00pm usually when the generator goes off. There are no lights on and the doors are closed—both pretty clear to signs to me that sleeping is happening at this house. It doesn’t matter. Knock, knock, knock “Brian” starts. The first time it happened, I thought that I would pretend like I was sleeping until they went away. They never went away. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes: knock, knock, knock, “Brian.” Then it stopped. He had gone away. Then from my bedroom window: knock, knock, knock, “Brian.” That is when Sally lost her cool and yelled at him something along the lines of having intercourse with himself. He left. I went to sleep.

20 minutes later it started again: knock, knock, knock, “Brian.” It woke me up eventually and I let it go for a bit before I finally got up and went and yelled at him for waking me up since with the doors closed and the lights off, I was obviously sleeping. He replied, “Sorry, but can I have the guitar?” I said no, emphatically. 20 minutes later, again: knock, knock, knock, “Brian.” This time I got up immediately and chewed out whomever it was as best as my Fijian would allow. Unfortunately, my Fijian is all pretty polite so I wasn’t able to fully express my emotion. That third one was the last that night…that night. It has happened since.

But the guitar is not where it has stopped. The kerekere has expanded from the simple food items to school fees for kids, my shoes, clothes, and worst of all, money. The money one we had run into before but for some reason, it has gotten more pronounced lately. One day I was working in the garden and I guy I sort of knew came up to me. The conversation went like this:

Him: Wow, those tomatoes look great.

Me: Thanks, I can give you some starts if you want to plant your own.

Him: Oh, that would be great. What plant is that right there?

Me: That is a broccoli. It’s in the same family as cabbage and you eat the flower!

Him: The flower! Wow, that’s interesting. Kerekere, can I have $300?

Me: No.

Him: OK, it looks like it will be hot today.

Me: Yeah, looks like it.

Him: OK, I am going over here now. Bye.

Me: Bye.

Just like that. That was the most money that we have been asked for, but we are now getting daily requests for $2, $5, $10. I learned that lesson right away not to give or loan (same thing) money to Fijians. The problem isn’t the amount; it is that they will blab about it and then everyone and their uncle wants their $2 too. And worse is that recently, friends have started asking for just about everything. In a shared culture, if you have it, you share. That is no problem for most people because they don’t have anything. It is easy to share nothing. However, we have things partly because we just plan ahead. We think, hey if I am going to use this much flour this month, I am going to buy this much flour. Fijians don’t think that way. You use your flour and when you are out, you just go kerekere. That means that Fijians are always out of everything and we always have it.

So, I quit. I lose. You win. And I am done playing the kerekere game. We are actually going to have the chief tell the village at the next village meeting on Tuesday. Sally and Brian are no longer playing kerekere so please do not include them in any more of your matches. Speaking of matches, kerekere Brian, can you give me some?