Trip to Fiji - because of visa requirements!

So, a week and a half after Karla and Tom left, we flew to Fiji for a week. The terms of our visa are such that we can visit New Zealand for 18 months over a 3 year period but have to leave every six months for one day. Fiji is a 2 1/2 hour flight northeast of New Zealand and boy what a difference in weather. While we had some rain during the week there, we had a few lovely days. All in all, it was a really relaxing week. We only took one tour and just sat around the resort, walked the beach and visited the little town of Pacific Harbour.

View from the pool! What a hardship. I think I was drinking a bloody mary at the time.

We took the Jewel of Fiji tour on Tuesday. We took a long boat on the Navua River to a Fijian village where we were met by a warrior who escorted us to the village meeting house. The group (all 16 of us on the tour) elected Ernie to be our chief and represent us as we were welcomed by the tribe. Actually no one in our group wanted to be the first to drink kava and he got stuck. Kava is made from the root of a pepper plant produces a drink with sedative and anesthetic properties. Kava is sedating and is primarily consumed to relax without disrupting mental clarity - so they say. It does leave a tingling, slightly burning sensation on your lips and in your mouth for a while. The roots are dried, ground up and then mixed with water. Kava looks like muddy water and sort of tastes like muddy water. I will admit that it wasn't as bad as I expected. We then visited the pre-school in the village. There were two little kids that stood out - one because he was 'all boy' and full of himself and one little girl because of her name. The little boy was called Abie - short for Abraham Lincoln and the little girl was named Margaret Thatcher. I can't remember the name of the other children but they were all named after well known world leaders. We watched the ladies weaving mats and making cloth and stenciling the cloth (tapa painting.) We learned how to crack a fresh coconut so that it splits into two perfect halves. So simple and I'm happy to share the secret with anyone that wants it. We tasted fresh squeezed coconut cream and watched them unearth our lovo lunch (cooked underground). After lunch, there was dancing and a closing ceremony.

What really surprised me was when our guide wished us all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. While I knew what the date was, since it's Spring in New Zealand and apparently summer in Fiji, the thought of Christmas been around the corner was really foreign and seemed out of sync.

The warrior welcoming us to the village

Chief Ernie being given instructions about the kava ceremony

The kava powder is in the bag in the kava ceremony bowl

Water is poured from a bamboo shoot into the kava bowl and the powder is squeezed in the bag and mixed with the water - yum yum!

Greetings and welcoming speeches are shared with the tribe and the visitors

The little boy kneeling  is Abraham Lincoln and the girl in the pink top is Margaret Thatcher. The kids sang several songs for us and shook our hands to welcome us. The man holding the little girl is Nim and he was our guide in the village. The teacher in the pre-school is his wife. They live in the village.

This lady is weaving a mat that they use to cover their floors

All the members of the tribe are family members. This lady is Nim's grandmother and is 87 years old. She weaves every day and teaches the younger members of the tribe how to cut the palms, weave and all the old ways of doing the various crafts.

These are Nim's cousins and they were weaving a basket that will be used to carry food from the lovo to the meeting house for lunch

The lovo is being uncovered.

There;s fish in coconut milk in one of the packets, chicken in another, that's cassava in the front of the lovo pit

  See the basket he's using to take the food. That's the one he was weaving earlier.

This is mahogany planks that they use for the lovo pit. It's not that mahogany is necessary, it's just that they can get a truck load of mahogany for $20Fiji. Mohagany is native to Fiji. Can you believe they just b urn this beautiful wood in a fire pit?

Dancing and cavorting!

Here's our illustrious chief dancing.

Chief Ernie thanking the tribe for allowing us to join their tribe and thanking them for their warmth and gracious hospitality.

After all this, and taking time to buy some crafts from the village ladies, we got back into the long boats and motored to the waterfall. These boats sat very low in the water and were quite a trip when we went through the rapids. Needless to say, we all got wet. Here's us at the waterfall. I couldn't convince Ernie to swim in the pool at the base of the waterfall. Several of us did and several didn't. Probably because it was raining and the water was quite cold but I wouldn't have missed out on something like that.

 OK, so the main reason Ernie didn't go swimming, besides really cold water, is that as our chief, he decided to offer himself up to the waterfall gods so that we all had a safe swim. Actually, as we were walking to the waterfall, he took a really nasty fall on wet concrete stairs. He hit hard and then slid down three stairs. Thankfully, he didn't fall into the torrent from the pool of the upper waterfall into the lower waterfall - a drop of about 12 feet into the lower pool. He was sitting/laying on the ground yelling don't touch me - oh my back. I thought he seriously hurt his back. Thankfully, it was only bruising. I don't mean for this to sound glib as his bruising was very severe as was the swelling afterwards. We've been back in New Zealand for 2 weeks now and he is still purple and shades of green and yellow on his back. Obviously the gods were please with his sacrifice because we all had a safe swim. We walked back to the long boats and traveled down the river for a short time and then transferred onto bamboo rafts. Talk about rickety and scary! We road the rafts for a little while and then transferred back to the long boat to pass through the rapids and back to Navua to end our trip. What a day! It was great! Of course, Ernie may not agree with the ending of the day.

This brings us up to Thanksgiving! While New Zealand doesn't celebrate this holiday, Joelle and Trevor do. We have a fantastic dinner of wild turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, gravy and pumpkin pie with ice cream. It was great being able to celebrate the holiday with our New Zealand family - and Leslie - our new family member!

We'll be heading to Farewell Spit next week and I'll catch you up with that trip next week. Miss all of you and we are so thankful for all our family and friends!