We have spent the last two days enjoying Fiji.
I guess it's fair to say that we've experienced the Ying and Yang of this island nation.
First we visited Suva which I'll say is the "Ying" and then Dravuni Island which will be the "Yang".
Suva is the capital of Fiji and the second largest city in the country. It's a modern/cosmopolitan city with quite a bit of British heritage evident throughout. The residents of Suva were really nice folks. As we walked around we must have been greeted with a big "Bula" and smile several hundred times. It was a genuine friendly greeting, not the "we're going to pretend to be nice so we can rip you off" greeting you get in some places.
We roamed around the seaside, botanical gardens and visited a nice little museum that gave a good overview of the history of the of Fiji.
One of the most interesting displays was one on canabalisim which thankfully to the best of everyone's knowledge hasn't been an issue for a while. According to the information it did seem as if quite a few of the early missionaries ended up on the dinner plates of the local chiefs and warriors back in the day. I guess the early folks on the islands were praying for food and low and behold it was delivered right to their door. These days in the city center of Suva you can just pop into McDonalds for a Big Mac and free wifi and leave the missionaries alone.
We also got a kick out of watching a demonstration of an Ava Ceremony. I'm not really sure what the liquid was but I know it was made with water and extract from some root. It was served at ceremonies in the old days by the village elders to welcome visitors and guests. Who knows maybe it was also served to unsuspecting missionaries who later ended up being the main course.
In the ceremony you sit on the floor and drink this liquid from a communal cup. Whatever it is they're serving is supposed to have some "numbing or hallucinogenic" effect. Kinda brought back memories of our college apartment, "The Club 138" in Gainesville.
Dravuni Island which we are now pulling away from was quite the opposite. It's a village of around 200 people on an island that looks to be around a mile long and a half a mile wide.
It was an amazing little village with a primary school with about 20 adorable students, spectacular white sand beaches all the way around the island and colorful coral reefs just offshore. No roads, no cars and no traffic jams!
They receive supplies by a small ship that makes a delivery once a week. It happened to be making the delivery the day we were there which was interesting to see. The men of the village took 5-6 small boats out to unload the supplies which included everything from fuel, flour, vegetables, paper goods and much more. It was kind of like Amazon Prime of the South Pacific.
Both places were very unique, totally different and fun to visit.
If I had to pick one of the two give me Dravuni Island. I guess in this case that makes me a "Yang" kind of guy.
One other thing, congratulations to Sweet Baby James who has mastered the art of rolling over!
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| Dravuni School-The Pride of the Village |
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| Two Nuts and a Ship |
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| From the top of the muddy trail on Dravuni Island |
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| Welcome! |
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| Fiji Museum in Suva-Interesting Exhibit on Cannibalism |
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| A little afternoon cricket match in the park |
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| Old Guy on the Beach |
