Recent Events

Apologies for the week-long neglected blog. Mum, you must be getting edgy that I have not posted for a whole week! Suva has been rainy, windy and sporadically sunny.

School holidays have been and gone. Not much has happened. I got completely and utterly bored towards the end of the holidays and resorted to knitting a bra. Yes, I am knitting a bra. More to come about the bra in a later blog post.

Sunday, which was Father's day (which is observed in Fiji), was rather eventful. It panned out like this:

Woke up early as I normally do to walk 40 minutes to the pool, with the arrival time of 8:30. I swam somewhere between 500 and 600 meters and it started raining on me while I was in the pool. The feeling of cool droplets on your face as you're doing backstroke down the pool makes you feel like you've got pins and needles on your face.

I finished at the pool and walked to the bus stop. On the way, there were Indo-Fijian boys selling Mangoes:

"You buy mangoes? Sweet mangoes! Sweet like you madam..." was yelled at me from across the street. I responded by rolling my eyes so far into the back of my head that I wasn't sure if they'd come back again. I proceeded to buy tomatoes from another street seller who tried to convince me that I should pay more because it was Father's day.

I waited at the bus stop madly trying to repair the broken zip on my bag, and then gave up when the bus arrived. As soon as I sat down, another man came from behind me, sat himself beside me and draped his arm over the back of my seat. He was sitting a bit too close. He edged towards me and I froze. I had no idea what to do. I saw that he had a razor in his hand, and he was also talking to himself. I didn't quite catch what he was saying, partly because my anxiety levels were rising and partly because he was speaking nonsense to no one in particular. At this stage, my heart was beating faster than it had been while I was swimming laps in the pool.

I looked around desperately for support. Everyone was looking away and this guy noticed that I was giving imploring looks to the people around me. He edged closer. I squashed myself up against the window as close as I could to get away from him.

Thankfully, we passed a police station. Not wanting to draw attention to myself, I raised my eyebrows at the policeman standing at the front of the station.

Raising your eyebrows at someone in Fiji has a multitude of meanings:
"Yes",
"What do you want?",
"Can I speak to you?",
"I've acknowledged that you've said something but I don't know how to respond to your question",
"Maybe",
"I want your attention!!!"

Or in my case, raising my eyebrows meant:

"Please policeman, can you get this man next to me off the bus because he is really scaring me!!!!"

Apparently it worked, because the bus stopped, the policeman came up to the bus and yelled at the man sitting next to me. When the man did not move, the policeman boarded the bus and escorted him off.

Phew. Amanda is saved again for another day.

Other than that, the rest of the day turned out beautifully. I went to Yum Cha at Restaurant 88 at the back of the main foodcourt in the central shopping complex. I met the Rucksack club which is a club that organises cultural and outdoor activities for anyone living in Fiji. Yum Cha was fantastic and genuine, as opposed to the normal "Chinese" food you find in Suva: chopped bok choi and carrot drowning in soy sauce and MSG.

I've also managed to rope myself into organising the Cross Island Walk. This is a walk that starts from the North of the Viti Levu island through the centre of Viti Levu and back to Suva in the south.

But anyway, that is enough from me for now. More to come on knitted bras, kuih, school and planning the cross island walk...

P.S. Happy Birthday, Ben!