WALKING ACROSS FIJI - 2

And so we arrived at Nagatagata...

The children from the village crowded around our bus to help us take our bags and gear into the village. As soon as we had arrived, it had started to rain. In Fiji, it commonly rains while the sun is shining. They call this "The Monkey's Birthday". The sun shone through the rain as the monkey celebrated its birthday.

We all donned our sulus and entered the village. When entering a Fijian village, it is a must for women to wear a sulu (kind of like a sarong). If you show any inner thigh, even if its covered by pants, it is considered "tabu". The children showed us to the community hall where we stretched our legs after the 8 hour bus ride.

The children at Nagatagata village were absolutely adorable. It's a strange dynamic in the village where there are children that are primary school aged, then a large generation gap, and then adults aged about 30 and above. It's as if there's an entire generation missing from the village. The missing generation were either in another village where the area's high school was or somewhere in the main towns studying and/or attending university. Either way, I couldn't resist getting to know the village children by playing games with them.




Larissa, one of our fellow Aussie volunteers had brought with her balloons for the children to play with. They were so incredibly excited by the balloons. Soon, there were balloons flying everywhere in all directions and laughter flooding into the room just as the afternoon sun began peeping through the windows.

Here's evidence of the monkey's birthday:



We then asked the children to show us their school. The sun was rapidly setting and the children walked us to their school in the dying light. Their school was impressively large for an isolated village. There were also small houses scattered at the front of the school where the teachers resided. I believe that teachers here in Fiji are assigned schools to teach at. I believe that they don't get much say in the matter and are sent wherever the ministry has told them to go. So to accommodate them, the teachers stay on the school premises throughout the duration of the school term.



We then returned back to Nagatagata village where the sevusevu had already started. The sevusevu is a ceremony to welcome guests and officially ask permission from the turaga ni koro (chief) to stay in his village. Here, they prepare yaqona (kava) ceremoniously and present it to all of the guests who have requested to stay in the village. The electricity to the village had been cut out for the night, so we all sat in a darkened room with a couple of kerosene lamps scattered about the room. This made for an intimate and somewhat eerie ceremony where the village chief thanked us in whispers that flickered with the light against the wall.

After this, we sat down to scrumptious dinner of cassava, fish, coconut-soaked spinach, eggplant cooked in coconut...the list goes on! Before retiring to sleep in the communal hall, I told scary stories to the children and played more balloon volleyball in the darkness.

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Dawn had arrived with the sounds of the rooster making his morning call. Mind you, the rooster had actually started at 4am. Apparently no one had informed this rooster of its role to crow at dawn rather than the matakalailai (small hours of the morning before the sun rises). We grogily peeled ourselves off the concrete floors and trudged outside to wash at the stand pipe. I went for a walk with some of the village children who wanted to show me their family's farm land from a higher vantage point. This was the view:





We were then treated to a scrumptious breakfast:



And while we were preparing to leave, some of the children had strung together leis of flowers for us to wear around our necks. Emily was given a crown made from dried pandanus leaves.



I thanked the village chief for being so kind to let us stay in his village. As I parted, he requested that I take a photo of him and his grandson:



And so we were off, the first part of walking through the centre of Fiji. The children from Nagatagata village started walking with us for some of the way. They appeared to have an endless amount of energy as they would run to the front of the walking group, and then dash back to myself at the back and request to borrow my camera to take more photos. After about an hour of walking, they decided to turn back and leave us to make our own way:





The 18 in my group walked across undulating terrain amongst the rolling hills that are scattered throughout the centre of Fiji:





We finally reached our lunch destination where the horses that had our packs from Nagatagata had caught up with us. We were told to wait here for about an hour as the next village was not quite ready to have us yet. Meanwhile, Melina, Emily and I decided to pass time by taking some silly photos:




We slowly made our way down towards the next village, Nubutautau. Here's the group, lazing about on the side of the road:



And looking down towards Nubutautau.



Nubutautau is a village that is almost right in the heart of Viti Levu (the main island of Fiji). It has a rich history whereby the Methodist Reverend Baker had trekked to this village from the south about 150 years ago. Unfortunately, he had managed to offend the turaga ni koro of the village and was henceforth struck with an axe and killed at Nubutautau (a bit more about that in a moment).

We arrived at Nubutautau where they were also hosting Methodist church leaders who had trekked to Nubutautau from the south, following the steps of Reverend Baker. It was for this reason that we were not greeted by a swarm of running children like Nagatagata village. Again, as we packed our things into the community hall, it began raining, yet again. Apparently there hadn't been any rain for three months prior to our arrival at each village.

Eventually the children in the village appeared and showed us the way to the river at the back of the village. The wash in the river was so incredibly refreshing. We were all glad to rinse off the dust that had stuck to our suncreamed skin and the additional dirt we had tried to rub into our skin when reapplying suncream.



Again, we were requested to partake in a sevusevu ceremony. Yaqona was prepared and our thanks were conveyed to the village. Following this, we were treated to yet another scrumptious dinner. Half of the hall that we were to be sleeping in was now occupied by Methodist church leaders drinking deeply from kava bowls.



Nubutautau also has a reputation for being the party village. People who have participated in the walk in the past report that the village LOVES dancing. Even as we were walking towards the village, we met a lady along the way who was very sad that she couldn't be at the village to dance with us as she had to stay with her sick husband. Despite feeling like our legs were about to fall off, we were all expected to dance the night away. My fellow hikers were sprawled across the floor of the hall and were beginning to nod off to sleep. It was getting later and later and the village chief kept calling me over to make sure that my walkers would still be partaking in dancing that evening. I tried desperately to keep everyone somewhat alive in a bid to keep the village chief happy. After all, this village DID have a history of killing people who had offended the village chief.

Ten o'clock had come around and pretty much everyone was in the land of nod. I crept up to the village chief and asked if we were still required to dance. To our relief, the chief apologised and explained that the generator that powers the speakers were broken and that there would be no dancing that evening. At the sound of this news, everyone rapidly set up their beds and tucked themselves into their sleeping bags. However, within 10 minutes, the music had managed to finally start up. The children came in an dragged some of the walkers out from underneath their sleeping bags. Reluctantly, and zombie-like, some of us stood up for a token dance. I searched around the room to see if I could see the village chief but he too had retired for the night. I think the villagers got the idea eventually when we were all struggling to stay on our feet after a day's walking and turned off the music. Finally, we were able to tuck ourselves in properly and go to sleep.



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Morning again and we were woken by the voices of the Methodist Church leaders who were singing and walking around the village. They were visiting Reverend Baker's plaque to commemorate his death. After they returned, it was our turn to visit the plaque. The village chief spoke to us about the story of Reverend Baker who had come as a missionary to spread the word of God to the people of Viti Levu. As I mentioned before, Reverend Baker offended someone and the village chief ordered for him to be killed. They've still kept the axe that struck Reverend Baker:



Again it was breakfast:



And we were off yet again:
Then it was time to cross the Sigatoka river 21 times:



I managed to stay on my feet, but some people lost their footing and fell into the river. Thankfully it was a hot day as the river was an excellent source to cool our bodies down. The horses also followed us through the river.

After the final stretch of an uphill dirt road, we reached our destination village at Korolevu and boarded the carrier that would take us on a bumpy ride back to Sigatoka. Strangely enough and despite being at high risk of falling off my seat, I managed to fall asleep on the carrier back to Sigatoka.



I was dreading the meeting of our favourite bus driver. When we reached Sigatoka, the bus driver was waiting for us, despite my fear that he would try and rip us off and not show up at all. We boarded the bus and the front seat next to the driver remained empty. Of course, I was the last person to board the bus. We had also taken back with us a villager from Nubutautau who needed to visit the hospital in Suva. There were two seats left on the bus and I had a choice between sitting beside the sick and potentially contagious villager, or the bus driver. Naturally, I chose the sick villager. The bus driver turned around and invited me to sit next to him. As I was incredibly creeped out by this man, I insisted that I wanted to keep the sick village man company. The bus driver was insistent, but thankfully, one of the other walkers volunteered to sit next to him. What a creep.

We arrived back in Suva at 10pm. Everyone found it rather difficult to get off the bus. By this stage, our limbs had stiffened up with enough lactic acid to run the battery for the bus. As I shaked everyone's hand for a successful and safe trip, the bus driver also came up to me to shake my hand. Unfortunately, he also pulled me in to give me a peck on the cheek. It was like receiving a kiss from a toad. A toad with a really bad combover and yoyo for a temper.

Now we were back home, and after disinfecting my face and scrubbing my cheek until it was a raw red, I finally sat down with Melina and Emily. We all sighed together and despite being grateful to sleep on our own beds and not concrete floors, we agreed that it felt like we had been to an entirely different country and back again.