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Published: March 3rd 2005
Cooking up
Kava style!!After almost two weeks of beach life we decided to take a trip to see something of note. The hostel was running a small tour to a local village so we could see how 'real' Fijians live.
The village was situated about 25kms inland from the coral coast. Nine of us piled into a truck facing each other and we set of for the bumpy journey. The truck had two uncomfortable wooden benches to sit on and a linoleum roof, at least there was plenty of air flowing through.
The road was good for about 5 mins, then we started to climb a steep red mud path through the forrest. There were some amazing views along the road and we stopped for a photo opportunity. About 15kms into the drive our truck got stuck in the mud and clay and the boys all got out to push.
It took a wee while and we all got covered in lovely red mud but we finally got the truck moving again. I managed to keep my shoes but a couple of folk lost their flip flops to the mud. After the almighty effort to get going again we were on
Typical House
in Nabotini village the road but we needn't have bothered because a couple of minutes later we were in the same predicament again!
This time we were on an even steeper hill and the mud was slippier - there was nowhere to go but down. We tried everything but gave in and the driver/tour guide said he could turn around and take us to another village where he was born. We all agreed and headed back where we came from.
The village we visited was called Nabotini, the origional plan was to visit the other village and see some rainforest and swim in the river. Although we missed out on the swim the change of plan turned out to be a good idea, the villagers in Nabotini were so pleased to see us (apparantly people don't visit them often) even at such short notice.
Perhaps because they were not expecting us we got a more realistic view of their lives, we arrived at the village and the men all went to wash their mud covered shoes before entering the main family home, it was a big house with a big empty floor, we sat down around a table cloth
Stuck in the mud
time to push, again.... and began our feast.
As the word spread round the village more and more locals joined our feast, we ate curry, rice, fruit and veg all washed down with some lemon tea, we also shared our 'table' with a pig, chicken and a turkey!!
We chatted with the locals who were all intrigued by us, they said they hadn't had visitors for some time, the children were peering at us through windows - we caused quite an interest.
After lunch we toured the village stopping at every house to meet the owners, cullminating in chapping on the Cheifs door, he happened to be our guides uncle and was pleased to welcome us nto his home.
We headed back to the main house where all the villagers had gathered and were preparing to party, the guitars were out and soon the chief arrived to begin the festivities of singing, dancing and the all important buisiness of brewing some Kava.
Kava is a narcotic brew that the Fijians drink at social gatherings, some of the older village men may drink it daily. It comes from a plant root and is ground in to powder form then mixed
with rain water and 'downed' by the half coconut shell full. It looks like muddy water and it doesn't even taste as good as that, it makes your body go numb from the tongue down and leaves you feeling a bit spaced out. We had great fun learning about their tradition and rituals and dancing some hilarious dances with them.
Some of the locals took quite a shine to our Fiona but as she looked at me to save her from being passed around from one brother to another I was being passed Kava by the bucket full, when in Rome and that after all. Fiona was involved in a lot of dancing with a lot of men, but she seemed quite happy to go with it!
We really enjoyed our day with the tribe and they thanked us for spending our time with them as we thanked them for thier courtesy, as we left they sang us their 'farewell song', "mothe, vanaka".
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