International Night

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Today's a Wed. I believe. It is early morning, a bit after breakfast, and I just had a wonderful brushing of the teeth. It's very windy now, and the water's choppy.

Last night we had apretty good meal an dmingled with some people. Food was meats and fish and some kind of spinach dumpling. Tonight they're having a 'lovo' which is a traditional dish/feast baked in an underground overn.

They did this goofy little thing last night for entertainment called International Night. Each country's guests had to stand up and sing a song:

• Scotland - national anthem
  
• Germany - some kind of traditional song, or was it a pop/dance hit?
  
• Sweden - traditional midsummer's party song, complete w/ reindeer dance
  
• USA (that'd be Sherry and I only) - We did the 'I'm a little teapot' song, _with_ the dance. My theory was to keep it short and fun.
  
• UK - did a really funny song about pooping in an English garden.
  

Yesterday afternoon we went snorkeling and it was great. we had some equip. problems at first, but afterwards we spent about 45 min paddling around. There were many colored fi sh, some interesting plants (corals?), and very bright blue starfish.

I'd never really snork. b4, except in the St Lawrence, so I was impressed. Swam out to the drop off, then along. I did a couple deep dives, but wasn't able to fully blow my snorkel clear afterwards. Right now they're beating the drum that says it's meal time. They purpose for breakfast appears to be to wake people up. Only 4 of out of 20 or so are currenly up an daround.

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Back now at the resort in the late evening. We took the guided hike over Wayasewa (great photos to come!), seeing the wobbling rock and the peak 'Vatavula' which overlooks the resort from over 1100 feet.

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This seems to happen a lot, but I'm back now, _again_. I got called away into a game of Texas hold 'em w/ a pair of Swedes and a pair of Germans. The prize: a chocolate bar. I finished 2nd, which for some reason meant that I bought. It was nice though because they shared. Played cards w/ Daniel and Malin. Daniel won, which makes sense because he wrote a computer prog. that runs on a server playing online poker. He claims that it netted him between 5 and 10 dollars a day during 2 weeks of testing. First I've heard of that.

So, there's much to tell about today because it was great! On our hike we ate lots of fresh fruit, taken right from the plants:

• banana
  
• papaya
  
• coconut, including drinking the juice/milk
  
• bread fruit (very starchy)
  

The hike was amazing to, w/ 360 views of the Yasawa and Mamanuca group. A lot of the isl. is grassland, this being in the group that's on the lee side of the main isl. of Fiji. The walk took us down the other side of the isl. to a pair of villages, nicer than the 1 near the resort. We saw 'Big Jerry's' house and our guide's. Hiked w/ a pair of honeymooner's, Eric and Alex (female if you have to ask).

We had lunch w/ some Fijians then saw their school complete w/ a rugby field. Then, of course, we had to snorkel. The boat ride back was very rough, small boat + big waves = rough boat ride.

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Tonight I'm sitting on the veranda seeing fires on the 'mainland', burning sugar cane. The trad. 'lovo' was preceded by a formal kava ceremony. Kava is pretty good, just a mild sedative. You clap your hands once, say 'Bula!', drink it down, then clap 3 times afterwards. It's cool to take part in these types of ceremonies. It reminds me of 'mate' from S. America.

For Brian and others interested, a 'scene' report. The scene here is very friendly and I appreciate the organized 'entertainment'. Last night we did a trad. dance and 2nite we did the 'broom dance' which is like musical chairs and square dancing combined. Lots of partner switching & the guy left over has to dance w/ the broom.

This place has a backpacker feel to it, lots of people hanging out, drinking, but a pretty quiet/mellow crowd. Right now a handful of people are getting stoned (for lack of a better word) on larger amounts of kava.

Resort is owned collectively by the 3 villages on the island. Lots of villagers hanging out (working?) most of the day.

Tomorrow we head to Sanawai. Daniel/Malin will be in China when we are there, so we may cross paths.

Quick hits:

• Bob Marley is huge everywhere
  
• EVeryone's reading Grisham and Harry f'n Potter
  
• Falling asleep to the sound of surf is great
  
• No hot water at any of the resorts, incl. for showers!
  
• Flashlights necessary, power goes off at midnight.
  

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