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5am today and I’m wide awake. The night before I managed to sleep through the entire night, but this morning no such luck.
The past couple of days have continued to be an amazing adventure. On Sunday morning we walked through the jungle along the beach of the island with another woman from Arizona and one of the staff people to attend the local Methodist church service. The village was tiny—little concrete buildings with tin roofs, wooden outhouses, and laundry hanging outside to dry. The church building itself was very simple. About 15 minutes before the service, bells were rung, and then a man beat a drum for a few minutes to let people know that the service was about to begin. Villagers showed up in their Sunday best—many of them wearing white. Lots of adorable children with big eyes scurrying around with no shoes. Right before the start of the ceremony, the drum was beat again, and then the minister came out wearing a purple dress shirt, tie, sport coat, a sulu (a traditional man’s wrap/skirt), and no shoes. He led the entire service in Fijian, with the choir sitting up front singing the psalms in between prayers.
The place was sweltering from the humidity to the point where I felt my face was melting right off of me. Many of the women had little fans with them made of coconut leaves, and every once in a while we caught the breeze of the older, toothless woman fanning herself behind us.
Halfway through the service, a man got up, stood in front of us at the front of the congregation, and in a timid manner (which seems to be the predominant mannerism of Fijians) thanked us for visiting their island and coming to their service. We each introduced ourselves briefly and thanked them for having us as their guests.
The minister then came down from the altar and sat at a table, opened a book, and began what appeared to be a role call and collection of donations. He would read out a name and an amount, and someone (usually a boy or man) would bring the money forward. The minister would check off the name in his book. The toothless woman behind us kept saying out load, “Vinaka!” (thank you).
At the end of the one-hour service we filtered out of the church single
file with the rest of the congregation and shook hands with many of the men in attendance, including the minister. And almost as soon as we stepped off the church steps to begin our walk back, it began to down pour. We were fine just standing under a tree until it passed, but a little girl came over to us with an umbrella and led us to a woman’s house a few steps away. We took off our shoes and sat on the floor. There was no furniture—just a large open room where they probably lay down mats to sleep and eat. It turns out the woman works at the resort where we are staying but had the morning off.
As soon as the rain passed we headed back out. Ken and I hung back taking photos of the village, the beach, and the rain forest. The resort is only about a 15-minute walk from this particular village. What a cool experience to be in the middle of a Fijian church service! I love this stuff!
After lunch (fresh tuna salad on homemade foccacia bread), Ken and I had another spa treatment called Suddarah. The masseuse pours warm
oil over your “third eye” on your forehead and then spends half an hour massaging it into your scalp, neck and shoulders. I had had a similar procedure done in Nepal years ago where they drizzled warm milk across your forehead for half and hour, but this was much more of a massage. Again, very relaxing, especially with it being in an open-air bure with a breeze going.
At dinner we actually ended up sitting with the manager of the Las Vegas office of the resort. We learned that the place was started by an American in the 1990s and was later bought by a couple of Ukrainian families. The cooks were trained by chefs brought in from Australia, which explains the amazing food. The woman from Vegas visits the resort a few times a year to see how things are going. It started as just 6 bures on the beach and a tiny pool and chartered fishing trips. Now there are 25 bures, a full service spa, and a PADI dive outfit. A very well run place!
Yesterday morning was spent doing our second day of diving. We did two dives—the first one a bit of a
comedy of errors. As soon as I jumped off the boat I lost one of my fins, luckily retrieved quickly by one of the dive masters. Then I couldn’t get myself to sink down because I did not have enough weight on me. So by the time the dive master had me situated and grabbed my hand to pull me down to 55 feet, Ken had already been floating around for 10 minutes burning up his air. Plus there was a bit of strong current until you got to the other side of the reef. So Ken became low on air pretty quickly and ended up going back up before me.
I saw lots of beautiful things—tiger fish, an electric clam that was very cool, bubble coral, brightly colored fish, and another sea cucumber. The current made it a rigorous dive, but the dive master stayed closed to me and took my hand and swam for the both of us when needed. The guy’s name is Tu Emo, and he has this laugh like a hyena that makes you giggle every time you hear it. He’s a bundle of never ending energy!
When I got to the surface
and learned that Ken was okay, I found out he had lost his snorkel and mask on his way up. So while we were doing our one-hour surface interval in between dives, two of the dive masters were out in the water with their masks and snorkels looking for it—and actually found it!
The second dive was far better. No equipment malfunctions or misplacement, no current, and Ken and I were able to relax through the entire thing and just take it all in. We saw a white tip shark just hanging out on the ocean floor until it decided there were too many divers looking at it and swam away. There were several schools of beautiful fish, and at one point I was in awe surrounded by a school of baby blue fish. We saw a starfish, a blue ribbon eel, another sea cucumber, and lots of beautiful coral. Ken scraped his hand on some of the coral, and even though it was a fairly minor injury, I think it freaked him out at first because it shredded the top layer of his skin and the blood looked green due to the lack of oxygen. But nothing a
little antibiotic ointment couldn’t take care of.
We had delicious swordfish tacos for lunch, then sat by the pool and watched Tu Emo do a demonstration of everything their village does with the parts of the coconut tree. He even made a basket out of the leaves and had us taste the juice and flesh from a younger green coconut and an older, riper brown coconut. Later in the afternoon we celebrated our successful dive day with a pina colada for me a Fiji Premium Lager for Ken—and a bowl of freshly cut French fries with a touch of paprika.
It was down pouring around the dinner hour and we were exhausted, so we actually had our dinner (mahi mahi, sweet potato, rice, and chocolate crepes for dessert) delivered to our bure. I left a piece of mahi out on a plate outside our door, and the plate has been licked clean this morning. Our rent-a-cat, Kava, and her partner in crime, a gray tabby we named Kasava, have been hanging on our porch numerous times a day to see if they can coax us into more treats. They are super cute and friendly. We let them in the bure yesterday, and Kasava made herself comfortable curled up on Ken’s suitcase.
Early this morning we catch a boat back to Viti Levu to meet our car to drive to another part of the island to catch a catamaran to our next destination, Matamanoa. Our stay at Beqa Lagoon has been very enjoyable, but I’m ready for a change of scenery and activities. Part two of the adventure begins!
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