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Published: August 22nd 2006
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The other weekend I went with a group of friends to visit a traditional Fijian village to experience the culture and get away from the hustle and bustle of Suva. It was an epic journey, taking 6-7 hours each way from Suva. Jane and I started our journey on Friday afternoon, leaving Suva by taxi, bound for Sigatoka (a town along the coral coast heading towards Nadi). Our master plan of arranging a taxi that morning to pick Jane up from work then coming to get me failed miserable (taxi driver was a no show), added to the fact that Jane doesn’t have a mobile so communication was impossible. So 45 minutes later, we finally located each other and were on our way. The 2 hour drive to Sigatoka was fairly quiet, after the initial gossip session about the previous night, we both fell quiet. Thursday nights have become our going out night. There’s a group of people that we’ve met that always go to this bar and dance to the band. So by Friday our weekend has already kicked off so we took the opportunity to have some quite time in the taxi in preparation for the rest of the
weekend.
We finally reached Sigatoka where we planned to meet our friend Paul, who had been there working for the day. Communication again became an issue, mobile calls/text messages during the evening is terrible because the network gets blocked all the time. So 5 minutes out of Sigatoka we had no idea where to meet Paul, luckily we got a message through and it was all sorted. We had a pit stop, ate dinner, then drove the remaining 1.5 hrs to Nadi. By the time we arrived we just went to our hotel and crashed for the night.
With an early start we joined the rest of our group to drive to the Navala village. Our multicultural group included 2 kiwis, 2 Chinese, a French, a Mauritian, and an aussie
Our mode of transport was a ute with bench seats in the back. So the 7 of us, plus luggage, hauled into the ute and excitetedly set off. The first hour or so was on tar road, through Lautoka & Ba. Then the real adventure started, gravel road for the next hour or so. As we drove we passed one of the numerous sugar cane trains,
they are small little trains that carry the sugar cane from the fields to be processed. They are all over the West side of the island where the sugar cane grows best. Driving further north along the coast afforded some beautiful views of the ocean before we headed inland up to the highlands. As we came across a hill we caught our first glimpse of the Navala village, and it was fantastic. It felt like we were entering into a completely different world. We drove down the hill and crossed the river that runs past the village and on to our backpackers accommodation which was about a 5 minute drive out of the village. We met our Fijian hosts, dropped off our bags and relaxed on the balcony to have a cup of tea and pikelets. The general meeting place was on the balcony sitting on the straw mats, this was where we’d have snacks, drink kava, listen to music and relax.
After a rest we put on our walking shoes and headed into the village where we wandered around and just generally took in the atmosphere and chatted to some of the locals. We walked home and had
lunch with lots of yummy Fijian food, of which I couldn’t begin to describe. They have lots of different types of vegetables which make some great recipes. I ended up in the kitchen the next day getting a lesson on how to cook one particular vegetable (some green leafy thing) that I really enjoyed. After lunch we went down to the river and had a lazy swim. We contemplated walking up one of near by hills but decided that was too energetic so settled on a short stroll up the road in search of a vantage point to watch the sun set. As we were walking we passed a family going home, mum and dad were walking and the little boy was riding the horse, it was very cute. The most common form of transport we saw were people on horses. It was so peaceful on this hill, the only thing I could hear was the wild life. Felt like I was a million miles from the hustle and bustle of Suva. We came home just on dark and they were lighting the lanterns, there was no electricity in the rooms, so by candle light we had showers and changed
ready for dinner.
We all assembled around the straw mat and our hosts brought out the kava bowl and started making the kava. I missed the start of the process whereby they take the root of the kava and ground it into small pieces. We watched as they added the roots to the big wooden kava bowl and slowly poured in water. After a period of grounding the kava and water they got a handful of straw (that’s what it looked like, it’s apparently from some particular plant), he pulled it through the water to pick up all the kava pieces to drain the water. This is the part that looks like they are ringing out a dirty wash rag. The water had taken a murky brown appearance and once the straw had been pulled through the water it was rung to get rid of the excess water. Once the drink was ready we were all given small wooden bowls. They said a few words of welcome and then explained that the first drink goes to the ‘chief’ of our group. Naturally we hadn’t actually appointed a chief but they looked at our friend Paul and decided he was
our chief. So he moved forward, clapped his hands once, presented his bowl, said ‘bula’ and drank while the rest of us clapped our hands three times. Once he’d downed the bowl we all clapped. This process was repeated until everyone in the group had drunk a bowl. I’d heard kava was meant to taste terrible but it wasn’t that bad. I was told that it wasn’t actually a very strong mixture, so that perhaps helped. As soon as I’d drunk it my lips and tongue tingled a bit and felt slightly numb, it was a cool sensation. We all sat around chatting for a while, had a few more bowls of kava, then went inside for dinner.
After dinner we returned to the mat, drank more kava, and listened to our French travel companion play the guitar and sing. He sang some beautiful French songs, naturally I didn’t understand a word, but I enjoyed it all the same. After some more kava we all started getting very relaxed and sleepy (kava is a relaxant) so all slept well that night.
After breakfast the next morning we set off for a walk up the hill. Our guide said
Crossing sugar cane train track
On the West side of the island is where they grow the sugar cane and move it around on these lil trains. it would be five minutes from the village. I’m not sure what happened on the walk to the village but he must have decided we needed a bit more adventure. So instead of just walking up the path of the hill we walked along the river and walked/climbed up the river which included waterfalls. It was stunning scenery - but bloody hard work! But well worth it once we’d reached the top. By the time we returned home and had lunch we were all exhausted. I’m not sure how we managed it but on the way home a few of us were nodding off in the back of the ute bumping along the gravel road. Once we made it to Nadi we picked up the car and headed home to Suva. Unfortunately we had no cds or radio reception so we subjected ourselves to karaoke, it wasn’t pretty, but a fun way to end the weekend.
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Dans
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Sitting in my office in London, looking out the window at the lovely rain and wind outside... But no, I'm not jealous at all! Sounds awesome Fi! I've always wanted to try Kava!