Big Trip

We had a brief glimpse into Fijian village life today when we visited the next village along the coast, Ma Levu. It's obviously not a wealthy place - the houses are all very basic - but everyone seemed very happy. The land is all owned communally: they have 2,300 acres or so which they farm and live on. Everyone leaves their front door open all the time, unless they're away or asleep. One of the local lads climbed a coconut tree and knocked down a few coconuts for us to try. They were delicious, although the young coconut flesh, known as jelly, had a very strange texture. Then we were welcomed into the village with the yaqona (yangona) or kava ceremony. Yaqona is a drink made by soaking the ground up roots of a pepper tree in water. It's a mild narcotic, but non-alcoholic. A chief was elected to represent our party, and the ceremony was geared around him and his wife taking yaqona on our behalf. There are all sorts of speeches and a little ritual, with many cries of 'bula!' from the hosts and the assembled company, and the yaqona is drunk. When the ceremony was over we all got to try some. Erin declined, but Max & I had some. I can best describe yaqona as looking and tasting rather like dishwater with a hint of aniseed. It has a slightly numbing effect on the mouth. There was much imploring of people to take it in moderation, especially young newly-weds, apparently, as the emphasis is on bearing children, and the narcotic effect makes this difficult! It was only a keyhole view onto villae life, but there were many aspects that have been lost in the modern western world, I suspect, such as the sharing of food and care, and the community looking after everyone in it.
Then, ironically, we returned to the western world, with its easy wealth, swimming pool, plentiful food and nothing much to do. Mmm.