Fijians welcome ‘kaivalagi’
(foreigners) by going out of their way to help and chat with you which was
certainly the case when we first landed at the village chief’s (Ismaeli) beach
at Mbutha bay. We were greeted warmly by
Ismaeli and his grandson, Molokai. He
had a very humble home on the road across from his beach but a very rich open heart
towards visitors.
Although we didn’t have time to visit Ismaeli on Sunday as
we needed to get to the eye doctor at the Seventh Day Adventist hospital (The Mission
at Natuvu Creek), he made sure that we found our way and extended an invitation
to visit with him the following day and for us to present ‘sevusevu’ to him. When
visiting a village in Fiji, it is customary to take a ‘sevusevu’ (gift of kava root) to the village chief - sevusevu is a
strong tradition especially in remote areas where visitors present kava root in
exchange for permission to visit a village.
After you provide sevusevu, the chief performs a special ceremony to
acknowledge his thanks and acceptance of you.
Sixty two year old Ismaeli sat with his legs crossed as he said his
traditional prayer – although we couldn’t understand Fijian, we knew that he
was very grateful and giving us his blessing – words can’t express the powerful
welcoming feeling that came across us.
He was a very simple man who lived off the abundance of the
land and sea - food such as ‘pawpaw’
(papaya), coconuts and mangos are relatively easy to grow in Fiji’s tropical
climate. We sat and visited with Ismaeli
as he served us coconut juice and pawpaw grown on his land. While visiting with Ismaeli, he told us a
story about how he got lost at sea in a cloudy rain storm with no compass to
help him find his way back. He asked Dennis
if we had an extra compass that we could spare with. Fortunately Dennis was able to find one and later
that day Dennis returned with the compass.
When Ismaeli saw the compass, he sat backwards into the water laughing
and shrieking with joy and thanksgiving – it meant a lot to us to provide him
with something so basic that could save his life at sea. What joy we felt as Ismaeli exuberantly
thanked us!
Ismaeli wasn’t the only villager who gave us a warm
welcome. Along our walk to the hospital,
we met Master Poni, a young 22 year old Fijian teacher who skipped several
grades and was teaching 15 year old students.
He was naturally curious and genuinely wanted to chat with us. He extended an invitation to visit his
classroom at Vatuvono Primary and Secondary School run by the Seventh Day
Adventist and asked MaryLee to talk to his class about personal budgets. He also gave us a tour where we got to watch
volleyball, see the library and meet the principal, pastor and other fellow
teachers. Poni was extremely interested
in seeing our boat so we asked him to visit Lardo. We told him that we could hear the students
singing and while he was on the boat he spied his students on the mountain side
tending to their garden so that they would have fresh fruits and vegetables to
eat. In the excitement of coming aboard
Lardo via the kayak, Master Poni left his shoes on shore – we think we saw one
of them floating out to sea.
It was hard to pull anchor from this village, but we
promised to return. As we were leaving
Mbutha Bay, we were flagged down by a lobster diver in his outrigger
canoe. The diver sold us two fresh live
lobsters for about $15. After a
hellacious trip in rough seas with a non working auto-pilot back to Savusavu ,
we finally got to eat our lobster about 11:00 p.m. while sitting at the mouth
of the bay waiting for dawn to break before we could enter the mooring area.
Just one last comment, free health care is
provided by the hospital staffed by volunteer medical professionals from all
over the world….MaryLee was treated for a sty by Dr. Walker, an eye doctor from
Homer, Alaska. After performing eye
surgeries on Sunday afternoon, Dr. Walker managed to find enough time to
squeeze me in, which I really appreciated as there are no eye doctors on Vanua
Levu.
