Fiji Flashbacks

After being in Australia for just over a week now and continuously finding similarities with the US – I feel very much at home. Twenty-four hour convenience stores, hurried walkers on the sidewalks, high speed internet, Star Bucks, Subway, The Simpsons, Greyhound Bus lines: what more could an Ohio traveler want? Coming from Fiji where wearing shoes are optional in the stores to the bright light high rises of Sydney is night and day. But before moving onto Australia, I’d like to share two videos of moments in Fiji. One of my favorites was an invitation for lunch in Kubalau (Koom-bal-au). It was a hot day – the kind where the air sticks to everything. Resting under a Frangipani tree, the cook invited me over to the kitchen to see the food being prepared. On the wood table rested a plastic bag with the creepy contents of what would become our meal. In the wild, the creatures can be spotted with their one massive eye just popping from the sand and are then plucked from their home. Properly prepared they have a rubbery chewy quality yet quite refreshing with lime, salt, and pepper they are truly a village treat.

I’ll keep you in suspense rather than identify the afternoon snack! Unless of course you may know.

Another favorite moment was mingling about town on Saturday mornings. The sidewalks, shops, and market of Savusavu are bustling with activity as everyone is coming in from the villages to sell dalo, yanqona, bananas, papayas, mangos, fish and to buy kerosene, bread, canned fish, Maggi noodles, and ice cream. The weekly pilgrimage also serves as an opportunity to get news of friends and family members living in other villages and by mid-afternoon folks have taken their respective buses back home. The video selected for this topic is a walk down the main street and then back again ending at my favorite ice cream shop, Charan’s Milk Bar.


PLAY "Lunch" video (.mov/4Mb)

PLAY "Saturday Stroll" video (.mp4/13.7Mb)