Being three foreign individuals unfamiliar with “the flow,” we had to shuffle and scurry across the village to capture the sudden moments that would unfold in front of our eyes.

Photo by Garrett Russell

The funeral days commenced, and the village became a complete organism that moved in harmony with all elements. All we could do was observe and document.

My Bovine Faux Pas

The day Elias returned to the village, the clouds released their girdles and let it all hang out, much like the post-cyclone days of ‘09. The boys of the village prepared to help truck loads of relatives traverse Namado’s cavern, which was slowly being covered with dirt in the first step of building the new bridge. I’m guessing this isn’t often said: the Fijian government had good timing in starting this project.

I was rushed to the scene with camera in hand, having been told Elias was approaching and I needed to capture his coffin coming over the dirt bridge. The crowds coagulated on both sides. The dirt turned to mud. Insects feasted on our waterlogged feet. An hour passed, and the only news I heard hinted the truck carrying his body hadn’t even made it past the first bridge on its inland journey.

Desperately grasping for timeliness rather than flow, I left the dripping spectators for my weekly call with home. I dangled my feet out of the doorway, phone to ear:

Mom, there is a cow staring at me right now. She’s huge and black and standing in the rain. I think she’s about to meet her maker. They already killed one cow today. I taped the whole thing. It was thoroughly disturbing.

…I think she knows I’m talking about her. She looks worried.

Photo by Garrett Russell

Having already witnessed one cow’s demise that day, I couldn’t have been paid to observe the second. Those twenty-five minutes of bone crunching and joint popping made me wonder, “When on Earth would I ever need all this raw footage of a cow slaughtering?”

The children crowded around the camera, one holding an umbrella to cover its weather-weary body and all filling my headphones with snickering and foreign whispers. I’m not sure what I was trying to accomplish by putting a wireless mic on a guy doing the killing. The sounds were beyond the worst from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The most upsetting moment came a few hours later, when I was told to join Garrett in the community hall for a communal meal. As I stood at the threshold, slipping off my flip-flops, Garrett tried to get my attention and persuade me subtly to not enter the room. He knew I would have some hesitation with the meal of cow innards he was working on. Confused, I motioned I’d see what Jackie is doing, but the surrounding boys knew what I was trying to avoid.

Photo by Garrett Russell

We offended them. Abel came running outside to see why I didn’t join them, and when he realized what Garrett had hinted, he was thoroughly ashamed. The stress on Abel’s shoulders melted into his words, and I felt like the worst guest in the world. Our maneuver wasn’t blatant, but the boys knew us well enough by then. I walked away crying, knowing I had let my hosts down in the worst way on the worst day for errors.

I’m no Bourdain or Zimmern. I am far from possessing a truly adventurous palate. To err in this way is among my biggest travel fears.

Elias’ Last Hours in the Sun

The village illuminated the Highlands that night. Few eyes rested, as it is tradition to stay awake on the last night with the deceased. I was milked by the day and collapsed in my room to the sounds of singing and bugs buzzing around the lights, while the rest of the community continued to move their minds past shock to acceptance.

Photo by Garrett Russell

In the morning, Abel brought us to the hall again for a communal breakfast of tea and crackers. I sensed some action afoot, grabbed the camera, and poised myself outside the neighbor’s house along with everyone else, just in time to see the casket emerged from its woven bamboo walls. Six of our friends hoisted it into the air, grabbing hold by the mat that cradled the entire vessel.

Stopping their procession in the middle of the village, the pallbearers lifted Elias above their heads, and his family and mourners began to bawl, passing under him in what was surely a monumental moment in the entire process.

Something caught in my throat, from behind the camera. I was witnessing a distant culture reveal itself in raw form. The ladies howled, hands atop their fluffed hair, and I shivered under the sweat coating my body. Wow.

Photo by Garrett Russell

The service was long, set to the sounds of belted harmony. A ribbon of people followed the casket from the church to the cemetery. Standing in a cathedral of leaves, we watched the widow and her eight children part with their father, many of their cries hitting high decibels.

Vittorina’s body heaved and shook against my legs, as she stepped back and sat, watching her cousins, sons, and nephews lower her husband’s body into the ground. Feeling her crouching frame against mine, it was unbearable to imagine the pain encapsulated within the adjacent skin. I cried for her pain, for the unfelt sorrow of her youngest children, and the next funeral I know I’d be soon attending.

And with that, it was over. People left the grave-peppered jungle floor to down more kava.

WARNING: Disturbing visuals of a cow slaughter from 1:39 -- 2:15.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9afrJHy1Jw

Any comments, questions, or anecdotes to share about any experience like this, your’s or our’s? Please let us know.

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Photo by Garrett Russell

Jackie, you’ve come into the village at an incredibly rare time. Gare, this is big. Abel just told me Elias, Mario and Eta’s father, just died an hour before we pulled up. He had a heart attack. I’m not sure what happens next, but all the boys are stressed and silent. I asked what we can do, but no one had an answer. Let’s just make some coffee and crackers and wait until they have some instructions for us.

The air was wet and heavy. We didn’t know it at the time, but it was the start of our project’s downhill descent into disarray.

Speak Softly, It’s Mourning

We cancelled Jackie’s welcome class with the kids and offered her to stay with us for the night, while the village took care of the funeral arrangements and her host family dealt with their shock. However, it seemed her hosts were still in a hospitable mood and had dinner waiting.

Feeling for our “home alone” situation, Vita insisted we join her dinner table alongside Jackie. We didn’t protest. She wanted to mother us in the midst of the uncontrollable; her kindness was unwavering. And when Garrett burst out laughing during the meal, she smiled and said:

Oh, Gah-re-tee, you must lower your voice because we are in mourning.

Her instructions were spoken with understanding rather than disappointment, and with that, we found our new Fijian guru, our go-to on everything we couldn’t understand about the village.

With a long day of carrier rides and frantic errands behind us, I was too pooped to attend to the fundraiser that night. Though fundraisers are a festive occasion, the spokesman didn’t cancel it in wake of the recent death. The funds were to go to a local girl’s university fees for medical school, so it went on, albeit with a somber tone, and Jackie got her first glimpse of kava culture, while I snoozed off a day of pain.

My First Broken Bone

I popped some Aleve and closed my eyes, reliving the day.

Photo by Jackie Knowles

Earlier that morning, as Abel and I ran to meet the carrier at sunrise, my flip-flop broke, forcing me to grab it and awkwardly run half-barefoot downhill on the rocky kilometer between the village and carrier. Only able to see a few feet in front of me due to my head lamp illumination, I didn’t see the mound of road apples with adequate time.

I tried to clear it and ended up falling dramatically, my tumble only to be halted by Abel’s quick save. My pants ripped, my clothes muddied, and my second toe folded in half under the weight of my falling body. It grew incredibly numb. I cursed the dark skies, but Abel’s concern and kind words made me think, “I don’t have to get pissed right now if I don’t want to.” I hobbled the rest of the day, in utter pain, but continued to smile.

The next morning, both joints on my toe were bruised and stiff. I had trouble walking for weeks.

The Communal Effort

Boys started darting from Nakavika to inform the various neighboring villages of the passing of Elias. Our young friend, Anna, constantly had adults in her house crying and praying with the widow, Vittorina. People made trips into town to bring the vast amounts of food needed for the expanding village come funeral time.

We didn’t know how to contribute and express our sympathies. Asking a few select people, the answers ranged from nothing to big donations of money, depending on the nature of the person. It was an awkward situation to be in.

Photo by Garrett Russell

We landed on offering our services of documentation, hoping to create a memory for the family and the village of the entire process. Most of the residents were distraught by the unexpected death, and our coverage was something unique we could offer that they were unable to provide themselves. However, many had trouble understanding we would make a movie in the end, not just show them what we filmed right after the record button depressed.

The Shift in Normalcy

Photo by Garrett Russell

Attempting to make Jackie’s experience of the village as typical as possible, we showed her our classes, utilized the numerous donations she brought, and took her on our regular excursions. Seeing Jackie navigate the difficult terrain to our favorite watering hole, Garrett and I realized how far we had come in our Fiji time. We ambled without much difficulty, a vast improvement from our starting points. Even with a newly broken toe, I no longer went at .3 miles per hour.

As the funeral date approached, more and more family returned to the village. And with the influx in mouths came an influx in slaughterings. Living closest to the underground lovo oven, men started using our house as HQ for every pig and cow undertaking. It became a regular occurrence to hear desperate squeals while reading a book or taking a nap.

The long hours of cooking meant the men camped out and needed our supplies regularly. Taking into account we were the foreigners in the equation, I tried to avoid getting angry at the unwashed flatware, the missing food, the broken glasses, the cigarette smoke constantly wafting into my room, and the frequent inquiries to use our head lamps to their bitter ends…with bloody hands.

I forgot the normally reserved etiquette of the women in the village and took the male disrespect of our house very personally. Imploring the spokesman for his help, I hoped I could get the men to clean up after themselves and not ruin the house I was in charge of maintaining. It wouldn’t have happened under Fane’s watch, but I don’t think she would have expressed her similar thoughts to the men if it had.

My pleas didn’t stop the men. Our food continued to disappear, and I think I only added to the rapidly mounting stress of those around us.

The entire week was a delicate tap dance. Should we pull away during this difficult time for the village? Would that be hurtful to not participate in the funeral process? Or should we infuse ourselves into the situation? What is customary and acceptable for us to do in order to express our sympathies and desire to help? Are people using this opportunity to take advantage of us? Should I feel disrespected by this treatment and act upon it? Am I out of line speaking this loudly or encouraging the kids to sing our hygiene jingles? Am I supposed to act like a Fijian woman or act like myself? Will they tell us if we’re doing something wrong?

Tapitty-tap-tap. We danced ourselves closer and closer to a dangerous edge.

How would you have dealt with the issues we had during this stressful week? Have you experienced a similar situation as a foreigner in a small community? Comment below and share this post to keep the conversation going!

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Today, I could eat something crazy, go some where amazing, end up crying, hurt myself, receive a phone call, get charged by a wild boar, who knows…

One such morning, Abel ordered us to grab our sulus and hiking shoes and head to Navunikabi, a village 8 km away by foot over the nearby bushy hills. His cousin had died.

Wobbling awkwardly in my rain boots, a favored hiking shoe when the soil is slick, I gritted my teeth as each of my open sores rubbed against the bending plastic with every lunge up the hill (darn you, tropical bacteria). We crawled over shattered bamboo patches, croutched through caves of foliage, weaved through tight openings in the trees, and slid down an extreme pitch to finally ford a river at the village’s periphery.

I pulled off my rain boots to dry and was immediately carted off to the women’s gathering, while Garrett walked toward a sea of men drinking kava. Moments later we both emerged from our respective houses, making lines to the home where the wake would take place -- I in a sulu-i-ra sprayed with perfume (to wrangle a man, supposedly).

Prior to entering the home housing the wake, the women were all smiles, picking their fluffy hairstyles round and rolling mats to present to the family of the deceased. Crossing the threshold, these same women crouched and sat in the closest space (the proper Fijian way) and began wailing into their handkerchieves. The sound was odd; I looked behind me subtly to see what it was. It didn’t sound like crying -- more like the way my brother used to mock me when I would get upset as a child. Someone flipped a switch, and these normally stoic and collected ladies were a mess. It was their time to mourn audibly. I don’t think they get many opportunities.

The deceased was a woman of 88, her body still in Suva being prepared for the subsequent funeral. The mats sat in the center of the room next to the presiding villager holding a whale’s tooth. I could only inquire about so many features of the visitation before I got into untranslatable territory. What I gathered was that the mats and whale’s tooth went to the next of kin, which in this case was an uncle. Though this initially didn’t make sense, a woman of 88 being survived by her uncle, I remembered Fijian siblings can span decades.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRkyij3Kigc

A woman of 88 passed away, and I was surrounded by sobbing. I couldn’t help but think of my ailing grandma, who was turning 88 in a week, and I choked back the tears I know would have seemed odd in this setting coming from an outsider.

When my legs fell asleep, the women near me sensed my discomfort and assured that I could extend my legs. Of course, soon after, the kava bowl made its way to me, requiring that my tingling legs be sucked back in. It was a delicate dance in proper behavior, for Fijians often switch from informal to formal at a moment’s notice and often hint the switch to you in the subtlest manner. Out, in, out in -- it was hard to know when I was allowed to regain feeling in my lower half. I nearly toppled over, and the slow consumption of a narcotic didn’t make it easier.

Garrett sat next to the tallest man in the Namosi province, Phillip, a man I met on my first visit to Nakavika -- a man I didn’t imagine would be the tallest much longer, thanks to his ravenous appetite for nicotine. Grabbing my camera, Garrett went to see the body mass, formerly known as cow, be cut apart and prepared for visitors to take home in chunks. “What were we going to be eating…” was the question on our minds.

Thankfully, it wasn’t the same organ soup the rest of the table received when lunch started. For the first time in a long time, we ate meat, actual muscle with protein and adequate energy, and the broth was delicious. Never mind that my stomach, thinking it went veggie, had quite a hassle digesting that throughout the next 24 hours.

We came, completely unprepared. We sat and watched, our eyes as wide as eggs. We ate, thankful for all the awkward, cultural situations that were avoided. We experienced a ritual that went completely over our heads. And when it was all over, we waded in the Luva, talking about life, culture, comfort, and death. A piggy squealed in the distance, being chanced by dogs and kids. He was about to join the likes of the cow.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9afrJHy1Jw

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