I don’t feel good here anymore.

Only actually sleeping for a couple of the eight hours that just passed, I arose from bed to look outside at an already bright and cheerful morning, feeling no cheer at all but rather…displacement. Regardless of the hundreds of villagers we still loved and were in good standing with, not to mention the great kids and youth members we were there for, we no longer felt wanted in Nakavika.

Eggshells and Emotions

I’m a passionate person with the inability to stop oncoming tears. If I well up, the drops inevitably must fall. Therefore, the fact that I cried a lot in the village isn’t all that shocking. However, when at home, my tears only come about once every couple of months – a periodic spring cleaning of my ducts, if you will. The fact that I cried virtually every day in the last month in Nakavika did represent something I had to address.

Garrett had been struggling with a feeling of discomfort for a while, distressed about making mistakes and not being accepted for who he was. Especially with all the trauma of the recent events, he dreaded the daily eggshells he had to traverse in order to not offend anyone but still be himself. Being the man in our duo, Garrett felt it was his duty to stick up for both of us (since my similar speeches weren’t acceptable as the female), and the battle of misunderstanding slithered deep underneath his skin.

The previous night’s antics, the screaming, the rash behavior, the slapping of the head (once again, we weren’t on either end of these actions), led us to feel truly uncomfortable in the building we once inhabited and cared for. And the verbal attacks by our neighbors made us irrevocably paranoid and fearful of a chance meet-up and subsequent scream-fest. We cowered in Vita’s house, sipping on our morning tea, and watched as one opposing individual stared us down and pointed at us while chatting with another man.

We didn’t come to Nakavika to cause troubles. We desperately tried to avoid them at all cost. How on Earth could we have known our mistakes except in hindsight?

The Shameful Switch

Ever since we met Vita and saw the love she exhibited to Jackie and our project, Garrett and I wished we could take her up on her offer of moving under her roof. Of course, upon suggesting a switch-a-roo to Abel, he instructed that it would be a very bad idea, a shameful moment for our previous host parents (even though they hadn’t lived in the house for a month while Fane was visiting her family in Vanua Levu).

We decided to stay put time and time again in order to avoid shaming anyone unintentionally, but when we no longer felt safe or welcome in Fane’s house, we decided to move houses anyway, hoping to explain convincingly that we just wanted to have the three of us together.

Sunday morning’s church service had the entire village occupied, or so we thought. The three of us approached the house for the first time since the blow-out and packed our stuff. When both our hosts appeared from the kitchen, Garrett calmly explained we wanted to join Jackie in hopes of being more productive with our project goals and alleviating them of our burdensome presences.

Garrett thanked them for all their hospitality on behalf of both of us and told them we’d be by often. Fane was ashamed of herself and pleaded we stay put. Weiss needed Fane to translate our actions and started ranting in a terrifying tone. It was not going to be an easy break.

Jackie helped us awkwardly lug all our possessions out of the house, and upon our departure, Weiss spoke up to Garrett:

Gah-ret-tee, are you leaving?

Yes, Weiss, we’re moving to Vita’s for a couple days, so the three of us can be together before our trip is over.

No, you can’t move.

The decision has already been made. We appreciate everything you’ve done for us.

Then, you must pay rent.

Pardon me? The Turaga ni Koro told us we didn’t have to pay rent. You were there and agreed with him. We worked for our rent.

No, you pay rent.

How much?

$500.

No, Weiss. That’s not fair. We all talked about this months ago and reached an agreement.

Then you have to leave the village.

Fine. We will leaving tomorrow.

The look in Weiss’ eyes was frightening. How could we have stayed in that house to avoid shaming them when we felt Weiss could pop at any moment? How could we have bridged our misunderstanding and left without causing a horrible issue between us? We appreciated all the kindness of the previous months, aside from the mounding issues in recent weeks that we tried to hash out. We gave them gifts, helped in the kitchen, washed dishes, kept their house squeaky clean while they both were gone. It didn’t matter. It was an awful situation.

A Very Sad Day-Long Meeting

There was no doubt in Garrett’s mind he wanted to leave the village the following dawn. Jackie was equally determined to follow the change in plans. Being Garrett’s partner in this whole endeavor, I had no choice but to back his decision, even though I wanted to stay longer to wrap things up with the kids. At that point, I felt like there was a fine line between tenacity and self-flagellation, but I was willing cry a few more times before calling it quits.

After sharing the game change with Vita upon her return from church, she placed her hand on her heavy heart and implored us to stay, if we could put the past behind us. She represented everything we loved about the Fijian lifestyle and mindset. She was the reason we thought the project had a chance, albeit minuscule, of success.

As we stacked our seam-stressed luggage in the corner, little Anna came to the door to deliver a note. The Turaga ni Koro (village spokesman) was finally ready to discuss our project agreements, unaware of our current situation. We scribed on the bottom of the note and sent it back with Anna to his hands:

We’d actually like to talk to you about a different, very urgent issue. We will come to your house now.

Regardless of the stress we were experiencing, I couldn’t get over how much I loved the Fijian trend of note-passing.

The three of us sat, cross-legged, in a row facing the Turaga ni Koro (and his many children rolling around doing homework). Weiss eventually entered the house and sat against the wall. Garrett began explaining the situation starting from the fundraiser to the morning’s encounter. I bawled silently next to him, my head hung low so the tears could fall straight to the woven mat between my feet. I felt utterly defeated.

Weiss and Turaga ni Koro (named Mario) spoke for a moment – apparently he still demanded we pay rent – but his efforts came to no avail. Garrett turned to Weiss to apologize, but Weiss wouldn’t meet his eyes. Mario stated his position as government representative in the village, therefore his diplomatic status, and took our side as the advocate for his visitors.

Abel entered the room later, unaware we were leaving, which he found out through the conversation. He nudged me to explain ourselves, but I continued to bawl. His face hit the floor.

Mario knew this would be a long day, and he invited us to lunch, which I ate while involuntarily doing my best Eeyore impression. Pulling out the big guns, Mario fed us succulent pineapple, three kinds of delicious meat, and encouraged us to go swimming with his lovable children, some of our favorite personalities in the community. Unfortunately, wading in the teal water with splashing kids on all sides, Garrett and I couldn’t find the joy we once couldn’t contain for this beloved pastime. Our souls were tapped.

When we arrived at Vita’s to shower before the second installment of our day-long meeting, the house was filled with the youth members. They told jokes, talked with us, and begged us to stay for the friendships and the children. After all the dramatic events and dissonance, it was absolute refreshment to hear our boys standing behind us. We really had made friends and been contributing figures in the community. They were proof.

Upon entering Mario’s house once more, we were instructed to drink massive amounts of lemonleaf tea, nibble on some boiled cassava, and attend their committee meeting, a three hour all-Fijian event we ended up sleeping through while children ran Tonka trucks up and down our backs.

When the conversation finally opened up to include us, we realized they had been chatting about how to make us stay. Passionate about our passions, supportive of our efforts, the committee dedicated to education and village improvement implored us to stay, each man speaking his piece at a time.

You cannot leave. We want you to stay until the 14th when you were supposed to leave.

We’re very sorry, but we no longer feel safe here, based on a couple people’s feelings toward us. When it comes to our safety, we have to act in our best interest. We appreciate all your support, but we’d like to alter the project to be run remotely.

You cannot leave. You can stay with the Turaga ni Koro and be his guest. I signed the paper saying you could be here until the 14th.

I know you want us to stay, and we appreciate that, but the decision is absolutely final. It is our time to go.

At first their rebuttals sounded like they would sooner form a human barricade or steal our passports than allow us to leave, but they were actually speaking through their emotions, knowing very well we were able to leave if we needed to. Hours of this passed before Vita fetched us for our last supper, a special final feast she spent all day preparing.

The Sunrise Departure

Once again, my stained ceiling stared back at me, the net entrapping a slew of swirling suckers. It was time to rise and depart. Our addresses scribed on a clipboard of Vita’s, she hugged us like children and saw our backpacks into the dark morning. It was a mournful liberation.

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It’s time to discuss our fundraiser.

Who Deserves It More?

Doors closed, suitcases gutted, and eyes the size of saucers – we finally took a look at the amount of donations we brought and accumulated between the three of us on the project. Thanks to our outreach pre-trip, we had quite a supply list to offer Nakavika. 70+ items of clothing stared back at us, asking, “What are you going to do with all of us?”

The daunting number of goods made us start from the ground up.

Why give the village donations?

Because the families’ farming incomes don’t allow for much extraneous spending – to buy things such as well-made clothing, bags, and games – we could provide these things to alleviate a little parental stress and bring some new fun to the kids.

If we don’t have enough for everyone, who deserves the items more?

We didn’t want to only use our donations as prizes in the classroom, which made us feel a little like cultural imperialists…or the witch in Hansel and Gretel. And to look at the families in hopes of finding the ones most obviously in need seemed like an insensitive, improbable path to walk down.

Instead, we started brainstorming other ideas, noting first the actions we would take in this situation at home and then looking at the world through Fijian glasses.

Would it be wrong to sell these items to those who want them most?

We received these items for free from people who wanted to assist the less fortunate with things they may want or need. Immediately, with this suggestion, we crossed into a delicate situation where morality and equality were our main concerns. Charge the Fijians an incredibly reasonable cost for well-made clothing (between $.50 and $2 USD). Offer backpacks at a much lower price than was available locally. Sell balloons and plastic rings for mere pennies to the kids who considered these items higher than Christmas presents (of which they usually got none).

Where would all the profits go?

Without a doubt, every cent spent on the items would go right back to the village, geared toward a project objective of supplying the public dispensary with excellent first aid and fever reducer for children. On top of the fundraising earnings, we promised to double the final amount with our project funds to buying more goods. By the end of it all, the village would have more material goods, more health supplies at their disposal, and most importantly, a feeling of empowerment and pride in the fact that they directly contributed to the health of the village youth.

It was an intriguing concept, but we had to first run it past our friends.

A Concept Worth Spreading

I believe told our idea to the second person, the word had spread across the entire village with clarity unmatched by any other “telephone” message. Though few mothers actually knew why we were in the village at all (regardless of our publicity attempts), no one misunderstood that on Saturday the “kaivalangis” were hosting a fundraiser, selling clothing along bags and other toys.

I think it is a very good idea.

That would work. I can give you permission to use the community hall.

Your clothes are better than our clothes. The price can be a little higher.

We heard agreement all around. The anticipation for the event was visible. Mothers made a point to visit us beforehand in order to know the exact time we would begin. And with Fiji time being what it is – completely relative – we repeatedly reminded them, “3pm on the dot,” which they clarified as “American time.”

Saturday morning, as we sorted the clothes and determined pricing with our Fijian mentor, Vitalina (the dispensary manager and “nurse”), we found ourselves encircled by eager bargain shoppers hoping to snag something before the main event. With every new pair of eyeballs that glanced in, trying to reserve items and displaying their fists full of money, we assured them of our guidelines for all:

We are going to start at 3pm in the community hall. We will have one representative per family, probably a mother, come into the hall to shop for each of their family’s children under 18 years of age. One item per young child is all we can do, because we want each family to have the opportunity to buy something. Only two people can shop and be in the hall at a time. This is because we want to speak with everyone and make sure you all know why we are selling things we received for free. We want you all to know where this money is going, that we are doubling the final amount with our own project funds, and that medical supplies for children will be at your disposal for free, because you donated a little bit today.

Continuously checking with Vita to see if we were in line, and asking Abel to translate to those with confused looks, we tried to cover our bases. It felt like our fundraiser had the most potential for success with our project objectives, leaps and bounds over anything else we’d tried. I was so excited, I forgot my camera and camcorder at home.

The Unfortunate Results of a Well-Intentioned Idea

Imagine the clamor of a crowded gym at a small town regional basketball tournament, thousands of feet stomping the bleachers causing the air to vibrate. Imagine Black Friday crowds shivering outside Walmart at 4:59am, eyeballing the unfortunate fellow about to rip open the doors and the stampede. Imagine wanting so badly for someone to hear your message, a message that would clarify a seemingly sketchy concept into that of a laudable and worthwhile endeavor. This was the energy of our fundraiser.

Children called to their mothers from the open windows the color and style of t-shirt they wanted. The door into the hall nearly busted off its hinges. We were cursed at from windows, and Jackie braved a verbal beating by a close alliance. We became invisible, our pleas for calm suffocated in an auditory wave. We asked with humor, asked with patience, asked with annoyance, asked with strangled force, “Please, don’t scream, so we can tell everyone why we’re having a fundraiser. Please wait outside patiently. We want everyone to line up and have a fair shot at getting what they need!”

We are Americans. We understandably function in ways that would be understood at home. We thought we were being incredibly fair, even against the deafening pressures from every opinionated person thinking like an individual rather than a community member. And we ran our methods past our Fijian gurus multiple times, fearing the potential for this kind of disaster.

Our treatment was akin to that if we had slapped a couple their children around. A level of disrespect we couldn’t have anticipated came crashing down on us. And what was most disappointing was that those who treated us poorly, which numbered in the fives, were the ones we had spent the most time with: our hosts and neighbors of two months.

What was meant to be an exercise that inspired the village to help itself and feel empowered became the toughest test of our patience and understanding and one that segregated the project from those we had relied on the most. Vita and the headmaster, our biggest advocates, stood behind us saying:

We understand why people would have been upset, but what they did was wrong. They should have respected the way you wanted to conduct your event.

Without their backing, we would have felt like boneless blobs of former humanity, hoping to slither out of the village unnoticed.

And Then the Bitter Icing on the Cake

We walked with heads hanging to our home to speak with the person who hurt us the most: our host mother. Seated in a circle in the common room with her, her husband, and Abel (determined to help us patch things up), we tried to talk to her about her blatant dismissal of our guidelines to get what she wanted. Our conversation morphed into something that made me thoroughly uncomfortable, and our twenty minute chatting session soon intermixed with violence, yelling, rash behavior (none of which we took part in) that eventually had me running out of the house to avoid.

Meeting the creek below with wet eyes and now muddy feet, I looked to the illuminated hillside and thought:

Gosh… what’s going on?! This is …like a movie! Ridiculous! Are we out of line? This isn’t how people treat each other. It’s like the Lord of the Flies… I can’t handle this anymore.

Walking silently to the school for some space, Garrett and I knew in our guts what the answer to our dilemma was. And oddly, it seemed the world knew as well. A full, blinding moon danced on the tip of a nearby mountain, conducting a visual symphony of elements across the sky. A mist, a setting sun, brilliant streaks of illuminated clouds, it was surreal and beyond imagination.

Man, this place is gorgeous. How ironic is it that the moment we decide to leave is the most beautiful moment of them all.

That night, we slept elsewhere.

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Drinking in the Pessimism

Luckily for us, the Rivers Fiji company was scheduled to have a business meeting in the village, and they drove their own 4x4 vehicle. We sat in on the business meeting, which unsurprisingly revolved around kava drinking and lots of Fijian talk infrequently translated into a few lines of English. We got to witness the tension, the patching up of issues across cultural borders, and most importantly speak with the company representative, Geoff, about our project.

An American, a weathered expat of many countries, and one very familiar with not only the Fijian mindset but the specific individuals we knew and dealt with, Geoff had the insight we needed to hear. After hitching a ride to The Uprising with him, we invited him to dinner as a thank you and an opportunity to chew the fat.

Photo by Jackie Knowles

Explaining our frustrations and tactics thus far, Geoff stood behind our passion to do good; however, he wished us best of luck at the uphill battle we were waging, sure to inform us that our idealist mindsets would leave us disappointed. After all that had happened, it was a struggle to remain as hopeful as we tried to be. Geoff confirmed out worries; it very well won’t work out.

But an idea struck me:

It’s not supposed to be easy to help those in need. If it were, obviously there’d be much less poverty and problems everywhere. This is supposed to be a struggle of the soul-sapping kind.

Laying the Final Project Groundwork

After rebooting our bodies and minds and developing the promised video of the funeral footage, we returned three days later to a village that was preparing for the upcoming start to the school year.

Photo by Jackie Knowles

With limited time left in the country and new determination to get things done, we decided to nail down some fundamental alliances and deals with the village in order to make the project a reality. Since Fijians love paperwork, we developed written agreements to sign between ourselves and the Turaga ni Koro, as well as one with Abel, our soon-to-be on-site coordinator. Unfortunately, just because things are on paper doesn’t mean they are made solid and observed. We made copies, distributed them, and awaited the inevitable haggling session on various points of the contracts.

The time had finally come to meet with the headmaster of the school, now that he had returned from the break. Our walk to his house, illuminated by the full moon, and subsequent meeting proved fruitful, as he established his support in our cause and quickly became that person we desperately hoped existed: the one who could bridge traditional Fijian understanding and progressive, global, academic thinking. We discussed the needs of the school and identified those steps for improvement that were in our power to take.

One of the most salient situations we noticed while meeting with the headmaster and teachers at the school was the stellar resource they had but didn’t know how to use: a library. An entire wall from floor to ceiling, lined with bookshelves and English novels, instructional books, encyclopedias, etc. -- it proved too daunting a task to figure out how to monitor the children in the setting, not to mention organize the hundreds of resources.

There seemed to be so much promise: a strong alliance with the educators, obvious improvements we could affect, and children who had already shown us they were capable of learning and applying themselves.

Our Final Fijian Outings

Though still feeling a little guarded, it seemed necessary to continue with our Fijian excursions to further train Abel in hopes our alliance would be sealed. Having already experienced the rigors of local farming, Garrett and I felt like lending humorous, moral support rather than joining Jackie in digging holes. It was obvious our help wasn’t really needed, so we joked around with Mario and Abel and recreated our fantasies of comic book action sequences in the Highlands. It was worthwhile work.

The next day, we took off in our flip-flops in search of the hot springs that flow into the Luva River. Having been there seven months prior, I thought I knew what we were in for, but a steep downhill trek through the jungle in slippery sandals wasn’t the memory I had. Though we were struggling, dripping with sweat, clawed by plants, and stressing the construction of our footwear, it was a very cool jaunt. Having enough of the slow struggle, Garrett leaped off the path into the exposed mud from a Cyclone Mick landslide.

Regardless of the emotional trauma we were enduring, the setbacks with the project, or the inability to blend our mentalities with our hosts, we were still very aware that every moment stomping around like Indiana Jones was truly awesome. Braving strong currents and painful rocks under bare foot, we made it to a mysterious hot spring, which had been further exposed by an adjacent landslide.

Easily 95°F and smelling of sulfur, the Japanese miners in the nearby hills were hoping to turn the springs into a 24 hour power source, most likely an attempt to schmooze the village heads for mining rights.

The Early Morning Routine

Photo by Jackie Knowles

We arose around 7am to assist the headmaster in the regular exercise of teeth-brushing. Garrett took centerstage, making sure every child had a toothbrush to work with. Some kids tossed their brushes over the shoulder to get a shiny new one from the bag. The rest stood poised with their bottles of water over a gutter in the ground.

The headmaster yelled each of the twelve steps one by one, the children following his instruction. Their frothy mouths becoming neat beards like Mr. Miyagi’s. The clouds rolled in the village valley, setting the children in a background of mist. Soon, everyone’s pearly whites were once again shiny, and Garrett went to the drawing board on his improvements for the routine.

At the completion of the hygiene routine, the rambunctious children we had known for the last two months got into formation and displayed their compliance with school order. From smallest to tallest, separated by grades, color-coordinated with those in their sports group after school, they became vessels for incoming knowledge, though the military stances couldn’t take the smirks of their faces.

We watched with smiles, feeling so hopeful for the next two weeks of school collaboration. It finally seemed like we could make something happen that would stick. It wasn’t the parents we should work with, it was the school and those who attempted daily to strike a balance between traditional mentality and academic excellence.

Little did we know this would be our last school day in the village.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PE6lgvOK3A

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How does that make you feel?
Go on…let it out.
It’s okay to feel these feelings.
Let’s talk about that…

We all shake our heads at the shoulder-patting, “aww gee”-inspiring cliches from the psychology world, but there’s no doubt they come from a necessary concept. When the traumatic, the all-of-a-sudden, the shocking occurs, our heads are wired to be in denial but eventually come to terms with that which changes irrevocably, and death is certainly in that category of things in desperate need of processing.

In the Wake of Death

Photo by Garrett Russell

After the tear-powered funeral and another communal lunch in the hall, all the kids decided to go for a swim in the muddy Luva river, thanks to the prior week of sobbing skies. We proceeded to frolic for something like five hours, all the while keeping our eyes on the kids who only hours prior buried their father. Eldest Mario continued to laugh with the same Goofy-esque chortle as he chased his cousins in a game of “He” (Fijian “tag”). The rest rolled sand balls to be thrown at passing runners and smiled off the cliff jumps.

I couldn’t imagine being so jovial the same day I buried my father. I put on my anthropologist cap and observed.

Chasing after those with fast feet, burying teenagers in sand up to their nostrils, dropping sand clumps into little boys underwear – the entire group had an absolute ball playing together. It was magnificent. Girls of eighteen got along swimmingly with boys of eight years-old. There were no age barriers in the mix, and everyone seemed to have put the day’s events behind them for the time being. Additional kids trickled in as the games continued, but no one left in shifts. Once everyone was thoroughly tapped, we gathered our flip-flops and returned to the village en masse.

It was an experience worthy of marveling.

Upon our arrival back to Nakavika, every vacant house had concentric circles of adults around the kava bowl. Mounds of used kava powder formed outside the doorways, heaps the size of gargantuan termite colonies. A steady stream of tired souls walked slowly to the muddy creek to fill the buckets for more kava consumption – luckily the clarity would soon be masked by the additional ingredient.

Dictated by Fijian manners, every host had to serve bowl after bowl of kava until the guest retired to slumber. And with tolerances rivaling Ozzy and Jagger, that hour rarely struck before the wee ones of the morning. The conversations inevitably got to the topic of surreal visions, because soon the whole village had similar night terrors of Elias walking amongst the living. Even though they were present to support each other, no one other than the priest seemed to attempt explanations of it all to ease the worried minds.

It was a bad combination of influences causing everyone to suffer trauma and confusion, and sadly, it was about to get too scary for us.

The Hike That Turned Sour

Photo by Jackie Knowles

The following day, Abel was ready to commence with his Nakavika Project involvement: coordinating morning events to educate the volunteers on Fijian life. Along with Paul and Ben, the six of us departed on a hike through the Fijian bush to visit the old foundations of Nakavika and the neighboring town of Navunikabi. Neil Young’s words were spot on:

The heat was hot …but the air was full of sound.

The views were as I remembered them; of lush, green undulating hills where everything grew on anything. Remembering my previous issue with hiking in clay, I wore my thick socks inside rain boots and bounded with much less hassle (aside from my still-open, still-delicious bacterial sores). We drank fresh water out of bamboo shoots, brushed white spiders off our arms, and got a much more personalized history lesson on Nakavika now that we knew every character by name.

We paused from all the river forging to eat our lunch of tuna, crackers, and peanut butter (not altogether, unless you were Paul). We arrived in Navunikabi a few hours after departing Nakavika, and with Jackie and Garrett having never been formally welcomed to the village, the chief’s son wanted to host a sevusevu in what can only be described as his bachelor pad (read mad stereo system). We were happy to take part in the one-round ceremony and meet the friends of our friends.

Three hours later, our bloods were boiling.

Living on our own, Garrett and I had assumed we’d be back by early afternoon in time to do some much-needed laundry, cook ourselves dinner, and conduct class with the kids. Jackie was anxious to witness the first class we could hold above a mouse squeak. The kava session turned into a three mix affair where the boys continued to thank us for allowing the reunification of friends from childhood.

When asked, “How often do you guys come to Navunikabi?” they replied, “Once or twice a week.” When asked, “How often do you see these friends?” they mumbled, “every time.”

They could have been continuing the process of mourning, chatting about Elias and working out their issues, but the amount of tension still infused in their bones and attitudes led us to believe it wasn’t what we would equate to a healthy gab session of problems.

Photo by Jackie Knowles

I stared at cigarette smoke while dozing on the floor mat. Jackie conked out for a good hour or two. Garrett twiddled his thumbs and took pictures of himself. They wanted to enjoy some kava, and it came at the expense of our afternoons (a concept that didn’t translate between our cultures).

It was yet another issue of relativity and timeliness that got under our skins, justification unknown.

Photo by Jackie Knowles

The kava affected the three boys in different ways. Ben was quiet and pensive. Paul became distracted, spastic, and dismissive at every turn, suggestion, or concern. And Abel adopted the I-Do-What-I-Want mindset, intermixed with kindness and aggressive disagreement. None of our navigators made us feel particularly comfortable, somewhat stranded there in the jungle, and I took the opportunity to pull Abel aside and calmly but assuredly state our issues.

He took it well, I thought. I put on my best diplomatic hat and thought I bridged a gap with the potential to last the test of time. Instead I think the conversation, the kava, and the recent events of the week pushed him over the edge.

The Game Changing Moment

This is the point in the story where I have to leave out a pivotal moment of our experience in Nakavika, the result of which made us realize our project may not be able to work. The spokesman asked that I not share it, as it wasn’t an accurate representation of the village majority. I agreed to honor his request. However, not noting here that something occurred would leave the rest of the story a confusing mess and our reasons for skepticism with the project unspecified.

It involved trust, responsibility, friendship, and most notably, alcohol abuse.

Unfortunately, the ways in which some people process the stressful and difficult in their lives is more destructive than anything else. Not feeling those feelings, not voicing concerns, not understanding the facts about their bodies, their minds and the realities of the world are dangerous catalysts to greater problems. Just as much as I know humans can exhibit the utmost strength, humans can easily be very weak.

We openly claimed some of the blame (the pressures and requests we voiced for the sake of the project), but the village elders assured us we were not in the wrong. And they proved to us beyond a doubt that one definitely does not define the whole. The next day was filled with shock, surreal experiences, and above all, comfort from our village friends. It was established we were welcome in the village, regardless of words or actions witnessed in the previous hours.

It is because of this event that I describe to friends our time in Nakavika as “dramatic.”

Garrett, Jackie, and I took the next carrier ride out of the village for a breather.

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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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I returned from our medical trip to Suva (where I learned I had at least two bacterial infections battling my body, as well), the same day we left the village, to a very empty house.

The Nakavika Project – 1

Living Alone in a Caldera

Explaining Garrett’s condition to the villagers was difficult, and many reacted more strongly than I expected. When various people told Garrett he and his throbbing foot would be “just fine” prior to our excursion, those same people hung their heads low at the thought of Garrett cooped up in a hospital room. It didn’t really matter that I said, “He’s not at the hospital. He stopped by once and has another appointment on Thursday. He’s at a hotel.”

For two days, I boiled rice and dhal for meals, invited the kids in for tea, conducted English lessons through art classes, led two seminars on nutrition to the adults, and organized the details of our project for its hopeful future. Abel came by often to restock my firewood and pretend to like my sad attempts at open-fire cuisine. However, every other waking minute he spent at our house, he was in training.

Our ultimate plan for The Nakavika Project was to bring volunteers to the village for two weeks:

• …to live with families,
• …to get in touch with the community and lifestyle in the mornings,
• …to conduct classes in the afternoons,
• …and to provide invaluable resources and materials to the school and dispensary.

And since our project needed a local representative, we decided Abel was not only the most aware of what we wanted of that representative, he was by far the most enthusiastic about the entire mission.

The Nakavika Project + a new one

Doubling The Workforce

Garrett rang the village the day after we parted to report he was feeling incredible, that the infection was nearly gone, and that he was heading to The Uprising in order to meet our first Nakavika Project participant: Jackie Knowles. Jackie was a former STA WTI applicant and a new travel friend in Indianapolis. When I told her about our impending journey to Fiji, she found herself utterly compelled to book a ticket and rough it with us for a month, using her jovial nature to bring the kids a little happiness.

I walked through with Abel how to take care of the volunteers if we weren’t there to help him out. We set up a host family for Jackie’s stay and informed the kids of a new TNP member coming to play with them. The village began buzzing with the news, and they started to see our project a little more clearly. It wasn’t easy to explain it to them at the start.

When Friday came, we commenced with our delicate plan.

1. Abel and Lindsay (2) board the carrier to town at sunrise
2. Garrett and Jackie (2) assemble themselves at The Uprising in preparation for our arrival
3. Abel and Lindsay go to Pacific Harbour to meet Garrett and Jackie (2 + 2)
4. All 4 hit up the grocery to stock Jackie and her new host family for two weeks
5. All 4 take the carrier inland at 1:00pm in time to have a late afternoon welcome class with the kids

But, our simple plan unfolded with a little help from fate and misfortune.

A Really Big Subtraction

As we were unloading Jackie’s bags from the carrier upon arriving at the cavern crossing, thirteen year-old Mary leaned into the emptying carrier to whisper something in her mother’s ear, who then leaned over to Abel and whispered the secret. Without even asking for help, every single box and bag of Jackie’s disappeared over the cavern on the backs of children and men.

Abel hung his head low.

Walking slowly up the hill behind Jackie, Garrett, and the caravan of bags, Abel said, “Something is very wrong.” After many talks with him about spirits and superstition, I could tell this conversation was one to be taken more seriously. “Tell me when you’re ready,” I put my hand on his shoulder.

We walked in silence for a kilometer.

We arrived to a very quiet village, unusually somber, especially on a day everyone was anticipating with excitement. No kids came running to greet Jackie. Instead they coagulated around Anna’s house, barely looking up to see us wander down the path.

The entire community of Nakavika is one family – an intricate web of families all related somehow. One hour prior to our silent arrival that January 15th, 2010, one of their members dropped dead of a heart attack on the exact spot where Abel noted the wrong air of the Highlands.

At that exact moment in time, 300 people lost a beloved relative – 8 of which were minus a father.

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After being dependent on others for a month, we came back with something to prove to the village.

Making the Exotic Familiar

Ten days of tourist comfort reminded Garrett and me how much we yearned for the familiar: reasonably pure water, meals with lots of protein, comfort foods, and clothing that had even the slightest resemblance to clean. Instead of being reluctant to return to the adventure, we decided to find a new comfort with what Fiji provided; however, this also meant we took a turn for the debatably worse. Thankfully we didn’t let the others closely witness the change, but we took it…there.

We became ‘Mericans.

Throwing our backs into the job of tidying the house, we scrubbed nature raw, paving paradise…in the ‘Merican way. Taking the pure produce of the Highlands and frying it into submission, we cooked with Fijian ingredients…in the ‘Merican way. Positioning our laptops near our work stations, we performed household duties while bouncing around in shorts listening to Lil’ Wayne embrace obscenity…just like the ‘Merican way prescribes.

Occasionally, we had a visiting mother come see what we were up to, curious as to why every piece of flatware spread across towels to dry in the hesitant breeze. The kids were ever-inquisitive, asking to play cards in our main room or shoot pool just to be in the presence of the beats. Most of the villagers found it surprising that we cared enough to scrub the walls and floors until the original colors were visible. It did seem a bit odd to make viciously clean what was nearly submerged in pure nature, but we were tired of being told not to do what seemed natural to us.

We wanted to feel comfortable, like ourselves, and because we had each other, we found an excuse to escape from the Fijian experience in our own American oasis.

Walking a Fragile Cultural Line

In the mornings, we were summoned by the neighbor children to come have breakfasts of scones, crackers, and tea. Though the fluffy scones in coconut cream were our favorite, we often wanted to experience our own breakfast routine (and infuse secret peanut butter into the menu).

Careful to not be offensive, we often explained that we’d already begun preparations of our own breakfasts of beans or oatmeal, sure to express our gratitude for the offer. The mothers always seemed pensive but understanding of our independence -- we hoped our wild excitement for Fijian jobs well done would be endearing to them -- but we soon felt them pull away and leave us alone for good.

Coming from a culture that encourages independence, we had trouble understanding why they didn’t find our domestic attempts flattering. We mimicked their cleaning patterns and adopted the motherly civilities, like acknowledging everyone by name as they strolled by the house. The ‘Merican oasis soon withered and became something akin to a typical household, as my sulu returned and Garrett took up manly duties.

When someone asked for help or a tool, we supplied them with what they wanted. And we continued to eat one or so meals a day at another person’s house, in order to be social and imply our continued need and appreciation for their hospitality. We still had a desire to be a part of the communal atmosphere.

However, after a couple days of exercising our domestic capabilities, it felt as though we couldn’t win both battles of comfort and acceptance. Our attempts to be comfortable while still submerged in another world were not universally well-received.

The Bi-Weekly Seminars

Even if our Martha Stewart tendencies didn’t merit praise, we still thought our new adult classes would give us brownie points. We appointed Wednesday and Saturday nights as class nights, careful to swerve around rugby practices, processionals, committee meetings, and days when people typically went to the city.

That first Wednesday, we spread the word: Tonight is Q&A Night! We were teaching their children throughout those summer days, and yet most of the parents didn’t really know why we were there or what topics we discussed. Additionally, people always seemed to have questions on health, hygiene, money management, and so on.

9pm came and went, and not one adult showed up, even after we confirmed the event with many of the main figureheads in the community. We sat in Fane’s freshly cleaned common room, thumbing the little pieces of paper and freshly sharpened pencils we had prepared for the onslaught of questions and opinions. A couple friends stopped by to see what we were doing. “We’re waiting for some of the adults to show for our Question and Answer session.” The boys suggested we invite ourselves to a kava session, or we wouldn’t be speaking to anyone that night.

The adults were busy with kava, as they were most nights. There was no special occasion, simply the occurrence of dusk. We became an afterthought, and though we knew no one meant offense by their absence, we couldn’t help but take some. Sick of the grog and its apparently necessary presence at every social gathering, we were not about to speak over the din of a kava party about matters of health.

We went to bed defeated, hopeful for success next time, and comforted by a spoonful of peanut butter in a spotless room.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_-gesdY-yQ

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However, these informational resources offer very current facts streaming in from the source of the new data. I don’t think Garrett and I found a science or health book in the village that wasn’t printed in the 1970s or a poster that wasn’t peppered with indecipherable vocabulary from a medical dictionary.

How could the Highlanders be expected to know how to care for their bodies with subpar resources and virtually no disposable income? They certainly tried, but there was one motivation most of the Fijians lacked that thoroughly worried us.

A sense of urgency.

The Man Who Wouldn’t Walk Again

The night of December 23rd, a group of men were drinking kava at a Nakavika home, as they do most every night. Having probably started in the afternoon, these men were thoroughly sloshed by late night and needed to return to their homes for dinner and bed.

One man, roughly 60 years-old, had trouble navigating the difficult stairs down from the house (as they are all on stilts) without a light. He slipped and fell hip-first on a rock, all his body weight crushing the impacted bone to the point of severe injury.

He was brought back into the house, left to wallow in the corner while the rest of the men continued drinking. They probably asked if he was okay and offered him a bowl, but since no one knew what to do, he was left unattended.

The next day, Christmas Eve, Garrett was called to the scene, being the most medically savvy person in the village at the time.

I was called to the house, expecting to see a young person with a charlie horse, and instead saw an elderly man with an incredibly swollen lower behind – his right hip the size of a melon. Unable to put any pressure on his leg, he cringed when I touched his right side.

By comparing the symmetry of his hips and the amount of pain he was in (there were tears) as well as the large amount swelling, it couldn’t have been just a simple bruise. This man had seriously dislocated, broken or damaged bone and/or tissue. I gave him extra strength Advil, rubbed some icy hot on the area, and left him overnight to see how he felt in the morning. I also asked the family and friends around him to pay attention and help him with whatever he needed and to come and get me or bring him down if he did not get better.

Garrett felt helpless. He could only hope the man’s family would sense his pain and make a move toward helping him recover, instead of leaning toward another bowl of their favored narcotic.

We left on the 26th of December for our vacation and returned on the 4th of January to news of the man just being transported to the next village for a good rub down. Instead of taking care of this man’s ailments, the village continued to lounge for the week of Christmas – daily communal luncheons followed by mass amounts of kava, and sometimes binge alcohol, consumption – and let him suffer for twelve days.

Where the Medicine and Mentality Fall Short

What most Highlanders, and probably most villagers in Fiji, do when their bodies fail them is make a visit to the local masseur. With a moderate knowledge of the human body, this man uses his “gift” to help broken bones look right from the outside.

In addition to this treatment, Fijian medicine is applied or utilized, in the form of topical rubs, infused teas, or other herbal remedies from nature. And though I found some of their methods to be adequate for sore muscles and paper cuts, I think most of us with access to even mediocre health care know rubbing your bones back together isn’t what’s best for your body in the long run. And boy, must that hurt…

I tried to calculate the cost of traveling from the village to Suva in order to visit the hospital for any particular problem. And since the village told me their care was free, that factor cut out a big question mark in the equation, as does free lodging and food supplied by relatives in town. Altogether, to visit a bonafide doctor could cost someone from Nakavika as little as $15 USD (this is by no means a researched and accurate estimation but the minimum for foreseen costs).

Most Highlanders don’t have that kind of money to throw around. However, the communal mentality of the village, the low costs of living and creating more crops, and the lack of materialism does lend to their ability to pay for the care they absolutely need while also having their necessities covered. Most wouldn’t see this medical cost to be pivotal.

Either pain is relative, non-Fijian medicine is untrustworthy, or matters of health are managed a different way (maybe spiritually); what shocked us the most was the sense that the non-suffering didn’t pity the suffering. And what was more interesting was that this standard of thought wasn’t universal. If we hurt ourselves, everyone stopped what they were doing to tell us how they wished they could take our pain and suffer it themselves, instead.

To us, it seemed a matter of respect. Why was it that when family was in pain, there was little to no urgency? And it wasn’t that they respected us more than their kin; I think they believed our pain tolerance was much lower, which could very well be true. Regardless, we felt for those who talked of legitimate chronic pain or painful injuries, because they didn’t always get the understanding they begged for.

Garrett couldn’t help but note the irony of the broken hip situation:

It began with too much kava, got worse because of kava, and will probably be dependent on kava to mask the pain for the rest of his life.

The Love for the Quick Fix

The South Pacific is known for its lackadaisical lifestyle – steady work for a short spurt in the day and a long, drawn-out recovery period – and this factor, in many respects, is something to adopt and treasure about these cultures. But this also means the Fijians often take the easy way out. When the villagers weren’t forced to listen to someone’s pain, they didn’t. And when they had an issue themselves, they sought the easiest path to the end.

It was universally known we brought first aid to supply the village – a point we hoped they would know but not abuse. Often, Garrett was approached about a pain or illness that needed to be medicated. When he first offered exercises and changes in lifestyle that would help the problems, they usually didn’t care. But when he offered a pill or supply, smiles stretched across faces.

They were enticed by the power of medicine, not by the power of knowing your body and finding the source to fix the problem. They didn’t know the basics. We wanted to teach the basics about health, then provide the medicine.

Our health initiatives focused on preventative while we also attended to the reactive, with caution. We hoped our words would strike a chord in the mothers, athletes, and farmers whose livelihood and happiness depended on their bodies. And in our struggle to educate, we realized how steep up an uphill climb we were facing against tradition and mentality.

We still don’t know if that man will ever walk again, but what’s nearly certain is that his pain will be chronic and only placated by that which brought him down in the first place.

We’d love to hear your comments on this topic, so please share this with friends and add to the conversation. Are you keeping up with our stories from Nakavika? Don’t miss a tale!

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My family is enjoying Christmas brunch.

I’m a pack mule walking a kilometer down the rocky road toward a bald cavern – one that I must then traverse.

My niece is probably opening her first present from Santa (or at least watching since her motor skills aren’t Olympic yet).

Garrett and I are flopping around in the back of a truck, sheltering ourselves from the mountain mist, and looking forward to a much-needed vacation.

Our families are enjoying holidays we’ve never missed before.

Escaping the Bush for the Coast

We time traveled. Teleportation was on our wish lists for Santa, but alas, the highlanders don’t have conventional chimneys. Instead, Garrett and I teamed up to form our own family unit this holiday season. In desperate need of R&R, we decided to see the side of Fiji that makes people drool: the beaches.

The original plan for our trip to the coast was to join our host mother, Fane, on a ferry ride to Vanua Levu, the second largest and most populated island of the 333 that make up Fiji. Her village near Savusavu sounded like a dream: two humble homes by beach and farm where fresh food is grown and private sand bars are present. Aside from the boat ride and low food costs, our entire trip would have been “virtually free.”

Of course, after two weeks of bodily battering, all we wanted was that marginal comfort of a hostel and the freedom to do what we wanted without justification. And because we attempted to whip together a Christmas vacation at the last minute, we encountered some logistical problems (e.g. no ferries left the week after the 25th).

I Thought Adults Get Privileges

A growing trend in the previous week was an inverse relationship between our mounting self-confidence and the village’s skepticism of our abilities.

Where are you going?
To the waterfall. We need to take showers.
Who is going with you?
Just Garrett and myself.
Do you know where the waterfall is?
Yes, I’ve been there about seven times before.
But who is going with you?
No one.
Do as you wish.
(Garrett and I go and return, unharmed and clean)
You shouldn’t do that alone again.

We understood that having two falsely confident Americans bounding around their territory could mean an obligation to our safety and security; however, we felt a little odd about having 5 year-old chaperones on necessary trips: to clean up, to wash clothes, to be alone. It was a “Blowin’ In The Wind” situation; at what point would we be taken seriously as people who can manage their own survival?

And when we wanted to take a Fijian vacation away from the village, no one wanted us to spend any money elsewhere in the country on overpriced hostels and beach resorts. Instead, we would be jumping from family home to family home and fitting our R&R in between tense culture-melding situations, all while paying for many taxis, buses, ferries, food, drinks, and treats for both ourselves and whomever invited us to join them. It was a twisted situation where we didn’t want to seem ingrateful, but there was a salient double standard and mild swindling going on. Top it all off with bacterial diseases.

Breaking Away

It was imperative that we take the true vacation we needed. Our bowels swirling like boiling pots, we told Fane we were going to Rakiraki, the northernmost point of the main island. After expressing our thanks for the invite and reasons for the plan change, she insisted we call her every day, or at least every day we relocate. And when our last interaction with her resulted in yet another misunderstanding based on money, Garrett finally voiced the opinion we’d been too timid to pronounce before.

How does one identify the line of acceptability when two cultures are a part of a homestay situation? When is the guest’s debt repaid, and with what? Money? Favors? Good deeds and help around the house? We felt our work with the children, frequent attendance in household chores, and funds covering out food expenses was enough, but all too often we were cornered to give more than was necessary.

Garrett and I boarded the bus, thrilled to have finally been heard and ready to relax after nearly a month of difficulty.

The Sunshine Coast

Bumpy, dusty ride north – I had the sweats. My body was in agony. Luckily, we met a cordial guy on the bus that loved our Namosi slang and helped us understand a few things about Fijian culture.

We arrived in Rakiraki at night, when all we could see was a distinct line where the lights of the city stopped and a grand mass of nothingness began. I hate pulling into my destination at night; however, it does allow for that creepy, yet surprising, awareness of where you are the next day.

Disembarking the bus, we ran to a seemingly friendly group of ladies and asked about the Volivoli Beach Resort, careful of our pronunciation since we learned voli was a semi-vulgar word in our learned dialect. After a haggle war between two cabbies, we ended up with a taxi bus/pimped ride manned by two giggle-boxes with hip-hop fetishes. We bounced to Akon with neon lights surrounding us in a dream.

Bags flopped to the ground in front of reception where we were greeted with a, “Whoa, you guys look rough.” We soon snagged rooms, flopped on our beds, and passed the heck out at 10pm, exhausted.

Have you ever been in a similar cross-cultural awkward homestay situation? Comment below and add to the conversation. Be sure to share this post and check out what we woke up to next week…

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