I heard the crying first. Initially, I thought it was a child screaming and crying. Then the crying intensified and I started to get worried. I was in my bure, it was around 10 am on a Saturday. I stepped outside and women were coming over to my family's house across from me carrying their kids, grandkids and hankies. My first thought was the family's son who is a soldier in Iraq. I had just talked to him on the phone the day before. But when I asked what happened, they said, "Tata Kimi sa mate" (Daddy Kimi died). "What?" I had to ask, just to be sure I heard correctly. Apparently he was returning from the farm when he had a heart attack and died. I cried, and went to join the rest of the women. Mourning is very public in Fiji. I haven't decided yet whether that's a really good thing or not. On the one hand, everyone gets it all out at once and then moves on. So all the women gathered to cry together, loud wailing and sobbing. But this was such a surprise. Everyone was- still is- in shock. He was 53 and in fine health. His wife, who is much younger, is pregnant with their first child. This is a man who is hugely involved in the village. He is a carpenter and I was working with him on many projects. His biggest project is the church. He is on the right hand side in the picture above. So, last week was spent preparing the village for the funeral. It was a huge funeral. Mon- Wed we cut the grass, raked, weeded, prepared the eating hall. Thursday we started cooking and guests started arriving. Friday, more cooking, the funeral and serving all the people. I was so tired. I had to do most of the food serving (I was assigned that area), which is fine because people are fascinated to see me and see me working like a Fijian girl and they want to speak with me and gawk. It was fun. Sunday things finally got back to normal, sort of. I think all the guests left yesterday. It's put everything else on hold.
What else... other than that things are going well. Busy.
Last week I FINALLY got to go fishing with the women! They didn't actually tell me we were going fishing but I got so excited to go swimming in the ocean and it was so hot that I jumped at the chance! We rode the bilibili (bamboo raft) out to sea and there they set up their net. I went with two women. Each one holds an end of this big net. Then they make a circle, stir up the water, and close the net to capture the fish. Then they wait, and check to see what they got. I held the bag while they bit the heads to kill the fish. I decided I have to be a vegetarian for real again and I can't eat fish anymore. And I don't think I want to go fishing with them anymore!! I probably will, because it's the only time I can really go to sea. Let me tell you, it is so gorgeous. So amazing! We went as the sun was going down. The view as the sun sets behind the mountains and the glare of the sun lights up the village, and clouds come into view through the forest and the coconut palms wave... spectacular. And in the other direction, there's water. Blue blue water. Waves and sun and sky and fish jumping. It's really h ard to imagine the rest of the world somewhere out in that expanse of water. It was an exciting end to the day, though. We caught seven big ones, kanace (the Fijian name) and a another smaller type. A pretty good catch. But it was nothing like the really huge, I mean HUGE, fish they caught from out by the reef for the soko.
This is at the funeral- we say it's a soko- and Mela is fishing. The Catholics here also don't eat meat on Fridays during lent, and the 7th Day Adventists don't eat meat either so there was a shortage of fish. So, the women sat on the river (we did all the cooking right there, too) and fished and then fried it up for dinner.
At the burial
It was a Catholic funeral.
The meat that the men slaughtered and the women stayed up all night cutting/ preparing
Taking a break after all the animals (7 pigs, 2 cows, a bunch of fish) have been slaughtered.
This is one of the pots- seriously, you could fit like five kids in here. The witch that would've cooked Hansel and Gretel, would have had a pot like this. Sorry the pictures look so bad- there was so much smoke!!!
Cutting the meat
Baking pie for morning tea
This is called waitai: scraped coconuts, water, sugar, breakfast crackers.
Pounding scraped coconut to make lolo, a coconut cream used in just about everything here.
Weeding
My kindergarten (kidi) kids and Fruit Roll-ups
Kasa finger painting.
The older kids
My gang
Waiting for the school bus
3 comments:
I thought Seventh Day Adventists ate white meat, no pork, and preferred to stay away from red meat? I know a few hardcore who go vegetarian (my parents for one), but from what I know, adventists in general do eat fish, chicken, occassional red meat save for pork.
Wilson:
I'm only speaking from my experience in my tikina. It's possible 7th Day Adventists do eat white meat. The family I stayed with recently had some 7th DA and they ate fish and chicken and beef. At the funeral we had, our guests didn't eat beef or pork, which is what was primarily served.
I'm starting to feel a little guilty now after reading the article >< My parents rib me for my meat eating choices, pork included! I'm so doomed XD
Post a Comment