day at the beach

I've been trying to get out and around more, see more of my island. Last week I went to church in a village up the northeastern coast and then last weekend I checked out a village even further up the coast, right on a point across from where the bay ends. To get to the village you have to cross a bridge. It's literally on the coast. At high tide it was hard to tell where the village ended and the ocean began. I did a lot in a really, really short amount of time! It was great. The purpose of my visit was to check out a waterfall that the village wants to make into a tourist attraction. We hiked through this amazing canopy of cocoa trees, bright fuschia (redudant?) flowers, coconut trees, and thick overgrowth. The waterfall, below, is up a hill, with four big pools leading up to it and little waterfalls- I'm sure there's a name for them but I don't know it- all along the way up. It happened to be pretty dreary and the water was freezing but it was great. Beautiful. Very pristine, untouched, like most of the area I saw. We swam (it was freezing) and one of the women went fishing for prawns.


We went to the beach, swimming and fishing and exploring all there was to offer in the ocean. At low tide you can walk out to this island. The first creatures we saw were trees full of sleeping bats. Crazy with bats! They all got up and flew away when we came and I remembered that bats have super sonic hearing. Then we saw some sea snakes, which are as deadly as cobras if they bite you. They crawl on land to lay their eggs. There aren't many of them left because the mongoose eat them, I'm told, if they go to the mainland. Damn mongooses. Saw some sea cucumbers, starfish, cool creatures with long legs that looks like they could break except they were actually really strong and tough and the bodies were whispy little things. But you could pick them up with no problems. Saw some really cool sea shells. Went digging for small clams. Some people went diving for the giant clams, called vasua here. I saw the bright blue and oh so deadly big starfish, an eel, another kind of sea snake, crabs, and fish. They came back with oysters and a piece of coral just for me. I had to then give a lecture as to why killing the coral is a bad idea. When he handed me this round flat disc of coral I asked what they use them for. "Oh, for ash trays." My jaw dropped and my heart sank. Can I use any more cliches in one sentence?


We ate the clams, cooked with chili and lemon juice and salt. And later, when there wasn't time to cook them, ate them raw. And now I just find out they're extremely endangered. And I'm very very very mad at myself. But they found like three this day! And they had empty shells everywhere! Oh man. But they're delicious, and I don't blame people for eating them. I just wish it didn't leave me with such a bad feeling. This is the hard thing: they did it all for me. They went diving for clams and oysters and other creatures in gorgeous shells and coral just to impress me.

I also took a boat ride to a village accessible only by boat, with only four houses. I had tea there and delicious roti in lolo and "bani vakalolo"- literally a homemade bun soaked in coconut cream. Delicious. I then had this depressing realization that my village isn't really the ocean at all. It's the bay. We went in towards the bay, away from the open sea. I've known I'm in the bay, but when I really thought about it, it hit me.

They sent us home with brooms and coconut oil and sea shells and cocoa pods. Oh, and did I mention I taught them how to do the Chicken Dance? Oh yes. Fiji is soon to be rockin the Chicken Dance. We also did some "screw in the lightbulb" dancing and crazy finger pointing dancing. I think I should go on the road.

That's the biggest thing that's happened lately, other than actually doing big projects. We're still working on septic tanks and a footpath and prawn farming and a kindergarten. Whew.

In other news, I've been addicted to Gilmore Girls lately. I popped in a random disc which turned out to be disc 2, season 2. I'm working my way through the season and lo and behold, I discovered an episode I never remember watching! I couldn't believe it, but nothing about the espisode seemed remotely familiar. It was the one after Richard retires and Emily sends him to spend the day with Lorelai and Dean gives Rory the car. I realized I don't like Dean. At all. No, he just didn't do it for me. Obviously Jess wasn't all a peach but he wasn't drippy and dippy and had passion. I'm still very hung up on this even after how many years? I also discovered that I kind of don't like Lorelai. Sometimes I really don't like her behavior or the way she talks to people. And she's so patronizing to Sookie. And Rory was always just pouting and saying "I'm not naive" while Lorelai was just condescending even to Rory: "She's such a sweet innocent girl... She's so naive... She's so nice to everyone..." But I do love the show still, nothing can change that.