Odd sightings (8/14)

Riding to Suva the other day, I saw a very strange site. Seeing something peculiar isn’t in itself unusual. So far, I’ve seen a pack of wild dogs chasing a mare and her colt down the road, tons and tons of chicken sex (roosters are apparently very horny), a cow with utters so huge that she could barely walk, and a man pushing a large pig down the road in a wheelbarrow. This latest sighting though was bizarre, even for Fiji. We were half-way to Suva, in a nicer area called Pacific Harbor. I was watching the trees and houses wiz by as the mountains slowly lolled along. We came upon a river, and on the far bank was a naked white man. He was sitting on what appeared to be a black barrel reading a newspaper. The only conclusion I’ve been able to reach is that he was taking a crap. But… in a barrel? On the riverbank? Out in the middle of (what I think was) a park? Huh? It’s not like it was a slummy area. The houses were nicer than most in Suva. I’m SURE they had flush toilets. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe he was just sunning.

Speaking of “sightings”, the lodge in Tagaqe is haunted. One night, during the first week I was there, I woke in the middle of the night to find two young Fijian boys standing at the foot of my bed. I asked them what they were doing, but they just giggled. I assumed Sam was sleeping over, as he often did, and that the two boys were friends of his. Fuzzy logic, but I fell back asleep anyway. When I woke up the next morning, the memory of the little boys was vague, but I was sure it wasn’t a dream. Sam had not spent the night. However, it’s not that difficult to get into the lodge, even with the door locked. So, I assumed some local boys were being mischievous boys. I mentioned it to Zach in passing, but we both wrote it off and went about our business. During the course of our stay, other minor things happened. I came back one day from church to find my suitcase completely opened and rummaged through. I made sure to always keep it closed so spiders and roaches didn’t take up refuge in my clothes. Gwillyam and Lucy (from Coral Cay) also had incidences of things out of place in their rooms. Nothing was ever missing (except food, and that can be explained by rats and local larceny). Then, a few weeks ago, Zach woke up to find a boy standing in his room. The boy never said anything; he just stood quietly staring. Zach looked over at Gwillyam who was tossing and groaning in his sleep. When he looked back to where the boy was, he was gone. That day, I asked Sam if there was anything strange about the lodge. He said, “Oh yes, it’s haunted.” As if it was the most normal things in the world. He said that a family had lived there for a while and that when they returned from being gone for the day, the house would be completely clean, but things would be out of place. Damn it. Why couldn’t we be haunted by THAT ghost? Ours didn’t clean worth a crap. I had another sighting just before leaving. I saw a boy walk past my room towards the kitchen. I didn’t even bother to get up and investigate.