August 12, 2006

Yet again, it’s raining and cold. I didn’t realize that Fiji had a monsoon season. Anyway, Amy and I braved the weather and headed to the Tabu area to finish our algae collection and set up our experiment. We had to go out in the morning when the tide was high. It was frikin’ freezing! But, we were determined. Our resolved wavered when we got in the water though. The current was RIPPING! I’m not kidding. I was trying to collect a piece of algae and it took all of my effort kicking just to stay in one place. The sandy bottom was blowing past me like snow in a blizzard. I looked around at the fish, they didn’t seem to mind. It was just another windy day to them. To top it all off, the algae (actually a cyanobacteria) that I was collecting is only found way up in cracks and crevices of boulders and rubble… exactly where all the painful, prickly and biting things like to live. Through rain, sand snow and dark crevices I was willing to go! I forgot about the bone breaking mantis shrimp though. These shrimp like to make protective tunnels out of the cyanobacteria that I was collecting. I call it a “cyano-sock”. They don’t particularly like it when I rip their protective home to shreds, so they snap at me. It’s an ear-piercing, bone-chilling snap too. One that lets you know if it gets you, your gloved finger will be more like a sack of jelly when your bones are pulverized. So, I used my dive knife to try to coax out the cyano matt. This was essentially like opening a down pillow with a knife and trying to fill a zip-lock bag with the feathers in a tornado. I'm certain that I made some Damsel fish blush with my language. Needless to say, I didn’t collect enough for our experiment. Amy had similar problems, minus the immediate physical dangers, with the algae she was collecting. It was a frustrating day. But, we don’t throw away our lemons. Instead, we joined efforts and collected another kind of cyanobacteria for Amy to extract back in Suva. (She will extract all of the algae and cyano that we collect so we can study the chemistry). It was literally like collecting wads of snot underwater. Again, very frustrating. But, I managed to fill up my bag. Amy swam over to me, and I knew what had happened from the look on her face… Mother Ocean had reclaimed her children and Amy’s hour long collection of algae was gone. We know when our lemons have gone bad, so we quit for the day.
Amy ended up going to Suva. I don’t leave for Suva until tomorrow, so I took the most amazing cold shower of my life. I’m not kidding. I hadn’t showered in three days and was beginning to offend myself with my B.O. I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful it felt to shower, even though I was so cold from the ocean that my lips were blue. The water was freezing cold, dirt-brown, spring water from the hills, but it was one of the best showers I can remember. Then I curled up with a hot cup of coffee and read from The Poisonwood Bible, an excellent book. My clean feeling wouldn’t last long though. Let me tell you why….
A little boy just across the road celebrated his first year in this world, and I was invited to go to his birthday party. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see what a Fijian birthday celebration is like. Parts of it were very much like any birthday party in the U.S. – balloons, a big, decorated cake, everyone in party dress, lots of food and drink. The differences were that the “drink” was kava, the food was kasava, breadfruit, boiled chicken and octopus, and everyone sat packed together on the floor, elbow to nudging elbow. The experience was as if someone threw a bucket of water on a circus painting with the blurry sounds of screaming children, island music and fast-spoken Fijian blending with the bright spectrum of sari’s, sulus, balloons and flowers. I don’t know if it was the kava, or my senses being overwhelmed in a deluge of sights, sounds and smells, but I was light-headed and dizzy for most of the party.
The room was so packed that I was stepped on by large, dirty feet multiple times (most of the villagers don’t wear shoes). I also left looking like the loser in a food fight. Little kids with lollypop covered fingers piled over me. I had cake, fish, and kasava pressed into my skirt and for all intensive purposes, my shirt had become a communal napkin. Then, the dread of all dread... I had to sit at the “kiddy table”. One of the things that I remember the most from Thanksgiving and Christmas as a child was the embarrassment and resentment of having to sit at the “kiddy table”. Those feeling reared up, but it was even more embarrassing since there was only one “table” (a long narrow sheet spread out on the floor from one end of the house to the other) and I was the only person over 10 years old at it. Apparently I got the “special” treatment of getting to eat before the adults to make sure that I got some food. (I think that because I'm nearly a foot shorter and 75 lbs lighter than most of them, they think I'm malnourished). I ended up only eating two small pieces of kasava. I couldn’t eat, mostly because I was grossed out. It takes a lot to gross me out. First, I saw a little girl sucking on her lollipop. There was a huge fly stuck to it and she put the pop with the fly right in her mouth. I expected her to spit the fly out in disgust, what she did though, was to ptew! the fly into her hand and throw it at her little brother all the while laughing. I don’t know if the fly was dead, in shock or paralyzed by sugary goo, but it stuck to the little boy's shirt. I didn't see what happened to the fly after that, but I think one of the mothers removed the insect toy. Anyway, the girl kept on sucking her fly-vomit covered lollipop. (That’s what flies do, you know. They vomit on what they eat and then eat the vomit). Next, while eating with the children, I saw a girl with a river of thick, green snot running from one nostril down to the crease of her mouth. I won’t venture to guess where it went after that… but she kept picking up kasava and breadfruit from the serving tray, taking bites and putting the rest back on the tray. My appetite ran away in horror. Finally (not really, there is no “finally”) it seemed like every other person in the room had at least one digit in at least one nostril at a time. The resulting “prizes” were either wiped on one’s sari, the floor or flicked across the room. I have to say, though, that this behavior isn’t exclusive to Fijian birthday parties since I witnessed the exact same thing sitting in the living room of my ex-husbands parent’s house in suburban Atlanta.
I don’t know why I focus on such things when I write my journal. I think it’s because it makes for an amusing story. I feel kind of like prissy Rachel describing the Congolese people from Kilangwa in The Poisonwood Bible. I hope I’m not like that. I like the people of Tagaqe very much, and I really did enjoy the party. The children made me laugh more than they grossed me out, and they all seem very well tempered. One little girl in particular, Sarle, kept me in stitches for most of the evening. All and all it was fun and I’d do it again.