Sunday, September 18, 2005

Filing the cane knife

“I am filing the cane knife” - this is an expression used among the Deaf to indicate they are preparing to “kill” you because you have not done something such as missed a meeting or turned up late. Cane knives are the equivalent of say a pair of scissors, every household has one, they are used for a range of tasks (cutting grass, cutting coconuts, digging a hole, chopping up a goat, threatening a person). I am sure they are used for cutting sugar cane as well in the farming areas. “Filing the cane knife’ for say someone who is late needs to happen often because Fiji time is late time. I was in Lautoka on the western side of the island to do a workshop this week. Four of us went to deliver the workshop. We agreed to meet for breakfast at 7.45 am and then leave at 8.15 am. We all left the breakfast room of the hotel we were staying in at 8.15 (already late) to go to our rooms and prepare to leave. One of the presenters decides to have his shower at this time! So of course we were late. We had told everyone coming to the workshop that it started at 9 am but in actuality we were starting at 10 am for this very reason! Sure enough by 10 am almost everyone was there ready to start.

Lautoka is on the western side of Viti Levu (Big Fiji) and is a sugar cane town. It is amazing the difference in the landscape and feel of the place when it is only 200 or so kilometers from Suva. Lautoka at this time of year is harvesting sugar so the roads are clogged with old trucks laden with cane going 20 km/hr and belching black smoke. The loads of cane are so wide that attempting to overtake these trucks is pretty risky (only for an Australian like me who is used to much more controlled road conditions). The West as we say here is coming into mango season. Mango season does not happen till November in Suva. The trees are laden with mangos in Lautoka. Mango trees are big anyway but they look like they are groaning under the weight of the mangos. There are also many different varieties in the West. Big long red ones, short stumpy splotched green ones, smooth grey-green ones and nice juicy yellow ones. I remember when growing up in Fiji, the mangoes were 20c for a pile of 5. Now they are $1 to $2 for the same pile. Lautoka is also noticeably different for the Indian population which is present in larger numbers. They run all the big businesses in the West. You see more Indians wearing their traditional clothes, Indian temples and restaurants and people in general. The West is also hotter, drier and dustier. There is less rainfall due to the volcanic mountains that divide the island in the middle.

It takes about 4 hours to drive to Lautoka. I find driving stressful. You have to share the road with pigs (both animal and human), cows, mongoose, goats, horses, people, children running around, trucks going 20 km/hr, buses going 30 km/hr, maniacs on P plates going 120 km/hr, potholes and taxi belching plumes of black smoke. Animals on the road is so much of a problem that the police are doing road blocks and handing out pamphlets to drivers advising them to lock up their animals etc. The other hazard is speed humps which are located when you pass through a village. Many times I have gone over the speed hump at 80 kms/hr because the sign letting you know about them is 300 metres before the first one and by the time you reach it you have forgotten about it. The humps are also hard to see (faded white paint) and there is no sign at the actual hump to tell you it is there. The national limit is 80 km/hr. It seems that you either have vehicles going very slow or very fast and nothing much in between. Roads are narrow and rarely 2-lane. It is actually hard work obeying road rules. Being stuck behind a cane truck going 20 km/hr AND belching black smoke in your face when there are double lines is very frustrating when you are trying to be ‘good’ because it seems that everyone around you doesn’t bother. Overtaking is a bit of an art-form here. I need to get into the groove of it. People overtake over very short distances and it does not seem to be considered rude to leave a whisker between you and the on-coming vehicle. My co-workers are always egging me to overtake when there are double lines and we are stuck behind some slow car. It seems I am too cautious. I have to learn this art-form because otherwise the frustration gets too great. I am regularly gesticulating and pulling faces when I drive.

I am finding that Fiji-English is starting to pepper my talk. “A” to refer to one object or person is rarely used here. “One” is used instead. So you have “Give me one drink”, “I saw one girl walking there”, or “I give you one slap!”. The word “empty” is also used differently here. Roads are empty (no traffic), my nose is empty (no mucus) and please eat all your food so your plate is empty. “Farm” is used to refer to any patch of land that grows food (dalo and tapioca). People talk about using their spare time to work on the farm which is located 500 metres from their house which is in a suburb of town. I laugh when I think about the size of Aussie farms. White people are talked about as being bold and have no problem “telling on the face” - meaning being upfront and saying what they think.

Developing a social network and making friends is a challenge here as well. If you ask people to go to the movies or go to dinner, they will say yes, but you might end up paying for everything. You cannot assume that people have the money to go out like I have taken for granted in Australia. People will contribute if they can but otherwise it is expected that you will pay. The local wages here are just not enough for some people. I have found myself getting resentful at having to fork out the money but if I don’t, I don’t socialise or end up having to do things on my own. I think that over the years I have become blase about money and have taken having it for granted. The people I work with don’t buy chocolate or cheese as they are just too expensive. There are cheaper options around. But because I am not used to eating those, I buy chocolate and cheese and this just adds to their perception of me as being rich (which I am). The concept of sharing is also something else that I struggle with. If you buy something to eat in public then you have to expect to share it with whoever is there. It would be rude if you sat there and ate your packet of chips without offering it and then insisting that they have some. You don’t buy individual cans of coke, you buy a litre so that you can share it with everyone and all have some.

Carbohydrates are a big part of lots of people’s diet. It is cheap and there are lots to choose from, rice, bread, dalo, potato, tapioca and roti. I went away on a week long camp as part of my research work and everyday we had rice for dinner and bread for breakfast and then more again for lunch. Many people will just eat bread and tea for breakfast and even dinner. My weight seems to be stable, the consumption of carbs being balanced out by regular bouts of diahorrea.

My sense of modesty has changed since being here. I may as well throw my swimmers in the rubbish. I don’t think I will ever be wearing them unless I go stay at some 5 star resort but by then I think I will feel self-conscious with the national sense of modesty having been assimilated into my own. I have been swimming with the people I work with at the beach fully clothed, this includes the men. While in Lautoka, we stayed in a hotel that had a pool. After our work for the day was over we all decided to have a swim. The boys wore shorts and singlets. I had to borrow some shorts from one of the boys and then wear 2 t-shirts so I would not display any erect nipple effect. While the rest of the western world has evolved from wearing clothes to g-strings, Fiji has evolved from wearing grass skirts to being fully clothed. This is thanks to the import of Christianity in missionary days. There maybe an added influence from the Indian community as well as I notice that in beach scenes in Bollywood movies, the girls while wearing a bikini top, will rarely wear bikini bottoms.

I know I have been writing less and less in my email blogs. This is partly due to being busy and life here starting to lose its novelty value. I am less puzzled and more absorbed in what I am doing - which is good.

I hope you are all well.

Kate

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