Rugby Fever

One of the reasons I left Australia was to get away from a country that was sports mad. I have come to the wrong place. This country has less sports to get mad about but it is certainly rugby mad - Rugby Union to be particular. The Deaf even have different signs depending if you are talking about 7-a-side, 12-a-side or 15-a-side. Thankfully over the years I have heard my brother and father chat about rugby and I must have absorbed some of their talk enough to know what 7, 12, and 15 are referring to and that in Australia we mostly play 15-a-side I believe.

The Hong Kong Sevens tournament has been on and for the past 2 weeks everyday in the paper has been some detail about the preparation of the players. There have been columns in the paper about the shameful way people are not turning up to church because they are watching the rugby and that even more shamefully some churches change the times of the services so people can watch the rugby and not be unfaithful. There have been comments about the fact that God has chosen in the past, because of this shameful behaviour to make the Fiji team lose and what will happen this year?

I have been swept up into the fervour of Fiji rugby and watched TV in Fiji for the first time on Friday. The Fiji team is impressive. They are fast, nimble, throwing and passing the ball skillfully and when they go for a goal, they make it look like they are just having a warm up jog down the side of the field. The commentators have been talking about the ‘men’ of the Fiji team having to play the ‘boys’ of Portugal, Hong Kong, Japan etc. So tonight is the final. I will go next door and watch TV with Salote who lives in the bure attached to our house.

GO FIJI GO!!! They won displaying the skills that make them the best in the 7’s. As I watched the game with Salote at home, she told me she could hear people yelling and screaming all over the neighbourhood. Then when they won, there was even more din as people let off firecrackers, beeped their horns and banged anything that made a noise. One fellow who had nothing to bang, started up his whipper snipper (brush cutter they call them here) and revved it over and over. This country for the next week went out and bought every Fijian flag on sale and flew them from cars, buses and houses. Local businesses had special t-shirts printed and made for their staff to wear and they had banners hanging from their offices. Government departments who have trouble finding money to pay for interpreters for deaf students in school took out full page advertisements in the paper congratulating the team. Of course there were letters in the paper about how silly everyone is being when the tournament only involves winning a rather small looking cup, no money and rugby is not considered a world game by any means and the rest of the world does not care much about 7’s. Fiji has not won for 5 years so it was a big thing. Got to celebrate when you can I reckon. It’s how much money you spend in the process that is another matter.

So when the team arrived in Nadi from Hong Kong, there were 10 000 people waiting to cheer (in a population of 800 000). It took them a day to make the journey from Nadi to Suva (3-4 hour drive) because the roads were blocked from people wanting to say hello. The thursday before Easter was declared a public holiday by the Prime Minister who put up $150 000 from a reserve fund for the celebrations. People from my work then promptly sat down and wrote letters to the editors about better ways this money could be used ie for victims from the recent landslide, wheelchair accessible buildings and interpreters for deaf students. Other people wrote letters complaining about the public holiday as it means many people won’t be able to earn a living as they earn from day to day selling things by the roadside or at stalls in the markets. Each player was also given $10 000 dollars by the Prime Minister and even the captain Serevi said this was not needed.

Robyn and I live near the national stadium so we trotted off on Thursday morning and got a seat in the grandstand to watch the festivities. School kids were there in uniform, all the men in fiji rugby shirts. Banners were printed with the verse from the bible that the captain of the team Serevi said he got his inspiration from. If you look at him when he was playing he looked like he was praying a lot of the time. The Prime Minister arrived in the vehicle of choice, a green 4WD ( it used to be Rolls Royce) and the crowd cheered. We did a few practice sessions of the Fiji national anthem. The Vice President arrived and again we cheered. Then the team arrived and they did a round of the track and we all screamed at our favourite player. Mine is a man called Bobo (it means ‘close your eyes ‘ in Fijian) and every time he scored a try he did a manic grin. I have another favourite called William Ryder who played his first game at 21 years old and did a few dance steps on the field and went on to win a number of tries. So then they were all presented with flower leis by various school girls who I am sure were wetting their pants in excitement. Ever the gentlemen, Ryder, knelt on the ground so the girl did not have to reach up to tie the lei around his neck. Then we had a 20 min Methodist church service except could not hear anything because the electricity all over Suva was out so they had to use a generator and it was not powerful enough. The minister went on too long for a public sermon if you ask me. Then we had some traditional dancing and warrior dances which were great and then some modern entertainment but instead of this being centre field so we could all see, it was off to the side under the stadium. When asked why, people told me that because the Vice President was so chiefly (from a high ranking island called Bau) nothing could be performed in front of him as that would be disrespectful. Respect in Fijian culture is taken very very seriously.

I went to visit Salote’s family’s house today for lunch. I bought a woven mat from her sister for the floor in the house. They live about 7 miles from town in small 3 room corrogated iron house. As is the Fijian tradition the kitchen is a separate shed next to the house and the toilet is again separate and called valelailai (small house). I think they caught me gazing at their place as I was thinking to myself how much we take shelter for granted in Australia and the range of housing we have in Fiji, from massive embassy mansions to government cottages (which I am living in) and then basically tin huts. Salote’s place is quite comfortable but even so they have used cardboard to line the inside walls, and three of the teenage kids share a tiny room together.

Back when I used to be a Royalist (aged 11-14 when I was the most devoted), and I kept diaries of pictures of Princess Diana, dreamed about marrying Prince Edward (he was only 6 years older then me so I thought I had a chance but the one time he came to Fiji, my family chose to take a rare holiday out of town so much to my disappointment had to miss out on seeing him) and read history books of the various kings and queens, I came across in the paper a story about the Queen Mother. She had been rushed to hospital because she got a fish bone caught in her throat. Ever since then I have been very wary of eating fish with bones. Her plight had a strong impact on me. Well today at Salote’s we had fish in coconut milk and dalo (taro). It was very small coral fish and I was very careful with the bones but then one slipped my notice and before I knew it, I knew there was one stuck in my throat. I explained my predicament to my host and they told me to eat lots of dalo as that would force it down. So I ate and ate dalo until I felt the prick in my throat go. Now I understand what the Queen Mother must have gone through. It was slightly scarey. Later when I was having a cup of tea, I felt a pain my ear and thought maybe the bone had somehow migrated to the ear canal. I had to force myself to be rational and know that bones don’t do that. But I have heard of earwigs and cochroaches getting lost in ear canals. The pain has gone.

People here have a funny way of talking about the body. It’s very hard to get any accurate or specific information from people about anything to do with their bodies. When Salote’s mother died and I asked how she told me “her eyes rolled and she fell over”. It turned out to be a stroke. When I ask deaf people how they became deaf it’s “I fell in a river and my head blew up and I was in hospital for 3 months”, or “I became deaf when I was nine because my mother was smoking”. People talk about worms crawling in through an ear and then making people crazy because they have made their way up to the brain. Another person was talking about a women who “killed 4 of her children” when she was actually referring to abortions. I am sure it is due to a lack of information and proper explanations, made worse if you are deaf and not getting proper communication anyway and then people seem to describe what they see at the time rather than what made them die. It’s bewildering!

White people are called ‘European’ here. When you talk about someone who has white skin, you refer to them thus. Even Americans! When people want to get to know you they will ask where you are from but they will still call you ‘European’ if you say you are from Australia or New Zealand. I am enjoying playing with the perception people have here of what ‘Europeans’ do. When I tell people that I am born in Fiji, they nearly all react with shock and disbelief because I am ‘European’. White people don’t get born here! Or when I go to see a Hindi movie and show the usher my ticket and she thinks there has been a mistake and she has to ask me ‘you going to see a Hindi movie?’ White people don’t watch Hindi movies!

There is really no need for speech or sign language in Fiji. They have a 3rd language called “eyebrowish”. It’s amazing what can be communicated with twiddles, raising, frowning of those brows. I want to make a film about it. It does save a lot of effort and energy in this humid country. You can ask a child about 10 questions before you get a word of speech or sign and have a reasonable conversation just with those eyebrows. I think I will come back to Australia with a few extra creases in my forehead.

For Easter I have just spent 3 days at an island off the coast of Suva called Beqa. This place only accomodates 9 people. They say it is like a top of the range backpacker and meals are included. A group of us volunteers went. The highlight was the snorkelling. The coral reef starts about 3 metres from the beach and you can only go at high tide or you will caught on the reef. I have never seen so many different types of coral and fish. Some of the best and original art I have seen in a long time. I think JR Tolkien should have included some “Crown of thorn” starfish in “Lord of the Rings” - maybe he never had the chance to snorkel in the southern hemisphere. They are almost as menacing as Orcs. They were a good reminder for me of Easter. The trees here grow right to the edge of the beach so there is very little sand to frolic on. The compound is surrounded by jungle in the distance and then coconut trees. The moonlight was so strong at night, I could see myself in the mirror. If any of you need a romantic cheapish getaway, I can recommend Lawaki’s.

I hope you all had a happy, peaceful and meaningful Easter in whatever way.

weddings, hogs and whipper snippers

An article from the “Fiji Islands Business” magazine:
“How weak is the flesh in Fiji?

An indication comes from the research of Dr Mili Kaitani, concerning the aspirations and expectations of the Fijian male. She reports that the more religious males become, the sexier they get. That’s to say they become involved in more and more affairs. Methodists are sexier adherents to Assemblies of God, Assemblies of God men are sexier than Seventh Day Adventists, and Catholics are less sexy than the first three, but more so are the followers of the 30 or so church denominations active in Fiji. What is it about religion that drives Fiji men to sex and why Methodist more so than other denominations?”

Anecdotal evidence certainly suggests the above might be true. Whenever I have had incidents where a man has tried to suggest a bit of “how’s-your-father” and in bewilderment I have gone to my colleagues and said “but he said he was married with children, vegetarian,does not drink, prays every day and religious”, the response has always been “they are the worse!”.

Maybe it’s due to the one of the powerful attractions of fundamentalism: it’s mixture of faith and sex. I quote from Hugh McKay who says that fundamentalism (which are lot of the churches here are), “ offers an emotionally charged, almost primitive experience of religion to those who abandon themselves to it. It’s often hard to tell whether the sence of ecstasy is sexual or religious or a complex blend of the two”.

Today I went to a Hindi wedding. It was the taxi driver that we use alot at work, his daughter’s wedding. I got dolled up in my Salwar Kameez and trotted off to a hall at 9.30 on a sunday morning. In the middle of the hall is a canopy set up where the ceremony mostly takes place. It is decorated on every surface with plastic flowers, crepe paper and flashing lights. After waiting some time in which I studied all the finery of the Indian women in their silk saries, the groom and the men of his family arrived. The groom arrived wearing a white suit, in a black Nightrider-looking car (no white horse or elephant!) decorated with balloons and streamers and best of all, colored cotton balls stuck to all the windows! A ceremony with the men of both families is done involving hibiscus flowers, fire, rice, incense and leaves. While this is happening the sister of the bride ‘steals’ his shoes and he then has to spend the rest of the ceremony in bare feet. At the end of the day, he has to pay money to the bride’s family to get the shoes back so he can leave. So he enters the hall and then all the women of the bride’s family do a purification rite where they line up, put money in his lap, wave a flame around his face, throw balls of dough in 4 directions and pour water into a bucket. Then finally the bride is allowed to come out of the room she has been waiting in. She is demure and keeps her eyes to the floor (a sign of respect I think). Gifts are given to them both by the elders of the family. Then lots of other things happen which I lost track of. Then they stand up, and linked by a ribbon they are asked 7 questions like “will you be together till you die?” and they walk around the canopy after each question one leading and the other following. Then they sit down and they are covered with a sheet so that privately the groom can put red dye in the part of the bride’s hair to symbolise her fertility (I think). They then leave and go into a small room to do other ceremonies more privately.

This has taken about 3 hours. In this time, I had a few bowls of yagona (kava), chatted with a few people. The women tend to stay in the hall and watch diligently while the men hang about outside, read the paper, chat, get the food ready and drink kava. They start feeding the crowds (children first) when the 7 questions are happening because people are starting to wilt. The men are responsible for cooking the food and serving it up. People sit in long trestle tables and the men walk down with the various bowls of curry, puri, tamarind chutney and pilau. They pour cordial (the only drink available) from a huge kettle which we drank out of styrofoam cups advertising Milo and Maggi noodles! Then everyone leaves, 4 hours later!

Lawn mowers are now extinct in Fiji. Grass has to be cut almost weekly because things grow so fast and because mosquitos can breed so easily. Every man here has a Whipper Snipper. You see them everywhere. They work very well as Suva is quite hilly and there is not a lot of flat land. You see men cutting great swaths through long tall grass all the time.

In Fiji, the Deaf have to be hunted down and found. It is very hard to find any older Deaf people as they would have been kept hidden in villages and not gone to school. Even now, people have to persuade family to give their deaf children up so they can go to a deaf school and get an education. Families here tend to be ashamed having deaf children and will be overly protective of them, so much so that they don’t learn to do anything much for themselves. The Deaf here even in the cities are still shy about using sign language in public for fear of ridicule. Almost every time I use sign language in public, I am laughed at. Grown men will point and laugh at me. A group of deaf from the church that they mostly go to here, have been to Savusavu for a few days of hunting and finding deaf children. They ‘found’ 4 deaf children ages ranging from 7 - 12 and have brought them back to be schooled here.

Public transport here is really good if not dangerous. Aside from the ancient buses which run pretty regular and which you can hail from anywhere and jump on at any time if you are nimble enough; there are also many taxis which are really cheap. Then you have the minivan. These are 10 seater vans which do longer trips from one side of the island to another, or one town to another. They are cheap, and don’t stop along the way so they are very fast. They are also known to be very dangerous and there have been numerous accidents where people have died in minivans. They run 24 hours and they leave once the van is full - no schedule. They play very very loud island music (to keep the driver awake) and all the seats are covered in plastic (so you stick to the seat should there be an accident - just kidding).

I got a minivan on Friday night with a few friends and we went around to Lautoka on the other side of the island, about a 4 hour drive. The driver was crazy and I had to focus on the huge Milky Way, the swaying coconut trees lining the beaches and the white line out to sea marking the waves breaking on the reef. The driver drove mostly on the other side of the road, got booked by police for speeding and nearly turned the van over when we swerved to miss a cow. However, coming back from Lautoka, the driver was faultless even when we had to swerve to miss a fat hog crossing the road.

People are really big on massive gearsticks for their cars and buses. They are not satisfied with the vehicle as it comes and they will add padding and decorations to the gearstick so that it is as big as the palm of your hand. Some drivers who are able bodied also have those driving knobs that are on the steering wheels that are used for less able bodied people in Australia. Anything that means less effort eh? I am going to start taking photos of these gearsticks as they fascinate me.

One of the members of the Deaf Association’s brother died on the weekend. He was a medical student who basically choked on his own vomit after a night of heavy drinking. The Deaf community got together and we made a reguregu. This is more important than the funeral itself and is held over a few days before the funeral at the home of the family and where the body is. You get together a gift (money and some yagona) and you present this to the men of the family with a speech saying sorry for the death and please accept this presentation. Then the women of the group leave the men to drink some yagona and go to the women’s section of the house where they make a presentation to the females in the family and give a woven mat which is used to wrap the body for the burial. They are then presented with tea and food to eat. The Deaf group got a hearing person to make the speech on their behalf and this person said something along the lines of “please accept this small gift because we are deaf”. Humpphhh! I tried to persuade the President of the Deaf Association to sign the presentation and have someone voice it for him but he was not confident enough to do this. Hopefully next time it will happen and the Deaf will feel strong enough to stand up and use their language of choice.

Let me try some Fijian:
Au wa sisili ni oti au qunu na tea. Au wa lako i cakacaka nimataka.
(I will shower after I drink of the tea. I will go to work tomorrow.)

I got to go and do some work. I am working from home because having to share a computer with another person while I am writing grant applications and be interrupted by various people dropping in to just hang out is too hard sometimes!

Sototale (till next time)

Kate

no ants orcing around this week

It has been raining really heavily for the last 3 days - almost non-stop. The rain is so heavy and steady that is starts to play like an annoying soundtrack only stuck on track 1. It’s probably because most of the roofs here are tin so the rain has a good sounding board. I’ve been wearing my jelly sandles which are perfect for this weather. Leather shoes just fall apart or come unstuck in an instant. Everyone starts to smell of this combination of sweat and wet and mould. It’s a very distinctive smell and I am not immune to it no matter how hard I try to be. My ‘Mum’ deodorant just not do the trick anymore! My towel has not been fully dry for a few days now. As a result of the rain, our banana tree which has been groaning under the weight of a huge bunch of ripening bananas, collapsed and we were saved the job of having to hack the bunch off. So we now have about 200 bananas to eat our way through. The top row is yellow and ready to eat, so we will have to eat as the rows ripen. I think Robyn and I will have trouble keeping up with the ripening process. The other leftover of the rain is that as you walk down the road once the rain has stopped and the sun is out drying up all the rain, there is the distinct smell of rotting toads which have been plastered along the road.

I have been discovering that I have a green thumb. I have always been interested in plants and flowers (thanks to my mother and her love of them) but have not given them much thought after living in a concrete jungle in Sydney for the past 14 years. My arms, back and hands are aching as I have been in the garden for about 4 hours digging and transporting dirt (mud) to set up a new garden. I go for walks around the area and pinch from all the wealthy Embassy houses all the flowers I want to grow. Today I planted two bouganvillea and some other flowers and vines. Because of the rain, the dirt gets washed away so the garden has only a few inches of dirt and then you hit limestone rock. So I have to build up the dirt with compost and mulch of which there is plenty. I have seen some of the biggest worms today. We must have some good soil as there were worms everywhere. I had to keep telling myself that they are good and I need them for my garden and gee they are lovely and fat while trying not to grimace as they wriggled around trying to bury themselves in the mud before my shovel came down to scoop them up.

I have discovered a few second clothes shops. These shops are full of clothes that come from wealthy Australians deciding they don’t need their Lisa Ho dress anymore or their Country Road linen suit. They get shipped over here, having been squashed and compacted into bales. So ex-patriots drool in glee as they hand over $7 for a Country Road linen shirt or $10 for a pair of Camper shoes ($200 in Australia) or the Lisa Ho designer dress for $7 ($300 in Australia). The funny thing is that these shops are full of ex-pats shopping and getting bargains and who can afford to pay much more while the locals buy at their own shops and pay $20 for a shirt instead. The local shops are full of synthetic fibres which is a real shame as cotton and linens are much better for the tropics I would have thought. You actually have to shop around for natural fibres.

One of the guys at work, his father is a tailor so I got him to make me up a Bula shirt (hibiscus print). The material cost $2 and to make the shirt $10! Bargain! The buttons are made from coconut tree wood. I am starting to look like a local. I also bought a Salwar Kameez (Indian outfit, dress worn with pants and a scarf).

I am a bit hesitant to describe my work or my perception of what I think needs to be done as I should still be observing before making any judgements and leaping in to ‘fix’ things. But I will say that my moods tend to oscilate from despair at the lack of this and that, the lack of education, knowledge, awareness, human rights, access and then moments of complete silliness such as when I get asked over and over again if I have a boyfriend to which I respond “yes I have 5 pairs of shoes I am going out with and they do me fine” or when I get asked how old I am and I respond with “96 and the plastic surgery we get in Australia is fabulous”.

The Fiji sense of humor takes a bit of getting used to. Here is an example: on the weekend I went to see a movie with two other volunteers who are Australian. The Bollywood feature was sold out so we went to a Thai film called “Beautiful Boxer” - it’s the true life story of a man who became the best Thai boxer but who was only doing it for the money so that he could have a sex change operation and become the woman he wanted to be. It was well done, serious and poignant and well acted. But it was hard work actually watching it because the audience were laughing all the way through. It was getting really annoying as they would be laughing at the most tender scenes which were between the boxer and his parents and they were very good at accepting who he was or was trying to be. It was when the boxer would say “ma” that they laughed the most. The Thai word for ‘mother’ sounds like ‘mai’ which in Fijian means ‘come’. Take the sexual meaning of the English word ‘come’ and you have it. This was what was causing so much mirth. Really funny eh??!!!!

On the weekend, Robyn (my flatmate) and I were invited to the home of the printer that our organisation uses. They wanted to thank Robyn for her work before she goes back to Australia next month. The custom here seems to be to chat for a good 3 hours, have some nibbles and beer and then have dinnner by which time it is about 9pm and I am fainting from hunger! Anyway we chatted and met this fellow’s wife and two children and all was well. Then he offered to drive us home. This was the conversation which was directed at me:
Man: How old are you?
Me: 96, do you like my plastic surgery?
Man: (delayed laugh) I am 38. How old are you?
Me: 34.
Man: Are you married?
Me: No.
Man: Do you have a boyfriend?
Me: No.

By this time we are at my place. Robyn interjects with information about how once she goes another family will be coming to stay with me.

Man: Now I know where you are staying I can come and visit.
Robyn: With your wife and children.
Man: Would you like me to visit?

For most of this conversation I had asked the man to repeat himself several times at each question. He was impossible to lipread. I dared not turn on the car light as I had a feeling I did not want to encourage further conversation. After asking him to repeat himself 3 times I turned to Robyn:

Me: Help me Robyn.
By her silence I knew that she the question he had asked was awkward.
Robyn: Bye thanks for the lift.
Me: Bye.
Man: No problem!

At first I was so surprised by the direction of his questions because he had spent the night extolling the virtues of prayer, fasting and loyalty that I wondered if it was the Fiji way of getting to know someone, but I have been assured it is not! I won’t be giving him the next print job our organisation has!!!

On the weekend I had my first lovo (pit oven). It was in honor of Robyn who is leaving soon. The Deaf community wanted to thank her as without her there would not have been a team at the Deaf Olympics in Melbourne. The lovo is cooked by the men. The women serve it up. Pork, chicken, dalo (like a huge potato) and fish steaks (inches thick) in coconut milk are cooked wrapped in banana and coconut palm leaves and then cooked in the pit oven. The food has a lovely smokey flavour to it. They also serve raw fish marinated in coconut milk, chilli and lime. The food was sublime. I was very happy. A true Fijian feast.

Fiji is a 4WD country. In Australia I was always railing against 4WD, You hardly need them with the state of the roads in Sydney. But here, even in Suva, I can see the necessity. Every taxi driver in Suva knows our street as it has some of the worse potholes in the city. A few taxi drivers have even missed the turnoff to our street because said they were busy thinking of how much damage the potholes will do to the car and how they will navigate the street. With enough rain, I will be able to go swimming with the toads in these potholes. The 4WD are probably less polluting than the buses churning out plumes of diesel.
Loloma (love) to you all.
Kate