[password] caesar

[position] 19 08.912s 178 33.945w

[status] 0700 hrs 30 June 2018. Yesterday was meke day. Fijian dancing. Dancing is a bit of overstatement. When thinking of Pacific island dancing, most of us envision the wild, sexual Tahitian style, or the beautiful, graceful Hawaiian version. Hips jiggling and swaying suggestively, feet moving, hands and arms swarying serpentine-like, all to the throbbing beat of traditional gords being rthymically pounded. Fijian dancing is not this. Fijian dancers, women only, sit cross-legged and move only their hands in minute, stop-go gestures while turning their heads ever so slightly from left to right, and then right to left. This they do repeatedly to the accompanyment of a chorus singing what sounds to my foreign ear the same refain over and over again. All of this is in time to several people beating traditional Fijian drums that include an empty 20 litre plastic petrol container, cardboard box, and empty water bottle. Okay, we're not at some Waikiki hotel viewing a Polynesian extravaganza with a large back-up band, but plastic petrol containers? Come on. These people are master wood carvers. They could at least have used Fijian wooden drums. Four villages each supplied groups of 8 dancers with a chorus of half the villagers. During each village's routine, villagers from rival villages would try to distract the performers by dumping baby powder on their heads, rubbing their faces with the powder, or jumping around them. While the audience roared with laughter, the performers did not look amused whatsoever. I consider myself culturally sensitive. But sitting on the ground for 5-hours watching this, I both failed to see the humour in the performances, and feel my legs once the blood stopped flowing to them.

But there was a bright time of the day - lunch. And this was traditional remote Fijian island style. The ladies set out a true feast enjoyed by the children, ladies, and us yachties from 7 boats. Notice I did not mention the men. Men do not eat. They drink kava. And drink kava they did. They were at it at 10am when we arrived, and were at it at 4pm when we left, and based on the amount of kava still left to drink, they were at it until the wee hours of the night. Eating anything dilutes the effects of kava. Or so the men think. Anyway, lunch consisted of grilled fish covered with a thick coconut cream; boiled fish heads in coconut milk; shredded casava cooked in coconut milk; a fish and something green vegetable-like substance they call cabbage, but I call something green vegetable-like substance, stewed in coconut milk; and casava dough formed into irregular shaped balls and wrapped in coconut fronds and cooked in a lovo (underground oven covered in hot stones and sand). To drink was fresh coconut milk straight from the nut. You might ask if all the coconut milk/cream had an effect on us. I call the effect, colon blow. I'll leave it to your imaginations what that is.

Today, and for next two days, strong 20-25kt winds are expected. So there won't be alot of off the boat activities. Just watching that we don't drag our anchors. However, tomorrow we are having our hosts to the boat for lunch. We're planning Thai chicken currey made in, you guessed it, coconut cream. Only difference is our cocount cream will come out of a can - not a nut.

Cheers
John & Leilani

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