[password] grace40
[position] 19 08.375s 178 34.533w
[status] 1000 hrs 30 September 2019. I?m sure you?re all anxious to hear about my B-day party in the village. Or not. The school headmaster and his wife, mainly his wife, hosted a nice tea & cake get-together on Saturday afternoon. Their main room and dining room are in a ?L? shape, the main room occupying one leg, and the dining room the other. When we arrived at 1400, there were 10 men in the main room drinking Kava since that morning. The dining room was occupied by 5 ladies and a gaggle of children. Leilani brought my chocolate B-day cake and a freshly baked banana bread. The headmaster?s wife had prepared a couple of different cakes. As the only partial invalid and oldest one there, I was offered the sole chair to sit on. In fact, the chair was the only piece of furniture in sight except a dining table where all the cakes and tea cups sat. Everyone else, Fiji style, sat cross legged on the floor. It always amazes me to see old, overweight villagers being able to sit for hours in the lotus position. If I tried it for more than 30 seconds, I?d be unable to unfold my legs. I?d have to walk around on my knees forever thereafter. Anyway, throughout the next 2 hours the men continued to drink kava nonstop, while the women, children, Leilani and I ate cake and drank tea. When men drink Kava, they never, and I mean never, eat. Don?t want food to interfere with the Kava effects. Unlike a cocktail party atmosphere where there is constant noise from talking and laughing, nibbling on food, and moving around from one group to another, a Kava party is absolutely quiet with no eating or moving around at all. You?ve heard of a bar-room brawl. You?ll never hear of a Kava-room brawl. I was in a bit of a stupor because of strong pain pills I took to fortify my walk to the village. So my general demeanour and state of mind fit right in with the Kava drinkers - quiet, mushy brained, and unable to get up out of the chair. After setting up the cakes, and putting a single candle on my cake (72 would have burned down the house), the ladies and kids sang the irritating diddy. The men were physically unable to sing. I didn?t realise Happy Birthday had so many verses until I heard the Fijian version. It seemed to go on forever. All of us then had cake. A couple of the men even had a piece. The rest of the men looked at them like outcasts. I even got gifts: a wood-carved turtle, and a huge pandamus mat larger than the inside of our boat. Not sure what I?m going to do with it, but the thought and work that went into it were over the top. All told, it was a great way to spend a B-day - in a remote, faraway village with very generous and nice people.
Because we got back so late from the party, Leilani and I agreed to forego a B-day dinner until last night. As it turned out, Leilani had been holding out. We left NZ 5 months ago, we?ve been in Fulaga 3 months, our frozen meats are virtually gone, or so I thought. Yesterday, Leilani disclosed she had not one, not two, not even three, but six scotch fillet steaks from NZ in the freezer. I asked, so why have we been eating pumpkin curry so often? Anyway, we had a treat for dinner: pan fried steak in butter, smothered with sautéed onions and re-hydrated shiitake mushrooms, and fried potatoes. I felt like we were at a fancy restaurant. Leilani really out-did herself. But I did check out the freezer to see if there were any other hidden treasures.
Have the massages worked; you ask? Or not. Yes, is the simple answer. My right-side pain is virtually gone. My left-side pain is minimal. That pain had been unabated for almost a week. The day after the massages the pain subsided considerably overnight. I still wake up a bit stiff. Like a rusty machine, I move back and forth while applying generous amounts of WD40, and voila, I?m moving without any squeaks. Well, almost no squeaks.
Until next post, which I know you look forward to. Or not.
Sototale, John
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