Fijian Village Life

 In this post, I will point out some amazing examples of friendliness I received while in Fiji. Especially in villages. 

   

My first experience with a Fijian village was when we accidentally drove to one. While I was staying at Bamboo Backpackers, my friend Andres and I became friends with a Greek couple who had rented a car and we went with them to go to Natadoli Beach, which was at a different part of the island. But we took a wrong turn on the way and drove into a village. Many people yelled "Bula!" and came to greet us.

I took this tree for a test drive

The man in the middle of the above picture was the village chief. We called him Big Boss. 

After visiting the village for awhile, we finally did go to Natodoli which was nearby. This is Natodoli.

This is a glossy version of the same picture above this one

My friend, Andres

the water was beautiful and warm

Super beautiful but also a bit touristy... 
I met a few friendly fish while I was there.

These rocks were painful

Oh shit, well, I guess I'm getting a little off topic. This post is about Fijian village life! But I wanted to include my beautiful Natodoli pictures in a post somewhere but had difficulty figuring out which one. 

Anyway, I should get on with the amazingly fucktastic experience I had living in a village! I found myself overwhelmed by Fijian hospitality.  

The Fijians who worked at the hostel I was staying at highly recommended that I go North to Taveuni Island. They advertised it as off the beaten track. Of course, most people who go book their trip to Taveuni and the accommodation ahead of time and through the hostel. But the prices didn't looks so great to me.. :/
In Fact, they looked pretty horrible.

I owe my amazing time in Taveuni to a man named Thomas. Tom was an interesting fellow who had been in Fiji for 2 months when I met him. He had already been travelling for a long time. A lot longer than me at that time. He had long hair and didn't like to wear shirts very often and hadn't worn shoes for about 2 years! except if he has to to get into a club or something. Tom had recently gotten back from Taveuni and told me "Don't book through the hostel, mate!" 
He said that he had stayed in a village for free and also bragged about smoking lots of weed out of a papaya stem. While there, a man decided to give him a cave. Although it's legally the man's property he said Tom could come back anytime and that it was Tom's cave.
Tom said he planned to go back to the village in June and cement the cave floor and build it into his own room! 

Well, that sounds fucktastic! O.O
    Thomas said that they told him before he left that he could send friends and that I should go towards the village and ask for Joe and tell him that Thomas sent me. Everyone knows Joe and he's a cab driver.  

So, that's what I did.

To get to Taveuni, I had to go to Suva, which is another city on the mainland island that I was on. From Suva, I got on an overnight ferry to Taveuni island.

Before getting on the ferry, I spent a couple hours wandering around Suva.  I also learned  that there's a  Real estate agent named Hooker! O.o hahahaha!! 

On the way to Taveuni, I was with other foreigners. The ferry was nice. At night we watched a moon rise on the water. It looked just like a sunrise except with the moon. Everyone just slept on the floor and the ferry played a lot of movies along the way. 
 I was the only foreigner without any accommodation booked and when we arrived, I was nervous. My only plan was to go and find a guy named Joe.
 After I got off the ferry, I did what Thomas told me and walked toward the big cross that I could see in the distance.

Wow, Beautiful... 

Along the way, I ate some small purple flowers that I knew were edible. I probably looked strange as the only white guy in sight and walking around with a big backpack and a beard.
I was hesitant to start asking people if they knew Joe.

Nearby, I saw something that interested me. A store which read 
"The First Shop To Open In The World" 
I walked inside and said to a worker "is this really the first shop to open in the world?" He informed me that it is true indeed. 
The International dateline runs through the island!
I apologize that the picture of the store below is so full of sunlight.

I really was interested but part of the reason I asked about it being the first shop to open in the world was to start a conservation and then ask about Joe since my overwhelming shyness restrained me from asking random people on the street.
and it worked! The worker asked "where are you staying?"
I told him about my friend Tom who said I should find Joe.
"the guy with long hair? he used to come in here all the time!"
The worker knew Joe and said he drove along the road in front of the shop frequently. We walked outside and waited. "Joe will be here soon" he said.
After overhearing our conversation, another guy walked over and began talking to me. He said he was a school teacher and pointed to a house and said, "if you don't find Joe, you can stay at my house over there." 
A few minutes later Joe showed up and said something like "You're a friend of Thomas? Come, No worries!" and drove me to his village.


Joe had a wife, a son and a daughter. Most of the village houses were basically sheds. A ton of food grew there! Most of the food we ate everyday was from the land. We also drank Milo at dinner.

During the daytime there is no electricity. Every night at a certain time, the village runs a generator that gives the whole village electricity, but it's only on for a few hours. I don't remember exactly the times but I think it was about from 7-11 P.M. 
During that time everybody takes advantage of the electricity and watches movies.
 In case you're wondering, No,there was definitely no internet there! :)



Next to Joe's house was his sister and brother in law's house.

Joe's father also was visiting at the time. The old man proudly declared "Fiji is the greatest country!" He also said I should bring my parents to Fiji to show them how amazing it is and that they could stay with him.

During my time there I didn't actually see much of Joe. He was always busy and hardly around except at night when he came home from work. However, I spent a lot of time with his brother in law, the man who gave Thomas the cave. 

He had his own property where he grew lots of food, had the cave, and had his own private waterfall! We would often spend time underneath the waterfall to escape the heat.

These plants are edible but they have to be cooked. They eat a lot of it in Fiji. but damn it, I forgot what they are called :(

He also walked with me up the mountain. Now I must tell you what is special about that mountain and Taveuni...

A flower!
Yes, there is an extremely rare flower on Taveuni. The only place in the world that the flower grows is on Taveuni Island!

  

That's Taveuni circled in the picture above. It is the 3rd largest island in Fiji, but that island seems so small to be the only place on Earth that people know of that that particular flower grows! 

But it doesn't just grow anywhere on the island. It only grows up in the mountainous area on that island. 

The walk was a bit harder than I expected. Actually, I think that was the most I had ever sweated before because the humidity in Fiji was crazy. It got a little colder as we got higher, but still not as much as I expected.

Walking in the jungle and looking for the flower was difficult.

Normally, they are easier to find but the season for them had recently ended! :( 

Luckily and finally, we were able to find one. Yes, only one.

So, this is the flower! yay! we did it!... right? 
Actually, this indeed is the flower. but it's not complete. 
It is supposed to have a white thing inside all of those red petals.
But they had all fallen out probably because it was off season.
:(  ...but I did find one with an unblossomed white thing inside.

He explained that normally water drips from those white things inside.

 At least I did get to see the super special flower although not complete, so I am partly satisfied. 

Another special thing about Taveuni is what I mentioned before.. It's on the International Dateline. It is a different date on a part of the island. I took a visit to that line.

Here is the line. The line was near someones house and a church and there no were tourists in sight when I was there. Just a sign.  Notice One side of the sign says "Today" and the other "Yesterday".

Apart from two other Fiji islands and two other countries in the world, the line crosses no other land.

My ass is in one date and my dick is in another

Wow, A flower that only grows there and the dateline. Taveuni is a special island indeed!

There is another special place on Taveuni that the kids took me to.

I  hung out with the village kids sometimes. They LOVED to swim.
Usually they would come here to swim..

They also loved to eat fruit. Especially Papaya! Fruit grew everywhere and we would stop to eat some all the time.  

The Papayas in Fiji were Huge!! and also delicious. 

And there were many, Just like the oranges in Kalalau, there were more growing than could be eaten. I had never eaten so much papaya in my life. One kid said papaya was "the taste of Taveuni"  

In the Fijian language, Popo means papaya. I think that is funny because in Turkish, popo means butt.

In the villages, well, actually in Fiji in general, people liked weed. At least that's the impression I got. The stem from the papaya tree makes a great pipe.
This might be very immature of me but my dirty mind thought it was funny to hear someone say "grab the pipe out of the popo" 

Oh yeah, the special place that the kids took me to. On the island is a natural water slide!

Me sliding frontward

And it was amazing!!! :D

The rocks were super slippery and some of the kids were able to do this standing while sliding thing and I don't know how the hell they did it. 
They said that they go there every week on Sunday.

Some footage of the water slide and the kids are in the video below.

On my last night, Joe and I drank a coke and rum and I stayed up late afterwards drinking Kava, which in the village was called grog, with many Fijians.

If you don't know what kava is, I wrote a description about it in another post. 

http://benjaminbridgefordtravel.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-best-hostel-i-have-ever-stayed-at.html

I liked the village life. Nobody cared much for money. People ate healthy food grown from the land, and people seemed to be in good physical shape. Everyone was good at climbing trees and the children don't have internet or video games and play outside and go swimming. I like electronics but it was nice and interesting to live simpler with many friendly people for awhile. I was amazed at the hospitality I received in Fiji. Before I left they said I could come back anytime.

On the morning of my departure, Joe gave me a ride to the ferry. I had been housed and fed everyday for free. I offered to pay a little money but he didn't accept it.  

I hope you had a Bula time reading this!