Tropics here we are!

A pleasantly cool day in Suva today, morning rains which have cleared into a sunny noon, coconut trees in view out of the window, and Johnny Cash banging on in the background. Thank Goddess for ipod.

So after our 6 hectic days in Sydney, days of organizing, packing, catching up and saying goodbye, the fast pace, caffeine infused, busy busy busy, we arrived in Nadi, Fiji on Wednesday morning and spent the night with Carl’s relatives there. They were, like all Rotuman’s  I’ve met, so warm and welcoming and made us feel at home at once.  Noah didn’t have to wait more than 5 minutes to be given a fresh coconut off the tree to drink from, which is what he has been most looking forward to in the whole wide universe, and has been practicing drinking the coconut juice for months in Australia in preparation for Rotuma. Needless to say both the boys were Thrilled! (see photo Attached). They cooked us a yummy chicken curry, which I’ve learnt over the years is their “special” dish, and we have been eating that same “special dish” almost every day since... every one seems to want to feed us their “special dish” so its been the same flavoured chicken curry at every relatives we’ve been to... with the variation of Taro or Tapioca (the root vegetables which is their staple food), or rice or, my favourite, Roti.

We spent the night in Nadi and the next morning jumped on the bus to Suva, driving through the lush green Fijian country side, surrounded by coconut tree forests, lush green rolling hills and the ocean.

We arrived in Suva around lunch time and went to Carls cousins house.

I remember the first time I came with Carl to Fiji, he told me that he has been coming to Fiji every year for so many years and just fitted into their lives without thinking much, so used to the way they live and how simple and poor they are, and it only just dawned on him that this is a third world country and his family live like the people in  those photos and films we see of third world countries, where 4 generations all live together squeezed into one tiny house, with so little to their name and live quite primitively. And so it is...

The house we arrived at was about half the size of our small unit in Bondi, and in it live at the moment (it changes all the time, according to who is in Rotuma or who is around...) 9 adult men, and the 4 of us squeezed in too. Me being the only woman, and the only non Rotuman speaking person. You can imagine how much I loved that.

In this particular house hold, out of all the men living there, only one of them, Mue-fa, who owns the house, is the only one who works and brings home the dosh to support everyone else. He is in the Fijian army and travels to Iraq, Lebanon, Sinai , Papua and other war ridden countries to serve in the peace keepers security forces. The rest of the men in this house do nothing all day, just hang around watching TV, eating and preparing food, but don’t work. I personally cant understand why these perfectly healthy and capable young men don’t get off their asses and go work, but maybe thats a cultural thing... (an easy explanation for allot of my questions and wonders about here...).

It was a bit of a hard adjustment to make, coming from Australia and Israel, where there is so much abundance and comfort, which we are so blessed with, so used to and unknowingly take for granted, to arrive to this space where there is hardly any selection of foods, fruits and veg. Those of you who know me, know how I love my food, how creative I like to be with food, so how challenging it would be for me to have nothing to “play with“  here.

Breakfast is a loaf of very fluffy white bread with butter and very sweet tea, eggs if we’re lucky, and I make sure I get some bananas or Papaya to have something fresh in there.

Lunch, if there is any, is probably more fluffy white bread, with the peanut butter and honey that I bought, and then dinner is prepared and its usually Taro or Tapioca with curry or “chow”, Carls family speciality, which is basically gravy...

They don’t eat much vegetables or fruit, I have to make sure I go to the markets every day and buy some, and even there the selection is very limited compared to what we are used to in our lands of plenty. I keep having my moments of freaking out because my kids aren’t eating properly, not getting all the food groups into them, and eating too much sugar and processed foods. I keep having to calm myself down and tell me I have to let go for the next 9 months, and no one has died from not eating all the food groups in abundance every day. So hard for a Jewish foodie mother like me...

I feel the need to list the fruit and vegetables that one can buy here, skip the next paragraph if you need to...  Taro, Tapioca, Cucumber, yucky looking Tomatoes, snake beans, green beans, pumpkin, purple eggplant, onion, garlic, Chinese cabbage, Taro leaves, Papaya, Pineaple, banana, watermelon. Then there’s all the imported stuff from NZ and Oz- apples, pears, carrots, potatoes,  which Carl doesn’t want me to buy coz they aren’t fresh... There are a few wild vegies that grow randomly  which one can occasionally buy,  like these fern fronds that are steamed and served with coconut cream, very yummy,  and also this type of Asparagus thing, which is served with, you guessed, coconut cream, quite yummy too.  I know this might seem like a long list of fruit and veg, but for the foodies among you, do you think I am being too spoilt by saying that I dunno how I will survive on these alone???? And this is the list of stuff that I can get at the markets in Fiji, in Rotuma, there might be half of these things, and I cant just pop over to the markets to get them, coz there aint no markets there... Please my dear foodie friends, write me some ideas that come to your mind of ways I can variates with this selection of basic ingredients...

If I pull myself out of my spoilt existence of abundance, and look at these people and this culture and observe how happy and content they are because they don’t know any different, they don’t know what is out there, so they don’t miss it or need it. Only me, the “Henfissi” (white woman) has the desire/need/dependence on the pleasures of what the earth has to offer, in order to make me happy and satisfied....    What a lesson this is going to be for me...

So to get off the food subject for a bit (what else is there to write about???), since arriving in Suva, we stayed at those relatives for a few days, trying to keep the boys happy while Carl went out to organize his bits like his Fijian citizenship (in order for us all to be able to stay here for as long as we want), standing in lines for hours at immigration and embassies only to find out that he needs to be in the next line for whatever he needs, running around town trying to get customs clearance for all the shipments of stuff that we sent by ship and plane from Australia, pricing and buying all the hardware he needs for  building the house. A couple of nights ago we moved to stay at other relatives, who have loads of kids running around here so the boys are having an absolute ball. They have much more space here, a big back yard and I am able to sit here and write for ages, while the boys are playing outside with all the kids, quietly watched over by uncle Ringa, the sweetest 72 year old man, who visited us in Sydney late last year, and is absolutely amazing with the kids. He is probably gonna come back with us to Rotuma, he wants to help build the house and help with the kids. The kind of old man who cant stop working and doing. Amazing.

We’ve been visiting relatives and catching up with people a bit, but the highlight of Suva for me, and call me a dag if you wanna, is that I bought a USB modem that I can use in Rotuma!!!!!  YAY!!!!!!! All my worries of not having a lifeline to the world have been relieved!!!! I am soooooo happy!!!!

Another good thing about Suva is... Gloria Jeans... Sorry for ignoring you so disgracefully in Sydney, but there is much better coffee in so many other cafe’s, but here, dear Gloria, you are the one and only, and for that I am truly grateful... even tho you use UHT milk for my Latte...cant be too picky...  (thank Goddess I did a bit of forward thinking and sent some yummy Turkish coffee from Israel in our shipments to keep me up when down in Rotuma...)

The lady of the house here in Sawani Street, where we’re staying at the mo, is Lavenia, a big fat mama, who I call the Queen Bee. She is hilarious, she sits on her bum most of the day and takes the piss out of everyone, bosses everyone around,  and gossips and tells me all the stories of the family and ancestors. She’s great, and so caring. She looks after 4 kids that are somehow related to her, with so much love and care (even tho she takes the piss out of them non stop...). She is my entertainment, and very helpful too. Bless Queen Bee.

Speaking of Blessings... Its all about Jesus here, as some of you might have heard me tell in the past. I am considered a treat for them as I am a real Jew from the holy land, and every meal starts off with a long thankyou shpeal to Jesus oh mighty lord, for blessing us with all we have. Sweet. Not my kinda thing.

So here we are in Suva for who knows how much longer, coz no one knows when the boat will leave for Rotuma. It could be a few days or a few weeks. We just gotta wait and buy lots of provisions to take with, and wait. Im enjoying the last days of sort of civilization, slow days, and am even reading a book!!!!! Ah... the life...   X