What I Love...

Ok, based on your comments from my last entry, I have realized that I have not been sounding very positive about the whole thing, and I wish to explain that it has been due to the fact that the first couple of weeks have been an adjustment. Adjusting to my new life, the pace, the simplicity, the heat, the food, the people, the environment, the flies and mozzies, the lot.
I am glad to inform you that I think I am adjusting well now, and even starting to like it all...
Let me make a list of the things I love about here, to counteract all the bad things I wrote about before...

I LOVE:
• Hanging washing at night under a beautiful clear starry sky and night time breeze.
• The giant halo around the full moon on clear nights.
• The crazy tropical storms when it pours down ridiculous amounts of water and me and the kids run around squealing having a rain shower.
• Being brought green papayas and then being able to google a recipe for Green Papaya salad and making it with the condiments I brought over plus/minus some ingredients... (Peanut butter instead of peanuts...)
• Not having a schedule for anything, not rushing to do anything, anything can take as long as it needs to.
• Going to a beach in Motusa village to pick “Lumi”, a local sea weed, looks like tiny bunches of grapes which you clean and mix with coconut cream, lime, chilli and onion and eat as a salad. YUM. The picking was so meditative, spent ages in the water with my Fijian friend Kelera, fondling the coral to pull out the stuff from the roots, surrounded by big wide ocean, beautiful white sand dunes and the kids going nuts in the sand. The whole process of making this salad pretty much took a whole day, by the time we walked to that beach, picked the Lumi, walked back, cleaned it (about 4 hours) and then prepared the salad, which was ready to eat for dinner...
• Carl disappearing at some stage of the day or night to go fishing. It is custom in Carl’s family home not to say that you’re going fishing. Its usually communicated by a Rotuman wink (those of you who know Carl would know this wink), or just a head nod toward the ocean. I think that if you say you’re going fishing, you’re jinxing your expedition, its bad luck. So I
love when Carl disappears with his cousins and comes back with about 20 fish of all sizes and types for our delight. The last couple of times we have been marinating some in ginger, garlic, soy, sweet chilli sauce and sesame oil and then BBQing them, and the rest we wrap in a banana leaf and cook in the earth oven, which gives it a divine smoked flavour. DIVINE!
• Having bucket showers with cool rain water from the tank, as the tap water keeps getting cut off for some unknown reason.
• Hearing the squeals of delight coming from kids running around going nuts, playing hide ‘N seek, chasing Venice the pig, etc.
• Being able to watch movies on our Laptop every night.
• The cool breezes, day and night when the heat isn’t overpowering.
• Drinking coconut juice every day.
• Drinking my Turkish coffee every day. It makes me happy. Its my drug.
• Spending hours in the scorching hot kitchen with Mue, cooking, laughing, gossiping, being girlies.
• Squeezing fresh lemonades or limes every day to make juice.
• Not wearing shoes since we arrived here. Being a dag. Not caring about what I look like.
I could probably go on and on, but I think that’s enough for now. I’ve made my point haven’t I? Life is VERY different here, but it’s pretty good...

 

Lumi picking

 

Motusa beach

 

 

Proud fisherman

 

Todays catch

(this is for you Cas!!)

 

Saulei's Mamasa

I don’t think I wrote anything about Saulei’s “Mamasa”, it wasn’t very eventful, but I will explain anyway. A Mamasa is like a welcoming ceremony, they do it for anyone who comes to the island for the first time. Mamasa means, I think, ‘drying out’, which relates to the fact that when people came here over the years, it was on the (long awful sickly dirty nightmarish) boat over days crossing the seas from wherever, and this was a ceremony to ‘dry off’ from the seas. Traditionally they would kill a pig for the occasion, make a bed of mats and sit you down on a white ceremonial mat on the top, present you with a beautiful flower Lay, called Tefui, squirt you with perfume, scatter talcum powder on you (I guess this is to make you smell better than the stench you come off the boat with) and serve you a meal with the best of their best, not before someone, a member of the family or community mumbles some words at you, which I just found out was an announcement of the food they have prepared for you: one pig (traditionally they present you with the head, which to them is the best part...), 6 Taro, 2 cans of ”Potco” (tinned meat)... they watch you eat, and then all join in on the feasting.
When I first met Carl and started hearing stories of this faraway land called Rotuma, I remember him telling me about the Mamasa, and since then I always dreaded coming here and having to sit there and be presented with the pig head... I had nightmares about it, and when my time was coming close to arriving here the first time, I BEGGED Carl to tell his relatives not to put the swine skull in front of me. The thought made me want to scream. When I arrived and they were preparing for my Mamasa, I knew Carl and his relo’s were taking the piss at me being scared of the pig head moment, and I begged them, in my simple English- please no head!!! I didn’t know until the last minute if I was going to get the head or not, and was SHITTING myself... you can imagine the relief I felt when they presented me with some other piece of the beast and some chicken instead....
Saulei’s Mamasa was very short, I had to sit on the mat with him on my lap, and when they came to put the Tefui on him, he screeched and pushed it away, same with the talcum and perfume. They didn’t bother feeding him, he wouldn’t have eaten anything anyway, and there was no pig head involved either. Thank Goddess!
Another story worth telling- when we arrived here, there was a turtle tied to a stick in the water, right in front of the house. I thought- a pet pig- ok, but a pet turtle tied to a stick??? Not sure... turns out that the pet turtle was to become a meal...
Last time I was here, I ate turtle without knowing it was turtle, and of course, it tasted like chicken... only after I was told it was turtle, I felt awful and swore never to do that again. And now, after having a pet tortoise called silver in Israel, (Noah’s second pet ever, his first were his silk worms) I felt even worse for the poor thing that was about to be butchered...
Believe it or not- I watched them do it!!! And not only that- I filmed it too!!! 2 of Carl’s cousins did it, one holding the poor things arms and legs, and the other slicing through its belly, all around and... I won’t go on. I will try to upload the video, and be warned- this is not for the weak hearted! MOM- DONT WATCH IT!!! I still can’t believe I did!!! It was horrible; Noah watched with me and was very fascinated!!!

 

Turtle pre-slaughter

 

Turtle post-slaughter

I will stick to the fishy creatures and the only hard shells I will eat will be lobsters, and I can’t wait to get my hands onto some of them!!! They are damn fine in this land!!!
So that’s it for today, I think Carl wants to write some too, am sure he will tell you all about the preparation and celebration of his cousins 1 year anniversary since he died, what a production! Quite similar to what Noah’s 1st birthday party here was like.
Happy weekend!!!! xxxx