Lobster, Loosing it and Lamb sausages

 

The sky was orange and a slight rainbow in view (not the best pic)

Oh I am so full! Just had my first Lobster lunch this time around.  It would’ve been much more enjoyable if I didn’t have to kung-fu fight the flies away while trying to scrape the flesh out of the tails and eat at the same time.

Rule number one in Rotuma- better not to eat fish or Lobster in the day time, as you would have to share your meal with a million other black flying buggers...

Carl went last night with his cousins to fish and came back with a bag full’o’fish and about 6 Lobsters. They had to pre cook it all when they got home so it won’t go bad, so today I made green Curry fish and Lobsters in Coconut cream and lime. If I were to cook them fresh out of the sea, I would’ve put the tails on the BBQ, made up some Garlic butter and dipped. Oh well, next time. And I’m sure there will be one soon.

So the days are rolling by into weeks and months, and we have been here for about a month and a half now, and I am just starting to feel like this is my life right now. On the one hand, It feels like we’ve been here for so much longer, but on the other hand, it’s like time doesn’t exist at all, I don’t know what day it is most of the time, and Sundays come along so fast. Sunday is the only day I know, because everyone here gets all dressed up for church and no one does any work, it is the day of rest. I know it is 6pm when the electricity comes on and I know it is 9pm when it goes off. I know it is morning when I see an orange sky emerging on the horizon when I look out of my window, and that’s pretty much all I know about time over here...

Since my last post, our cargo load on the ship finally arrived, a big crate of stuff we sent from Australia before we left and only received it a week ago, together with a package from Carls family containing some goodies I have been craving. I was speaking to Selina, Carls sister on the phone after I received it, telling her how excited I was about receiving it all, and she laughed at me saying “Nadine, that is so sad, being so excited about receiving some first aid gear and nice soaps...” I laughed so much at how true that was. How sad...

But with that load came our nice clean sheets, and bikes and books and toys, I was so excited, like receiving a huge load of Xmas presents, the first thing I did was pulled out my sheets and flew them in the air like Mary Poppins and lay them on my bed and was so happy to have nice crisp white cotton sheets to sleep on (however, that night, Saulei was a bit sick, and spewed all over them... )

It’s great to have our bikes here, it gives me the opportunity to see a bit of the island, rather than stay at home all day, I’ve been having to escape the kids (literally- with them running after me screaming... they don’t like seeing their mummy go...), going for little rides to get a bit of a break and space. It’s really helpful. We’ve got little seats for the kids on the bikes, but I must say, I don’t know if I will be using mine much, as riding on sand is hard enough, but having a passenger on the back too, makes it a bit too dodgy for my comfort. Especially when my passenger is Saulei.

I must admit, I haven’t felt very inspired to write lately, been having a bit of a downer and feeling a bit over it all. I feel like I am a slave here. Who would have thought that living on a tropical island could feel like slavery?  I feel like all I do all day is slave in the boiling hot kitchen  to cook for the masses, I’m hardly enjoying myself, and there isn’t much I can do about it. We need to eat. These big hungry men need to eat to be able to work, and I am the one responsible for it.  Carls cousin Mua came and went with the last boat, and she was supposed to come back on the next boat leaving next week, but she isn’t. I’m guttered. She is a huge help, takes half the load of work off me, she manages the household and all the inhabitants in a way that I could never, and she is another woman to have in the house with me.  Luckily, I have the gorgeous Rechelli, a little aunt about my mums age and my size, who lives next door, and pretty much does everything here with me. She is the most patient person I have ever met, she can sit for a whole day, literally, getting up only for eating and toilet, and work on something, if it is making the “Tefui”- the flower lay, for a particular occasion, or cutting up coconut flesh to tiny pieces to make the “taroro”- a fermented coconut mush they use for cooking. She helps me with all the kitchen work, she is as strong as a bull, as graceful as a butterfly, she does everything with so much gratitude (we feed her and her elderly father and grandson), she sings and dances and is very creative. Always with a smile on her face. Never complains about anything.  She even reads books! I dunno what I would do without her.

 

Rechelli, little Shannon and I peeling "Vee" fruit to make jam

So I’m trying to keep sane, trying hard to focus on the positives, and mainly on the fact that Robby, our dear friend, is coming next week. I could really do with the company, the silliness we share, the laughs and cuddles, a bit of my tribe with me in this foreign land... AND, he’s bringing with him a bunch of goodies too, little mad cravings I’ve had like M&M’s and Muesli...

I mentioned before that Mua manages the household in a way that I could never do, I’d like to explain that.

Over here, you are judged and valued by how hard you work. Life here is very hard, to be able to eat, you have to work very hard. To have clean clothes, you have to work very hard. Same goes with a clean house, or anything else for that matter. If one doesn’t work hard, beyond their comfortable ability, the work load falls on others, those who do work hard, and they might happen to be old men or women. If someone doesn’t work hard they are put down and disrespected, and constantly picked on, in ways that I personally have a hard time with. When Mua is here, she is like a very vocal hen, constantly bossing everyone around, yelling at the ones who are lazy and don’t work hard, threatening them with no food or being kicked out, designating “bosses” and making it clear to whoever is in the house they are under the “command” of those “Bosses”... Funnily enough, I was designated as one of them. Everyone has to do what I tell them to, and follow my instructions. A bit of a weird job that I feel quite uncomfortable in, I’m not really the type to boss people around (especially when they’re three times my size), and I don’t enjoy putting people down and threatening them, but it seems like that is the only language they understand... I don’t want to become that kind of person. If when I get back home Im sounding bossy rude and condescending, please let me know, send me to “Kind school” to relearn how to be it...

One “exciting” thing that has happened is that I have become a business manager... HA HA!!!!  When Mua came back on the last boat, she brought with her a freezer, kindly sponsored by Carls mum. Now you’re probably asking what would we do with a freezer in a place that has only 3 hours of electricity a day? Well- exactly that... only 3 hours of power a day keeps the thing semi cool, and in it, we store packets and packets of Sausages, which we sell for $15 dollars per 1.5kg pack. Every now and then a random person arrives at my bedroom door to buy sausages, and I sell them the half soggy things that defrost and partially refreeze every day. It can’t be good for the poor Lamb Sausages (that’s what they’re labelled as, they don’t taste anything like lamb, or anything else for that matter...), but that’s what y you get here. Mua brought 2 cartons of them to sell, I have already sold one carton, we make $3 profit on each pack. I have to write down in a little exercise book every sale I make. We are expanding our stock with the next boat arriving from Suva, and will be selling butter and  what they call “Mutton”, which I think are lambs necks. I don’t want to think of the food miles on them, and the amount of freezing and defrosting they have been through, probably coming from New Zealand or Australia. Yet people here will still eat it happily...  I’m quite glad about the butter being sold here, as it means that I have a constant supply of it, rather than having to find someone going to another villages faraway to get some for me and pay a ridiculous price for it. Of course I have to pay for it coming from my business, am still not sure if I will get mates rates or not...

 

Mua and I with our new business- the freezer!

On the building side of things, Im sure Carl would like to tell about it, but he is so damn busy all the time, that he hasn’t got time to sit and write.

He has been frolicking in the bush with men who know, looking for trees to use for timber to build with, he has been practicing cutting down loads of coconut trees with his chainsaw and getting quite good at it, he goes fishing twice a week to feed us all, he manages all the rest of the men in what needs to be done and how, he has been building his workshop  for all his power man-tools, digging holes, building a bench top, playing with all his man-toys.  The retainer wall they built to extend the land into the sea is almost complete, this was a very hard process for all these hard men here, having to lug big rocks around for days and build a perfectly balanced wall, photos attached. Apparently next week he is going to cut down the trees he will use for building.

He has already cut down 3 coconut trees in front of the house, and every time I see one of them go down within 25 seconds, I feel really bad, thinking that it must’ve taken years to grow, and here we come, these western destroyers, and within seconds destroy it all. Carl explained that coconut trees in particular, have such a high turnover, they grow really fast, and when they don’t produce fruit anymore, it’s better to clear them to allow sunshine for younger shoots to grow better. Also, people here don’t have the same value on tree’s as we do in the “west”. Carl bought a whole huge Mahogany tree from one of the locals, and payed him $400 fijian dollars for the whole tree. Anywhere else, Im sure that would cost thousands, or maybe not. It doesn’t really matter. Each to their own I guess.

So I’m gonna sign off now, as I have to go prepare dinner, not before I let you in on a funny story about Saulei, who at not yet 2 years old, on an isolated island in the middle of nowhere, has become a fashion victim, and is very fussy about what he wears. Several times a day he pulls out different pants he wants to wear and comes begging “Mummy Peeeeeesh” wanting to wear them, and if I pull them away and try to put them back in the clothes box, he LOOSES IT... I think to myself, how on earth, in a place like this, where other little boys wear pink and floral clothes because that’s what their elder sister wore, and other kids wear rags and aren’t even aware of it, MY SON decides he has to take control over what he wears...???

And on that note, ADIOS till next time

Loads of Love to you all xxxx