2-1-10

Mana Island, Fiji

On Saturday I was picked up by boat from Nadi and delivered to Mana. I am staying at a backpacker’s lodge called Ratu Kini’s, which is situated amongst Mana Village. There are several lodges here and the accommodations are mixed in with the villager’s- the dorms are actually somewhat indistinguishable, its hard to tell what belongs to the lodges and what belongs to the residents of the island. It has been quite nice to have the opportunity to observe the villagers going about day to day business. Most live in corrugated iron or tin structures or buildings made of something similar to stucco. They have a school and a church building and pathways of sand winding around the houses and other buildings. They are very friendly although no one seems to speak much English but they always greet you, “Bula”! as you pass by. During the day they are often doing laundry the old fashioned way with washboards or fetching large jugs of water for their homes. The yards have rows of clothesline with lots of colorful things hanging out to dry. The village is mostly shaded by trees that look like weeping willows, palms, and another type of tree that’s just dripping with bright orange and red blossoms. The pathways are covered in a layer of red petals. Many of the homes have small gardens growing food. The children are very curious and like to have their picture taken. They have a lot of fun pushing each other around in wheelbarrows and playing with the dogs, which seem to be well fed but not really belong to anyone. There are about 3 that hang around on the porch of the lodge and are actually very picky about the table scraps they will accept! One of them has a litter of puppies which I discovered under a little shed and visit every time I pass by. All of them look beagle-ish but also sort mixed with Australian shepherd if you can imagine that.

Yesterday I was swimming around out front of the lodge and a little Fijian girl was playing in the shallow water. She couldn’t speak any English but she knew the word “come” and shouted to me “Come! Come!” over and over until I got the point and joined her in the shallow water. She was laughing and splashing me and climbing on me, and then she latched on to my back and was clearly looking for a little ride around swimmingJ so I swam around a few times with her attached to my back. I then noticed she kept blowing on her hand and I took her hand and looked and she had white blistery sores on the side of her hand. I tried to sign with her to ask her what happened, but she only lifted her shirt to expose more of them, poor thing. I was a little nervous about what she might have gotten that from so I didn’t do any more piggy backing but we exchanged names and she was shrieking “Kay-beeee!” and cracking up.

The dorm has 8 bunk beds and I am on top. There is a very sweet French girl bunking below me and a crew on British boys across the room. On Saturday night they got quite drunk and I had gone to sleep early… I woke up on Sunday and turned over to see one of them stark naked on the bunk opposite me. This whole dorm arrangement is just constant shenanigans as you would expect, but REALLY!? They have cold running water (which is all you need, trust me) and some sort of water saving toilets that hardly work.

The last few days I’ve been laying around on the beach reading a really good (and disturbing) book called The Poisonwood Bible. Today I decided I needed to get some exercise and hiked across the island to another beach with a few girls. It is really hard to hike in this heat as the sweat just pours off of you and gets in your eyes and everything. It was worth it though, the other side had cold water to swim in. The ocean on the lodge side of the island is like bathwater unless you go out really deep. When we got to the spot the cutest dog came running out of the bushes and joined us. It came out swimming with me and kept trying to touch noses with me. I really fell for it and was playing with it. I decided to leave the beach and hike back alone before the rest of the group and the dog came with! He followed me all the way back to the other side of the island which was at least a mile or so and was walking about 20 feet ahead of me. He kept stopping and looking back to check on me, then waiting up. I found it so charming that I had an escort back as I was a little nervous to be walking alone. When we got back to my beach he said goodbye then ran off back where he came from.

The locals that work here are really nice but aggressively flirtatious, despite my repeated assertions that I have a boyfriend and NO THANKS! Anyhow, I have been ignoring one in particular and while I was swimming today he came swimming up and offered me some snorkeling gear to borrow. I hesitated, but you have to rent it here so I took it, and to my amazement there were hundreds of beautiful colorful fish swimming around with me that I didn’t even know were there! They don’t seem to swim near shore where the water is see-to-the-bottom, they like to hang around in the plants that are out a little deeper and the water is cooler. There were schools of zebra striped, blue with yellow (like Dory from Nemo), puffers, and some flesh colored fish that are about the size of your hand and have fluorescent green and pink stripes. They were even better than the ones in the tank at Peking Palace J I don’t think I’ve ever snorkeled before so this was really thrilling and I broke down and paid for a snorkeling trip around the reef tomorrow.

On Wednesday (Tuesday at home) I will be leaving here and heading for the Coral Coast in hopes of being able to start learning surfing at the only beach break in Fiji. The rest of the breaks are all reef breaks but this one exists because of something to do with it being at a river mouth. I’ll be staying at a backpacker’s lodge called the beach house and HOPEFULLY will have some internet access. I haven’t had any contact with the outside world at all in what seems like forever. There are payphones here, but they require a Fiji phone card to use… I thought I had come prepared with a regular international card but no luck.

I miss my guy like crazy and can’t stop daydreaming about seeing him in NZ. My French roommate and I have been commiserating about missing our boyfriends, as she is separated from hers at the moment as well. So that’s the word from Fiji, its beautiful and hot as hell, and there’s not much to do except sunbathe, read and write, socialize, and take 3 cold showers a day. I have taken a zillion pictures and last time I was on the internet I tried to upload some onto the blog, but it wasn’t working- I thin k one actually uploaded out of about 20.

When I arrive in Australia I have been promised internet, so I will catch up on everything then.

Xoxoxox -K