Supermarket was mind blowing. Its like an underwater city of beautiful coral structures shaped like trees, and clouds, and flowers and mushrooms in every color. I wish I knew the names of all the fish so I could describe what I saw- I know there were angel fish the size of dinner plates, fish with long tubular snouts, and spikes, and suckers, and giant eyeballs. And every color you could imagine. It made yesterdays snorkel seem like a total joke. As you swim along there are banks and valleys and caves, and drop offs that look like they have no bottom. It was a little scary to come up and look around at the open water and realize how far I had gone from the boat, but when you go back under its so peaceful with the underwater creatures looking like they’re going about their daily business. I didn’t see any sharks.
When I was leaving this morning I caught 2 little girls going through a trash can behind the lodge. They couldn’t have been more than 4 or 5 years old. I said, “girls, what are you doing??” and they looked like they were being caught doing something naughty. One of them had a few coins she tried to give me and I told her no thank you, then a parent (?) came along and whisked them off. I’m hoping they just saw money in the trash and weren’t scrounging for food.
Later in the day I happened to make the acquaintance of the village elder, Brother Moses. It turns out the litter of puppies belongs to his household. Moses is a large man with an enormous afro, with flowers behind his ears. He wears a sarong around his waist and dark sunglasses. I have seen him hanging around a lot, and heading out fishing, but never chatted before. He asked me to sit down after discovering I was from the US. Brother Moses speaks English well and explained to me that he is a history buff. I sat quietly and listened to what he had to say. Moses said, “Katie, in the book of Revelations, there are 3 beasts that are spoken of. Each one comes before the next. These beasts that are spoken of are not beasts at all, but nations. The first beast is Babylonia. The second is Rome. And the third and last beast, is America”. He continued, “after the third beast has risen, it will fall and there will be a second coming of Christ… even the dead will rise” etc. etc. It seemed that Moses was expecting this theory to be new material for me. I informed him that I am familiar with the bible and this interpretation. He began to talk about his understanding of American history, stating that “America was a land of nothing and no one, and then the Christians arrived on 2 boats, the Mayflower and the Mayfair… turning the land into a great Christian nation!” I really didn’t know how to handle this one people. I said, “Moses, America was not a land of nothing and no one, because it was filled with indigenous peoples. Their lands were stolen by the Christian Europeans, and they were almost wiped out by the diseases brought over by the pilgrimage”. Moses said, “…Oh… the redskin Indians?”. “Yes Moses”. Moses said, “Well… it was their time. It was meant to be”. I nearly FELL off of the stump I was sitting on. I decided to zip my lip and said, “Moses, I have to go now”. He asked me to come back again because he likes to talk about history.
On any given day in my life this would have been an argument, but I am a foreigner here, and who am I to challenge the elder of the village I am staying in regarding his religious beliefs, views and values? It just seems ironic that here this community of indigenous folks live, on lands they have lived on since the beginning of time, and it does not occur to this man that only luck and timing and a thousand other circumstantial factors separate their fate from that of their Native American brothers and sisters. And with Fiji itself having experienced occupation!
This morning, after telling my Canadian friend Euon this story- he had one for me that is worth sharing. He told me he went to a church service on the main Island last Sunday. He’s not a regular church-goer, but wanted the cultural experience. So he explained that the service was mostly in the Fijian language, but that at one point the preacher spoke some in English. He told me that the preacher said… “Brothers and sisters, sometimes we good Christians have troubles. Sometimes we act like the Jews, sometimes we are greedy like the Jews.” Euon said it had been a long church service and that he had been fading, but halfway through that statement he had snapped to attention, and after it was finished being said he just about choked!
Incredible.
It has come as a surprise to me, being a person that finds awareness and tolerance important, that while practicing these ideals in the company of what seems to be a rather vulnerable culture- I find intolerance and ignorance perpetuated. That being said I do realize I more than likely carry a package of cultural baggage that blinds me in ways I can’t perceive, as we all do, and I have no right to judge.
On another note, I sucked it up and paid the $70 to join my friends on the camping trip to the sandbank island last night and it was fantastic. We arrived around 5pm on literally, a 50ft x 30ft bump of sand rising out of the South Pacific. Euon called it “the perfect Farside cartoon island, minus the one tilting palm tree”. We snorkeled around the island and were swarmed with tropical fish. There was one disk shaped colorful fish that was about half the size of me with giant bulging eyes. There were so many different types and colors and shapes, and at times the zebra type would surround you so thoroughly it was like being in a cloud of them.
I got out when I saw the barracuda fish go by. Yikes! But, still no sharks.
There was about 20 of us in all and there was a barbeque set up. We had dinner and beers and a big bonfire and slept under the stars. The sky was really, really clear and it made me think of home, seeing the same sky and constellations from the other side of the world.
Xoxoxoxo -K
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