Harmonie - Savusavu, Vanua Levu Island, Fiji

Savusavu, Vanua Levu Island, Fiji

Harmonie

Don and Anne Myers

Sun 12 Jul 2009 01:24

16:46.616S 179:20.227E

We arrived in Fiji on June 25th and stayed in the cozy Savusavu harbor for about a week before heading off to other less developed bays and islands with Lady Kay and Storyteller. There are two large islands in Fiji; Vanua Levu (where we are now) and to the southwest, the slightly larger Viti Levu. These two main islands are surrounded by more than 300 smaller islands and countless reefs. The total population of Fiji is 836,000, but the real story is the mix of people. As reported last year in the blog:

'In the late 1800's, thousands of Indian indentured servants were brought to Fiji to work the sugar plantations. In 1970, Fiji became an independent nation and British rule ended. By that time, many of the Europeans had left, but the Indians stayed - after all Fiji was truly their home by then. Native Fijians ruled until the national elections of April 1987, when a coalition of parties composed predominantly of Indians won. As you might imagine, the Indians and the Fijians didn't always play well together and since 1987, there has been strife in Fiji and several military coups took place which put native Fijians back in power. The political situation is still somewhat unsettled. The population remains about 50% native Fijian and 50% Indian, although it is said that the Indian population is decreasing as some Indians are choosing to leave Fiji. Most of the Indians live in the urban centers and near the sugarcane production areas on the two main islands, while the native Fijians live in the urban centers and throughout the whole of Fiji on the hundreds of islands.'

All still true, but the political strife saga continues as yet another military coup happened earlier this year before we arrived. From what we have seen so far, the country appears to be stable and the people happy enough. In Savusavu, the mix of native Fijians and Indo-Fijians (Indians) makes for a very unique atmosphere. One stroll down main street is all you need to get an appreciation for the culture mix. Bollywood and traditional Pacific music blares from stores that carry a mishmash of products. The office supply store (term used very loosely) also offers local frozen meat and homemade fishing lures. The store a few doors down offers sulus (sarongs) and saris made to order in one day. The Indo-Fijian marina manager, Dolly, recommended a transvestite Polynesian hairdresser named Reggie for haircuts and color. Jackie, Sue and I visited Reggie and found him/her to be extremely gracious and talkative, as well as very large and extremely decked-out in a multi-colored turban, full make-up and colorful dress. If we didn't know she was a he, we never would have guessed. We were there the day the news about Michael Jackson's and Farah Fawcett's deaths broke in Fiji. Reggie was devastated on both counts. At any rate, the atmosphere around town is higher energy than anything we experienced in Tonga, and we can't help thinking that the underlying buzz we feel when walking around is mostly due to the Indo-Fijians and not so much the native Fijians.

Curry is big here. Very big. Served up in every bar, restaurant and cafe. Eaten by boaters, Indo-Fijians, tourists and native Fijians alike. The local market is crammed with stalls (tables) manned by Fijians and Indo-Fijians. There's even an Indo-Fijian that sells kava. So although there may be political strife going on between the Indo-Fijians and the Fijians, it's not something you would notice on the streets. Both cultures appear to co-exist in harmony, but it's clear that they co-exist and don't necessarily inter-mix. Inter-racial marriages are extremely rare and the two cultures appear to socialize separately. From what we've read, it seems the political unrest stems from the land ownership laws and lack of Indo-Fijian political power. For the most part, Fijians own all the land. Indo-Fijians rent land for their plantations and businesses from the Fijians via long-term leases, but by law, the land belongs to the native Fijians and it can't be sold. Every time the Indo-Fijians win a political battle and gain more rights and/or power, the native Fijians start to get nervous that the land ownership laws may change. This is usually about when a military coup takes place and the political power pendulum swings back to the Fijians. And so it goes in a South Pacific third world island nation.

Ok, so back to Savusavu and our first week here.

As usual, there were a couple rally events to celebrate our arrival in Fiji and an array of happy hours and dinners out with fellow boaters. Have I mentioned the strength of the US dollar in Fiji? Another benefit of the recent coup - the Fijian currency was devalued against just about all other currencies, so food, services, etc. are extremely cheap. $5 US for a haircut from Reggie, if you have connections, a pedicure from one of the local Fijian girls in a room above the marina is $7 US, a three course meal with lots of wine for two at a nice restaurant for $40 US, and a dinner for six including four bottles of Australian wine at the best Chinese restaurant for $80 US. How can you go wrong? Speaking of the Chinese restaurant...the young chef left the kitchen after all the dinners were served and amused himself in the dining area by playing joke music on the stereo. My personal favorite was 'Cat's in the Kettle' set to the tune of 'Cat's in the Cradle' as performed by Cat Stevens (as in, 'And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon....Little boy blue and the man on the moon....When you comin' home dad? I don't know when, but we'll get together then....') When I asked the young Chinese chef why he was playing a song about cooking cats in the dining area of his own Chinese restaurant, he grinned and said simply, 'It's just for fun!' Let's hope so.

We were happy to hear about one change brought on by the recent coup though...apparently the entire cookie-eating, bribe-taking customs/health/quarantine/immigration staff in Fiji's Lautoka port was canned and replaced. We can only hope that the new staff is kinder to boaters. We'll find out since we have to check in and out of every major port in Fiji before we are allowed to cruise to the more remote islands in each area. So far in the two weeks we've been traveling around Fiji, we've checked in to Savusavu, out of Savusavu and back in to Savusavu. Before we are done, we'll check out of Savusavu, in to Lautoka and out of Lautoka. This checking in and out thing is almost as bad as crossing what is supposed to be the international dateline in Fiji. 180 degrees longitude runs right through Vanua Levu and neighboring Taveuni Island. In our recent travels, we've crossed it three times. Lucky for us the dateline is diverted to the east of Tonga so we didn't have to time travel each time we crossed. I can report that the glowing dotted blue line definitely does not exist. Sad, but true. We most certainly would have seen it by now after crossing 180 degrees once last year and four times this year.

On with the pictures:

Picture 1 - This was our view from the first mooring we had in Savusavu harbor. We were at the far end of the mooring field and got to gaze at these mist covered mountains every day. Fijians who don't have the money for a 'proper' Fijian boat or outboard motor, travel by bamboo raft. Presumably, this group was heading home to their village after a day in Savusavu.

Picture 2 - The marina and rally managers arranged for an official kava ceremony welcome for us rally boaters. Sue, Jackie and myself attended in proper attire - long skirts and long-sleeved shirts with knees and elbows covered.

Picture 3 - Fijians literally hand-preparing the kava.

Picture 4 - Brave Don going for a coconut bowl full of double strength kava. He was particularly mellow later on that afternoon.

Picture 5 - Dancing girls. After the kava welcome ceremony, we were treated to dancing by this troop. The girl in the front with the long hair seemed to be the leader of the group and knew the dance moves well. The other three girls managed to get through each number only by watching the lead girl. Later we decided the lead girl was the daughter of the dancing troop's teacher. Aha! No wonder she was so good.

Picture 6 - After the dancing, the rally challenged the local kid's sailing club to a race using the sailing club's sailing dinghies. It was four kids in four sailing dinghies vs. four adult (with one exception) rally sailors in another four sailing dinghies. John from Storyteller, known for his racing expertise, volunteered to be one of the rally representatives in the race. Although the rally representatives were soundly beaten by the local kids, John was our best performer, and in the second round managed to beat at least one (or was it two?) of the kids as well as all the other rally representatives. That's John in the blue dinghy formulating his racing strategy as he stares intently ahead.

Pictures 7 and 8 - A group of rally boaters went on a bus tour to the local rainforest preserve. It was a beautiful spot with a nice hiking path through the rainforest - all set up with money from a New Zealand environmental aid agency. The first picture shows the wife of one of the rainforest caretakers setting out information under a traditional Fijian bure structure. The second picture is a view of the rainforest. Getting to the rainforest and back was almost more exciting than the rainforest itself given the seen-better-days bus and the driver's extreme difficulty getting the thing to shift gears on the steep inclines. It wasn't as exciting as our tourist truck ride to see the volcano in Vanuatu though, that one still reigns supreme in the area of take-your-life-in-your-hands tourist transportation.

The rest of our first week in Savusavu was spent on boat maintenance and cleaning, restocking of supplies (translation: we were low on beer) and waiting for a spell of rain to pass before normal wind patterns re-established themselves allowing us to start our tour of the southeast and east coast of Vanua Levu and Rambi Island. However, before we left Savusavu, we did take the time to celebrate two things simultaneously: our 13th wedding anniversary and our newly refitted, fully operational grill. Sue and Grant, friends of Sue and John's, flew in from New Zealand to join Storyteller in Fiji for ten days, and along with the bits and pieces they hauled to Fiji for Storyteller, they also brought the necessary parts to resuscitate our grill from the land of the living dead. We dug out the New Zealand champagne and the frozen New Zealand lamb chops we had been saving for just such an occasion and toasted both accomplishments (each of equal importance) - 13 years and a refurbished grill.

Anne