Harmonie - Lepers, Giant Clams and a Turtle

Lepers, Giant Clams and a Turtle - Makogai Island, Fiji

Harmonie

Don and Anne Myers

Tue 28 Jul 2009 01:49

17:26.484S 178:57.121E

We did leave Savusavu (not to be confused with sevusevu, Somosomo, sulu or Suva) as planned on July 13th. After an overnight stop off the coast of the Cousteau resort (again), we set off for Makogai Island, which is about sixty miles to the south of Savusavu and the big island of Vanua Levu. It was a murky day with light winds. Perfect for fishing. Perfect because we are told the kind of fish we like to eat are more likely to come to the surface in murky light, and light winds mean the boat will be semi-stable for those tasked with killing, chopping heads off, gutting, filleting and skinning the fish (Don). We caught one mahi-mahi while motorsailing at 6ish knots; which is the speed, we are told, best suited for mahi-mahi catching. We then caught another one while sailing at 8ish knots. So much for that particular boat speed/fish catching old wives tale. Both mahi-mahi were apparently kicked out of triple back flip, double twisting freedom move school as neither put up that much of a fuss when Don brought them aboard. Picture 1 shows the first mahi-mahi caught. She turned from her normal iridescent blue to this sparkly yellow once she hit the deck. Don didn't give this or the next one a chance to display a rainbow of colors as he chopped them up pretty darn quick. We saved out enough to feed six and put the rest in the freezer. The freezer is nearly bursting with stuff as we are stocking up for the arrival of our niece and nephew. Our nephew, a six-plus foot tall 23 year old, has already warned us that he eats a lot. We figure he'll be fine. We'll just station him up on the bow with a stalk of bananas and a tub of mahi-mahi. That ought to carry him through a day or two.

We arrived at Makogai Island around three that afternoon and decided it was best to go ashore and get through the sevusevu ceremony as quickly as possible. Sue, Jackie and I dressed appropriately in skirts with knees covered and the entire group ditched hats and sunglasses (all considered disrespectful) for the occasion. Chief Kimeli (sp?) met us on the beach and directed us to a sitting spot (plank of wood supported by a few rocks) outside his small wooden frame house. We introduced ourselves and offered him the kava root. He accepted, said a few things in Fijian and that was that.

We knew before coming that the island used to be a leper colony. The chief confirmed this saying the last lepers were taken off the island in 1969 and transferred to an institution on the big island of Viti Levu. Previous to this, hundreds of lepers lived on the island - native Fijian lepers lived separately from Indo-Fijian (Indian) lepers and all were cared for by a group of nuns and doctors. Over the course of the sixty or so years the island was used as a leper colony, over 1,000 people died and were buried there. The chief said the graveyard is now overgrown. The current villagers never go there as they believe the leper's ghosts pretty much rule the place and they have no desire to mess with a bunch of leper ghosts. Aside from the overgrown graveyard, all that remains of the leper colony now is the ancient infrastructure (a generator circa 1906 that is still used for three hours each evening after dark, scary looking power lines and a semi-road through the forest connecting the two small villages), a few stone structures including the remains of an outdoor cinema and the stone staircase leading to the women's dorm (the rest of the stone building was disassembled by scavengers after the leper colony was closed down).

After 1969, the island was briefly used for a sheep farm. Sheep don't take too kindly to the tropics, even sheep supposedly bred for the tropics, and the sheep farm didn't last long. After that the Australians came in with some money to start a giant clam farm. Yup, giant clams. As in three feet long. The idea was to cultivate the giant clams in the bay near the village and then transfer (sell) them to Fijian resorts where they would be used as a tourist attraction (for diving and snorkeling tourists). Chief Kimeli arrived on Makogai Island about the time the giant clam farm was started up. He was trained by an Australian and then took over the endeavor. At the moment the funds for the giant clam farm have dried up due to the politics associated with the recent military coup in Fiji and Australia's displeasure with it. It's not clear what this means for the four families that live in Chief Kimeli's little giant clam farm realm.

Picture 2 - Our view of Chief Kimeli's village and some of the leper colony remains as seen from the boat.

Picture 3 - Our view of Lady Kay and the reef connecting Mokogai Island with the tiny island to the north.

Picture 4 - Village kids that greeted us when we came ashore.

Picture 5 - Chief Kimeli explaining the history of the island to us as he sits on the stairs that used to lead up to the leper colony's dormitory for women.

Picture 6 - Giant clams. One open, one shut. Both sitting on the bottom of the bay about 12-15 feet down. Both about three feet long, although it's difficult to tell their size from the picture.

Picture 7 - After we got back from the sevusevu ceremony and brief tour of the village and leper colony remains, it was time for mahi-mahi dinner for six on Harmonie. I'm working in our spacious galley as John from Storyteller looks on.

On the other side of the island, there is another slightly larger village, and a school. There are 28 school-age children on the island and they all attend one very small school. The eight children from Chief Kimeli's village walk 2 1/2 miles to and from the school every day. That's five miles a day. Up hill both ways. Truly, it is. We know because we did it. The 'road' that runs from Chief Kimeli's village to the village with the school is a rugged 2 1/2 mile walk that skirts the hilly coastline of the island. The day we visited the school, the husband and wife teacher team was busy getting some of the kids ready for a Fiji-wide standard test the next day. If tension can be high on a tiny Fijian island, then the tension was high for the teacher team. The kids didn't seem overly concerned about the test, but the husband half of the teacher team admitted it was a pretty big deal.

The husband and wife teacher team was from Suva (Fiji's capital city) and were stationed on Makogai Island for a two year term. It wasn't clear whether they viewed this as a prison sentence or a vacation. They were both too professional to let on either way. Their lifestyle on the island is no picnic. Like the villagers, they have to grow their own fruits and vegetables for food because there is no supply ship, no grocery store, no nothing. Each of the two villages has a small (maybe 15 foot) open aluminum boat with an outboard motor that they use to get to the main island for supplies. They do this over about fifteen miles of open ocean. A 15 foot open aluminum boat in the open ocean. You couldn't pay us enough to risk our lives like that. One of the villagers did say that one of the boats capsized a few months ago and a six-month old baby was drowned. He relayed this story in a matter -of-fact manner with little or no emotion shown. Maybe he was just being polite and didn't want to over dramatize the incident in front of strangers like us who spend our lives on boats. Hmmmm.

The teachers were not only concerned about the standard test the kids had to take the next day, but their other top priority seemed to be the installation of a new giant green plastic water tank. As the wife half of the husband and wife teacher team explained, 'We have no water to flush the toilets with', this said while waving in the general direction of what looked like a row of outhouses, but what must have been a row of toilets all housed in one structure with a separate door leading to each toilet. 'Once we get the new water tank installed, we will be able to flush the toilets without having to carry water.' When she said 'install the water tank', she meant she, her husband and the kids. Some of the kids that weren't studying for the test were working together to mix cement for the tank base. They were doing it themselves. Of course, right? It's not like they could have called 1-800-toiletflushingwatertankinstallers or anything. Some of the really small kids weren't studying for the test or mixing cement, they were impressing us with their ability to turn cartwheels. One of these cartwheel turning girls is the youngest in the school (5ish years old) and she is one of the eight kids that make the 2 1/2 mile trek to school and back each day. We thought it was impressive that she still had the energy to turn cartwheels after the 2 1/2 mile trek. None of us were cartwheeling after our trek.

Picture 8 - One of the marvelous views we experienced during the 2 1/2 mile walk from Chief Kimeli's village to the village on the other side of the island with the school.

Picture 9 - Mokagai Island School. There are two classrooms, one office and a kitchen. That's the row of currently non-flushing toilets to the left of the school building.

Picture 10 - A blackboard in one of the school rooms. Note that everything is written in English and that one of the math problems asks, 'Mr. Prasad planted 56 cabbage seedlings in one row. How many seedlings did he plant if there were 48 rows of cabbage?' We thought this was particularly appropriate as all the villages in Fiji grow their own vegetables and cabbage is one of their staples. We know because we've eaten cabbage salad going on four nights in a row now. Very useful, cabbage is. I never realized this until just this year. The stuff will keep in the fridge for weeks if housed in the proper green food storage bag. And it can do everything lettuce can do and then some. Hail to the almighty cabbage. Glad to see the Fijian kids are learning long multiplication based on cabbage related problems.

Picture 11 - Highly energetic cartwheeling school girls showing off for us.

We stayed in the bay with Lady Kay and Storyteller at Makogai Island for three nights. Aside from the trek to the school, we did a fair amount of snorkeling to see the giant clams and other assorted life under the sea. We did see more of the brilliant blue starfish that were so popular in Tonga, we also saw our first sea serpent. The really venomous kind with wide bright white and black bands. Luckily these nasty snakes have small mouths that can't really take a chunk out of a human. On top of that we are told they are basically shy. The one we saw was making its way along the sea bottom looking for its next victim. The two of us weren't even on its radar. Even so, I didn't hang around above it long enough to take a picture. The highlight of our underwater sightseeing at Makogai was a sea turtle so intent on chomping down a fish that it didn't even notice the two giant humans floating above it snapping pictures with a flash. It wasn't until I kicked with my flippers to get a better camera angle that the turtle realized what was going on. He was out of there in a flash. Literally. Sea turtles can scoot through the water like there is no tomorrow. This one was out of camera range in less than half a second.

Picture 12 - Some of our favorite little zebra-looking fish hanging around a solitary coral sprout.

Picture 13 - Sea turtle chomping on a fish.

More on our Fijian island adventures later.

Anne