Sorry for the distinct lack of posts here. I finally managed to configure everything and get internet on my laptop though, so hopefully this can become more regular. I wrote this post last weekend in a word doc, and I'll fill in what's happened since then later.

Bula everybody!

Eventually I will get around to updating this blog more regularly, but we have been so busy and many parts of Fiji do not have internet access. So, I suppose I'll start with last Friday's stories. 

After a big breakfast of delicious fruits and breads, Kyle drove us about half an hour away to a friend's house, right past where we went ziplining, where we were greeted by somewhere around 20 horses. With varying levels of enthusiasm, myself probably the most excited, we were each put on a horse and led to a big, grassy, oval track and set free to get to know our horses. Of course for me that meant seeing how fast I could get around the track. Once we were acquainted and all ready, we set out across the river and through some sugar cane fields. The people who owned the horses are trying to make a business of doing trail rides to supplement their income from the sugar cane, but I think they have some work to do with actually clearing out some trails, because at some points, our horses were pretty much just crashing through the crops while we all ducked our heads and tried to get scraped up as little as possible. But after nearly an hour of riding, we finally made it to our destination, which turned out to be a mud bath "spa". Yes, I took a mud bath, and yes, there are plenty of pictures that I will upload later. It was weird and gross, but it was fun because we were all together and it did kind of feel good in a weird way. The people who ran the place had us wash off in the hot springs after. As awesome as hot springs are, I think it would have been nicer if it wasn't 90 degrees outside. The whole experience was worth it though.

Once we finished up with the horses and mud bathing, we went back to the farm where we got to see how a traditional lovo dinner is made, which was fascinating. First, they dug a pit to build a fire in and put rocks over it and waited until the rocks were good and hot. While the rocks were heating, they made leaf wraps and put a mixture of thickened coconut milk, onion, and something else in the leaves, then wrapped that up in tin foil. The other part of the meal was chicken, and the way it was prepared was so cool. They prepared 5 chickens for us, and what they did was take the whole chicken, set it on the middle of a huge coconut leaf, and the braid around the chickens until they were secured in the leaf. They then put the coconut leaves holding the chickens and the foil wraps of the leaf mixture on top of the hot rocks, covered it all in huge banana leaves, then covered that in burlap. This is to trap all the heat in, and the coconut leaves and tin foil were to assure that the rocks didn't scorch the food. After an hour and a half, it was all ready. They told us that they make meals that way every Sunday, or for special guests like us. I can't imagine doing all that work for one meal every week. 

The next day, we woke up early to pack up all of our bags and leave the apartment we were staying in. Kyle drove us to a beach about 45 minutes away to frolic and play for a couple hours. It was gorgeous, but a mishap with the waves put a bit of a damper on the frolicking. Taylor, Matt, and I rode in a separate truck to the beach (it's hard to fit 11 people plus Kyle and his kids in one vehicle) and as we were walking along the beach towards where the others were already swimming, we could see the waves suddenly getting bigger and more violent. Next thing we see is Diana walking back towards the shore and some others helping her, then when she turned a bit we saw why. The whole right side of her face was covered in blood. Apparently the wave took her down and scraped her along the sandy bottom. Once she got cleaned up, we could tell that it wasn't quite as bad as it looked, but she still had to miss out on the village trip later that day because of it. So, lesson learned. Be careful in the ocean. She's a trooper though and had a sense of humor about it, so the day still turned out okay.

After a few hours at the beach, we got dressed in the appropriate clothes and left for the village. We were greeted with a big lunch already set up in the dining house. Now, I suppose I have to explain a few things about village life. Each small village in Fiji is made up of one clan, which is many families that all seem to be related in one way or another. However, the entire clan is like one big family, to the point that while I was there, I had no idea who most of the kids belonged to or who was who's brother or sister. Each family has their own house, which in all honesty, isn't usually much more than a glorified shack. The houses have very little furniture, too. The house I stayed in had a kitchen table and beds and dressers in the bedrooms. The living room was entirely empty except for a tv where the men watched rugby. Speaking of which, gender roles are prominent there. Women are not allowed to have their shoulders or knees showing, cannot groom their hair or have it down in front of the men, and they generally do most of the work. In fact, I really didn't see the men do much else but lounge, drink kava, and watch rugby while I was there. In addition to the gender role customs, there were also several others that we had to be mindful of during our stay. For example, touching somebody else's head is considered very offensive. You are also supposed to avoid being higher up than others (don't stand while they are sitting), but if you had to, like when you walk past people sitting down, you have to bow down slightly and say chilo, which is basically asking for a pardon. Also, there is the custom of kirikiri, whcih means I had to be careful not to compliment things the villagers owned, because they would then be basically obligated to give it to me. It works the other way too, but thankfully they didn't do that to me. 

Anyway, the arrival lunch. Like I said, it was in the dining house, which is basically just an empty, one room building in the middle of the village. All eating is done on the floor in the villages, they just set up a long table cloth in the middle of the room. I'm not even going to try to describe everything I ate while I was there, because half the time I really didn't even know what the heck was on my plate. Most of it was pretty good though. The two things that seemed to be at every meal, though, were white rice and cassava. Cassava is very popular in Fiji because it is easy to grow and it is filling. You eat the starchy root of the cassava plant, which at first I thought was a marijuana plant because they look alarmingly similar, and it tastes kinda sorta like a potato.

After lunch, we went back to the house I was staying in to watch the Fiji rugby team play against Argentina (rugby is a huge deal here) and drink kava (which is also a huge deal here). Kava is the traditional drink of Fiji, and it is basically a ground up root that is then made into a sort of tea in a huge bowl, then drunk out of a half coconut shell and is very mildly narcotic. Now, it might be the traditional drink, but I'm pretty sure nobody really enjoys the taste of kava. It looks like dirty water and kind of tastes like it too. It tastes like bitter dirt and makes your tongue kind of numb. It's weird and hard to describe, but there you go. Whenever an outsider goes to visit a village, they must present a gift of kava to the clan to be welcomed in and again to be blessed to leave. It is also considered somewhat rude to turn down kava when offered, so it's something I just have to get used to. 

We sat around relaxing, watching rugby, and drinking kava until dinner, which was another feast, then left to go to the sand dunes nearby. When they told me sand dunes, I was not expecting what I saw. The dunes were huge! Super cool.