Levuka

History time to the MAXX! The history field trip all began on Thursday afternoon 12:30 Fiji estimated time of departure. It was 12:20 and I sprinted over to the bus stop only to find myself with the other non Pacific Islanders waiting for the bus alone. 1:30 rolls around and finally everyone is there and we depart. On the way we had Fiji time with a number of stops which lasted plenty long for me to sit down and eat a 3 course meal at the Train Station BBQ and use the wet napkin afterwards to avoid making a mess. When we arrived at the landing where the ferry was supposed to meet us the boat was MIA, so we were blessed with getting to know each other stuffed up on a bus while it poured outside. The boat ride wasn’t too crazy because it gets dark when the boat is 2 hours behind schedule. On the island of Ovalau the leading professor said we would have nearly a 2 minute commute to Levuka where we will be spending our weekend. After driving for an hour I felt that my weekend had already had overused the bus.
The first order of business was to conduct our SevuSevu to the Man of Levuka. We walked there through rain, puddle, and wind determined not to miss the SevuSevu, because it is that important. We arrive to the room where there was already a congregation of people huddled around the Tanoa, the Kava bowl. One of the Fijian students went on his knees with both hands on the bundle of unground kava root, while I so comfortably sat cross legged and gave a 5 minute speech which sounded very well rehearsed. Later I learned all it does is state our business and shows gives recognition to the generosity of allowing a visit. Then the spokesman for the village gives a speech which sounds exactly the same to an untrained ear, but instead is accepting our thanks and allowing us into the area. As the kava is distributed I found that I was offered about 5 cups where everyone else was given one. They also laughed whenever I got the cup, so I’m guessing they thought I didn’t like it so they thought it was funny when I refused.
Afterward, it was a walk to the other side of Levuka for pizza. Initially the rain stopped, but while we were walking you could hear behind us something coming up slowly. One of the guys who went with turns around and exclaims “Here it comes” and we began to sprint down the street away from the invisible suffering brought by rain. Luckily as soon as we jumped under an overhang the rain caught us and we were spared its true wrath. Even with such great effort to stay dry we were drenched upon arrival at the Pizza place. Upon the conclusion of the thinnest greasiest pizza ever the group felt it would be proper to wash it down with a few drinks.
The bar experiences never fail to introduce me to very uncomfortable situations. This time it involved a young drunk man who really wanted to talk to the “Angels” or the American girls, and when he was deterred by being ignored he turned to me in order to release some verbal rage. Apparently his ancestors told him about me and that I couldn’t understand because I don’t accept what he is telling me. He didn’t make much sense, but the hand gestures and his tone made him somewhat threatening. Once he left I was able to have a very pleasant conversation about politics with Christian the German, which it turns out that he thought Germany made some bad decisions in WWII, so I was happy to know that they have the same story as us when it comes to such occurrences in history.
Good Friday we went to a Methodist church in a village, and listened to it in all Fijian, which I originally thought would be interesting, but it was actually very very difficult to feel a purpose in being there. The enjoyable moments come when people sing, and they didn’t disappoint as usual. Next came the second Sevusevu of the weekend, which wasn’t as special because this wasn’t an exclusive small group. The entire group of USPers were invited and sat through it. Even the 10 year old Tongan child who came with his mom was able to drink grog, which really killed the grandeur feeling from the night before, and made me feel like a tourist again. Lunch was served and prepared with the process of Lovo of course. Finally, true Fijian cuisine, and let me tell you it sure was traditional. I really do not have a hard time eating things too often, but wow this hurt pretty bad at some parts. I just couldn’t get over the green mud looking stuff from my cut in half crab oozing all over my steamed dalo shoots with coconut milk, and eating with my fingers and sifting through crab intestines and gunk just isn’t a typical meal for me.





After the conclusion of the sevusevu, we were given permission to roam the town as we please and see a number of the historical sites. I felt really bad when our entire group bailed instantly without observing anything, and the most common reason was to go take a nap, makes me want to puke, which unfortunately recently I have taken my first deliberate nap since I’ve been here. : ( Luckily I and a number of other restless souls decided a nap was not really the style of life we desired, so we ventured deep into the villages jungle, about 30 meters out of town, on a path to their swimming area. The waterfall wasn’t too impressive, so luckily I discovered a fine way of adventuring. On the sidewall of the falls there was a thick old vine scaling the 30 ft vertical wall. Giving into my gorilla instincts I decided to venture to the top to see what’s on the other side. I reached the top, which had a walking path up there, leaving instant death behind. Really all I did was to give the others the impression of stupidity, and get bitten by a spider, which sort of hurt a bit, but well worth it. Unfortunately like all of my exploits they were not caught on camera, so there is no documentation of the impressive climb I performed. Later I was climbing another vine except across the pool and it snapped, luckily I was directly over the water, but it made me really appreciate the last climb I had.
That night we were so blessed with a professor who believes in culturing on another so we had a list of songs that are traditional to each of the nations that were represented in our group. Turns out that America was represented with a very lame song, “don’t know much about history,” and after the written songs were depleted they turned to the groups creative side to sing and maybe dance in their unique ways. After a number of Pacific Islander style songs it came to the Americans. Determined to regain our pride I quickly filed through my mental library of songs and of course came up with the best one to sing ever. “Da Turdy Point Buck.” I needed to explain the scenario because I don’t believe anyone really followed the story, but at least I tried. I kicked in a solid accent, and busted out the rhymes. Everyone looked quite confused, because all of their art was beautiful and meaningful where mine was just stupid, but I gave them a good taste of Wisconsin – American culture I feel.
Once upon a time Fiji’s weather was good to me and provided plenty of opportunities to enjoy the land to the fullest. Not here and not now. There was so much rain going on it really dampened my spirits. We did find time to go swimming again with the entire backside population on Levuka, who happen to live up in a valley in the mountains, really cool, but poor unfortunately.




Sunday’s mass was rumored to be at 8 AM and luckily my super flamboyant roommate Joeli I was able to be blessed with times his snoring right when I need to wake up. Of course church doesn’t start until 9 so I was plenty early. Church was pretty much just another mass, except in a neat building and many people sat on the floor, but this one was actually in English though. Adventures that day were postponed due to a lack of organization, but I set out with the instructors eager to impress son, and two very tightly knit Indo Fijian sisters. We set out for Gun Rock where I believed to know where I was going, but found a tour 8 year old tour guide. As we followed him we skipped over the village I have become a member of and began our decent next to a little house. As we walked by, a middle aged woman stuck her head out of a window and began to scold our little guide. She moved outside the house and began to scold me also for just meandering onto someone’s property without permission. She lacked any forgiveness when I told her I was following the little guy, but did say that it was ok because “you don’t know anything” lovely. Luckily, or possibly not, there just so happened to be the first thunderstorm rolling in and I exited because I didn’t think fighting the rain up the hill would have been worth it. Instantly after we entered cover at the hotel lake Michigan fell upon us.
The hotel we were at happened to be surrounded by a little moat connecting on two different sides to the ocean. I would guess it to be 10 feet deep walls, but normally have 2 feet of water in it. Within the hour it was a gushing river of doom sweeping away anything and everything that may accidentally fall in. All I saw was those really terrifying, at least when it becomes a realistic possibility, situations on spike tv where someone is trapped in the middle of a raging river, while people sort of video tape. That is the situation I imagined myself in once the power went out and all you could hear while we ate dinner was flowing water from outside. Luckily nothing came of the river, but the power was out for about 5 hours, and what fun it was wading through knee deep standing water in an attempt to reach my dorm room.
The next day we were compelled to be ready to leave at four so sleeping wasn’t really an option. We first began by relaxing in a room and I listened to some of the most negative conversation of my life. It really consisted of opinions on people I didn’t know too well, and I found it a little cruel some of the things people were mentioning. Once my quota of meaningless insults was finally complete I ventured to our dining hall where 5 of the group members were sitting around drinking grog. Sounds interesting I know, but to entertain between takis Father Brian, and I do mean Father as in a Catholic priest, strummed away on the guitar, while the others in the chorus sang along with such popular tunes like “I’m all out of love,” and my contribution of “Lean on Me.” All night we jammed away bilo after bilo, or a cut in half coconut shell, and enjoyed life.
Turns out 4 o’clock in the morning comes around very fast, and before you know it I’m scrambling around cleaning up my stuff attempting to not be late. And of course being the responsible individual I am, I was cleaning up after the rest of our shack, no need to thank me or even notice, but you’re welcome. I make it to the stop just at four beating nearly all of the group, go figure, and then the bus turns out to be 30 minutes late. Once boarding has been completed and our bus has driven onto the boat I found not only did I have a semi upset stomach, but also I changed my mind about the effects of kava. Turns out the whole body relaxer isn’t an exaggeration. I could hardly even stand up and walk around the boat, but my mind was perfectly clear. Luckily the effects wear off within 2 hours, because if they didn’t the boat would have moved. Let me just point that one out. The boat didn’t leave until 6:30, so why on earth we were standing on it at 4:30 was beyond me. Luckily the boat was beautiful along the entire western coast of Ovalau, and I saw all of the things I wanted to climb earlier, but was unable to because of the rain which decided to plague me the entire weekend.
Once home I was relieved to find it was still 10 in the morning though it felt like it was nearly 4. There was a surprise though. This weekend Edgar somehow picked up a British refugee who has been stranded in Fiji, due to some problems with her visa and stuff, so she is going to live on our couch for the week. So how lovely I have another roommate! But unfortunately for her I hadn’t slept for 36 hours, so I wasn’t much of a host.
Scary story time. I was in my room nearly ready to go to bed, so in my boxers. And there I see the devil slowly creeping up my wall. In order not to scare it I froze, also being completely terrified didn't help either. Once it was up in the curtain rods where I couldn't see it I quickly put clothes on, because doing battle would not be a good idea in underwear. I prepared myself with the proper weapons to crush the crud out of the little vermin once emerged again. Seen I saw him La Coocaracha in all of his enormous glory scurrying up the wall again. I didn't hesitate and struck a killing blow quickly and effortlessly. When I removed my weapon of doom from the corpse it peeled itself off the wall and fell blood and guts on my pillow. Yuck! so pillowcaseless that night I slept, taught me to be aware of my surroundings at all times.
This evening we enjoyed one of our American famous Pot-Luck, and since we had a large number of new people there were questions brought up that I couldn’t answer. The group of Fijians, the British, and the Canadians each asked what the heck a pot-luck is. I really didn’t know so I made up the best answer I could. “Well you see everyone brings a pot of food to share, and you are lucky if you don’t get food poisoning in the end, hence pot-luck.” That was the best definition I could come up with, but if anyone knows the purpose of such a name I challenge anyone to give me a better definition, without looking it up of course.
Well fantastic news. It is the beginning of mid semester break, and not spring break because it is the fall here, so no one understands my spring break lingo. But I will be gone on the garden island of Taveuni hopefully climbing the biggest mountains and jumping off the tallest waterfalls it has to offer. Wish me luck!!!