Friday, September 08, 2006

Kava session on island Waya

Well, life is sweet. Laying in my hammock on the foredeck under a full moon. Me and Jenny have just come back from having spent the evening in the local village drinking kava and weaving mats with a group of very friendly Fijians. This village is the biggest on Waya Island and maybe the biggest in the Yasawas chain of islands, but there are only 300 people. We had to perform the sevusevu with the village chief when we arrived, giving him some really good roots of kava that I purchased while in Suva awhile back. It is so easy to like the Fijians, friendly, "back to nature" in a good way, and they really try to speak English. The village is also home to an boarding school for kids 6 to 14 from other islands nearby that lives at the school from Monday to Friday, and since today being Friday we witnessed the kids being pick up in small boats from other islands. It must be wild for such a small kids to be away from their parents for the whole week, on the other hand these kids have around a hundred other kids to play with every evening. We just motored here today from Saweni Bay on a flat calm ocean, filled with coral patches and small islands. We will probably stay here for a few days, since there are good hiking trails and good people. They grow a lot of fruits and vegetables here, so tomorrow we will follow our new friends to their gardens. Oh, I forgot to say that there are only three boats here, so we feel a bit special. We had a short but sweet trip to Suva to pick up my passport, but it feels really good to be anchored outside a small village. Walking through the village waiting for the full moon to come creeping over the steep hills around the village was really cool, the light of the sky with its stars balancing on the mountain ridges mixed together with the kerosene lamps in the village houses. Drinking kava is so much more a ritual then a way to get intoxicated, the effect is much like taking an aspirin. The only difference is that your mouth and lips gets numb. I do prefer a glass of wine any day to kava, but it would be nice if we somehow could work out a way to incorporate all the clapping of hands and sitting in a circle into our wine drinking.

Take care,

Fredrik

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