Party party party

The celebration!

First we waited 2.5 hours past the start time for the day to begin. Fiji Time. But I spent most of it going around and greeting all the villages and chatting with the teachers from the primary and secondary schools. Looking fly in my sulu jaba. Then there was a beautiful procession from the church with the newly translated book of Mark into my dialect leading the way! It was a very moving experience to witness and hear 100 voices singing and moving all in celebration of their dialect and religion. They walked from the church across the playground where the crisp pages were presented to my chief. This is the first time any of the books of the Bible have been translated into a South Pacific dialect. This was a major feat considering it took a committee months of work.

Next all the villages performed mekes, the traditional Fijian dance. Here is a video of my favorite meke performed that day. The women wore their traditional fabrics and the men adorned themselves in leaves, like in the video. These are the secondary students and one of their teachers. You can hear and see the intensity of the dance. It is incredible to witness.

After the mekes, there were lots of games. The men wove coconut leaves and scraped coconuts. The women competed for who could juggle limes the longest (my village won this one!) The juggling was my favorite and my clandestine love for circus acrobatics was fulfilled. Then there were some games for the kids and they were rewarded for participating with picture books! Yay for books. We were supposed to play a game called vaqiqi moli, where a girl rolls a lime across the play ground to her secret boyfriend. Back in the day, this was the only way two people could let the elders of the community know the couple was serious about each other. The game would usually end in a marriage ceremony. Today, this is mostly played for fun and I had been joking all week about getting married on Friday. There was much discussion amongst the villagers who my "husband" would be, but for some reason vaqiqi moli got scratched from the program. Probably for the best.

That night we drank lots of grog and ate lollipops. There's something fundamentally fantastic about a grown man enjoying a strawberry bonbon, as they are called here.
All in all it was a great day of cultural entertainment. A wonderful paradox -- the prizes to the games were new vodafone mobiles. That was a funny reminder of how Fiji is developing, but still trying to retain their traditions and culture.
vido