Kava, coconuts ~ and miles of smiles ~ Bula!

What have I got myself into, I thought on my first visit to a Fijian village many years ago. I had happily accepted this invitation to the village for lunch. After all, what an honour, to be invited into someone's home to share lunch - in this case a lovo (an earth-pit cooked feast) and see first-hand how people live outside of 'resort-land'. Not many tourists get to experience this.

It turned out to be a happy event. Fijians are, after all, known to be happy people. Of course our 'bartender' needed to taste the brew he was working on a few times to get the ratio right, but finally he was smiling, whether from the quality or effect of the potion, I couldn't tell.

Yet all was not always so halcyon in these islands in times past. There are stories of warring tribes, terrible battles and, yes, cooking pots (!) to thoroughly prove the victory. The murderous ebony clubs hang in pride of place in most cultural displays. One look at the size and strength of the Fijian people you see today, who will tell you their ancestors were really big, makes most people shiver to think of them armed and intent on proving their point with those weapons.

Something happened. Was it the rush of Christian missionaries in the 19th century, and the widespread conversions of the locals to one denomination or another that toned down their impulses? Was it the influence of communication, integration into the British Commonwealth in 1874 and the maturing world as a whole? Or was it kava?

That's what I was here for, and my mind reeled with the instructions for the ceremony. Could I get it right in time?

Persevere, as you will be greatly encouraged to do, and follow the etiquette of one clap and a gracious ‘bula’ before you drain each half coconut shell, followed by three claps after, and soon you will settle into a pleasant lethargy. That's what we were told. By then, conversation is not necessary. The desire to go out and start a war evaporates, and maybe the only thing that would rouse you to anger would be the thought of your precious kava plantation being imperilled!

Certainly, this popular drink made from the powdered root of an unattractive bush from the pepper family, is a national calmative. One drink, offered in welcome at almost any social gathering - a visit to a village, a chance meeting, a formal meal - will do little more than gently numb your tongue, and make you wonder what on earth the locals see in this slightly bitter, mainly medicinal-tasting brew that looks like dirty dishwater.

If you are interested, here's the recipe (roughly). Two small paper packets of ground yaqona (pronounced yankona) were just about right for our fairly reticent group of kava-swilling neophytes. Our chief carefully placed the powder in a nylon bag and  swilled it around to mix it into the water in the kava bowl. A sort of mega-teabag.

A solemn-eyed child stood waiting. Watching. I was doing pretty well, I thought, making small talk with the adults, getting the kids to grin for the camera, that sort of thing. And now, suddenly one of those gap-toothed cherubs is right in front of me, beaming shyly, carefully holding half a coconut shell of dirty dishwater (or that's what it looks like) and expecting me to drink it.  

To be brutally honest I did it all wrong. I didn't clap once before I gingerly sipped it, or three times after. I didn't remember to say bula. I didn't drink it all at once, as I should have.

I felt I had failed miserably in this crash course in Fijian Social Interaction 101. But my new friends, this courteous Fijian village family, forgave my inadequacies. As we sat together on the newly woven mat later, eating fish and chicken and local vegetables with our fingers, there was a sense of closeness, despite my kava-klutz behaviour.

While we had been kava-ing, nearby some village men were weaving palm fronds to make walls and floors.

Coconut palms are everywhere. They grow well, have huge fronds, making a cheap and easily available material for many needs of village life.....

... including matting used on floors. It is durable and easy to keep clean with a quick sweep. And by the way, this is the chief's house that he sometimes rents out to tourists! Just think what a talking point at home you'd have if you stayed at this place!

'Bula!'

In Fiji it's a greeting, which also translates as 'good'. 'Bula!', the locals say with a smile. But the hook that really catches visitors who come for whatever reason is the warmth of their welcome. Bula, is never mumbled, never perfunctory, always said with genuine warmth.

You get the feeling the hospitable Fijians honestly love to greet you - just as if you are coming home.

These Pacific islands seemed to be waiting to be 'discovered' by explorer Abel Tasman in 1643. Of course he just stumbled upon them in one of his peripatetic journeys, and found there a Melanesian-Polynesian people, and the highly prized sandalwood.

By the time his sailing vessels hove into view on the permanently storm-clouded horizon beyond the reefs and their frill of waves, the locals had been well established for around three thousand years. Where they had come from is lost in tribal histories, but most Fijians today seem to believe that their ancestors voyaged from mid-eastern Africa, skirting Australia (too barren, too forbidding?) sidestepping the spice islands, and then were carried past New Guinea, on strong currents perhaps, that eventually deposited them in a land they could not resist.

To this day, most people feel the same way. A whiff of the tropic air, the warm breezes and warmer waters, a taste of the sweetly abundant fruits and seafood, and visitors are as hooked as the massive walu, a local spanish mackerel that will almost certainly end up on their plates at some point in a visit. Factor in the genuine welcome of the local people whose brilliant smiles split open faces so dark you can believe the theory of their race’s origin. With surf or gentle lagoon waters close by almost anywhere you go, it would be hard not to be happy on these islands.

With so much sunshine, fruit seems to grow as you watch it.

So to see how the locals live, let's take a quick trip around Fiji's largest public market in Lautoka.  It had been a hard year for the growers. Much of their produce had been wrecked by a horrific recent cyclone.

But just look at how carefully these eggplants and taro have been arranged on sheets of newspaper.

The undercover market was quieting down by the time we arrived, but these snake gourds and chillies were still available.

Fiji has a fairly large Indian population. They are mostly descended from indentured labourers, girmitiyas, brought to the islands by Fiji's British colonial rulers between 1879 and 1916 to work on the islands' sugar cane plantations. 

With them of course, they brought their recipes and cooking customs and more than likely, the seeds and cuttings for the vegetables and fruits they needed to cook familiar dishes from India. In Fiji's tropical climate, they thrived, just as they had done on the subcontinent.

Spices of course flavour many dishes. Here a bowl of star anise glows invitingly.

In this market environment very few things seem to be weighed. The produce is divided into heaps of a certain number or size and buyers will choose that amount.

Dried chillies....

...and the ever-present coconuts, this time dried. They show their comical 'faces' if you look closely enough.

The Fijian diet is simple, plant and seafood-based and colourful.

Every family has a kava bowl, hollowed from hardwood with small legs. They're basic to village life. In the shops you'll find other bowls, handcrafted (like these above), the ideal souvenir or useful for yourself as a serving platter too.

Our cruise ship had docked for the day in Lautoka, a hot yet easy-going place. The second-largest city in Fiji, its name is derived from two Fijian words meaning 'spear hit'. According to legend the name arose following a duel between two chiefs. As one speared the other, he was reported to have cried "Lau-toka!"

Shops, restaurants, cafes - it's not a sophisticated city, but there is virtually everything you need.

Lautoka got its nickname of Sugar City because of its sugar plantations, the area's major crop. The main sugar mill was established in 1903.

From the ship as we leave, these huge sheds at the port show just what this sweet substance means to the local economy.

There are 322 islands in the Fiji group, some large and inhabited like Viti Levu, home to Nadi and Suva, and carpeted with sugar cane plantations, while others scarcely raise their rocky knobs above the ocean. 

 Fiji markets itself as having something for everyone - glamorous resorts, cruises.....

.......idyllic hideaways, action, water sports, romance and family-style holidays are all accounted for. 

Fijian people are natural musicians. Their natural harmonies and sense of rhythm pervade everything. On a lagoon cruise, your breakfast will be eaten to a gentle serenade backed by strummed guitars; by night, everything is done to music, from celebrating a passenger’s birthday (with a second verse of ‘Happy long life to you...’) to a singalong of  local ballads with refrains that will follow you home, murmuring in your head. If you are invited to the village church on a Sunday go, and revel in the a capella hymn singing.

On Turtle Island in the Yasawa group of islands, north-west of Vitu Levi, you don't need to move a muscle to plan anything. Just relax on your bure's wide white bed flanked by massive poles, or curl up outside on the daybed on the hibiscus-draped veranda overlooking the water. Or in the hammock at the water's edge.

If you're reclusive, all your meals could be brought to you right here, or set up on the sand in front of your bure, a few languid steps away. Or you can book a private island for the day for you and your partner to relax on.

And so it's appropriate that we say farewell (for now) to lovely Fiji from the far end of the Turtle Island jetty where couples can enjoy a very private, but luxurious dinner under the tropical sky.

Bula!

More information.........

Text and most images: ©Sally Hammond

Video: ©Gordon Hammond