As we mentioned in the previous post, we were accompanied on our outing by Koroi, a Fijian who was very familiar with the location of the various villages we were to visit. He said they were all on the main road. (translation=they were all within an hour's drive from the main road - on extremely primitive roads.
For Emily - you asked for pictures of wildlife in Fiji...well other than the bats and the mongoose, this is about it!
On one road along the Rewa River, we saw this skinny raft made of poles. There were a couple of people who we thought were swimming next to the raft. We found out that these women spend their day diving for mussels, which they then sell along the roadside.
Local village children getting water from the water tank.
More kids watching us from their house. Some were enthralled by the 'pelogi' (pronounced pelong-ee which means 'white person'), others were terrified! They had never seen a white person before.
This woman is preparing the coconut palms for weaving. Drying the green ones, then boiling them...the brown ones have been boiled. She is tying them together to dry. 
In the villages the people name their houses. We are sure they don't have as much trouble pronouncing them as we do!
The residents of the above house.
Very humble homes.
Another one. As one walks through the village, the people in the homes are typically sitting on a mat on the floor. There is no furniture, electricity, or running water. Cooking is done outside on a fire. Some of the villages are now piping water from the tanks to the individual homes, so they can have water accessible without having to carry it. Life there is basically survival. Every time we passed a home, the people would look out and shout 'Bula!' The villages are very closed communities...usually about 200 people. Each has a chief (the spiritual leader) and the head man (the 'mayor' - and that is what they really call them). No one really 'moves in' to a village, as they are ancestral homes. When you ask a Fijian where their home is, even if they live in Suva, they will tell you the village their family came from, even if they have never lived there. 
On our way home. The wooden plank bridges kind of made me nervous. Maybe it was the creaking....:)
2 comments:
Those are very simple houses! i like the wildlife. i can't imagine having to go for a walk to get my water. We're spoiled here in America!
We are really blessed to live in America...I think the convenience of everything does make us rather 'soft' though...the guy we were with wondered why I took the picture of the cow. I told him you wanted pictures of animals! He thought it was funny....
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