Lat 17.20S, Long 177.08 E, In Fiji, once you get outside the cities, most of the land is owned by villages. A village not only owns the land, they also own the water around the land. In this culture, it is of utmost importance to obtain permission to be in their territory. It is considered very bad form to not ask permission to stay. There is a special ritual that is to be followed in order for permission to be granted. The importance of carefully following this custom was stressed to us by our cruising guide, the office that issues cruising permits, and other cruisers.
 
Needless to say, the first thing on the agenda today was to visit the village chief and ask permission to stay. We had gotten in too late in the day yesterday to get the dinghy down and go to shore. It was raining lightly when we woke up. Our experience in Fiji is that light rain is usually the precursor to a big downpour, so we decided to wait until after the big rain to go into the village. At almost 11:00 it was still only lightly raining. We decided we had better head in too much time has probably already lapsed since we arrived.

Christi wore a shirt that covered her shoulders and did not show cleavage, along with a skirt that covered her knees. Villagers are conservative, and risqué dress is considered offensive. The same dress policy applies in the small villages of Tonga. We didn’t mention it in Tonga because, except for the village we accidentally stumbled upon when we were walking around Point Maurell, we never went to any of the Tongan villages. In both Tonga and Fiji, most of the local women in the cities also follow this dress code.

One must come bearing kava root, not ground kava. We have heard all kinds of different numbers about the appropriate quantity to bring, so we picked a number in the middle of the range, a quarter of a kilo. We were told you can’t just hand the chief a handful of roots, that it needed to be properly wrapped, so when we bought the kava in the produce market in Nadi, .we asked the vendor to wrap it as a gift. The vendor knew just what to do and wrapped it in newspaper and tied the bundle with string.

We landed the dinghy on the beach. As instructed, we did not wear hats or sunglasses and we held our backpack in our hands. Someone greeted us as soon as we pulled up. We asked to see the chief, and he led us to the chief’s home. The chief invited us in. We were careful to remove our shoes, which is the custom when entering a home both here and in Tonga. The home is a simple and modest bungalow. There was no furniture in the living room, just mats on the floor.

The chief introduced himself and told us to call him by his first name, Tom. He invited us to sit on a mat on the floor and he sat across from us. What we assume are his wife and grown son came out from other rooms and sat quietly behind him. We were careful to sit cross legged. We set the wrapped kava on the floor. Oh no! We had forgotten to write down the special wording we were supposed to say after setting the kava on the floor. Fumbling, we said that this was the first village we had ever visited and we were not sure what we were supposed to say. Much to our relief, he waved off our fous paux and picked up the bundle of kava. This meant he would let us stay. Phew. In accepting us as guests, the chief is saying he is willing to watch over us and make sure we are OK while in his village. Likewise, we need to be careful to follow their customs to make sure our welcome is not worn out.

He asked us where we are from, then told us he was going to say a blessing. He chanted in Fijian for several minutes and we heard “San Diego, California” in there somewhere. Once he was done with the prayer, we chatted for a few minutes. The chief is a nice guy. It turns out this village sees a lot of tourists. There is a small backpacker hotel here and a cruise ship comes in every Monday. The villagers put on a dance show for the cruise ship and sell locally made handicrafts. Coincidentally, today is Monday, and the chief invited us to the show tonight.

He told us we were free to walk around the village, which we took as our cue that it was time to go. He sent us off with a couple of ripe papayas. Here is Christi with Tom in the center and another gentleman in front of Tom’s house.

Just after we walked out of his house,

To be continued”¦..