Instead of 2+ weeks in Fiji, this year we have 2+ months: time to explore, not just travel through. We sailed first to a cove on Rabi, an island near Vanua Levu that was purchased by Britain in 1942 as a home for the Banaban people displaced by phosphate mining; their island (in what is now the nation of Kiribati) had become permanently uninhabitable. To this day the Banabans maintain their original language and culture (though they also speak English); hearing a woman sing an ode to a homeland she will never see is one of our most treasured memories.
The family that lives there leads the most simple life we are likely to see anywhere, in a thatched hut with no electricity or running water. Spearfishing at night and gardening--an hour's hike up into the steep hills to find a level spot that's not sandy--provide goods they can trade in the main village. To get to the village without a boat, one parent walks for miles along the shoreline at low tide (there's no path through the jungle) while the other stays with their three young children. It was a window into a world as different as could be from our own.
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| Cooking hut |
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| Fish smoking over the coconut-husk fire |
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We brought our violin & ukulele ashore; they had never heard a violin and loved its singing sound.
Both parents know how to play the ukulele and we were serenaded with Banaban songs! |
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| The sleeping hut |
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| John cut drinking coconuts for us |
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| Art looking for fish, a pig looking for clams |
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| Overview of their living area (complete with pigs and piglets) |
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Parents John & Pauline; children Mary, Steven and Julianne.
Though the labor can be strenuous, there is plenty of time for play and laughter; they are a very happy family! |
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