Christmas/ New Years

Leslie and I just got back from a week and a half long whirlwind tour of coastal Viti Levu and the Lomaiviti group. Our traveling companions were Nuper (of course) and Kiva, a volunteer from Lautoka. Our travels began on December 26 since we decided to spend Christmas day in the village this year. I had my doubts about staying in the village for Christmas day since Christmas is generally a "party day" in the village, and village "party days" usually involve sitting around motionless and drinking buckets of grog. There were certainly people sitting around all day drinking grog, but I was lucky and found the group of people sitting around and drinking....BEER! Yay! The beer drinking actually took place just outside our village in this "nightclub" like place that is only open during Christmas. To make things even more interesting, most of the people drinking were women! In between takis (shots) of beer I would be pulled up by some marama to dance. Leslie, Kiva, and Nuper likewise were asked to dance multiple times. It's amazing how just changing the beverage being consumed can completely alter the mood of the party. Of course, grog is probably better overall for the Fijians to drink since beer is expensive and often leads to brawls. On that day, however, it made for a lively party.
The day after Christmas we waited by the main road for the bus that would take us to Korovou from which we would take a taxi to Natovi Landing, from which we would catch a boat to Naigani. While we were waiting for the bus we saw a couple of young men from the village dragging a large pig by its hindlegs. The pig was squealing loudly and bucking its head violently in an effort to rip someone's kneecaps out. I moved in to watch closely. About three guys held the pig down. They all seemed nervous while doing this, probably because the animal's three-inch long yellow fangs could easily do some serious damage. Once they had the pig immobilized, Dan, the matador for the day, pulled out a twelve-inch knife and sank it between its ribs. You can't imagine the terrible scream that came out of the animal. I couldn't believe what happened next: Dan drew the large knife in and out thus enlarging the wound in the pig's chest. He then plunged his hand into the opening and twisted it's heart to kill it! Altogether the slaughter took about two minutes, even though it seemed like a long time - to me and certainly to the pig. Talking to other volunteers it seems that this is a unique way to kill pigs. Most villages slit the throat or bash the head in. From what I hear, these are much quicker ways to get the job done. Nuper, Kiva and I enjoyed the opportunity to witness the pig slaughter, it was after-all a cultural experience, but Leslie was not amused. She sat on the side of the road, ears covered, eyes closed, rocking back and fourth. What a wimp!
The bus ride to Korovou was quick and uneventful. The trip to Natovi Landing ended up taking most of the day, however. According to the people in town there was a bus that regularly came through Korovou on its way to Natovi Landing. Though we ended up waiting about two and a half hours in town, the bus was constantly " about 15 to 20 minutes away" the entire time. Eventually, we broke down and hired a taxi to the landing. At the landing we waited for another hour and a half for the Naigani boat to leave. A group of Australian tourists who had rooms booked on Naigani were driving around Viti Levu hopelessly lost, making our boat late.
Naigani island ended up being well worth the effort it took to get there. The island itself was beautiful- hilly and mostly forested- and the snorkeling was phenomenal. The only place I have experienced better near-shore snorkeling was in Waitabu, Taveuni. We saw sharks, sea turtles, Napoleon wrasse, blue spotted ribbontail rays, and a whole mess of other fish. I'd list the species but I think that would be boring for the non-fish dork. We affectionately titled Naigani, "fat camp" because we started each day with yoga (lead by Leslie) and then proceeded to snorkel the rest of the day. We were also forced to eat from the resort's meal-plan which did not satiate our Peace Corps size appetites.
After Naigani it was Levuka, the old capital of Fiji. This was the one place on the trip that was unequivocally boring. We were there for a public holiday and literally everything was closed. Ovalau is a nice enough looking island, but there really isn't a whole lot that makes it different from Viti Levu. We decided that one night in Ovalau was enough. We could now check it off our list and head back to Viti Levu.
Transport to and from Ovalau is a bit tricky. There is only one scheduled ferry, which leaves Viti Levu at 10:00am for Levuka and leaves Levuka for Viti Levu at 6:00am the next day. We had no desire to get up this early in the morning and load onto a slow and crowded ferry so we looked into other options. We ended up finding a village boat that would take us from Rukuruku on the West side of Ovalau back to Natovi Landing in the afternoon for LESS than the price of the ferry. This was almost too good to be true. All of us had our life jackets so we had no qualms about taking a small boat across the relatively calm strait between Ovalau and Viti Levu. The boat ride was fast and scenic- way better than chugging along in a big ferry. We had even more good luck when we arrived in Natovi Landing and found a taxi driver who was planning on driving back to Suva. We paid him what bus fare would have been and enjoyed fast, private transport all the way back to the Peace Corps office. It was a day of easy transportation....a Christmas miracle!
We relaxed for the rest of that day and most of the next in Suva and then proceeded to Club Coral Coast in Pacific Harbour. The next day (New Year's Eve) was the highlight of the entire trip...the SHARK DIVE! Steve, a volunteer from the coral coast joined us for this, making us a group of five. We had managed to get a discount rate on this dive from Beqa Adventure Divers. The dive takes place inside a Marine Protected Area owned by Beqa island. The Dive company has been chumming this site with dead fish for years to attract big fish. When we got in the water we couldn't believe the abundance of large predatory fish we saw. At times it seemed the water was just a churning mass of teeth and scales. The giant trevallys and the red snappers were the first on the scene. On the outskirts of the feeding frenzy were smaller fish species like scissortail sergents and ruddy fusilers. After a few minutes the sharks came. We saw bullsharks, blacktip reef sharks, whitetip reef sharks, and grey reef sharks. When the big sharks would circle around and come in to feed the smaller fish would quickly dart out of the way. There were times when I swear I could feel the vibrations through the water. Unfortunately, the tiger shark that sometimes appears on these dives did not show up. We did see a giant grouper, which was larger than any of the sharks and is probably the largest fish I have seen to date. The thing was at least 12 feet long and sat lazily on the bottom the entire time. Sarah Taylor, another Peace Corps volunteer, was kind enough to let us take her underwater camera on the dive. Unfortunately I do not have the pictures with me right now, but I will post them as soon as I get ahold of them.
After the dive we loaded back into a bus for the short trip to the Beachhouse, near Sigatoka. Here, we were met by a group of about ten other volunteers who had come to have a new years celebration. I can't really talk too much about this night since this is a public blog. Let's just say that Peace Corps volunteers know how to have a fun (AND SAFE!) time.
That ends our last Christmas and New Year in Fiji. 2010 is the year we return to the land of unemployment. Yippee.