Viv the Firewoman and the rest of my holiday

I had only intended to stay in the old capital, Levuka, for three nights; I ended up staying for six. Not only was I impressed with the picturesque little town and amazing landscape, but with how genuinely friendly people were. During my short stay, I was invited home for lunch twice – on Sunday for a barbecue with the family who Jenny used to stay with, and the second time on Wednesday for fish at Karen and Bobo’s place, a good hour’s drive from Levuka. Their house was beautiful, in particular the large veranda which was surrounded by bright flowers and caught the afternoon sun. We spent a lazy day just relaxing in the hammock there and reading magazines – and had a little swim in the river before heading back to town for dinner at Kim’s restaurant. I had the fried fish with lemon butter sauce, and I must say I was very impressed! There is no shortage of good food in Levuka!

I haven’t had the chance to dive since completing my PADI Open water Certification back in April, and was beginning to worry that I would forget everything that I learned! I booked to do a dive with Ovalua Watersports on the Tuesday morning. I explained that I was a beginner, and the staff was very supportive – they didn’t even laugh when I put my wet-suit on back-to-front. (In my defense, I had never worn a wet-suit before.) Glad I wore it though, as it was pretty cold underwater. On the dive I saw plenty of interesting coral – called leather coral. Y favourite one was lilac covered with little pink bits coming off it. When I stroked it, it felt soft like a kitten. Not what I had expected at all.

When I first arrived, I was very jealous of Jenny’s shower. She has heated water! The first time I had a shower at Jenny’s it took me at least twice as long as normal, because I just stood there for about ten minutes enjoying the warm water. On my final morning, I was snoozing in bed when Jenny went to have her shower. A few minutes later I heard screaming from outside the room, “Oh my god!! Oh my god!! Help help! Fire!”. Still half asleep, I wandered out of the room to see what the problem was. Jenny was running around with only a towel on trying to find the head teacher – the water heater was on fire, and the flames were licking up the walls of the bathroom. Wondering what to do, I went outside, and -hey presto- there was a boy with a fire hose, filling buckets. I told him that there was a fire in the school. He looked confused. I told him again that there was fire and that we needed the water. He still looked confused. I grabbed the hose off him and went back to the bathroom with it, and managed to spray enough water in the general direction of the fire that it went out. To be fair, the fire was not very big, but I still like to think that I was the hero of the hour!

After this, I packed up my things and waved goodbye to Levuka. A boat picked me up from the wharf, headed to Caqalai Island (for those unfamiliar with Fijian spelling, that’s pronounced ‘Thang-a-lie’.) Caqalai is very small – you can easily walk around it in 15 minutes. The resort there is very cute and rustic; there are big clam shells all over the place and the snorkeling from the shore was very impressive. I went here because it had been highly recommended to me by other Gap volunteers, nearly all of whom have been here! I wasn’t disappointed – it has a very special, friendly atmosphere. Most of the guests were couples though, and since I went there by myself, I wonder if it might have been even better had I been with some friends.

After two nights in Levuka, it was back to Suva. I wandered around for a while window shopping, had a bite to eat, and then headed to the Fiji museum for some culture. The most interesting thing that I learned there was about how the Fijians used to tattoo young women when they came of age. Apparently, they would tattoo them ‘so that it looked like they were wearing tight black shorts’, and also they would tattoo around the mouth. Once this had been done, the young woman would wear a grass skirt for the first time, and was considered ready for marriage. After this I wandered back to central Suva. I had considered spending the last night of my holiday in Suva, but I missed my Fijian family, so I caught a minibus back to Lautoka instead!

The Old Capital

I decided that it was finally time to take my second week of leave, and get out and see some more of Fiji, so on Friday I left Lautoka, headed for Levuka.  I have gotten very comfortable in Lautoka now – I really feel that it is home, and I was almost tempted just to stay there during my leave (or not take my leave at all!) – but I knew that it would be a shame not to take the oppertunity to visit somewhere else.  So I phoned Jenny (link to her blog in the panel on the right) and asked if I could come to Levuka and visit her here.  Levuka is the old capital of Fiji, and is on a smaller island called Ovalau, east of the main island Viti Levu (which is Lautoka and Suva are).  To get there, you have to get a bus, then a boat, then a bus again.  When I bought my ticket, I was told that the bus would leave Suva at 1.30pm, so I got up early, and came down from Lautoka in plenty of time.  There were one or two things I had to buy, so off I went, and returned to the bus stand just after 1pm.  The bus was already gone.  I panicked.  Luckily Bill (my host brother) suggested that I get a taxi to Nausori, a town which the bus passes through).  If he hadn’t, I’d probably just have stood crying in the Suva bus stand.  So we jumped in a taxi to Nausori, while i tried to phone the shipping company.  When we reached Nausori, the bus had already left!  So we had to continue to Kororvou, another town further along.  We caught up with the bus there, and I had to pay 40 dollars in taxi fares, which the shipping company has said they will refund.  All is well that ends well!

When I arrived in Levuka it was already dark.  Jenny met me from the bus and we went to have our dinner in the Whale’s Tale, and very cute little restaurant which I would definatley recommend.  I had the beef burger (not very fijian I know), and it must be one of the best burgers I’ve ever tasted.  The dressing on the salad reminded me of the dressing that my mum makes at home.  Delicious!  I couldn’t resisit having a banana split for dessert.  Afterwards we went to one of the two local clubs, the Koro Makawa, for a drink, and met some of the locals.

On Sarurday I got the chance to see Levuka by daylight.  It really is something special; not like any town I’ve seen before.  Dotted all around are old churches, colonial buildings and wooden building-fronts.  The main drag, Beach Street, is like a cross between the set of an old Western movie and a quaint british sea-side town.  Wherever you look, there’s a building with a story.  The people too are very friendly.  I’ve only been here for three days, but already I’ve met many people twice over and stopped to have a chat!  I’ve been incited for lunch, dinner, grog, walks…. people are friendly and generous!  Saturday afternoon we went to watch the rugby – Ovalau against Suva.  The match was good, but I was distracted by the scenery.  Just beyond the pitch, you could huge steep, green hills towering over the town, dotted with palm trees and small houses.  The hills are the reason that Levuka is no longer the capital – town planners realised many years ago that these hills meant that the town would never be able to expand much, and so the government offices were moved to Suva.

Health Woes

I’m afraid that Red Cross-wise, I don’t actually have a lot to report, because in the last two weeks I haven’t been to work all that much!  I had had various grim-looking mosquito bites on my legs for a while, but when two of them swelled up into a hard red mass, I thought it was time to see a doctor.  She said it was cellulitis and prescribed antibiotics.  Given that the first I had heard about cellulitis was in Atul Gawande’s book ‘Complications’ about how he has to excise grey mush from the leg of a girl who had cellultis which developed into something much worse, I was a tad worried, and decided that it would be sensible to rest the leg and take the antibiotics.  The doctor gave me 4 days off, but luckily the infection cleared up easily and I was right as rain in no time.  In fact, the Sunday before last, mysef and the youth of the area I live in (Natokowaqa) did a meke in church, and the pastor told us that we would perform it again the following (last) Saturday, at a special youth service in Nadi, so I was glad to be well enough for that!  We all got dressed up – Alesi and I had lovely matching new green chambas for the occasion, which my host father very kindly bought for us – and got a bus to Nadi for the service.  I was really nerovous, but it went really well, and I think I only made one little mistake in the routine!

So I was back at work this last Monday, though it was quite quiet since many of the regular volunteers have been off training in Suva this week.  Still, Kate and I made a visit to Central Primary which really motivated us to do more for the Junior Red Cross clubs.  The Red Cross Club students at Central were all immaculately turned out- the boys wearing their Red Cross scarves and badges, and the girls all wearing white dresses with red collars, buttons and belts.  They looked so nice!  We chatted with the head-teacher there over tea, and thought of a couple of things we’d like to do with the clubs, which I will write more about when we have discussed them with the Branch President.  I also had plenty of Door Knock stuff to be getting on with – sorting and registering the tins and such.  Then yesterday evening my belly started feeling very very dodgy, and hasn’t quite fully recovered yet.  I won’t go into too much detail.  I suppose it would be too good to be true to get through 8 months abroad without some kind of stomach-buggy.  Thankfully, the worst if it seems to have passed, and I hope I’ll be well enough to work on the Door Knock Appeal tomorrow.  Our appeal ends on the 14th of this month, but tomorrow will be out last big day of collecting- we are hoping for a hige turn-out of volunteers, and their efforts will be concentrated on the city centre, so there should be plenty of organisational stuff for me to do.