Day 32, Year 2: To Market, To Museum, and Back to Market
Date: Saturday, May 26, 2007
Weather: Strong Southeast Winds; Low Humidity and Cooler Nights
Location: Suva, Fiji
Suva is all about hot–hot weather and hot food. But it is winter here and we are getting a little break in the heat with the strong southeast winds that are blowing in making days and nights a little cooler. Cool nights means temps in the 70’s, but that is cooler than the 80’s. With the southeast winds, we get more rain showers than usual, but the showers are really squalls and usually last only a few minutes. All in all, the weather here has been fantastic.
Today was Saturday here (your Friday) and Saturday is market day. We walked into town, and after a quick stop at the internet cafe for our daily “hit”, we headed to the market. The vegetable market in Suva is huge and is open six days a week. On Saturday, however, there is much more variety available–white radishes, tomatoes, potatoes, green peppers, lettuce, okra, eggplant, bok choy, cucumbers, carrots, celery, bananas, oranges, and all sorts of South “Specific” specialties. We bought potatoes and mandarin oranges (not in the can, but the real thing)–both of these should keep for a few weeks. We also bought okra, bok choy, tomatoes, and green peppers. We will buy lettuce, bananas, and eggs before leaving on Wednesday, but otherwise, we are pretty well set for provisions. We ventured to the second floor of the market today to buy yaqona or kava root to take with us to the islands to present as gifts or sevusevu. Kava root costs $38 a kilo and you are expected to present the chief of each village you visit with a half kilo. This is a long standing tradition and is more of a requirement than an expectation if you want to be accepted in the islands. We bought four kilos and had it packaged as half kilos bunches for sevusevu presentations. When you buy the root, they wrap ribbon through the dried yaqona to make a special presentation. Other cruisers are having their kilos divided into thirds for presentation, but we have been told that the welcome will be warmer if we go the half kilo route. Presentation of yaqona to village chiefs as a formality has been tradition here for hundreds of years, so we are just trying to follow tradition and do what is right. We will probably have to buy more yaqona along the way, but we have a good start. While we were finishing our shopping at the market, we heard a band playing outside. The police and miliary bands were leading a parade down Victoria Parade in celebration of whatever holiday weekend it is here. Mark waited for the yaqona while I ran out to the street to try and capture the parade on video. I was just a little too late, but I did get a picture or two and just an few seconds of video.
By this time, both Mark and I were laden with food and yaqona, so we hopped in a taxi and headed back to the Yacht Club. We dropped off our bounty on Windbird and then headed back into town to go the Fiji Museum. We saw Donna and Gerry from Scot Free II on the way and they went with us. We hailed a cab and in a matter of a few minutes we were delivered to the front steps of the museum. There was a man there with a one-year old who was having a great time crawling in the gravel. We talked with the man who told us his son’s name is Jovial–named this because he was the fourth and last child born into the family and he was a job. The man explained that he and his wife were overjoyed to have a son as their last child. We talked to the man about our new and only grandchild and then we went into the museum. The museum is hidden from the street by the the greenery in Albert Park. It is housed in a modest wooden structure, but we found the museum to be very rich in information. On display was the largest and last waga drua or double-hulled canoe built in Fiji, Rata Finae. The museum was filled with other treasures of early life in Fiji as well as more modern day artifacts. It was a great tour, and then we were on our way back downtown to the Arts and Crafts market. Somehow, we have missed this, but we certainly enjoyed our shopping there this afternoon.
It was starting to get to be late in the afternoon, so we headed back to the yacht club. We had all been invited to visit Safina for sundowners, so we hussled back to our boats to drop off those things we had purchased during the afternoon and then over to Safina. We had a great time talking about our plans for cruising Fiji with both Safina and Scot Free II.
We just got an email, literally seconds ago, from Mark’s brother Steve confirming that he is coming to sail with us in Fiji. He will arrive on July 7, Mark’s birthday, and stay with us until July 26. We are SO excited. Steve is a great sailing partner and we can’t wait to see him. He will be with us while we travel through some of the best Fiji cruising grounds, so it should be a great experience for us as well as for him. Steve, we are so glad you are coming. We know you will love it here.
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| 070526 Day 32 Viti Levu, Fiji–Miji Musuem |
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| 070526 Day 32 Viti Levu, Fiji–Saturday Markets |
