Fulaga

In Fiji there’s a group of islands called the Lau Group, a two day sail away from the main island.  We have been spending time there anchored next to an island called Fulaga, there are a few villages on Fulaga each with about 50 people living in them.  The first time we visited one of the villages we met the chief of the village who welcomed us formally to his village and we had a little ceremony where my dad drunk a rootlike vegetable called kava.  The village men mixed the root with water in a special ceremonial bowl and ground it up until it looked like dirty gray water, to me it tastes like liquified dirt but everyone else seems to thinks its like alcohol, only people 18 or older can drink it and you can supposedly get drunk if you drink too much of it.

We were introduced to our host family, they would answer any questions we asked and show us around the village until we left for a different anchorage.  Our hostess was a young woman named Mere (pronounced Mary) and she was really nice, She showed us her home and the school where she worked as a kindergarten teacher, she fed us lunch, a really good meal of potato curry, noodle soup, coconut fish patties and boiled yams.

We didn’t sleep with Mere, she was more of a guide then a hostess but we spent all afternoon there and met almost everyone in the village.