Sevusevu!

Finally I get to sevusevu.  Nick and I changed clothes and hopped in the dinghy.  His kava looked different from mine; I thought I recognized it from someplace but my kava was tied up in a paper bundle so we couldn’t compare.  

We start toward shore and Nick sees this guy in a red shirt waving us over to the right.  Turns out there are a lot of rocks near shore and he was directing us to a bouyed path through the rocks.  Landed on sand, kids helped pull the dinghy up, and we met Jim.  Jim is the headman of the village.  He knew why we were coming in and led us to his hut.  We sat down in a room with no furniture whatsoever and he proceeded to do the sevusevu ceremony.  

After he got our names, he said a long prayer for us in Fijian.  I only recognized our names and countries of origin.  Then he clapped three times and started speaking English.  He said we were now welcome to stay as long as we liked, go anywhere we liked, he related the names of all his family (which of course I don’t remember any) and then went into a lengthy discourse on the importance of kava.  He picked up my bundle reverently and held it as he did.   Then he picked up Nick’s offering and said “Why do you bring cassava?”  Oh crap!  That’s what that stuff was!  I should have remembered it from Ellie’s cart in Econo.  (Go ahead, East Hancock - ask her sometime.)  Turns out Nick is very hard of hearing and when he went to the market in Lautoka for kava, he asked around and some vendor offered him cassava.  Thinking this was what he needed for sevusevu, Nick bought a bunch.  

So now Jim is looking a bit perplexed and suggests that perhaps Nick would like to take his cassava back to the boat.  Nick persists that Jim should keep it.  I’m trying my best not to laugh at the clash of cultures here.  In the end, Jim accepts it graciously, no doubt filing this story away for the next meeting of the Fijian elders - ‘Hey, let me tell you about this guy…’

I ask Jim if there were people in his village in need of reading glasses.  He brightened up and affirmed it.  I explained that I had brought prescription glasses from my village and would like to help out members of his who were in need of glasses.  He was quite enthused about this.  He then offered to cook Nick and I dinner the next night (tonight as I write this) for $30 FJD each.  Apparently it’s something that he does for cruisers to make a little money.  We both agreed.  So this afternoon I have an appointment at 4 pm in the community center to try out glasses on people and then at 5 we go to Jim’s for dinner.