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Scratching
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"Fiji: What I Came For" Shortly before dawn, as we made our approach for a three-day stopover in Fiji, I opened to the appropriate chapter in David Stanley's South Pacific Handbook. His praise was so effusive that I became immediately suspicious. "Fiji is the perfect place to go native... you immediately fall in love with Fiji's vibrant, exuberant people... the smiles are always genuine and hospitality comes from the heart... Mbula, welcome to Fiji, everyone's favorite South Pacific country." "Give me a break." I rolled my eyes, closing the book. Then the plane broke through the clouds, and the main island-Viti Levu-appeared below. Oh, Mama. Within two seconds my face was flattened against the window like Silly Putty. The voluptuous emerald island undulated below, Mother Earth in a moss teddy. Could such a place be real-or was this merely a jet-lagged illusion? Realizing I would have only three days to find out, I burst into bitter tears. Having been thus initiated, my next move was to read everything Stanley had written with intense interest. Was there something I could do, in my limited time, that would give me an indelible impression of what Fiji was all about? Apparently, there was. I could somehow get myself invited to an informal kava ceremony. Kava, a drink prepared from the dried root of the pepper plant, is an absolutely essential ingredient of the Fijian's social life. The brew-locally called "grog"-is served informally, but was also an important part of traditional rituals. As common and all-pervasive as the root tonic was rumored to be, I never seemed to come across anybody drinking it. During my first two and a half days I saw a lot of things-from cannibal forks to spotted moray eels-but not a drop of kava. The evening before my departure for the Solomon Islands, I asked the proprietor of my inn to cash a traveller's check. Lacking sufficient funds, she recommended I stroll to the Grand Pacific, a larger hotel down on the beach. This I did, with success. The Grand Pacific's cashier was a young man named Joe. As he counted out Fijian dollars, I decided to go for broke. "Excuse me," I asked hesitantly. "Do you know where I might try some kava?" "Oh, yes." Joe regarded me with an enormous smile. "My home. You come tonight. I invite you." An hour later Joe finished work, and we took a cab to his house. It lay about a mile from the Grand Pacific, down the oceanside Queen's Parade. Joe's brother Gregorio was the guest of honor. He was visiting from the neighboring island of Vana Levu, and just happened to have brought some of that region's notoriously high-potency kava. The actual grog ceremony was held at Joe's uncle Dominico's house. Dominico is a semi-professional soccer player, a stocky, square-shouldered man who has a reputation as the clown of the family. Throughout the drinking-which took place on a cane mat fringed with colorful tassels, and included Joe, Gregorio, Dominico, and three peripherally related, highly spunky Fijianes-he served as a droll master of ceremonies. The kava looked and tasted like dirty dishwater. After a cup or two it wasn't bad. The numbing of lips, tongue and mouth was milder than I'd expected, and I hardly noticed any effects of the drug until my fourth cup. By then, of course, I had more or less mastered the ceremonial mores that are a requisite part of the event: the single clap, followed by a shout of "Mbula!!" Immediately, there's a cup in your hands. Then, "Mbula vinaka!" as you gulp the stuff down. Finally, on swallowing, three more claps: smart and sharp, palms ringing together. I was feeling good. "How come I never see any cats on Fiji," I asked, a propos of nothing. "Oh, there are lots of cats," Joe replied. "I have a cat," one of the women said. "A big one, sleeping in the other room." She meant the adjoining room, where Joe's mother was watching a video with a neighbor. "Its name is Blackie." "Blackie," I repeated absently. "He's black," Dominico explained. The evening passed in a mood of extreme conviviality. The locals wanted to know my opinion of Sylvester Stallone;Rambo and Cobra were making box-office history throughout the South Pacific. They wanted to discuss soccer, drug smuggling, kava, travels. There was no sense of a color barrier, or even of national boundaries. I felt as if I'd been whisked off to another planet where everyone spoke perfect English-just like in all those old science fiction movies. Who could imagine that, a mere 125 years ago, the evening's bonhomie might have ended with my sweetmeats in their stockpot? As midnight rolled upon us, I became cognizant of the fact that my plane to Honiara would leave in less than six hours. It was a brutal thought, but there was nothing for it. We bade our farewells, slurring, amid vows to keep in touch and promises to meet again-in Fiji or America. I had known these people for only a few hours, but felt as if I were leaving family. I walked back home along the Queen's Parade, a white man in a white shirt on a balmy bright night, as the ocean clapped against Viti Levu. Above, the Southern Cross burned between the clouds. I was very, very happy. I don't think it was just the kava. The next morning, a small jet carried me off to the Solomon Islands. |
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