Sunday, June 22, 2008

International interfamilial intercultural dilema solving

Thank you to a generous offer from Linda, an American I think. I have been so busy writing blogs I have not had time to read all the comments. Can not contact you as I have no email address to respond to- you are marked as anonymous. Please email me when you get a chance.
Have just arrived back after two weeks with my beloved. We spent two weeks - one in Nadi and one in Suva, with me getting him used to what it will be like when we live together. The first place I chose was a resort full of backpackers and as we are not in that 20's age group we did not lounge around the pool. Chita hates swimming other than for fishing purposes anyway.
Any thought of a romantic stroll down the beach at sunset- a western concept has to be taught
Look, what a beautiful sunset darling!
Yes, replies Fijian male.
Now you need to put your arms around me and kiss me.
Why?
This is called a romantic moment.
Okay, but only if no one is looking....
It was nice to be alone and get used to being intimate with each other. I am talking holding hands, and just playing around. Fijian culture does not allow affection in public, so its also something that Fijian males have to get used to.
To wake him up one afternoon I gently stroked his back. He did not open his eyes to respond, as he said to me later ' No one has ever done that to me before and I really liked it'.
We also cooked dinner at least 2-3 nights in Suva. Chita is great at food preparation, and really enjoyed discussing with me what we could eat for dinner. I would shop and he would prepare. Then I would cook and he would clean up! Perfect for me. He also liked sitting at a table and talking over dinner - whereas back in the village, food is laid out on a long cloth, people come and go, and when you have finished your food, you can up and leave..... I am holding firm on eating together at the same time and talking during dinner. A whole new concept.
We also dined at a few different restaurants. He and I went to a great Indian in Nadi, where you ordered a tray filled with tandoori prawns or duck curry, with accompaniments, rice and roti. We also ended up at the Outer Reef Cafe in Namaka, which I would recommend to anyone visiting Namaka. It did not look much from the outside, so I walked down a long corridor and we emerged into a garden full of lights with a band and lots of friendly, smiling staff. Yes.... I ordered garlic prawns with a baby leaf salad - yes it is possible, and Chita had a kaiviti fish basket which was full of crumbed and battered fish. I should have ordered grilled for my boy.
Fijians have a tendency to run into people, and join them for whatever they are doing in that moment. In fact Fijians live in the here and now, so they get caught up in whatever happens. I arrange to meet Chita at the MH supermarket where I am purchasing ingredients for dinner. Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes pass and he has not turned up. He has the card to enter our room. I am pissed off. I lug the shopping back, arrange for one of the boys in the front office to let me into our room and then search around for a phone card so I can ring him.
Where are you?
I am with friends?
What are you doing?
I just ran into someone and they asked me to come for a ride. I will be back at 6 pm.
Why didn't you come back and tell me that instead of leaving me standing outside the supermarket in the rain for half an hour.
You are a big girl Amanda, you can figure this out. You know where we are staying, stop being a baby....
I fumed for an hour and when he returned unleashed the beast.
In my culture, not telling someone where you are going is rude.
Not telling me what you wanted to do - is rude.
Leaving me standing at the MH in the rain - is rude.
He storms off. However, he cannot go far, as we have a room with adjoining balcony and he is looking down on Suva town from six stories up.
Chita you can't keep doing this to me.
I am sorry.
Its a bit hard to get into the routine of telling me everything when I am not around for three to four months at a time and he does whatever he wants, whenever he wants...
However, I have to get him used to deadlines and being punctual. Its obligatory in my culture, although working in horticulture and landscaping, things might be a bit more relaxed.
The last night we were together in Nadi at Smugglers. He goes for a run down the beach and I go for a walk. We meet up in the middle.
Did you see those guys with the net going fishing, I would like to go back and spend some time with them.
No problem.
I better have a shower first.
He heads back to the room, showers, changes into mozzie proof clothes, long pants and a checked shirt.
I watch a polynesian show on the balcony while he goes fishing with the boys.
I will be back in time for dinner he says.
I wait, and I wait and I wait. The show finishes at 8 pm and at 8.30 pm I am getting tetchy as that is our dinner time. At 8.50 pm I walk out of the resort, passing a Staff member Ratu and say
If you see Chita, tell him I am at the Horizon's backpacker having dinner by myself.
he grins at me, and says 'of course'.
At 9.10 pm I see my tall, gangly boy outside the restaurant door.
Bad choice Chita.
Amanda what is wrong?
He has no sense of occasion and how girls need to feel on their last night.
You said you were coming back to have dinner. You left at 7 and come back two hours later. Its not on Chita. I am not spending my life sitting around and waiting for you all the time.
Amanda I went into the resort, and I was running around asking everyone where you had gone.
Did you ask Ratu?
He didn't tell me until I had spent ten minutes running around. He was laughing hard.
Do you get it Chita?
Yes.
I know I am a hard woman. However I am a cook, a generous hostess, and a lover of good food and wine. Wining and dining is my supreme pleasure, and I couldn't handle being back in Tassie waiting and waiting for my Fijian boy to arrive. For me, its disrespectful to the chef or person cooking for us, to be late....
Its my one strong code of conduct.....
Why Oh whY did I pick a Fijian to fall in love with.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Fijian funerals, food and the sting in my tail!

I arrived in Fiji to sunshine and a week booked at the Smugglers Cove resort, supposedly new, but has been open since 2004. I was really tired our first night and nearly fell asleep during dinner. I woke up the next day and felt dreadful- a Fijian flu coming on. I passed out for a day or two, while my disappearing boyfriend went back to the vilage to submit his view on how the village soli should be spent. I recovered enough for another dinner and then found myself wiped out for a week, so much for cuddles, closeness and hot sex!
We kept waiting to hear the date of Simon's funeral and I told Chita we had to be there. So last Thursday we caught a van back to Votua, and I booked us a room at Vilisite's restaurant in room 3. The last time we saw Simon he had stayed there and I remember him sitting outside the room, sitting on the day bed with a guitar in hand and crooning. I then looked in my wardrobe to find something black to wear. Only a black zip top and a purple sulu I had bought spontaneously.
I had rung Vilisite's and was told there was a room,but of course it was double booked.
Grey clouds, and rain were not what I expected so Chita ran off to ask Dege if we could stay at his house on the hill in Korolevu for a night. Yes, no problem. I threw my paltry effort at funeral garb together, while Simon's kids who were also staying there scrubbed up into black gear for the girls and black sulus and crisp white shirts for his strapping sons. Dege dropped us off at Vilisites while he and Chita disappeared to prepare the funeral.
I had asked Chita what a Fijian funeral was all about, and as usual the master of the understatement had responded with 'well there will be a ceremony'.
When?
Between 3- 4 pm.
Okay. I joined Simon's first wife Donna and her partner, Sam, and two of the girlfriends to wait for the hearse to arrive from Suva. Simon had died on Friday and Fijians are usually buried quickly as the body tends to swell. Lora had found out she could get him embalmed for $150 so he would last three days and maybe up to three weeks.Simon's last wish was to be buried beside his father in his village of Namose in the interior. Usually family decides so Lora had a battle on her hands to convince them all. Luke the eldest son presented a savusavu to the elders, and then passed over the discussion to Lora. Usually the wife sits at home and waits for family and friends to come and share their condolences, but not kavalagi Lora. She was rushing off the day of the funeral to get a huge kava bowl to use for visitors. She picked the coffin and the hearse and got him embalmed. Unheard of.
We received a phone call saying the hearse had arrived. We stepped through the puddles and continuing rain to enter Watson and Asela's house. I found a wall to lean against as I cannot sit crosslegged for long, and then waited for the ceremony to begin. What I was not prepared for is how the family respond to the death. His sisters who range from 50 - 75 come forward on hands and knees to the coffin and start crying, screaming, wailing and falling onto the coffin. They all take turns to 'let it all out' as Chita describes it.
There were a group of Australian men who were seated on a bench at the back and I could see their surprise. We all had tears in our eyes. However, what I was not prepared for was that there was a glass window in the top of the coffin so everyone can take one last look. I couldn't. I froze. I didn't want to see a stiff.
An hour and a half later the ceremony finally begins and I have already changed sitting position a dozen times- this was going to be an ordeal. The ceremony was quite simple - testimonials from Luke, Simon's eldest son who kept it simple and told us all to remember two things about his dad; a clan member, an old man who cried and gave a heart felt speech in Fijian. Lora gave a great eulogy and when Simon's three sons and daughters moved towards the coffin; that's when I lost it. I was moved.
The local church choir held us all together by singing eloquent and uplifting hymns in Fijian.
My only sore point of the day, was the preacher. Simon did not go to church so despite being a good man, Lora's eulogy was wiped out by the fact that we are all sinners and will go to hell. Even if we are good and lead a good life, God is the way. I was quietly simmering...
I had to stand up for the final hymn and wondered if I could bend my creaky bones. I then discovered I had to sit down again and listen to another hymn before I could stand up, and go outside.
Chita was manning the lovo outside. He didn't want to come in. He was too sad. He and I both agreed we didn't want to look in the coffin.
I went back inside to discover that the coffin had been moved back, a band was set up in a seated position and 'Candle in the wind' was playing. At the back of the room, were the ladies with a table set up and bain maries full of curry, tomato chicken, and beef chopsuey. Special guests were offered prawns and lobster. We sat all together and shared our last meal with Simon. I lasted until about 9.30 and then my back was killing me.
I said goodbye to Chita as he was going to join the funeral party the next morning at around 4 am and transport Simon to the far side - Namose. I was exhausted, coughing my lungs up and needing to be horizontal. I have been to Melita, the closest village to Namose and that is just achievable. A hike through the mountains, along a ridge, knee deep in mud for one and a half hours, was not on my agenda. Chita did it for us both.
The coffin was put in a truck and taken to Navua, then onto a long boat up the Navua river for a couple of hours. The coffin and guests all rested at Melita before the climb. Chita told me what an amazing sight it was to watch groups of strong Fijian men running with the coffin up the mountain. The slow walkers left before them and turned around to see rotating groups of men, taking the coffin, strapped to a bamboo stretcher up a mountain in thick, sucking mud. Once in Namose, there was another ceremony and Simon was buried. Chita looked in the glass, and noticed Simon's head was flung back, after his jog up the mountain... he knew how hard it is to get to Namose, but he wanted everyone to do it, and remember him. They will never forget that journey.
Two Fijian kids had got lost on the way up. There is no road, only a sort of track, and they had ended up going around in circles. One of the girls had broken a branch and in two hours they kept coming back to the branch. Chita and Dege, went looking for them and found an arrow in a mud bank along the river, followed that for a couple of hours and found them and brought them back to Melita.
Chita said that when he got back to Navua, every muscle in his body was trembling. Lora had collapsed on the mountain after a week of funeral preparations, grief and no sleep. A group of four Fijians carried her down.
Wish I could have seen it all- what an awesome adventure (Simon's words).
I contributed my part to the funeral last night by cooking dinner for Lora and her daughter Rebecca in Suva. We heard some hilarious stories from Lora and listened to her grieve.
This morning my love disappears yet again and I am left to check my bank account to see if the visa payment has come out of my credit card account- no. I decide to ring John the agent and yet again find myself in a conversation with a short man who gives no reasonable explanation as to why the visa has not been lodged. I have sent emails stating what documents I am collecting to add to the visa lodgement, and no reply. He appeared not to have read any of my emails, so either his wife is the only one who does, or he is incompetent. However, he brow beat me yet again saying, I have been doing this job for a long time. A few days won't matter. I am so frustrated. No lodgement, no payment, no reference code so I can submit the remaining documents.
What does this man do for his money?
I did not even walk away from the phone with a day, and time of lodgement ......
God give me strength!

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Births, deaths and accidents!

I have waited four months to come to Fiji, bringing the last of the paperwork so we can submit a prospective spouse visa. I had engaged an immigration agent in Melbourne, who somehow was constantly offended by me asking questions. I was having great difficulty discussing anything with him so on my one and only visit to see him in Melbourne I took support. He kept trying to interrupt me, wouldn't listen and I have eventually figured out, that I was supposed to let him handle it all, with no discussion and no questions asked. Saving the $2,500 for the agent has been a challenge and then not being able to talk has been extremely frustrating. I had put together too much information; in fact enough information for a spouse visa. I had spent three months collecting information and cajoling my reluctant family to sign letters and to attach certified pages of their passports.
My opening question to my agent was:
If the Australian High commission does close, and the Australian employees return to Australia, what will happen to our application?
I dont' know.
Not a very encouraging response. I have been pissed off because I know he hasn't read our paperwork, and yet I had paid the initial installment of $1250 and he was asking for complete payment before the application was lodged...... I am in the wrong job. The fact that every time I called he fobbed me off, couldn't answer me straight, was not ready with my application when I went to Melbourne, just showed that he hadn't done his job..... I was furious but contained.
He is supposedly sending it this week. I know who has done all the work; his long suffering wife. I sent an email of enquiry today to nudge him along and also to see if anything has happened. I have passport photos and a couple of letters to add to the application, which I need to submit next week while Chita and I are in Suva.
Anyhow, I have been in Nadi since Saturday staying at the Smugglers Cove resort; apparently a new resort according to Wotif.com but opened in 2003 apparently. The room is great but the tv doesn't work. How strange! I asked if it would be fixed on Sunday. No the security guard isn't here yet. He arrives and tells Chita that there is something wrong with the dish. Monday, I ask again - Oh yes the electrician will be here at 5 pm if it doesn't improve give us a call. Another night with black and white flickering images.
Last night Chita and I lay in bed listening to the radio and singing to each other a range of songs from Kenny Rogers, to Crowded House to sappy love songs. Chita knows all the words.
At the airport Chita asked me:
Have you talked to Lora yet?
No why?
Simon is dead.
Just like that, one of the most handsome, gentle, loving, caring and YOUNG Australian Fijian men that I know is gone. I was in shock.
How?
Heart failure I think.
I spent the weekend thinking about this man who had been so encouraging to Chita and me during our early courtship - Amanda, you just need to keep talking, and then you both will work it out- to telling Chita, when we opened the cafe - I am so proud of you Chita. Keep going!
I keep thinking about the first time I met him. He was walking along the beach with a fish, and a big smile.
Hey you must be Simon!
Yes and you are Amanda Chita's girlfriend.
Yes the bush telegraph is fast here. You always meet someone and figure out how they are related to you.
Chita and I have stayed a few times at Vilisite's, Simon's older sister's bungalows over the years. Simon would always be there, sitting outside with his guitar, and a big slow smile.
I remember being invited to a reunion he organised between two sides of his family. It was a great day. I hopped on a bus to Natandola beach and we stepped off into the village, and were swept into houses for morning tea, a church service, a walk and paddle along the beach before a huge lovo lunch. Then singing, dancing and lots of powder if I remember rightly. I was left clean as I took heaps of pictures.
I remember accompanying Simon and his family to the Sigatoka hospital to donate a wheelchair.
I remember the last time I saw Simon, I was invited to sing with Victor and Simon at Vilisite's restaurant. We started at 1.30 and sang the day away. I loved it. I have a tendency to improvise a little and was driving Simon nuts with my deviations. Victor, kept saying - don't worry about her, keep on playing...
I will miss him. He was too young. Not even 50. He had so much to give. He had just spent the last couple of years, setting up a portable saw mill business which would benefit the villages and had only received his first pay check a couple of weeks a go.
I can't believe he is gone. Chita and I are going back to the village tomorrow. There will be a ceremony at Naibale, and his body will be laid out for one night, then Friday, they will take his body by boat up river to his village in the interior. It was raining a lot yesterday so we are hoping it will stop so that they can get him to his last resting place. His partner Lora is here, in Suva today, talking business, all his kids, and even his ex-wife is here to honour him.
Death brings all together to remember. I have to be there tomorrow, and remember a good friend.
Over this weekend, heaps of accidents have occurred. Tamo and John (who was last looking clean and a member of AA) got drunk and swung at each other. Phylis' canoe now has a big hole in it.
A group of Votuan boys hired a car and went for a joy ride. They got drunk, rolled it, and it lit up like a torch. One of the boys is now in hospital in Suva with both his legs gone. Such a waste. Such carelessness....
Yesterday Chita heard on the news that a van had crashed trying to avoid a horse near Maui Bay. On that bus was an Indian guy going to Suva, to submit a visa to visit a sick aunt in hospital, who died. What wasn't mentioned was that one of Chita's cousins Marco, was on the bus, and is lying in Lautoka hospital with both hands and both legs amputated below the knee.
The front page of the Fiji Times today is all about the needless waste of life in Fiji with deaths, paraplegia, loss of limbs and fractures. A shocking statistic delivered matter of factly in the paper was the high number of children under six years of age who are killed on the road...
I have been talking to Chita about all our friends and had to ask what had happened to Kalara. the party girl. Its finally happened. She is pregnant to a married man and is in the village. So much for travelling to Australia and getting a good job.
I am here in Fiji after a long absence of four months. In this beautiful paradise, senseless things are happening. Its a time to reflect. I will try and live each day to the full. I will try to accept uncertainty as a part of my life, I will believe that our visa will happen, Chita and I are going to get a chance to have a life together which will span Fiji and Australia, and if I have my way, a trip back to Sicily next year.
I will try to quel my constant doubts; drown out the critic in my head, with singing and enjoy the next two weeks with the man who makes me happy.