Uprising Resort Feb 8-11

As soon as we got off the plane, people were there to meet us and we hopped right on a minibus to take us to Uprising Resort. The drive was about an hour and a half along the coast of Fiji (It only takes about 9 hours to drive along the entire Island I think). It was incredibly beautiful. I didn't realize how mountainous Fiji was until I was driving through it. It's all volcanic just like Hawaii so there are these really cool formations and I hear rumors of beaches littered with volcanic rock.

We got to the resort itself, which was quaint in a "I have tons of money so I think things that made of bamboo and thatched roofs are quaint" sort of way. A local Fijian started the resort which is sort of unusual, it seems that most of the resorts are started by foreigners, but this guy wanted to start something that would provide jobs for all the people living in the area. I think they have been open for 3 years or so... I'm not sure on that though.

We stayed in these "bures" which is just the name they call those little thatched houses. In my bure I stayed with Abby, Erin, and Hannah. The house was really nice, complete with a little kitchen and an outdoor shower (which was really cool to take showers in as soon as they fixed the hot water).

The first day was just getting to meet everyone and doing some orientation meetings and things. Our coordinators were really great. The both of them are pretty young and they had done a lot of traveling/living abroad, so they knew what they were talking about. And they were both down to share some beers at the bar later, so of course I liked them.

The next day we had a scheduled tour that we went on. The whole thing was really touristy, but I still liked it. We rode up the river in these motor canoes to a small village, whose income I'm sure comes straight from tourists who stay in Pacific Harbor (where we were staying, "the adventure capital of the world"). They showed us a traditional welcoming ceremony, complete with Kava drinking, Mekes, and lunch.

Kava is the national drink. It is also known as Grog or Yaqona, but most often they just call it Kava. It's made from the root of some native plant that takes five years to mature and then they dig it up and grind up the roots into a powder using a gigantic metal version of a mortar and pestle. Then they put the powder into a cloth sack and put the sack in this gigantic wooden bowl called a tanoa. Next they pour water over the sack and the head guy in charge of the tanoa for that day (I'm not yet sure how it is decided who is in charge of it) works the sack with his hands until the mixture is done.

To start out the traditional Kava ceremony, the "chief" of the visiting tribe/group/tourists is given the first bowl of kava, which is always served out of a communal coconut shell. To accept the drink, you have to clap once, say Bula (which is similar to Aloha in Hawaii), drink the Kava (they call this part down the hatch because you are supposed to drink it all in one go, no sipping here), then hand the bowl back and clap three times. It's all very traditional. Then the elders of the village are served, and eventually everyone else is served too.

It is considered impolite to decline the first bowl of kava, but I haven't had the courage to decline any of them quite yet. It really does taste like muddy water, but there is something distinctive enough about it that I can recognize the root as I walk through the market just by its smell. It makes your mouth a little tingly at first, but that goes away pretty fast. Other than that, I don't think I have drank enough for it to have any real effect on me, and as far as I can tell, it doesn't really have an effect on anyone else other than to make them "groggy" and sleep really well.

After the welcoming ceremony they performed a couple mekes which just means traditional dances. One of them was a dance having to do with cannibalism, which was widely practiced in Fiji (it was called the cannibal island) up until the mid-late 1800s. They danced with some clubs they called "neck-breakers" because they were used to twist enemies necks quickly and efficiently. After the meke we had a tour of the village and then came back to eat some food. The food here is good, but true Fijian food does not have much variety, just lots of things cooked either in curry or in coconut milk and weird roots that taste sort of like potatoes.

Once we finished eating we went up the river farther to walk to a really great waterfall were we could go swimming right underneath it. Obviously another tourist destination, but still great nonetheless. Then we went back down the river and back to Uprising were after dinner and a short trip to the bar, I went straight to sleep.

The next day we went to Yanuca Island, which is just a small island off of the Pacific Coast. We took a boat ride out there and spent the whole day just exploring. I did some snorkeling and saw some cool fishes and coral, but it turns out I am not very coordinated when it comes to snorkeling, and because I have such a small pea head, the goggles did little to keep water out of my nose and eyes, so snorkeling was not as rewarding as it could have been. I also climbed over some rocks and hurt my feet but got to see some cool crabs. We had some barbeque and then called it good and went back to the main island and then on to Uprising.

That night I met a really attractive African man getting his PHD in Medical Science in Sydney, Australia and his friend, a really attractive French Caribbean man. They thought I was interesting because I had lived in Brazil for a year. My flirting skills were a little rusty though, so I called it quits and went to bed. They looked pretty surprised, probably because it was only 11. Oh well, maybe it made me seem mysterious.

The next day we left Uprising and finally made it to Suva, which will be my home base while here in Fiji. We did a short tour of the city and then came back to the short-term houses we had been put in. It was just me and my soon-to-be full-time roommate Malia in one house. We were the furthest away from everyone else and we spent the whole night waking up at every little sound convinced that either a man was sneaking into our house to kill us, or cockroaches were swarming our beds (yes, there are plenty of cockroaches here, I just found a dead one underneath my dresser today). But we made it through the night.