Amanave

Are you sick of this yet? Too many beach photos? You're thinking, "Yeah, so the Temples went to the beach again...great." Well, this one was pretty great. Besides, we're just trying to get SOMEBODY to come visit us, for Pete's sake!
Amanave is a village on the southwest of the island just before the road bends north. It's a park-and-hike deal to get where the kids and I played.

Ephraim hiked further along the coastline in hopes of discovering the legendary Palagi Beach. Did it really exist? Was there really a beach so exclusive, so beautiful, and so remote that white people can run free in bikinis and not feel shameful? And would the conditions be right that passage would be possible, or would Ephraim be carried out with the raging surf?

I'll just tell you. Yes.

So there were many little island just off the shoreline like this:


This is taken from the little island looking back to shore.



After a 15 minute jog along the coast, he discovered this: Palagi Beach.
And this:
Too bad it's a bit too exclusive and remote for us to really enjoy frequently.

Past nice, sandy beaches, the coast heads northward and you can see Poloa, the next village.

The only bare-skinned white person we saw frolicking on the beach:

Any Way You Say It

I can't stand cutsy names for pregnancy like "preg-o", "preggers", etc. I prefer just saying "pregnant", although it sounds clinical. "Expecting" is more discreet, but can be confusing. And does anyone really use "in a family way" anymore?

Well, any way you say it, we're going to have a baby next April. Yay!

Pua Trees

The closest surfspot is called Pua Trees. It's along the seawall where the main road skirts bays and cliffs winding towards "town", Pago Pago. (This village is called Nuuuli. Any guesses how to pronounce that? Like New-ooly.)

Bula, Part 6, The Wedding

On Saturday we had the honor of attending a traditional Fijian wedding with Sister Kaitani. We drove quite a distance out to Nausori where the wedding took place spanning three neighbors' houses.

We expected to observe from the sidelines, but the family quickly invited us in to watch all the preparations and take all the pictures we wanted. I felt like a National Geographic photographer, except unfortunately my photos will be published exclusively on this blog.

The women on the groom's side fussed about dressing the groom, the best man, and the ring bearer in tapa cloth, fine mats, leis, and a healthy rub-down with coconut oil.

Best man

Ring bearer

The boys are ready

Ephraim's thinking, That's a lot of layers, and lots of women speaking Fijian really fast. Actually he's thinking, I was totally that cut at my wedding.

The wedding procession. Groom and bride leading the way.

(Yes, the bride is expecting, and therefore is larger than normal. And very emotional, in a good way.) This is an enormous tapa given as a gift to the couple. We walked from the first house across the street to the neighbor's where the guests were singing prelude hymns to welcome us.
The ceremony took place in typical LDS format with an opening hymn and prayer. We sang Love at Home and later I Am a Child of God. (Ephraim and I loved the sea of brightly colored clothes. We were pretty inspired.)

Sister Kaitani and the roasted pig. And me.
(They gave us the chairs to make us comfortable. Isn't that sweet?)

I'd never seen this done with coconut leaves. Very impressive.

Here we were carrying the gifts to the bride's family's house. Gifts were handwoven fine mats and fancy pillows, blankets, and bedding.

Ephraim got to take the lei home

Unfortunately we had to zip off before the grand feast (Sister Kaitani packed us a each a plate of chicken, palusami, and taro--mmm!) so that we could start our long journey home.

4 hours on the bus to Nadi (a lady puked in a bag right behind us)
5 hours waiting in the Fiji airport until the 1:45 am flight (!??)
2 hours flying to Apia, Samoa
3 hours waiting in the Samoa airport
30 minutes flying to Pago Pago airport
5 minutes in a taxi
back home by 8:30 am on Saturday (again)

Here's the most brilliant idea: the Nadi airport has a over a dozen fabulous leather couches to sleep on while waiting for your absurdly scheduled flights! That's progressive thinking.

Sunrise at Apia airport

Here we are feeling excited to go home to our kids, thrilled with our wonderful trip, and so exhausted we could sleep for a week straight. When's the next vacation?!

Bula, Part 5, SUVA

Ephraim's training ended Thursday giving us until Saturday night to explore some more. We arranged go to Suva, four hours away on the other side of the island. We boarded the Coral Sun bus at our hotel which took us for $20/person FJ (about $13 US). (I'd like to add that the swindling taxi drivers at the hotel charged that much to go ten minutes into town and back. But I guess everyone's gotta make a living somehow...)

He's so cute with his seatbelt. That lasted about 5 minutes. And then the bus had a flat tire, we had to wait 30 minutes for another bus to come, and we got situated in the new bus. No prob.

Some views on the way. Behind these mountains (above) was a wind farm with huge turbines spinning--very cool.
Another of our friends from American Samoa, Luse, had arranged for us to stay with her wonderful mom Sister Kaitani in Suva. She, her daughter and grandchildren collected us at our stop, and we were off to see the town. Ephraim jumped at the chance to drive, sitting on the right side, driving on the left. I thought we'd die, but obviously we didn't.

We're told Suva is the largest city in the Pacific Islands, and we were impressed with the tall buildings, nice shops, and stop lights--things we hadn't seen in awhile.

We were happy to be around their kids who were 4 and 2 just like ours. Awww. Look at those cheeks! And great hair.


We had a great evening at the temple with Sister Kaitani.

And then ate amazing curry, roti, fish, and taro prepared by Luse's aunt.

The next day we went to a traditional Fijian wedding. I'll write more about that later. But here's a gorgeous Fijian tapa cloth (mulberry bark) that I just loved.
Sister Kaitani sent it with us to give to Luse in AS, and she's lucky it didn't turn up "missing" because I just love it.

Bula, Part 4, Days in Nadi

What I Did in Nadi, Fiji

Introducing Lanny. Our friend Vilimaina in American Samoa arranged for her daughter Lanny to be my tour guide. Lanny lives in Lautoka, a 40 minute busride from Nadi. She was very cool to come down Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to hang out with me.

I delivered a package to her from her mom, and here she is smelling American bills. "Smells like money."
Lanny and I spent a lot of time sitting at little restaurants and talking. She taught me so much! Like that capsicums are bell peppers, cassava is yuca or tapioca, and pawpaws are papayas. She speaks Fijian at home, learned Hindi at school, and says it's "coolest" to use English with friends. We lucked out being together because she was served better at the restaurant being with a tourist, and I got cheaper taxi fares being with a local. Nice!

Monday evening, instead of getting a relaxing coconut milk spa treatment, Ephraim administered a great lice treatment for me. Apparently I picked up a few bugs on the trip over. Should I have declared them with Ag Inspection?
As you know I turned 30 on Tuesday September 23, so we celebrated by going out to dinner at Mama's Pizza Inn. As we were ordering, the power went out. It must happen often because they were prepared with battery operated lights, candles, and a gas oven. So we got our pizza plus a candlelight dinner.
Oh, and then the power came back on. And we took a picture. A bad picture.

On Wednesday Lanny, her cousin Anna, and I went to Wailoaloa Beach.


Here's our pal Ali, a nice guy we met that day. He even let me ride good ol' Osama the horse. And didn't charge me! A free horseride on the beach--now that's a good Fijian vacation!

I had a healthy daily dose of this:

And some of this:
Without worrying about these:

Bula, Part 3, About Fiji

We boarded the plane at 5:30 am on Saturday morning in Apia. We arrived at 7:45 am on Sunday morning in Nadi, Fiji two hours later. At the airport the shuttle took us to our swanky hotel, Tanoa International, which was the location of Ephraim's training.


So why did we go to Fiji? Ephraim attended a training on Online Ocean Data Collection. He can tell you more about it. Just ask.

While he was in meetings during the day, I got to explore town.

Some of my first impressions of Fiji:

There were so many things about this place that reminded me and Ephraim of South America: the dusty streets, the smoke chugging busses, the houses with cement and re-bar walls... and this guy pushing around "me and my ice cream" at the bus station.
One of my first stops was the market. It had three huge halls with produce, kava, fish and meat. They had an amazing variety of fruits and vegetables! All the normal produce we have in American Samoa, plus dozens of other things, tomatoes, peppers, watermelon, corn, jackfruit, eggplant, lettuce, etc. Some I had never seen before, like rockfruit.


Because of the large Indian population, Hindi and English are the main languages spoken besides Fijian. It's very curious how Fijian and Indian cultures exist side by side and mix in some ways. For example, there is a strong traditional Fijian village system. The Counsel of Chiefs make up part of the government. But also you see Hindi soap operas on TV with all the Bolleywood glitz, and stores sell gorgeous shimmery saris for Diwali. And you can get divine curry, dhal soup, and roti.

Here's a typical city bus we rode on, "fully air conditioned" ha ha.
We enjoyed British influence in Fiji. Like the funky outlet plugs, the brilliantly efficient dual flushing toilets (you push the little button for little things and big button for big things), Queen Elizabeth on all currency, and of course driving on the left side of the road. This really threw us off at first. Trying to cross the street was tricky. Ephraim got into the drivers seat of taxis on accident. And we were appalled to see little kids driving cars, until we realized they were really on the passengers side. Have you ever experienced this?

This shows the Sleeping Giant mountain between Nadi and Lautoka. Many people are employed by the Sugar Mill in Lautoka, and there were miles of sugar cane fields being harvested and burned, as well as a railway loaded with cane.
I apologize that my photography stinks, but I'm usually shy about appearing the tourist with my camera. And I don't take good pictures.

By the way, their greeting is BULA! or Bula Vinaka! They use Vinaka for Thank you and You're welcome. So when you go, you'll be in the know.