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.

Bula, Part 2

Our adventure began with a little 15-seater airplane taking us to Apia, Samoa (Western). These rides are always fun. They seat you according to body weight, and somehow I got to sit right behind the pilots. I jotted down a few thoughts on the 30 minute ride.

Maybe I prefer to sit in the back where I can't see that our plane is being maneuvered by normal humans using dials and switches... Where I can't see the co-pilot pull out the trusty school-type Casio calculator to plan the flight. (Can you imagine shopping for aviation instruments in the school-supply section?) His hands seem to be shaking. Is it the plane vibration? My hands aren't shaking. Yet.

When he revs the throttle and the pilot releases the brake, we zip forward like a paper wad in a sling shot. I just remembered that we didn't write a will. But I did wash the dishes. What would we include in our will? We have nothing really. The kids split the car? Ella gets the iMac to do her TuxPaint (promising graphic design career), and Isaac gets the surf gear with our hopeful aspirations for him?

Ah, Lalomanu, we're almost there. Maybe we don't need a will yet. Actually we're not almost there; this island Upolu is huge. I forgot all these miles and miles of coconut trees like green icing stars dotting a cake. And large banyans from here are bits of lichen, patches of moss carpeting the mountains and valleys.

There are the tiny cars. Intersections meet with no imposing stop signs, lights or traffic directions. Folks walk side by side down the middle of the road. They feel perfectly safe, and from my view I know they are. On closer look it seems the coconut trees looks sickly on the golf course. And now the banana trees are in sight.

Oh the landing! How many prayers have been most sincerely offered on this runway? We all become earnestly though temporarily pious Christians for these moments. Until we land safely and enter the slow lines of customs, immigration, inspections, and then face hounding taxis outside. Where did our piety go?

Here's our bungalow at Aggie Grey's where we only spent about 5 hours due to our 2:30 am checkout when we had to leave for the airport again. A short but very sweet beginning to our week.

Bula, Part 1

Remember how awesome Ephraim's birthday was this year? Well, for my birthday he took me to Fiji. It was pretty awesome. And I felt overwhelmingly spoiled.

Thank you to our amazing friends who watched the kids and made it possible for me sit through a whole meal, relax for hours, and not answer to "Mama" for an entire week.

It may take a couple posts to cover our trip, so you'll feel like you're traveling right along with us...without the luggage and fatigue. I hope it's not too dull for you, but the main mission of this blog was to keep family and friends informed on what we're doing while we're so far away. So that's what you're gettin' with these posts. As always feel free to skip, skim for pictures, or "mark all as read" at your pleasure.

Bula Vinaka!