Lambasa Homestay

I'm still in Savusavu right now. Our departure for Taveuni was delayed a day because of high winds and threat of a tropical cyclone. I'm actually pretty grateful for the extra day of rest. I got really sick yesterday. I've had a sore throat and fever for the last couple of days and yesterday at breakfast I fainted. I don't really remember what happened, but apparently I fell out of my chair and hit my head. My friend Ariel tried to catch me but I slipped through her hands. When I woke up I had no idea where I was. It was pretty traumatizing. I went to the doctor who told me I had a viral infection and gave me some antibiotics. I don't think he knew specifically what was wrong, but the meds seem to be helping.

The Lambasa Homestay

Lambasa is a mainly Indo-Fijian region with lots of sugar cane growing. My homestay in Lambasa was with an Indo-Fijian family. I had a mom, a dad, a sister and two brothers, who were all in their twenties. This homestay was a little tougher. There was rarely running water, which meant bucket showers. Our homestay mom was also super hovery and intense. She would follow us around the house and stood by the table when we were eating just watching us. Our sister was pretty chill. She took us to a really cool suspension bridge. I of course reenacted the bridge scene from Temple of Doom, because I'm a huge dork.

We went to a pearl farm on one of the days in Lambasa. It was pretty much a little dock in the middle of the ocean. It was run by two Fijian women from a village. It was cool to see women producing an income for their families in a pretty patriarchical society. The actual science of pearl farming was pretty complex. Watching them implant the seed pearl was like surgery.

Another day we went to a sugar cane farm and spent some time with the farmers. Indo-Fijians were originally brought to Fiji in order to farm sugar cane as indentured labor. Their descendants still work the land today. The sugar cane growing process was incredibly labor intensive. We got to try some of the raw cane stalks, which were really sweet. I had to chew it but be careful not to swallow any because it would tear up your insides. Talking with the farmers was pretty depressing. The price of sugar keeps dropping and the government which is connected to the Fiji Sugar Corporation keeps paying them less and less for their product. At the same time, their ethnic Fijian landowners keep raising the price of their land rent. The majority of land in Fiji is controlled by ethnic Fijians, and Indo-Fijians are often left at the mercy of their land owners. There's been a big probelm lately of ethnic Fijians not renewing land leases for Indo-Fijians because of a ridiculous racist extremist fear that their country will be overrun with other races and they won't be in control. Despite all their hardship though, the cane farmers were really neat guys.

We accompanied our host family to puja prayers for the festival of Rama's birthday. I couldn't really see what was going on or understand what was being said so it was hard for me to get a lot out of it. One neat part of the experience was getting dressed up. Our host sister lent Malorie, Melissa and I traditional clothes and jewelry for the event. (Don't worry, there are pictures) It was kind of fun to try something completely new.

Lambasa was a pretty cool place. I'm glad I got to experience lfie there for a few days.