Travelogue: Fiji

Ono Island, Kadavu

Believe it or not, I just got back from two weeks on a remote island in Fiji. I was staying at an eco resort called Oneta. I took three flights and a long ride in a little boat to get there.

I saw in Fiji

Hundreds of bats the size of eagles wheeling above a mountain top.

A tiny elementary school on a tidal river.

Many blue-tailed skinks.

Many languid golden wasps.

Orchids growing out of a coconut tacked to the side of a palm tree.

Mangos, bananas, papayas, vanilla, tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, cinnamon, kumquats, lemons, taro, and beans growing in a terraced garden on the side of a mountain.

A little island teeming with boobies and frigates at sunset.

The Southern Cross.

A sandy colored octopus scooting along the ocean floor as we walked from the boat to the shore at dusk. 

A vast undersea garden of towering corals and their attendant fish. 

Two manta rays bigger than me so close I could have reached out and touched them. 

A white tipped shark, a nudibranch, a pipe fish, a feather star.

An island inhabited only by goats. 

A plant called Smells Like Poop, used by Fijians to ward off evil spirits. 

A plant called voivoi, used to make woven mats and rolling papers for tobacco and weed. 

A forest of non-native pines planted in the mountains by New Zealanders for lumber. 

Tin cans hanging from a mango tree to chase away fruit bats.

A green parrot.

A bowl of kava.

A lovo oven full of food covered by leaves, potato sacks and a blue plastic tarp. 

The Astrolabe Reef from the top of a mountain.

The Astrolabe Reef from the bottom of the sea. 

A kindergarten classroom, a shy kitten, mat weaving, coconut oil extracting, a rooster without a tail, a room full of women in bright dresses and their kids serving kava and singing, all in a little village called Buliya.

A coconut marshmallow.

A waterfall at the end of a river.

Three sea turtles and a sea snake from an outrigger canoe. 

A full moon sparkling on the South Pacific Ocean. 

I did a lot of painting and drawing on Ono Island. I wondered if it was ambitious to pack an entire bag of paints and brushes and my enamel palette. I imagined I might just piss away my days drinking margaritas on the beach. But it wasn’t ambitious. I painted almost every day and I only had two margaritas. 

Initially I painted only landscapes. The tangly jungle scenes and beach scenes with their bleached and gnarled tree trunks were inspiring and inexhaustible. Eventually someone asked me if I also paint people. I was glad because I wanted to paint portraits but had been too shy to ask. I said, “Yes, I paint people. Can I paint you?” She nodded demurely. So I painted some portraits too. 

I was in Fiji with my sister-in-law, Maile, and we spent a lot of time pestering people to teach us stuff. We learned to speak a little Fijian. I can reliably count to seven. 

Dua
Rua
Tolu
Va
Lima
Ono
Vitu

I also remember how to say “ten” because it’s cute: tini

I can say hi: Bula!
Bye: Moce
Thank you: Vinaka
Thank you very much: Vinaka vaka levu
Yes, please: Io, kerekere
No, thank you: sega, vinaka
I’m happy: Au marau
I’m trying: Tovolea

Meanwhile Maile, possessed of an incredible memory and mind for languages, was miles ahead. On our second week in Fiji a woman walked into the dining room and Maile said something to her in Fijian. The woman thanked her. “What did you just say to Api?” I asked, astonished. Maile smiled and said, “I told her she looks beautiful.”

We learned a lot about plant medicine, integral to life on an island with no hospital nearby. We learned about village culture and its complicated system of familial relationships and taboos (or tamboos as they are called in Fiji because there is an implied m before every b in their written language). We heard many excellent folktales. And we heard gorgeous music. There was always singing.

There’s a popular song in Fiji called Isa Lei, a goodbye song used to send people off. At Oneta it’s sung to departing guests and the glorious noise of it rings out for everyone to hear, reminding us that our day to leave will come too. Maile and I were determined to learn this song. We recorded it and printed out the lyrics. I practiced it alone in my bure, quietly so no one would hear. (I found out later that they did anyway.)

One night Maile and I found a really nice guy named Seru sitting by the water with a guitar and we asked him to teach it to us. He did. Under a full moon he played the song, feeding us each verse until we had it. 

I’d never taken a trip like this before. I had so many adventures, made so many friends, and learned so much about Fijian culture from the incredibly kind and patient people I met there. It was eye-opening and heart-opening to spend two weeks on a remote island in the South Pacific. The experience is currently rippling through me in a thousand ways I don’t yet know how to talk about. In the meantime, here are some photos:

My little house - or bure - had a thatched roof and no heat, no AC, no glass in the windows. For bathing it had only an outdoor shower that I will pine for as long as I live.

Another shower, this one had bananas.

Sunset on Bird Island

Lovo

My amazing sister-in-law

This good dog is named Kalo, which is Fijian for star.

Outrigger canoes. Photo by Anne-Sophie Pannel.

Maile took this photo of a restless ghost who roams the shores of Ono Island.

Jonani took us to visit his village, Buliya, on another island. He’s holding voivoi, also called pandanus, straightened for weaving mats.

I hadn’t planned to do this. Scuba diving has always seemed like a hassle and also a little scary in comparison to snorkeling, which I love. But eventually I was won over to the idea, in part because I liked and trusted Anne, the French dive instructor, so much. I would have followed her lots of places, including 30 feet below the surface of the sea to the bottom of the ocean.

This photo was taken on our dive by Malani Colati. He took that one of me too. I was wrong about scuba diving. It’s not a hassle. I was so moved by the experience that when we finally surfaced after an hour underwater I burst into tears.

By the way, Maile and I did get our chance to sing Isa Lei. On our last night in Fiji there was a kava ceremony and a party with singing and dancing and we sang. We could not quite manage the effortless soaring harmonies of our Fijian friends, but we were very happy to get the chance to try. 

This is what Isa Lei sounds like at Oneta. You are not alone if it makes you cry.

Thank you to everyone at Oneta. You worked so hard and made us feel so welcome. Vinaka vaka levu.

Isa Isa

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