Native Fiji

Being intrepid tourists, we decided to visit a native village.










The village we visited had 70 people living in 11 families. The village was one of 3 under the control of a chief. The chief was the guy who had the idea in 1998 to sell village tours. He controls 12,000 acres of land, much of it leased to Indian farmers growing sugar cane.





The tour started with a walk up the river into the high forest. Past the “jungle wedding center”, through the site of the previous version of the village, and up to the water falls.

The vegetation was interesting – wild lemon and grapefruit trees, bread fruit trees, and wild pineapple everywhere. The villagers grow eggplant tapioca and harvest cava. Cava is a wild bush that after 7 years is cut , dried and pounded into powder. It is then mixed with water to form a mildly narcotic drink. Another wild bush that is used is the chilli plant. Little red chilli,s grow like small fruit on the bush. I tried it – it's amazingly hot.

When we got back to the village, the chief took us into his hut and prepared a cup of cava for us. It made your mouth feel like the dentist had just sprayed it with Novocaine. Then one of the families gave us lunch.. Lunch was surprisingly tasty. We had tapioca root, “spinach” (really tapioca leaves), fish and lemonade (from the wild lemons). The chief then jumped into his 4wd SUV and took us back to town. Talk about contrast! From 19^th century subsistence farming to a water front golf resort complete with 40 ft sport fishing boats in the marina in a ½ hour drive.An interesting day.