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Day
7
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| Ramatullah Kahn Memorial School |
Usual
hot beverages then smoothie for breakfast, using the last of our market-bought
fruit. A quick dip in the pool before
getting ready to catch the WestBus into Nadi town, where we will meet up with
Narayan, the taxi driver who will take us down to the Coral Coast to Ramatullah
Kahn Primary School. We have brought 200
bamboo toothbrushes for the children after learning about their tooth-brushing
programme. A year and a half ago, we
came to Fiji, bringing with us a suitcase full of resources for the
kindergarten attached to the primary school.
This time, we decided to bring something for the primary school. One of their “dispositions to strive for” is
to prevent pollution. Well, imagine all
those plastic toothbrushes ending up in landfill – it will take 200 years to
break down all that plastic. This
gesture is just to show them an alternative, the bamboo toothbrushes can be
thrown into compost bins and the bristles will break down in 3 months. The handle is bamboo and will simply go back
into the earth – from the earth, completing the cycle!
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| Bamboo toothbrushes |
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| School's Desirable Dispositions emblazoned at entrance |
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| Anti-pollution |
First
off, a big challenge – neither Mike’s phone or my laptop will send emails, or
txts. The Vodafone shop where we
purchased our connection package can’t help us, so we head to a computer shop
but they can’t help either. So we head
off for the hour’s drive to the school.
We arrive unannounced as we could find neither email or phone contact
for the school - and even then, our internet and phone connections don't seem to be sending out to the world beyond. Mr Ravendra Das, the
principal is appreciative, but slightly bemused at our mission – probably
thought we are just mighty-crazy tourists to drive all that way to deliver
toothbrushes! Haha! But the earth will be smiling! We decide against driving down to Natadola beach as the wind is blowing almost-gale-force here!
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| Narayan's taxi toys for good luck! |
We
stop at a roadside supermarket with a small eatery attached. We eat pakoras – pea flour and spinach, a
potato curry, rice and dahl. So, so
spicey! Narayan laughs at our
in-breath-taking gulps to try to reduce the spicey heat in our mouths! We had an incredibly good cup of tea here
too! Narayan takes us around the
supermarket (a little dusty food store) and points out local ingredients and
laughs at me groaning as I pick up product after product expectantly only to
get the head shake from him. No, not local Fiji food!
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| Our lunch: rice, dahl, potato curry and chickpea pakoras. |
We
head back to Nadi,to sort out our internet connection woes – down a side street
in Namaka, we find another computer company.
An almost-obese Fijian guys checks out my laptop and quickly discovers
why I can’t send emails – silly Vodafone people did not change the server
setting and I am still sending with my NZ server, which doesn’t operate
here! Costs us $25 to fix what Vodafone
sold us but couldn’t provide! Even though
it is a computer outlet, Mike asks why he can’t send txts on his phone – it takes the Big
Techno-Magician Guy 5 seconds to fix, what an hour at Vodafone couldn’t figure
out! Man, this guy should be running
his own Vodafone shop!
We
go to the Namaka fruit and veg market and get our local foodstuffs to get us
through the rest of the week – the selection is mind-boggling. Yellow and green guavas (the latter is a
type, not unripe guavas!), green and yellow bananas, papaya, pineapples, avo,
coconut and a soursop. We look skeptically at this knobbley fruit but Narayan assures us we will enjoy it. Back at the resort, we try it out and gasp
with pleasure! It is a custard-apple
taste, crossed with sherbet!
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Soursop |
I
make some Fiji drip-filter coffee and whip up some rice flour pancake mix –
pour some into a baking dish, chop bananas into it and bake for 20 mins. When slightly cooled, I pour Fijian honey
over, with a small dazzle of milk.
Delicious, if not terribly visually pleasing.
For
dinner, I used up the last of the rice pancake mix, half served with butter and
honey, the other half with Fijian Rewa cheese.
We are really getting into our rice pancakes! Afterwards we took a walk to Brunella Ice
(where Ravin promised to make us some rice muffins). We arrived just as Ravin does, he is happy to
show us 6 beautiful large banana muffins – made without egg and wait for it…….
Ceres brown rice flour!! Mike works for
Ceres! How amazingly co-incidental is
that!! A big bag has cost Ravin $29, and
he charges us $30 for 6 muffins. A fair
price. He says he can make more for us,
as he still has more flour left.
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| Rice flour banana muffins - such a treat! |
We
are spending quite a bit of holiday time checking out food options and logging
it all for the challenge. We promise
ourselves to really chill out Thursday and Friday.
Highs:
We
have muffins – they look just like real ones!
Can’t wait to try them tomorrow!
Day
8
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| Ravin proudly shows off his rice flour muffins |
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| Breakfast |
Just
before leaving the resort, Atish arrived to bring us 4 different types of
freshly made local veg curries – okra, eggplant, cow peas and potato! He refused payment but we insisted in giving
him $20 for buying the veggies and he was happy with that. We certainly are blessed with all these
offerings. The locals are most generous
and accommodating!
We
are collected by Eileen Rodenberg, owner of
Bulaccino. Eileen is Fijian, her husband
Dutch. They have lived all over the
world and have wonderful ideals for the land and business. She took us on a tour of her very impressive
organic farm, with a variety of different food crops and animal husbandry. We were amazed at her generosity to take us
around and show us the legacy she is creating.
Organic food supply for her 3 restaurants – providing good, healthy,
delicious food choices. From farm to
plate. Afterwards, we were treated to a
wonderful meal at Bulaccino, and joined by her children Emma, Dirk and Fiona (her other son
was attending to business in Suva) and their families. We met her gorgeous grandchildren Hugo and
Vida (and twins). What a lovely
opportunity to meet with a local family and hear about their travels and
aspirations.
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| Lovely Eileen in the Garden of Eden (I mean, Fiji!) |
We
then returned to the resort for an afternoon nap, rice flour muffins (which
were delicious) and a massage at the resort spa. I am sure the oils were
synthetic and even after wiping it off with a towel, a hot shower and scrub, I
still feel greasy. The relaxation music kept on
jumping and the Cd was obviously scratched, so we eventually asked if they
could turn it off, since it was quite distracting. If I had to rate it out of
10, I’d give it a 4. Last visit to Fiji,
we had the best massage at a cheap walk in street store. We may try to find it again.
Mike
had Atish’s curry for dinner, I chose to have local yoghurt, honey and banana
instead. Too much food!!
Challenges:
We
have ended up with so much food, I doubt we will be able to eat it all before
we check out on Saturday to take up a week’s accommodation at the Tanoa Hotel
(which will not have a kitchen facility).
Highs:
Meeting
and talking with locals – Vika, and then Eileen and family.
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