Sam Snaaps

After 2 weeks of waiting in the Town House, feeling quite frustrated and anxious that I had no idea when I would finally be moving to my permanent house, I finally got the call saying I could move in! This weeks main event for me has been this move, and it feels like the fresh new beginning I needed.

The celebration.

But before I get to the tour of my new place, I had a magical experience while packing my bags…

First I could hear it. Loud drumming on a fast rhythm, bells ringing, and people chanting, some of them with loudspeakers. I had an armful of clothes ready to be shoved aimlessly into my suitcase, but I had never heard such noise coming from this end of town, was it protest? A celebration of some kind? I thought that whatever it was, it would look great on my analogue camera so I grabbed exactly that and headed barefoot down to the street. Walking towards me was a parade of beautifully dressed Indo-Fijian men and women, covered in brightly coloured robes, all of which were detailed with gold. It was clear that this was a celebration, as everyone was happy, singing and chanting.

As I was stood at the side of the road, an older woman approached me, and welcomed me into the parade by putting coloured powder, known as Gulal, on my face, inviting me to walk with them! Of course I accepted the invitation and followed the crowd! At the center of the parade was a shrine, lifted by four people and standing 3 meters high. It was really beautiful, covered in white, yellow, and red flowers, and writing which I was unable to read. I estimate that there were between 200 and 300 people involved, all singing and creating music together, which made it very loud, and fueled their passion!

It was a very unique experience and one which I was honored to be a part of. The celebration was honoring the Hindu community in Savusavu, and was a beautiful display of togetherness by their community. I would have liked to learn more about this celebration, however the singing prevented most conversation, and I didn’t want to disrupt anyone’s passion for this event. I was more than happy to go with the flow!

New digs.

And now for the moment we have all been waiting for… my new, and more importantly permanent house! Move-in day was quite hectic. For a start I had just been part of a colourful celebration, and I had the colours all over my face and clothes to prove it. I had also worked that day, and didn’t have time to feed myself lunch before I packed up and left, so I was hungry, and covered in salt from the get go. With all my bags in the van, I had instructions from Janine to collect my key from a nearby shop (clearly trustworthy) and also on where the house was, as I couldn’t remember after 5 years. I collected the key and drove (although bounced aggressively is a more accurate description on these roads) over bumpy gravel desperately trying to find the house. After getting lost and discovering some new backroads and villages, I finally found the blue, wooden box!

The Love Shack in all its sky-blue glory!

Once I had dumped all my luggage inside, and claimed my preferred of the two rooms, I could spend a little bit of time looking around, testing the furniture and seeing what happened when I pressed the light switches. About 60% had a function.

The house itself is very typical for Fiji, a one story shack, almost entirely made from wood, with a spacious front deck and as few inside walls as possible. The front doors are directly center of the front deck, and open into the living space and kitchen, all open plan. There is a sofa on your left and a TV stand to your right, and at the far side of the room is the kitchen area. The kitchen area is quite basic, but it has everything I need, including gas hobs and gas oven, although I can’t be certain it is suitable for high end baking, a pot for my rice and a pan for my curried vegetables. There are two fridges, one for keeping things cold, and one that doesn’t work so it keeps the ants, bugs, and pests away from my dry goods, an airtight cupboard effectively. There are some things I still need for my kitchen, for example a bowl – porridge doesn’t taste right from a plate, and a bluetooth speaker so that I can salsa whilst I cook.

Either side of the kitchen room is a bedroom. The bedrooms are large, and en suite and I chose the one at the back of the house overlooking the garden. I chose it because the afternoon sun hits this part of the house, which makes coming home from work to a nice bright bedroom very pleasurable, plus I enjoy monitoring the birds in the garden while I work on my blogs.

The windows are a highly important part of this house. They are horizontal slats that can be rotated to either open or close, without the need for a hinge opening. They are behind a mesh netting to prevent mosquitoes, and are excellent for creating a breeze within the house. The design makes it impossible to truly seal, so no matter how tight you try and close them, air will always pass through, which, in this windy weather has meant the house has remained identical in temperature to the outside. I really enjoy this wild, outdoors-y feeling, everything smells like fresh air, I can always hear the outdoors, and I love feeling cool at night when the temperature drops!

The front porch, kitchen area, and my bedroom. As you can see, a lot of wood, and not much decoration to make it homely.

Unfortunately the sea view isn’t as spectacular as in my first place, but the Love Shack makes up for it with the garden, which is enormous! The majority of the garden is covered in pineapple bushes, there must be between 20 and 30 pineapples growing at any time! There are also bananas, coconuts, guavas, and avocados growing! All this fruit farming will keep me too busy to do any diving!

Samuel the fruit farmer! My first haul of bananas, a coconut, and my first pineapple! There will be plenty more of all this fruit as you can see by the number of pineapple bushes (left).

That pineapple is the most delicious pineapple I have ever tasted, perhaps the tastiest mouthful of fruit I’ve ever had. It is so sweet, almost like it had been stewed in sugar syrup, and without any hint of bitterness whatsoever.

If I am to summarise my first impressions of my new place in one word, I choose potential. Potential because the house does need some work, there is quite a lot of ‘clutter’, it could really benefit from some decorating, and I need to buy some furnishings to make it mine. That said, the place is spacious, in a beautiful location, and my gosh the garden is fabulous, so who’s to say that with a bit of elbow grease this place can’t be a fantastic home? Only time will tell…

Weekly water report!

I sadly have nothing amazing to report this week from the seascape, as the weather has severely limited our diving potential. We have been diving the same 2 sites in the bay all week while we wait for this horrible wind to drop, and so sightings of unusually named, shaped, and coloured critters are few. The site called Golden Nuggets, named after the stunning yellow soft corals covering the sloping face of the reef wall, has been radiant with life, with some highly venomous stonefish and scorpionfish, and very healthy corals.

Scorpionfish are ambush predators, perching on a rock and imitating the substrate. They have a venomous spine on their dorsal fin to deter any counter-ambush and grow up to 20cm in length. Can you spot the second hungry mouth?

Perhaps the highlight of the site is the thousands of tiny orange anthias which swim around the corals, creating a tangerine haze that shimmers in the light, and quickly vanishes when an ill-intending predator swims too close. Other interesting sightings have been one or two nudibranch (a kind of sea slug covered in interesting colours and patterns) which I’ve never seen, and several leaf scorpionfish.

You can see how the leaf scorpionfish gets its name, very thin like a leaf! They wait rested on their pectoral fins for their unsuspecting prey to swim in front of their mouth, before they are eaten by a lightning quick bite! The beautiful orange and purple of the anthias is even better when seen with the naked eye!

My focus has been on creating a plan for a monitoring program which aims to aid marine conservation around Fiji and the south Pacific. I am drawing on a lot of the lessons I learned from volunteering, with respect to the advantages and challenges that a volunteer style program has, and also from my degree regarding how to effectively monitor, and how to stay focused on taking meaningful data. I also have to keep in mind the limitations which Colin will likely have, such as financial investment.

My initial ideas are focused on having a small scale survey team to run transects along the reefs, similar to the setup on Caqalai, but on a much smaller scale. Reduced numbers compared with Caqalai could make the startup costs, staffing, and infrastructure requirements more realistic, and allow us to begin building the program, and gain momentum.

The aim of the small team would be to create baseline for the current state of the health of the reefs, a solid foundation on which to grow a monitoring program. Following this, the future aim of my program will be to continue monitoring, by doing regular surveys, at regular sites, over a long term, so that we can identify changes in the reef, and help with their protection.

I still need to create detailed plans, and consider many different options before I propose my ideas, but I am planting and nurturing the seed, for which I am very excited! (I am getting good at planting since becoming a fruit farmer).

Let the settleing begin.

I feel like a weight has been lifted from me now that I have a permanent base, and I am excited to explore the potential this place has to offer. I only wish I could decorate with my loved ones from back home, but I am excited to bring you all on my journey to become an interior designer!

Thank you all for such supportive words on my previous blog, it means a lot, and I hold you all close to my heart! Loads of love from Fiji to you all ❤