A Taste of Fijian Hospitality

Kam lived in a suburb of Suva called Sambula (actually pronounced Samambula) and on the morning of Saturday, December 20th I took a fifteen-minute taxi ride to meet him at the corner store near his place. When the taxi pulled up Kam was waiting there with his little nephew who was about 8 or 9 years old I would say. Kam’s home was a cozy one with 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen/living area. It was a pretty nice place and had it electricity and potable water as well, which was a real bonus. He lived there with his girlfriend, sister, and nephew. His girlfriend’s brother was also there for the weekend. I’m guessing he was roughly around 14 years old or so. They were all very good people.

I took a bus into town a little later on that day to go on the Internet and browse around a few of the shops. The bus only cost seventy cents so it was dirt-cheap and a good way to get a glimpse of the real Fijian lifestyle. The pace the Fijians moved at was priceless. It is just so hot and humid there that everybody seems to move at the speed of snails. When the bus pulled up nobody at the stop seemed to move so I assumed this must be the wrong bus and I waited as well. Then after about a minute and a half people started to filter onto the bus. I joined the group and found the bus driver sitting there reading the paper in no rush to go anywhere. After a few more minutes was began our journey into the city center making plenty of stops along the way.

Once in town I just walked around and got a few things done then I made sure to catch the last bus back into Sambula so I would be back in time for dinner. I bought us some chicken to use for the curry that night. It was a great meal. Just about every meal is some form of curry (even breakfast) so they are curry masters. Later we went over to his brother’s place and met the rest of the family. This was the house were Kam was born and where he had spent the majority of his life. His brother gave us all some freshly squeezed mango, passion fruit, pineapple, and mango juices that he had squeezed himself from the fruit found around his home. I can honestly say it was the best and most pure juice that I have ever had in my life. I wish I could wake up to a glass of that every morning. After that we just went back to Kam’s place and watched a movie then went to bed. They pulled out a mattress for me to sleep on in the living area and I had a decent sleep.

The next day was Sunday and all the shops were closed so there was no point in going into town. Kam asked me what I felt like doing and I just wanted to do whatever he would normally do. At around noon that day we went down the hill to his neighbor’s place where around ten Fijian-Indian men were sitting in a circle on their porch playing cards around a big bowl of karva. Karva is a Fijian classic. It is basically a tea that is made from crushed up karva root. It all starts by harvesting the karva root and then drying it out for a fairly long period of time. The potency and quality of the karva depends on its age, kind of like fine whiskey. Most karva has aged at least three years but very fine karva can be as old as ten years or more. You can buy the dried up root down at the market at a fairly inexpensive price. Kam’s neighbors had a large amount of this root and they gave me some to crush up for the next batch. I put it in a large steel bowl and basically just pounded the schnitzel out of it until it turned into a fine powder. I then took the powder large bowl of powder and divided it up into small tea bag sized paper bags, with each small bag being enough for one big bowl of karva. I then went into the kitchen with one of the men and he had a rag tied to his kitchen tap. We poured the karva powder into this rag then ran water through it until the bowl was full and we had strained all of the good stuff from the powder into to karva bowl. Then that was it, a few stirs with the half coconut karva cups and we were good to go. From then on anytime somebody says “taki” that means drink up, and the person closest to the bowl serves up one half coconut full of karva to each person around the circle one at a time. You are meant to down the whole thing at once, it is not a casual sipping drink. I don’t think you would really want to casually sip on a cup of karva anyways because it basically looks and tastes like muddy water with a bit of a kick at the end. The Fijians don’t even like the taste but they drink it because of its relaxing effect. The first time you drink karva you will probably just end up with a numb tongue but after a few nights of drinking it your tolerance seems to go down and it has a much greater effect. By this point I had already drank karva about 6 or 7 times so after a few cups with these guys my brain was at ease. We continued drinking karva and playing card games down on their porch until around 5 o’clock or so then Kam and I left to go try and get some dinner sorted.

Kam picked up a couple grapefruits on the way back up the hill to his place that we would boil for dinner. They weren’t the sour grapefruits that we are used to back home. They were big giant fruits about the size of small watermelons and the inside was kind of similar to a potato only sweeter. Kam also had some small fish that he had caught earlier in the week as well as some coconuts and this leafy vegetable that I forget the name of now. I was in charge of shaving the coconuts so I sat down on the shaving board which had a serrated edge at the front and began to carve out the inside of the coconuts until they were bare and I was left with a big pile of white coconut shavings. We then wrapped the coconut shavings in a cloth, put it in a bowl of water, and squeezed out all the white coconut milk until we had a big bowl of coconut milk ready to cook with. We put the coconut milk in a big pot along with the fish, onions, and herbs then brought it just to a boil and let it simmer for 15 minutes or so until the fish was cooked. We also boiled that leafy veggie that is apparently poisonous if no cooked properly. Luckily they had plenty of experience cooking this and I didn’t die at the dinner table.

After dinner we went back down to his neighbor’s place to drink some more karva for a bit then eventually called it a night. The next morning I decided it was probably time for me to move on because I wanted to be settled somewhere for Christmas Day which was only three days away. I said my goodbyes and thanked them for their hospitality then I went into town and caught the next bus the Pacific Harbour.