Suva Top 5

Suva, the capitol of Fiji, happens to be across the island from Lautoka where I'm staying. I've been trying to figure out how to get there for a weekend ever since I came. I've actually been there twice for work - both times on Mondays - both times leaving at 5:00am and getting back at about 9:00pm the same day. It's a 5 hour drive, so those trips did not lend themselves to stopping and hanging out in the city much. Well, I lucked out on Friday afternoon and caught a ride with some FNU people. I spent the night Friday night and then hopped a bus home on Saturday. Here are the top 5 things about my trip to Suva!

#5  

Suva is really beautiful and it's BIG (for Fiji anyway). It's really rainy and way more tropical than my side of the island.

#4

This will shock you, but the FOOD! Tikos was pretty much life changing. Plus, it was a dark and stormy night... on a boat... on the water. Mostly that just meant that it took some serious concentration on the lights outside to not end up seasick!  

And being seasick was not an option because I had a lobster tail the size of my head (see below), and some other amazing fish, and dalo and MITI!!

The second food-celebration was finding a Nandos there. I was actually looking for another seafood place for lunch, but everything was closed. So I ended up at Nandos. But Nandos, if you don't know about it, is really excellent! They have this African-Portuguese hot sauce that they put on everything. I ate at one in Ireland just last year actually.  :-)   

#3

I went to the LDS temple in Suva and it was so beautiful and peaceful and exactly what I needed! 

#2 

On a related note, I found these lovely Fijian girls at the temple.They were so great and we had such a lovely visit.  Also - this might possibly be related to why I liked them so much - they thought I was in my late 20's or early 30's. (Stop snickering right now! It's true!) The two on the left just got back from missions and the one on the right is leaving this week. Oh how I love missionary girls!  I have one, you know.

AND THE #1 BEST THING ABOUT SUVA...

I had a hot shower for the first time in 6 weeks! Unfortunately, I don't have a pic for you. 

(HUGE sigh of relief from the audience!)

I have mixed emotions about my cold showers in Lautoka. Well, about water in general. I have been able to get myself clean just fine every day that I've been here. And there are plenty of people in the world that have never had a hot shower and are doing great! Having clean water in Fiji that people can drink out of the tap is a blessing I also would not have appreciated if I hadn't spent time in Nepal. Water is a precious resource that a large part of the world struggles every day to access (663 million people lack access to safe water), and in the U.S. we have so much of it that we do things like the ice-bucket challenge.  

Having said that, however, I appreciate what the ice bucket challenge people did to raise money for a really important cause, and I REALLY, REALLY enjoyed my hot shower! I enjoyed it so much that I took a much longer shower than necessary and wasted plenty of clean water - I'm sure more than a bucket-full.  My western-privileged-world-view is something that I have to reckon with all the time when I travel. It's so much easier to see it raising its ugly head in other white westerners than it is to recognize it in myself. I think we are being simplistic and dismissive when we let ourselves off the hook by saying how we now have a new appreciation for all of the blessings we enjoy back home - with it's implied pity for everyone else (which is most of the world) who doesn't have it as good as we do. And then we inevitably have to add "But the people (the poor ones) are SO HAPPY!" Every white woman from the U.S. that I have met here has made this statement to me. I'm sure that someone smarter than me has already deconstructed this line of thinking (our need to comment that poor people are happy) so I won't even try - you can find their blog.  

 But, I inevitably do feel more gratitude for all of the luxuries I enjoy back home when I see that other people don't have those things - or more accurately, when I miss having them at a particular moment here. And, it can't be a bad thing for me to be forced to notice the things I've never even bothered to pay attention to. The other day Dropati was amazed because a friend had given her an apple slicer/corer as a gift. She couldn't get over it... the fact that it cuts the core right out and leaves evenly cut pieces of fruit. I felt awkward when the conversation came around to me and I had to tell her that I definitely have one of those at home in the U.S., but that they are so awesome (even though I've never given it a thought)! But the next time I use my dollar store apple slicer I will at least pause and think about it. When I get home, if this trip is anything like my trips to Nepal, I will spend the first few days wandering around my enormous house trying to figure out how I feel.  

 I think that condescendingly dismissing an enormous part of the world as if I've done something to deserve my "blessings" is just gross (obviously).  AND, I think walking around in a cloud of guilt and/or judging and shaming all of my partners-in-privilege is also ugly and unproductive. There has to be a place somewhere in between where we can reside as we try to understand the human experience.  So... there's that for you... three paragraphs of me still not being able to make any sense of it. I could go on, but I think you have the idea. Not insisting on wrapping it up all neat and tidy is probably a good way to go anyway.