Bat...it's what's for dinner!

I have traveled the world and eaten an amazing array of cuisines ranging from bamboo worms in Thailand to aged tripe sausage in Paris (between the two I’d probably take the bamboo worms over the andouillette if I had to do it again). I’ve even eaten the still-beating heart of a yellowfin tuna fresh from the ocean. However, nothing compares to the uniquely Fijian meal I ate last week.


Late on Wednesday night, I heard a knock at my door accompanied by a polite request of “bogi” [pronounced BON-ghee; meaning “good evening”]. I came to the door to find my neighbor with a big smile and holding a loose bundle of dark and light fur attached to some leathery wings. It was a fruit bat.

South Pacific (Insular) fruit bats (Pteropus tonganus) are the only indigenous mammal in Fiji and often the largest flying creatures found on many South Pacific islands. The largest reach 40 centimetres (16 in) in length and attain a wingspan of 150 centimetres (4.9 ft), weighing in at nearly 1 kilogram (2.2 lb). Fruit bats, as their name suggests, feed solely on the abundant fruit that grows in the jungle canopy…and in the trees around people’s homes. For the last two months we have watched and listened to fruit bats swooping into the breadfruit trees surrounding our house at nightfall and proceeding to fight noisily over the ripe breadfruit. They sound dreadful; screeching and squealing in a way that invokes visions of Vlad the Impaler. Even worse, as they move through the trees in the twilight, they look like something only H.R. Giger might imagine as their shadowy, leathery wings tipped with claws reach from branch to branch. Then again, they really amount to nothing more than a Chihuahua with wings (although that vision is actually far more disturbing to me than one of a blood sucking minion of Count Dracula).

Anyhow, Mere, our neighbor, said “kana beka” [roughly “eat bat”] and motioned for me to take the bat, so I thanked her and took what is often the largest flying animal in the sky, save the occasional frigate bird or heron, into our house for closer inspection. This particular bat was not exceedingly large, being a juvenile that was only about ¾ of a pound even if its wingspan was over 2 ½ feet. So then I thought, “now what?”

I’ve dressed a lot of animals in my time ranging from things as mundane as rabbits to those as exotic as an alligator, but I’ve never field dressed anything remotely as strange as a bat. I wasn’t sure where to even start. Luckily, my Fijian friend Elima Rabuli stopped by to drop some things off after Mere left. I told him I had a bat and he looked at me in amazement, almost with a sense of pride. “No, I did not kill the bat.” I told him, “Mere brought it to me.” He looked disappointed that I had not killed it, but was no doubt impressed that I even planned to eat it.

Elima is a local expert on bats; how to get them, dress them, and cook them. I’m sure some of you are asking yourself, “How, exactly, do they get these creatures.” Well, let me tell you, in a country where nobody owns firearms, you would be impressed. I have personally seen Elima cut about a 2 foot long stick from one of the dense local hardwoods using a cane knife, then take that same stick and wing it with unimaginable speed and accuracy to take out a bat in mid flight about 35 yards away. I have a friend named Brad Tyler in Texas that would probably miss that same shot using a 10-gauge shotgun fitted with a skeet choke and loaded with 3 ½ inch #6 shot maximum loads and this Fijian guy has better aim and killing efficiency with a stick! Nonetheless, knocking them out of the air is only the first step.

Elima explained that there are basically two ways that Fijians clean and cook bat. The first involves putting the bat in boiling water…fur and guts and all…and boiling the bat until everything is soft. This method was simply not an option for me. No matter how adventurous an eater I like to think I am, I don’t ever intend to eat the anus or feces of any animal…unless, of course, it is mixed in as part of bologna or hot dog weiners (you did know they use every part of the cow/pig making those, right?). Even worse, there were these mites that looked just like spiders that would crawl about the thin, soft fur when you disturbed it…and spiders were definitely not on the menu. The second option was to skin and gut the bat and then either fry or roast it. That sounded much more appealing, especially since removing the skin would simultaneously remove the fur and, ergo, the gross little mites. Not to mention the fur harbored the musky stink that falls somewhere between ferret and skunk. Thus, I asked Elima for instructions on how to skin the bat. Of course, I had to insist that I wanted to do it on my own or, in Fijian tradition, I would’ve been the confused valagi standing there and watching the Fijian do everything.

After Elima gave me basic instructions and went home to take care of his own family, I preceded to skin and gut this bat in our kitchen. Now some of you might be thinking, “How in the world would Michelle ever allow something like this in her kitchen?!” Well, first of all, she’s actually intrigued by these bats and was interested in seeing one up close. Secondly, and most importantly, however, she was out of the village when all this transpired. Anyhow, I made the incision up the back of the bat from the tail to the head and cut the collars around the first joints of the “arms” and legs. With one moderate pull the skin of the bat came off rather easily, leaving a pinkish body and head that looked like something straight out of Stephen King’s imagination.

Surprisingly, the guts were easily removed as well…and did not smell all that bad. I guess when all you eat is fruit things can’t get too terribly stinky. However, after cleaning the gut cavity I decided that leaving the head on was a little more than I could bear, so I cut the head off as well. Don’t worry, none of it went to waste! The kitten was more than happy to take it off my hands as he thought it was simply delectable!

After washing the bat well inside and out, I seasoned it using a combination of spices and positioned it as one would a chicken or turkey on top of a bed of cabbage, carrots, garlic, and onion in a small roasting pan. I also made sure to insert garlic and onion into the body cavity. I then proceeded to roast the bat and vegetable ensemble in a makeshift stovetop oven for about 1 ½ hours. It smelled as good as anything else we might cook in the same manner. Later, I turned off the heat, let it cool, and then carefully removed some of the vegetables and gently placed the bat on top for the proper presentation. And it was…


…ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS! Once you got past the fact it was bat, it really did have a very nice texture and flavor something like rabbit or quail (I will NOT compare it to chicken, which is the least descriptive way you can ever describe a cooked meat!). Moreover, it tasted far better than most wild game we Americans spend millions on chasing and shooting only to wrap it in piles of bacon, breading, and strong spices trying to make it not taste like strong cow’s liver. In any event, it turns out the Fijians were right when they told me that bat was one of the “finest meats in Fiji.”

So I’m sure that some of you cringed and squirmed, maybe even gasped and grimaced at the thought of eating a bat, but this is part of the Fijian culture and a mundane experience for most Fijians – as common as you eating a hamburger. But before you judge, my western friends, remember that many of you eat ground up unidentifiable meat paste (including lips, noses, bone, and, yes, assholes – not to mention stabilizers, preservatives, and an FDA limit for rat feces) molded into cylindrical shapes and then either boiled, grilled, or roasted on sticks as a ritual celebration of our nation’s independence every year or, at least, at ball games and backyard barbecues.

Planes, buses, and maddening frustration...

It’s hard to say many good things about the transportation infrastructure in Fiji. With regard to getting around in Fiji, it is definitely a third world country. If you want to get somewhere, nothing is easy in Fiji. I’ve had days where I would relish being stuck on a transcontinental flight in coach next to a talkative guy named Del who is a shower curtain ring salesman that likes to air out his socks while flying. As Peace Corps Volunteers, we are not allowed to drive anything…period…not even an outboard motor…so we’re stuck with being dependent on a less than stellar public transit system. However, only part of the difficulty is simply the poor infrastructure. There is also a cultural component to traveling in Fiji that can be far more challenging than finding a functional mode of transport.

One of the most frustrating things about traveling around Fiji is the sheer lack of concrete schedules for any form of transportation, be it ferry, bus, or even aircraft. Even if you hire a private taxi to pick you up you may find yourself waiting around for a lot longer than you expected. There is a “general understanding” among Fijians as to when buses go by or when planes leave, but they never know exactly when a bus goes by a particular stop or even when the ferry arrives. Nonetheless, when you’re on “Fiji time” it doesn’t seem to matter if you get there in an hour or in four hours (or even the same day, for that matter), so it seems to work just fine for the locals. For us valagis who are used to trains, planes, and automobiles designed to run like clockwork; this can be a little more than frustrating.

Take for example a trip Michelle and I were taking to Suva, the largest city on the southern island of Viti Levu, for a Peace Corps training session that we were supposed to attend. We had planned to travel from our village to Labasa, where the flights seemed to be more reliable than in Savusavu, to catch a flight to Suva. Before leaving for Labasa, however, Michelle needed to stop at a nursing station on the way in the village of Nabalebale for a meeting with the Village Health Aides. She had asked the head nurse when the buses go by for Labasa and the nurse responded, “oh, there are buses almost every hour.” We were looking at about 1.5 hours on the bus and had arrived in Nabalebale at about 9AM and didn’t need to be in Labasa until 4PM, so we felt pretty safe about making it to our flight on time.

As the meeting progressed, we watched a bus go by at about 10:30AM and then another at 12:30PM, so it was clearly not “every hour” that a bus went by. I was feeling a little nervous about making the flight, so I asked when the next bus was going by and the nurse said, “I think about 2PM.” This statement was from a woman who works every day next to the stretch of road where the buses go by and waves at most of the drivers because she knows them personally, so why would we have reason not to trust her, right? Oh, how wrong we could be…

If there is one thing Peace Corps Volunteers learn in Fiji, and usually it’s the “hard way,” is that you never, ever trust what any Fijian tells you about when any form of transport arrives, passes, or leaves. This moment was our lesson. Some volunteers use the “law of averages” and simply ask multiple people what time the bus comes and pick a response somewhere in the middle. We were not that well versed in Fiji travel to have considered that method, although it could be as equally uncertain as asking one person.

We sat at the bus stop until 2:15PM when another Fijian told us, “Oh, the nurse was wrong, there used to be a 2PM bus, but it doesn’t run anymore.” We were reaching the point where we would not be able to make our flight riding a bus, but in what seemed a bit of luck, a taxi full of Kiwis (tourists from New Zealand, not flightless birds or fruit) stopped to buy some drinks at the canteen at the bus stop. We asked the cabbie, who was obviously coming from Labasa, if he could pick us up on the return trip from Savusavu. This would be perfect because return cabs are required to charge the same $4.50 USD as the bus and would be a whole lot faster. He agreed and we assumed that, given the timing in a car between Savusavu and Labasa, we would have just enough time to make our flight…but you know what happens when you assume…

Lo and behold, the bus that was supposed to come by at 2PM showed up at almost 2:30PM. Given how long it would take for the bus to get to Labasa, we would barely have enough time to make our flight…maybe…if we took that bus. But we had already asked the cabbie to return and trusted that he would be back by soon enough and would likely pass the bus on a more direct route to the airport. So we watched the bus pull away from the stop toward Labasa in a cloud of dust. (Sigh) We were so naïve…

When the cabbie didn’t arrive by our crunch time we only had one choice left. The canteen owner at the bus stop had a truck he was willing to “charter” to the airport in Labasa. We negotiated from an outlandish $45 USD (about 20% of our monthly stipend) down to $30 USD and he swore he could get us to the airport in 30 minutes, which would allow us to just make the flight. So we hopped in the truck and zoomed down the road toward Labasa. When my watch indicated we were at 50 minutes I just conceded that we were not going to Suva that day, but Michelle insisted that we go to the airport anyway where she hoped to plead to be allowed on the flight.

Unfortunately, just weeks before, Pacific Sun Airlines had instituted a 30 minute check-in policy that they were strictly following (never mind that they frequently cancel or change flights when you are there hours in advance). We watched the other passengers board what would’ve been our flight and take off for Suva as I watched our driver sheepishly slink out the airport entrance. Luckily, there was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Labasa that was kind enough to let us stay with her for the night until we could catch the next flight the following morning.

The thing about the whole situation was that nobody intended to be malicious or dishonest about what they said or did. Time, for the Fijians, is simply relative. Nobody worries about missing a bus because they’ll just catch the next one. They don’t necessarily have to be at their destination at a certain hour or even on a certain day in many cases. Why worry about a specific schedule or time for transport when your own schedule is so flexible? So when you ask someone what time a bus arrives, they don’t look at their watch (rarely do you even see Fijians wearing watches), they just recite this vague notion of when they recall a bus going by the previous day or week. Unfortunately, this vague notion is almost never accurate and certainly not precise enough for us westerners.

In any event, our adventure in missing our flight to Suva was not my only painful travel experience. In early December, I had another meeting in Suva I had to attend. This time, I planned on flying out of Savusavu, knowing personally the schedule for that city much better and feeling more confident about being able to make my flight. I scheduled my flight for 4PM on Monday afternoon, giving me ample time to return on Monday morning from another Peace Corps Volunteer’s site we were going to over the weekend to assist with a project in his village. Unfortunately, on Friday afternoon, as we were on our way to the other volunteer’s site, the regional carrier, Pacific Sun Airlines, called me on my cell. This is the conversation that transpired:

Me: Hello?

Pac Sun Representative: Hello, is this Mr. Cook?

Me: Yes, this is he.

Pac Sun Representative: Yes, Mr. Cook. I regret to inform you that we are rescheduling your flight on Monday from 4PM to 8AM. We are very sorry for the inconvenience.

Me: What? Wait, don’t I get a say in this?

Pac Sun Representative: I’m very sorry Mr. Cook, but you understand that there is only one flight per day out of Savusavu and we are experiencing mechanical problems on one of our planes. Thank you very much for flying Pacific Sun. [click]

I sat baffled for a moment about the conversation that had just occurred. I suppose I should be thankful that they called, but the fact that the decision was made for me was a little more than irritating. Moreover, there was really no other choice at that point as I was forced to take whatever flight was on Monday because of the bus schedule from the other volunteer’s village of Nakobo…which presented a whole suite of problems in itself.

When we got to Nakobo, I told Ben, the volunteer there, what had transpired with the airline. Not at all surprised, Ben said that there was a guy in the village with a truck who could take me back at least as far as the next bus stop, if not all the way to Savusavu, on Sunday so that I could make my flight on Monday. So I didn’t worry too much until Saturday night, when the guy with the truck had not returned to the village. Not to worry, according to the folks in the village, because there is a bus that comes by Bagasau, the nearest village with a bus stop, on Sunday at 10AM. Moreover, one of the men in the village could take me to Bagasau by boat for $4.50 USD. Problem solved, right?...wrong…some of us never seem to learn…

My day started early on Sunday. At about 9AM, I waded out into the bay where an older Fijian man wearing a truckers cap and Oakley knockoffs was waiting in a wooden punt with an outboard mounted on it. This started what was actually the most pleasant part of the whole day. There was just a breath of a breeze and the crystal waters were slick calm. Our captain poled the punt out to deeper water where he pulled the cord on the outboard and the smell of 2-cycle and salt water filled the air. As we pulled further from shore you could see large stands of coral of every different color and kind passing beneath the boat. A little further out, about a half dozen small blacktip reef sharks cruised the surface chasing bait. Ten minutes later we approached the shore at full speed, clearly aiming for an entrance that only he could see. I had started to grip the rails and grit my teeth right before we skimmed just beneath the overhanging trees and into a river. As we entered the mouth of this small river, I was awestruck at the beauty of a complete canopy of mangroves covering the winding stream that was probably 40 feet across at its widest point. The cool, shaded breeze ran across my face as we wound our way up to a bridge where I disembarked and paid him for his kind service. “What a great way to start!” I thought to myself.

Unfortunately, things just went downhill from there. On my way to the bus stop someone told me that I had just missed the bus, which actually comes at 9AM and not 10AM. “No worries,” he said, “another bus comes at 11AM. I should’ve known where this was going. But I had a copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time and a covered bus stop, so I wasn’t too concerned. I just kicked back and started reading about temporal anomalies and event horizons, which made me wonder if maybe Fiji is at the edge of a black hole where time almost slows to a stop.

There was a bus at 11:30. It stopped at the bus stop and people filed off. When it appeared everyone who wanted had gotten off the bus, I reached for the handrail and stepped up with my right foot…and the bus pulled away with a purpose, nearly knocking me off my feet and leaving me standing in a cloud of dust and exhaust. “What the f***!” I thought to myself, as I turned to look at a group of equally surprised Fijians. “That bus is an express bus that does not have an agreement to pick up passengers here,” a Fijian told me. I restrained a growl and asked when the next bus was to which the answer was “12PM”.

At 12:30PM another bus came rumbling up the road toward Savusavu. By now I was alone at the bus stop and anxious about being stuck in Bagasau, so I stepped toward the edge of the road, raised my hand, and mouthed the words “Savusavu”. The bus did not even slow down. The bus driver just looked at me with a grin as he passed with a half empty bus. Agreement or not, he just passed up an additional fare on a bus with plenty of room. With that, I looked at a pile of fist-sized rocks at the edge of the bus stop and thought, “the next bus driver is getting one of those in the face if he doesn’t slow down or tries to pull away.”

Some locals in Bagasau had been watching this all transpire and took pity on me, inviting me over to have lunch with them. They told me the next bus was not until 3:30PM. “Sure it is.” I thought to myself. In any event, their kindness and generosity was greatly appreciated and the conversation was good, too. About 3PM, we walked back toward the bus stop and a commercial truck was driving by that Semisi, the patriarch of the house that took me in, flagged down. Abrahim, the driver, pulled over, invited me inside, and I hopped in, thrilled that it finally looked like I was going to make it to Savusavu to catch my flight the next morning.

The day that started well, but almost climaxed in a potential assault charge ended well when Abrahim refused to take payment for bringing me what would’ve been an almost 3 hour bus ride to Savusavu. So all in all, it wasn’t a bad day even though I had started traveling at 9AM and it was now almost 5PM…just to go about 30 miles.

In America we have public transit systems in many cities like Washington D.C., New York, and San Francisco that virtually eliminates the need for a car and an amazing array of options for air travel anywhere in or out of the country, but watch folks reactions when a train is a minute late or their flight is delayed an hour. We live in a society that is built on strict schedules and a pumping, repetitive cycle that has us living to work and not working to live. Thus, there are some things that we could learn from the Fijians about slowing down. Learning to slow down and enjoy life is something that we Americans have all but forgotten as we strive to make more money and buy more stuff. God forbid we don’t work ourselves to death in order to buy that 5 bedroom, 2 ½ bath home so that we can fill it full of crap that we’ll rarely use and ultimately dump in a landfill in a few years.

Idle hands...

It's not often that I have a lot of "free time" in Fiji, but sometimes I do. Of course, there's always something to do to pass the time. One thing I've been able to do here that I haven't seemed to have time for in the U.S. is creative writing and I truly, truly enjoy it. I was asked to submit something for a monthly publication written for Peace Corps Volunteers by Peace Corps volunteers and distributed by the Peace Corps (making it a "government" publication). Below you will find the two pieces I wrote that were both rejected because they were considered a tad risque. They are, no doubt, edgy, but by no means offensive and are aimed at being amusing and humorous. Alas, the government is not allowed to have a sense of humor lest they offend someone.

Both stories are completely fictional. The first was intended to be a monthly column written by my alter ego, Sir Reginald Copperbottom. His run was short-lived, unfortunately, as it seemed unproductive to continue writing submissions that would be summarily rejected. Sir Copperbottom, as you will see, is a legend in his own mind and an expert on Fiji's wildlife. The second story is one of adventure and intrigue experienced by Peace Corps Volunteers seeking perfect tomatoes. Both are riddled with innuendo and suggestive language. If you're easily offended, I suggest you exit the blog now and go live in a cave in the Himalayas to shelter yourself from all reality where no one is offended, birds sing Justin Bieber tunes constantly, and everyone craps rainbow colored marshmallows.

Sir Reginald Copperbottom's Fiji Wildlife Corner

(Sir Reginald Copperbottom is a self-proclaimed British naturalist and distant [really distant] cousin to renowned scientist David Attenborough. He has no real credentials, but once met Jane Goodall in a train station. He’s not even really a knight. Nonetheless, to be fully comprehensible, this must be read in a British cockney accent.)

Welcome to the first installment of Fiji Wildlife Corner! My name is Sir Reginald Copperbottom and I am here to be your guide through the wilds of Fiji. As you well know, Fiji was once a British territory, so who better than myself to describe the perils and wonders of the Fijian wilderness, if I do say so myself. I must say that the invitation to contribute to your esteemed publication, The Coconut Wireless, marks one of my most significant achievements to date and I relish the opportunity to educate and inform the Peace Corps volunteers about Fiji’s abundant fauna.

Today I would very much appreciate your attention to a grave danger lurking in the Fijian jungle. The danger of which I speak is one that can easily be avoided, but some Peace Corps volunteers seem to have deliberately sought it out. The danger I speak of is bufotoxin. Bufotoxin is a poison secreted from the parotoid gland of a number of species of toad. The poison can contain a variety of compounds that include stimulants, laxatives, and even hallucinogens. Specifically, some toads harbor a very potent hallucinogenic tryptamine known as 5-MeO-DMT that has been known to cause such visions as being in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies as well as cellophane flowers of yellow and green towering over your head…at least that’s what some spacker from Liverpool told me.

Here in Fiji, there are at least three species of toad that possess bufotoxin, including Bufo marinus, otherwise known as the cane toad. Indeed, the cane toad possesses a level and mixture of bufotoxin that can prove deadly. Most unfortunately, it seems that some PCV’s have intentionally engaged in the dangerous game of “toadlicking,” presumably seeking those toads harboring hallucinogenic properties in an effort to temporarily escape the trials and tribulations they experience as volunteers.

To illustrate the extreme danger of toadlicking, I must relate to you the story of one unfortunate bloke we all know quite well, but that we shall call Smalden Pitts. Smalden had been experiencing some particularly taxing ordeals following his assignment to a remote village on the island of Vanua Levu. Smalden had hoped dearly to find a Fijian wife upon his arrival in his village. Unfortunately, Smalden was of a very slight build and, despite his most admirable efforts, his advances were categorically begged off by the fairer sex, who seemed to be seeking a more strapping specimen. In a swirl of despair and utterly disenchanted with the effects of yaqona, he sought a more powerful escape from the rejection of the village totties.

On a particularly warm and humid South Pacific evening, just as the toads were emerging from their burrows, Smalden ventured out on what almost became his final quest in Fiji. Determined to reach a new plane of existence, Smalden set about to find a toad to take him away from his unbearable pain. Unfortunately, Smalden did not know the slightest bit about psychoactive toads, or much less toads in general. Smalden licked several frogs and even a gecko before coming across his first toad, but a bloody good toad it was! Indeed, the toad was the dog’s bollocks for a short time.

As the toxin entered his bloodstream, the psychoactive elixir drove his imagination to mither of giant singing tacos dancing in a Broadway revue. Not satisfied with this vision, and becoming quite annoyed if not frightened by the content, Smalden sought out another toad in hopes of “changing the telly” so to speak. Alas, things went even more pear shaped as the next toad only intensified even more frightening images of a group of circus clowns chasing him whilst each waggling an artificial phallus in their right hands above their ginger quiffs. Whilst running to escape the evil jesters intent on buggering him, he felt a searing pain flushing over his skin, following which he looked down to see his knickers ablaze. The last the villagers observed of Smalden that fateful evening he was shrieking wildly whilst dashing naked through the middle of the village. In an unintelligible conclusion to a presently confusing situation, Smalden screamed “Eskimo Pies!” before disappearing into the jungle.

The next morning the villagers found Smalden knackered, bare arsed, and covered in his own cack (turns out one of the toads had the laxative compound) in the middle of a dusty road with both hands covering his John Thomas. Thinking him a bit nutter, the village immediately held an emergency Bose va Koro in which they voted unanimously to expel Smalden from the village, permanently.

Smalden has since recovered from his psychadelic bumble through the terrors of the Id, but, being banned from returning to his village, he is forced to wait out his days in the city of Savusavu, hoping that his exploits do not become widely known. So let this be a lesson to all of you chipper young PCVs, the perils of toadlicking are dire. Although Fiji’s wildlife holds unfathomable wonder and beauty, there is danger around every corner. Until the next installment of Fiji Wildlife Corner, don’t ponce about, take life by the bollocks, and keep Peace Corps chuffed!

Masters of the Garden Universe

Of all the Peace Corps Volunteers in Fiji, Bob is by far the most profound expert at home gardening or other quasi-agricultural endeavors. He is especially well known for his ability to grow certain vegetables in conditions that mere mortals simply would not be able to achieve, but is also a skilled leader and diplomat capable of sowing peace and goodwill among his cohorts. The following story is sort of truthfully based on events that were confirmed after being repeated third-hand from a guy in Germany on Facebook, thereby ensuring their absolute veracity. Names have been changed to protect the innocent (Bob’s name is used because he is far from innocent…).

After being in Fiji for almost four months, Meg B had been missing home terribly. One of the things she missed most was salsa and chips. Unable to find a respectable salsa in the entire country, she determined that the only way she was going to have decent salsa was to grow her own garden, including those ripe, red tomatoes that are critical for the most popular condiment in the world.

While some of her vegetables did modestly well, Meg’s first attempt at growing tomatoes was less than stellar. For hours of effort that included getting her nails dirty, squishing icky bugs, and actually scooping real poop to fertilize her plants. she was rewarded with less than 10 small tomatoes that looked more like developmentally disabled marbles than tomatoes. Needless to say, her first efforts did not produce the fruit, or the salsa, that she so desired. However, Meg remained desperate for her salsa fix.

Like a commoner seeking wisdom from a mountaintop yogi, Meg trekked to see Bob and learn from the master. Upon reaching Casa del Bob, she saw a paradise of green, like she had stepped into the Garden of Eden. There were big round pumpkins in a variety of colors, large ripe melons covering every spare patch of soil, and the intoxicating fragrance of bulbous chrysanthemums paired at the end of each plot. And then there were the tomatoes…big, plump, brilliant red fruits the size of softballs that seemed to scream, “eat me!” As usual, Bob was hunched over in his garden of plenty, unaware he was exposing his golden underpants from under his pocket sulu while mumbling something unintelligible about someone named Joseph Smith.

“Bob?” said Meg tentatively, not sure if the golden bloomers did indeed belong to the man with the gilded green thumb.

“Giiiiiiaaaaaannnnnnttttttssssss!!!” screamed Bob unexpectedly, flailing and seeming to jump out of his own skin.

Bob was still suffering from a condition known as worldseriesosis, which results in paranoia, tunnel vision, impaired hearing, an inability to focus on anything other than very discrete television or radio signals, and an unquenchable hunger for roasted peanuts. It is a disease that is incurable, but fortunately the symptoms only manifest annually for a short period of time. Gardening was the only thing that seemed to alleviate the symptoms for Bob. Nevertheless, the unanticipated visitor startled him almost to the level of incontinence.

Meg nearly fell backward onto a blanket of enormous acorn squash before regaining her footing next to a row of round eggplants that came up to her chest.

“Bob, it’s Meg. I’ve come seeking your guidance and wisdom. You have to help me with my garden. I’m desperate!” said Meg.

Bob stood up with his back still turned and slowly rotated toward Meg. Placing his hands together while his right eye twitched uncontrollably (no doubt a side effect of worldseriesosis) he said, “Then you have come to the right place, my child. What is the knowledge that you seek?”

Almost in tears, Meg exclaimed, “Bob, I’m desperate to make some salsa and I absolutely must grow some tomatoes! I’ve tried everything and all I get is these…” She extended her hand and let a half dozen misshapen, marble-sized tomatoes drop to the ground.

For the next ten minutes they engaged in a question and answer designed to eliminate every possible problem that Meg might be facing with her tomatoes. Beetles, slugs, nematodes, blossom rot, planting over an Indian burial ground…Meg had either solved or had not even experienced it all. In the end, Bob sat confounded, rubbing his chin with his thumb and forefinger while maintaining one raised eyebrow. Then a sly grin slowly overtook his face and he looked at Meg directly while extending his arms and grabbing both her shoulders firmly.

“Meg, what I’m about to tell you is one of my greatest gardening secrets. I am about to pass on knowledge to you that very few people on this planet know.” Bob said with a tone of seriousness.

“Uh, OK.” said Meg. “Is this going to cost me anything?

“Not a dime.” said Bob. “The secret to my tomatoes, aside from the organic fertilizer and my godlike gardening skills, is something special I do when I tend my garden. You know that I’m prone to remove my clothing at any opportunity. When I tend my garden, I do it naked!”

“Really?!” exclaimed Meg. “But what about the villagers and the modest dress code here in Fiji?”

“Not a problem. I do it after the grog session shuts down in the middle of the night. Nobody is awake to see anything at 2 a.m. in the village.” Bob said. “Oh, by the way, if you decide to follow my advice you might want to see Dr. Fina about some more mosquito spray.”

“That’s it…naked…that’s all I have to do?” she questioned.

“Yup! Works for me! Look at my pumpkins, melons, tomatoes, and even my papaya!” Bob responded emphatically with a smile and a jig that looked like he was in an Appalachian hoedown.

So Meg went back to her village and set about practicing the wisdom that had been passed to her by Bob. A few weeks went by and Bob, wondering whether she had heeded his advice and whether it had worked, decided to call Meg and see how things were going.

(ring)

“Meg! So how’s it going? You got some good tomato action goin’?” Bob said over one of the better Digicel connections he’d experienced.

“Um, well, better I guess.” said Meg rather unsurely.

“So since you’ve been gardening naked you have seen an improvement in your tomatoes, right?” Bob responded.

There was a pregnant pause that made Bob think that maybe the call had been dropped.

“Meg, you there? You’re garden is doing a lot better, right?” he said again.

Meg responded in a very cautious but deliberate voice, “Not exactly. The tomatoes are still doing about the same, but now I have cucumbers, zucchini, and bananas that are three feet long!!!”

Organically Yours

This last month I shoveled a lot of shit. Yes, yes, yes, I can hear the comments from the peanut gallery all the way from Fiji…”But Bubba, you did that every day when you were in the U.S! You didn’t have to go all the way to Fiji in the Peace Corps to do that.” I also packed a lot of sand. Again, I can hear the comments of “But Bubba, we would always tell you to pack sand when you were shoveling shit, but you never did, so why are you doing it there?” Ah, it’s nice to have such good “friends”… First, let me clarify that the two preceding described activities were literal, not figurative metaphors. Second, they were borne out of necessity to ensure that Michelle and I aren’t subsisting on a diet comprised solely of starchy native root crops. Lastly, gardening, the activity resulting from those two activities, in the tropics is more difficult than you might imagine.

As part of our Peace Corps Training, we were encouraged to start our own vegetable gardens once we arrived at our sites. The idea was in part to ensure we received proper nutrition ourselves, but also to encourage others to observe, question, and potentially engage in growing their own vegetable garden. I should explain that this is not an effort to reduce hunger in our village or even in Fiji. Unlike many of the places where Peace Corps operates like Africa or some places in Latin America, there is an overwhelming abundance of food in Fiji. So apart from small pockets in urban areas where hunger may exist as a matter of access, for the most part people in Fiji never go hungry. Of course, that does not mean that they are not malnourished.

“Sega ni lavo, sivia ni kana.” No money, but plenty of food is a motto in Fiji. Thanks to the tropical climate, rich volcanic soil, and abundant rain, lots of stuff grows quite well in Fiji. Their staple crops are dalo (taro), tavioka (also called tapioca, manioc, or cassava around the rest of the world), and uvi (yam). These represent the “root crops” that yield a big, starchy root that, pound for pound, provides more energy than virtually every other crop on the planet. If you happen to be watching your carbs, the Fiji diet will definitely not be one you want to follow, but it will keep your stomach full. The root crops are also ridiculously easy to grow, literally requiring that you just plug a cutting in the ground in all cases. Furthermore, the root crops are resistant to virtually all pests, which makes it easy to understand why the crops are ubiquitous throughout Fiji.

Unfortunately, while the root crops pack loads of calories and really do grow like weeds, they are relatively nutrient poor. Hence Peace Corps’ focus on vegetable gardening to encourage the consumption of those brightly colored and vitamin packed veggies including beans, carrots, cucumbers, squash, peas, and other delicious plants that are the bane of existence to every 4 year old sitting in a high chair, but are critical to ensuring proper nutrition.

I have to admit that I was pretty excited about starting a garden and growing something with my own hands. We recently watched the film “Food, Inc.” before coming to Fiji and gained a new appreciation for industrial food production in the U.S., so I was looking forward to growing something that had not been subject to massive amounts of fertilizer, pesticides, hormones, transgenic manipulation, or antibiotics. My intention was to do everything organically…that was my intention…

Not long after we arrived in the village I asked if we could stake out an area for our garden and we were offered a sufficiently large area, approximately 40x40 feet. The only problem was that it was literally in the middle of the jungle and covered by multiple varieties of vines, ferns, palms, and other vicious jungle plants. Michelle and I set about clearing the area before shortly being joined by a number of the children who were just finishing school. The kids were thrilled to be helping the valagis and brought a variety of garden tools to help. Michelle and I were equally thrilled to have the help given that it was oppressively hot and humid.

Nonetheless, those precocious little scamp’s efforts, while appreciated, ultimately resulted in one of the biggest headaches in tending my garden. As we were forking with the kids in the garden (that is using a digging fork to turn over the soil…that was not a misspelling, perverts…), we would occasionally pull up small bulbs attached to ornamental plants called “elephant ears” in the states as well as small roots that belong to the ginger family that smell a little like Kellogg’s Froot Loops when you cut them open. Interestingly, the kids, either out of curiosity or just boredom, would cut each bulb into about a thousand pieces and pitch them about the garden plot. There was only one problem with this…it has the same effect of cutting the arms off a starfish and throwing it back in the ocean. Even the tiniest little shaving leads to a new plant that shades everything growing beneath it. So I’ve been continuously pulling these evil (insert your own series of graphic expletives here) plants since I started my garden.

So with round one of planting I selected a series of seeds that included pumpkin, zucchini, carrot, corn, pinto beans, and Chinese cabbage. But here’s something that I learned the hard way about seeds…always buy new ones. I just assumed that the seeds the previous volunteer left would work fine, and I’m sure that he did too, but everyone knows what happens when you assume. After 5 weeks and nothing popping out of the ground, it was more than a little disappointing to discover that the plants didn’t even germinate. To add insult to injury, bugs were annihilating the plants that did germinate, especially the okra. Those that weren’t getting destroyed by the bugs were getting uprooted by the birds. And those that actually reached maturity seemed to have their own problems thanks to some other kind of worm, fungus, or mildew. My first attempts were less than successful...

As I said before, my goal was to have an organic garden. After an impromptu trip to the garden at dusk, I discovered that the mystery marauders attacking my okra were actually big, fat, gross jungle slugs that despite lush vegetation in every direction decided that they liked my okra the best. They also ate my Chinese cabbage down to ground level before it even had a chance to really even get started. Once discovering that these slimy pests come out just after dark to feed on my hard work, I made it a nightly ritual to go out in the evenings with a thin, sharp piece of bamboo to make “slug kabobs.” I would routinely fill 3 or 4 12” pieces of bamboo with at least 15 slugs each before conceding that it was a losing battle, so I went to step two…the beer trap. It turns out slugs love beer (I’m sure to some women this comes as no surprise). The beer trap worked, but would overfill so quickly that it too was a failure, not to mention a disgusting ball of slime in a bottle. Thus, I was only left with one option…screw the organic method; I had to go nuclear on the slugs!

My next trip into town I went to some of the agricultural supply stores looking for something for slugs and came across a product called “Blitzem.” Blitzem is slug bait produced in Australia that is apparently irresistible to those slimy, brainless blobs of goo. Moreover, they had a brilliant marketing campaign. On the front of the box there was a statement in bold letters that said, “Now with Child Taste Deterrent!” I don’t know about you, but this was exactly what I was looking for in my slug bait, because the last thing I needed was some kid picking through the dirt in my garden and nibbling on the morsels intended for my invertebrate arch-nemeses. In any event, that night I went home and spread the almost certainly toxic green pellets throughout my garden.

“Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” [angels singing and light shining down from the heavens]. As I stepped into my garden the next morning I witnessed something that made my heart swell and compelled me to dance with joy…hundreds of squishy land mollusks writhing in agony from ingesting a poisonous concoction that they simply couldn’t resist. Even more satisfying was watching them bake into leathery, black crisps as the morning sun rose higher on the horizon. Finally, I thought that I might be able to get something in my garden growing successfully…oh, but I was wrong.

By eliminating the competition from the slugs, I just made way for the cutworms to move in and take up the slack. Nothing, and I mean nothing, organic deters cutworms and there simply ain’t enough bamboo to make the requisite number of kabobs. The organic hot pepper and garlic au naturale pesticide concoctions mixed with soap seemed only to spice up the cutworms virtual buffet of my okra, bell pepper, and corn. Once again, it was time to go nuclear on the next round of pests.

Michelle and I had to go to Labasa for a training session for a few days, so I just figured I’d wait until I got back to take the next step of eradicating the cutworms with a healthy dose of Orthene (which is at least somewhat less toxic than other options), but not before I husked some coconuts to keep the mynah birds from plucking the plants from their roots. I have no idea why these obnoxious birds do this, but they have a habit of simply uprooting any seedling that happens to be planted in a garden. Since I cannot be there every moment to plug them with a slingshot, I have to put split coconut husks around the base of the seedlings to keep the bastard mynahs from causing me yet additional frustration.

We’ve learned a lot about coconuts since coming to Fiji. We’ve made coconut cream, coconut chutneys, and virgin coconut oil. The basic conclusion that I’ve come to regarding cooking with coconut is that it is the equivalent of bacon in the U.S. Just like using bacon in any American recipe, you can cook anything in coconut cream and it will taste good. Of course, there are a variety of types of coconuts that are used for different things. The “bu” is a green coconut, which once opened yields a delicious and refreshing coconut water that once saved hundreds of U.S. soldiers lives in World War II as a substitute for blood plasma. “Niu” is the familiar brown coconut, which yields coconut cream/milk and the familiar grated coconut. For those of you who are wondering, grated coconut does not fall out of a coconut shell magically dusted in powdered sugar…that is the job of their version of the Keebler elves that live inside a Dakua tree. There is also the “vara”, which is a coconut that has started to sprout, creating a spongy web of coconut inside the shell that is a little like dense coconut flavored cotton candy. Then there is the “niuca” or the “bad coconut”.

This is an important word of advice. If a 10-year-old girl tells you a coconut is “bad,” listen to her. I did not, I paid the consequences, and they were dire. In my quest to find coconut husks to protect my plants I went about picking up coconuts to split and place around my plants. I found a half dozen or so and carried them to my garden where I planned to cut them in half with a single swipe from my cane knife. At least two of the coconuts were “bad” as had been shown to me by the young girl, but my thought was, “well, I’m not planning on eating them, just using them in my garden, so how bad can they be?” Famous last words…

Buka, the young Fijian man who had been tending the Methodist minister’s coconut plantation nearby, was busy cutting coconuts for sale to the local mill for use in low-grade coconut oil production as I walked past to my garden. We exchanged greetings in Fijian and I set about lining up my coconuts to split the husks. Buka was watching nearby as I raised my cane knife and brought it down hard on one of the bad coconuts. What happened next can only be described as simply awful.

As my cane knife pierced the husk of the coconut and made contact with the interior coconut shell, there was a sound akin to someone opening a soda can, only what emerged from that shell was nothing like soda. As the pressure released from that coconut it spewed the most foul, putrid substance that I have ever experienced short of the inevitable results of a friend of mine in high school who downed a bottle of rum along with two McDonald’s McRibs. It reeked like a mixture of vomit and sour milk combined with the juice you might find in the bottom of a dumpster next to an Old Country Buffet. As a result of the direction in which I swung my knife, this pressurized putridity sprayed over me from head to toe. To add insult to injury, it was also filled with squirming maggots…

Covered in a foul stench the likes only Andy Duframe of The Shawshank Redemption could imagine and holding back a gag reflex that I was sure that would qualify as “projectile” were I to let it go, I calmly picked up my cane knife and walked back past Buka…who had seen the whole thing transpire…and who I could tell was trying desperately not to burst into laughter. With my head held low, I made the walk of shame back to our shower where I proceeded to wash with multiple applications of soap and shampoo to ensure that every particle of stink or maggot was removed. Unfortunately, stupid doesn’t wash off.

Eventually, I recovered and placed my coconut husks around my seedlings and carefully mulched every part of the garden using leaves and grass from around the house and garden. As I stood back and admired my work, I looked forward to soon having some vegetables from our own garden upon our return from a week in Labasa. Again, I was mistaken…

As we walked into our village from the bus stop after returning from Labasa, what was once my garden looked as though a D-9 Caterpillar bulldozer had plowed right through the middle of it. A pig…a (insert extreme colorful metaphor) pig…had all but destroyed the months of work that I had put into the garden. Angry doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt at that moment. I had beaten the slugs, I was winning against the insects, I had deterred the effing mynahs, and now this. Michelle just stood clear and timidly walked away, understanding fully that no consolation was appropriate at that moment. I set about trying to recover whatever I could…and that bastard pig reappeared about 10 minutes later.

This was not a wild pig…it belonged to someone in the village, but I did not care…that pig was going to die, get butchered, and be gift wrapped and distributed throughout the village. I sharpened a bamboo pole to a razor sharp point, aimed as carefully as I could, and slung the spear with everything that I had in me. Dammit if it didn’t glance off the branch of a small breadfruit tree and just graze the pig’s back. It squealed and went running into the jungle with me shortly behind carrying the sharp bamboo pole in hand. After about a half mile running through mud and dense undergrowth, the pig won and I watched the vegetation jerk and sway as that terrified pig fled squealing and bleeding through the jungle and I struggled to catch my breath.

At the next village meeting, I brought up the problem of loose pigs, how the law in Fiji says you can kill them on sight if they are not tied up, and how people should be more considerate of other’s hard work. In another cultural learning lesson, the response from the pig owner was like BP to the fishermen and sportsmen of the Gulf Coast…”I’m Sorry! I promise it won’t happen again!” This is little consolation to the people who’ve put all their work into something that’s been destroyed by someone else’s irresponsibility in a matter of seconds. Nonetheless, I’ve been clear with others in the village that the next pig I find near my garden becomes community property, except that I’m keeping the loin for myself.

Despite all the challenges, we now have a variety of vegetables growing that includes tomatoes, pumpkins, lettuce, cucumbers, eggplant, zucchini, carrots, Chinese cabbage, green beans, long beans, sweet corn, cantaloupe, bele (Fijian spinach), and bell peppers, not to mention basil, coriander (cilantro) and mint. It is still not an organic garden, but at least we’ll have vegetables to supplement our limited diet. But I'll be damned if the papaya tree I've been nurturing for the last 5 months has turned out to be a male tree that bears no fruit...worthless males...

Fruitcakes in Common

While I have been clearly delinquent in my writing, it has not been without reason. We have both been very busy since before Thanksgiving. Some may think that “island time” means that things move at a slower pace, but it seems that there is always something going on in our village. Between several events and meetings with government officials, Michelle and I have been in and out of town much more frequently than we would’ve expected or liked. Nevertheless, as we approach Christmas…our first Christmas in a Fijian village…I felt compelled to write.

It is summer here and 90 degrees Fahrenheit with around 90% humidity, which makes it feel far from Christmastime. Having grown up in coastal Texas, however, these conditions are not unusual to me. I can remember wearing shorts and a t-shirt (and still sweating) the year I got my first bicycle for Christmas. In any event, a “white Christmas” is totally out of the question for us…unless you consider the sand on the beach. Even aside from the cognitive dissonance imposed by the weather, it also doesn’t feel like Christmas in Fiji for another reason. There are no audacious twinkling lights on any of the homes, no inflatable seasonal yard art purchased from Wal-Mart, no images of a fat man in a red suit anywhere, no constant bombardment from every source of media to “BUY, BUY, BUY!”, and, most outstanding, Christmas music has not been playing non-stop on any radio station since before Halloween.

In Fiji, especially in the villages, they truly are focused on the birth of a little Jewish boy 2011 years ago. In Fiji, the Christmas tradition is for families from all over Fiji to come together to catch up on the past year’s events in each other’s lives, tell stories, laugh, play, and, of course, eat lots of food and drink yaqona. In many cases, Fijians save up the entire year on very meager incomes just so they can have enough money to travel to spend time with their families at Christmas. On Christmas Day, it is generally like any other Sunday, with all villagers walking to the church for a special service followed by a big holiday meal. If presents are given, they are usually modest, including crops that were grown, crafts that were made, or fish that were harvested. The mass consumption that is the American holiday tradition is simply not present here…and we are grateful for that.

Along with many Americans, Michelle and I have come to like the Christmas season in the U.S. less and less every year. The nonstop commercialization of the holidays that force-feeds us a message insisting that we buy everything in sight, whether we need it or not (or have the money for it or not!), has drowned out the “Spirit of Christmas” that is love, compassion, charity, kindness, and peace. Somehow, we have turned the simple act of kindness offered by the magi to that little Jewish boy in a manger into a circus of gluttony that is exemplified by stress, greed, debt, and general excess. Despite Charles Schultz’s admonition over 40 years ago in “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!”, instead of returning to the true, simple meaning of Christmas, we continue to immerse ourselves further in gross overindulgence like a frat boy at a beer bong.

Some might say, “Oh, you’re just a ‘scrooge’!”, but I’m not. I love the feeling of warmth and comfort I get that comes with the thoughts of brilliantly twinkling lights, the smell of pine from a tree covered with ornaments from my childhood, the taste of my mother’s sugar cookies cut into different Christmas shapes and coated with creamy icing, and the memories of gatherings with family and friends that were filled with laughter. I can remember well the anticipation and excitement as a child of discovering what lie just beneath the boughs of the tree on Christmas morning. As an adult, I can vividly recall the satisfaction and happiness that came with finding the “perfect” gift for one of my family members or my wife. I have, indeed, dropped some serious coin in the past on gifts for my family, particularly when I’ve been traveling overseas. And I honestly and truly enjoy doing that immensely. The thing is, the exorbitant gift giving and materialism that generates it has nothing to do with celebrating Christ’s birth.

This last week, while perusing that massive social experiment that is Facebook, I was struck by a series of comments that seemed to be repeated on several folk’s pages. They usually consisted of something like, “Jesus is the reason for the season” or something to that effect followed by something like, “Gammy got little Jimmy the latest X-box with every game for Christmas and Jim is getting me a new Beamer!”. These folks are also the same ones who imply that there is a “war on Christmas”...and they are absolutely right. There is a war on Christmas, but it has nothing to do with whether a crèche can be displayed on government property…it is waged on the front lines by people just like them.

It seems that increasingly more Americans seem to think that giving, or more importantly receiving, bigger and more expensive gifts along with spending incredible amounts of money on decorations, parties, and, well, things, has something to do with Christ’s message, or worse, that He would want us to behave in this way! The reality is that the more that we make Christmas about the consumption, materialism, and excess, the less it is about the example that Christ lived for us to follow from his birth to his death. All this got me thinking about WWJD, or, more specifically, what Jesus might do if he returned to the U.S. as an ordinary man on Christmas Eve.

He would give comfort and counsel to the young gay man sitting alone and contemplating suicide at the only open diner in town after being ostracized and abandoned by everyone in his own family, just like He comforted the woman at the well. He would volunteer at a soup kitchen feeding the homeless and hungry while one of the line cooks yells from the back, “Hey Eddie, where in the world do all these loaves of bread and fish sticks keep coming from?!?” He would sit and read to a 98-year-old woman in a hospital bed who lived a very private, some would say meek, life in which she never married or bore children, but touched an extraordinary number of people in a way that changed their lives for the better. He would stop at a home for wayward youth and give them all the most valuable gift that he could give at that moment, which also happens to be the one they’ve yearned for most of their lives from an adult…His time.

Given His comments on camels threading needles, my guess is that He would be decidedly unsupportive of the massive amounts of money spent to fuel the beast that Christmas has become rather than spending that money for things such as feeding and clothing the poor, comforting the sick, and finding ways not to further spoil the earth. Moreover, given the rampant consumerism and flagrant waste of resources that Christmas has become in the name of profit, I would suspect that, given the opportunity, He would treat those that promote the current vision of Christmas no different than he did the moneychangers in the temple. Of course, those that want to keep Christmas moving further toward a simplified, idiocratic holiday focused on mass consumption are legion and seem to be winning…at least for now.

Fortunately, the people of Fiji, for the most part, continue to celebrate Christmas in a way that “Jisu” would likely approve through family, fellowship, kindness, and generosity. While we miss our families terribly and wish them a wonderful and warm Christmas, we feel fortunate to be away from the craziness that the holidays have become and to share a simple Christmas with our new Fijian friends that would make Charles Schulz smile. So far Fiji remains relatively untouched by the rampant materialism that is the signature of the American Christmas tradition…except for fruitcake…they’ve got towering stacks of the stuff at all the local markets….and I haven’t seen a single person buy a fruitcake here either!