Bazaar

After a bit of a lie in my first chore was to top up the starboard diesel tank. I emptied three jerry cans in then dinghied off to fill five leaving them on the deck to complete the fill later in the day. We’d heard from the Kilkeas that there was a bazaar in town with local dancing. We could see something had been set up ashore from the boat so we headed off to town with the Kilkeas to see what was up.

It turned out there was a fund raiser for a women’s community hall. Arts and crafts from villages around the island were on display and for sale. We were considered invited guests and given a shaded place to sit together. Frank from Tahina showed up as did the Dreamtimes and Stray Kitties. After some speeches we were taken to see the local craft work before sitting down again for a hot drink, cakes and to watch the dancing.

As we’ve crossed the Pacific the dancing has always very interesting, in particular how it has changed from region to region. Invariably the dancing is performed by young ladies and men. The male dancing is always warlike and the female dancing expressive and alluring. East of Tonga the dancing always involved a lot of vigourous bottom wiggling. In Tonga and NZ the female dancing was less vigorous and more nuanced. Today we were treated to toothless old ladies dancing randomly on their feet and a little more organized sitting down on a mat. However, they were hilarious at times making gestures that made the local crowd roar with infectious laughter and us in turn. The troup of senior citizens danced through intermittent rain and ended up inviting a few of us to dance with them.

Then the heavens opened big time turning the field into a pond. We sat through the deluge under our shelter. Once the skies cleared we went to the market to pick up some curios and some kava for future sevusevu ceremonies before heading back to the boat.

We relaxed for much of the afternoon. I spent a little while researching alternate advertising possibilities for the website and have kicked off a couple of new applications. For my regular readers here is my request. If you see ads reappear on the site, please only click on them if you have genuine interest in the product or service being advertised. The ad services are ultra sensitive to behaviors that may be construed as attempts to generate false revenue so clicking on ads to give us beer money will ultimately have the opposite effect. The good news is I’ve learned a little more about all this which can only be a good thing. Later in the afternoon I emptied another couple of gerry cans into the main tank before refilling those two and storing all the filled containers away.

In the evening we joined the Tahinas aboard Stray Kitty for grilled Mahi Mahi which they’d caught on the way in. We ended up staying quite late.

We’re beginning to feel very much partied out and are looking forward to taking a break from Savusavu. We’re looking at a Sunday departure so we’ll sort out our coastal clearance today.