While the rain poured down outside, I spent the first few hours of the day ordering boat parts using the internet over the local vodafone connection. We’ve been getting used to using the very slow GPRS rate and here it’s worse. It takes a long time to do anything.
Once this was all done we went ashore to meet up with Samu and hopefully be pointed in the direction of a walk. We mentioned we were keen on seeing a view so he first insisted on taking us up to the local peak. This involved a lot of climbing through vegetation and getting to a point where we were high but no view. He pointed out that when last year’s hurricane came through the view was all clear. The land repairs itself quickly so we headed off to a clearer peak. After a few slips and slides we were back down on the road and soon a truck passed by and gave us a ride part of the way. Then it was back to battling through long scratchy grass to a point where we overlooked the bay and the village. It was a good workout in the humid air that followed the morning rainstorm.
We walked back to the village and past the primary school. Back at Samu’s home his wife had cooked us lunch – a fish curry. As is their custom they let us eat our dinner without any sign of showing any desire to eat theirs. We discussed what the school needed and toner for their copier/printer is in short, difficult and expensive supply. We suggested we go and take a look at the printer and look up prices on the internet.
On the way back to the boat we stopped off at Eroni’s who had a non-working TV. I had offered to take a look at it so sitting in a beach side hut with the cool wind off the sea helping to counter the humidity I took the TV apart. It was full of cobwebs and at least one cockroach. The only (and very slim) hope I could offer was to clean the TV using the vacuum on the boat, check all the connections and once the shoreside generator came on at 6pm I could test for dry joints.
We took the TV back to the boat wrapped in an old sou’wester. There I opened it up again, chased out the last cockroach (into the sea) then vacuumed and cleaned it out. We sorted out a few spare DVDs that we have as this is one of the villagers’ few entertainments.
Around 5:30 we both went back ashore and spent time with Aaron while we waited for the power to come on. When it did we took the TV apart one final time and plugged it in. It showed some signs of life but my guess is that the high power circuit that drives the tube was defunct as I could hear no high pitched whistle.
Before departing a neighbour invited me over to look at his TV/DVD combination which had had no sound for 6 months. There was a cabling issue but fixing this did not restore the sound. He also had another DVD player which was dead. While looking at that the sound came on the TV – perhaps a loose connection. Declaring the second DVD player totally dead I went back to look at the TV. To get the back off and check for loose connections turned out to require a tool noone had ashore and we might have on the boat. There is hope for this one. If I can find the right tool I can go back this evening and see if there is a loose connection or dry joint that will restore the sound.
With the kind hospitality of the village and the challenge of a few problems it looks like we’re staying for a few days. The villagers have offered a farewell feast when we go with food and dancing. We’re looking forward to that. Sadly, the villagers have a funeral to go to too in a nearby village. A couple of weeks ago three of the locals (not from this village) took off in a small boat to a nearby island to collect a can of propane for the ice making plant. It was supposed to have been on a ship that had just traveled from Taveuni to that island but the people responsible for putting it on the ship had been late and missed the boat. The three guys took it upon themselves to go all the way to Taveuni to collect the propane. On the way back they were hit by bad weather. Only the boat was found. Sad.
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