Repairman

We had a fairly relaxed morning aboard the boat. I needed to sort out a credit card issue which primarily involved waiting for the cell phone network to come up so I could make calls and use (‘use’ is hardly the appropriate word) the internet. Once that was all sorted I left Helen aboard to go ashore, primarily to check out their printer once more and to see if they used refurbished toner cartridges rather than the manufacturers own. The village has to pay Fiji$210 (about $120) for each one which is a fortune for them. In the US the manufacturers toners cost $75 and the refurbs cost about $25. If there’s room amongst all our bilge pumps, etc. we’ll load a few onto our friends coming in August. At the school I learned they were using the refurbs which I would have been reluctant to send had they stuck to HP ones. I also met the headmistress and chatted with her for a while and shared a few of the educational ideas I’d learned worked well from my time involved with schools and our own children in the Uk.

On the way back I stopped off at Eroni’s to say hello and ended up sitting through a rainstorm chatting with him, his wife Biu and another friend. I learned that the sound on the second TV I looked at the previous night came on just after I left and stayed on. Word was getting around and his older brother, whose TV hadn’t been working since last October, wanted me to take a look at his. So after the rain subsided Aaron took me up to his brother, John, to look at his TV. During the day there was no power but I was able to ask him how he connected his DVD player. He had to fetch the player from his daughter. The cables in the back of the player were in all wrong and John wasn’t aware how to plug it into the TV. I showed him how to correctly wire it up and promised to be back at 6pm when the power came on.

While there another villager showed up with a DVD player wrapped in a blanket. She said it had stopped working and was brand new and asked for help. Brand new, I was learning, was anything under 2 years old. I was also learning that the only real ‘modern’ technology in the village were old TVs and cheap DVD players which they could use during the 2.5 hours the generator was on each evening. Anyway, I explained the the lady how to properly connect the wires to the DVD player then followed her up the hill to her father-in-law’s (Semiti) house to see how they connected it to their TV. Again, they had little awareness how to connect it up so I showed them how and left it promising to come back in the evening. Semiti was the cava grower of the village and suggested we could have some grog when we returned.

On the way back I dropped into Samu’s house and had a brief chat with him. A few of the villager’s had expressed interest in seeing the boat and we’d had a loose invitation that I wanted to cement. Some of the wive’s were off in the neighbouring village so we worked out they could visit at 4pm if they returned in time or the same time the following day.

By the time I reached the boat it was nearly 4pm anyway. The wive’s didn’t return until nearly 5pm so no visit. Helen and I ate our dinner then went ashore just before 6pm. On the beach we were met by an older fellow who greeted us. He had some wires in a bag and I asked him if he had a problem. It turned out to be his cell phone charger which he said didn’t work. He said his phone charged on other people’s charger but not that one. I took it promising to take a look inside the following day.

We came ashore by Eroni’s. I’d brought some spare WD40 ashore for Aaron to try on his hair trimmer which had jammed up. That didn’t work but I left him the oil. In Fiji, a gift to one individual is a gift to the village as everyone shares. Sort of.

We went up to John’s house to see if his TV was now working. It wasn’t so I put it on the floor and took it apart. It was also full of cobwebs and dust so I spent a while cleaning it out and making sure all the connections were firm, much as I had done, unsuccessfully, for Eroni’s TV the day before. Feeling under pressure and with 3 generations of family looking on I plugged in the TV and turned it on. We had a picture. The grandson was sent off to get a DVD from someone else and while we waited we sorted out the remote control and had the DVD player connected. When the DVD was inserted it played to the huge delight of the family, particularly the grandson who was grinning from ear to ear. While I cleaned out the case and put the TV back together, John’s wife gave Helen a couple of her traditionally hand made mats. It was a wonderful gift and something we’ll treasure far more than the same thing we could buy once if it had made it’s way into a gift shop.

The rounds were not yet finished. We trouped up the hill, by torch light as there are no street lights, to Semiti’s large home overlooking the village. From his son who lived in a small house on the same plot of land we learned that the TV was working. We went up to Semiti’s house to take a closer look. For some reason Aaron had been reluctant to approach Semiti’s house but when he learned we’d been invited for grog he became more enthusiastic. Even then he didn’t show himself at the door but asked me to say he was my ‘brother’. I duly spake as asked and Aaron and Biu were invited in too. There’s obviously nuances to the village life that are beyond us but anything we can do to help (if it is helping) we’ll do.

The TV and DVD were indeed working together. They had another DVD player which I’d looked at earlier in the day and I suggested we test that. That one also worked fine. Semiti’s teenage grandson, also called Semiti, showed up so I asked if he was keen to learn how to connect them up. He was so I showed him what connections to look out for on the back of the DVD players and the TV so that if they became disconnected in the future, someone would have a chance of knowing how to put them back together. I had done a similar exercise back at John’s.

With all the technical work complete we all went downstairs to partake in some grog. We remained there sharing a couple of bowls for about an hour and a half chatting about various things, often about our trip so far to Fiji and what both Helen and I used to do. The cava was prepared quite mild so we didn’t go tingly straight away but ended up quite mildly relaxed by the end of the session. It was nice to have their company for the evening, during which time I learned the Fijian version of my name is Sitibeni and Helen’s is Hilena.

When all was done we said our goodbyes, inviting Semiti to join the others visiting our boat today. Aaron and Biu took us back to the beach and we headed off into the dark finding the channel through the reef fairly easily. We’re definitely getting to know our way around the neighbourhood.

We’ve also learned that the village wants do have the farewell party when we leave the area in a week or so’s time. For now we’ll spend one more day/night in front of the village before going off to visit the anchorages here in the Bay of Islands and some of the islands on the far side of the main island. There are other villages on these other islands and if we had the time I imagine we could spend as much time with them as we have here but sadly we don’t. At some point we’ll need to head back to Savusavu for our charger and there are a few places we’d like to visit on the way.