Another Day in Fulanga

We rode over to the village entrance bay with Ricky, on Guava Jelly, and took Worm with us so we could dinghy back. The mosquitoes are huge on the land and they are everywhere! YIKES!! Good thing others had warned us and we covered our bodies with Repel and clothes. The walk into the village was beautiful and took us about 30 minutes. We were welcomed wholeheartedly with the Bula spirit, did our sevusevu with the headman, since the chief is in Suva at a huge meeting of the Lau islands, and then we visited the carving area, the school, the basket/mat weaving area, etc. These people are very productive and are known for their wood carvings, especially the making of the kava bowls out of one piece of wood. Ricky was visiting to learn how to make his own bowl with the head expert, Niko, and it was very cool sitting around watching this labor of love. David helped the mechanics try to fix their generator with very limited tools, so he is now in there again this morning with tools from the boat and hopefully they will realize success. We will visit them again on Friday and do some trading for some carvings and woven goods, along with visiting the classrooms one more time (the students are so cool), and they plan to make us lunch. Again we are amazed by the warmth of the people and we feel so privileged to be here. Tourism has not reached the Lau Group yet, so they are helping us enjoy our time, just because they want to show us what they have. David made a date with Soki to go spear-gun fishing and hunting for lobsters on Saturday, which is when the men catch lots of fish for their Sunday afternoon feast in the village; they all set aside Sundays as their family/community time.  Looks like we will be here for at least this whole week and that is just fine by me. Linda and I are going kayaking in a short while and I hope to snorkel the pass later today. Not too shabby living the dream right now!!!!! Love to all.