Kadavu school fest

It was the final week of the school year in the nearby village. We were informed that today is the final day of celebrations, to which we were esteemed guests of the school principal. We piled into a boat and arrived at a sheltered cove and stepped on to a jetty. Immediately, we were in the middle of the village and headed to the school.

We were ushered in to be seated at the edge of the stage on a few chairs that had been specially placed there to raise us above the fray. The fifty-odd children, their mothers, their aunts, their grandmas were all seated on the floor. While the music played - rather louder than you'd expect at a young school gathering - we watched the tots being cavorted and cajoled through a variety show. The whole crowd joined in with clapping and singing and a few twirls of joyous dancing.

A little girl came up to me, looked at me closely, and then climbed into my arms. She stayed there for most of the show. I even had to dance a little jig with a lady while carrying the little girl. The older kids put on a folksy version of hip hop, or some other oddity of music for the setting - the teenage boys and girls were just standing on the grass at the edge of the school. With a deft move of turning your head to the left, they had created a stage where just minutes before it was only a meadow.

Very many children got white-faced. Sporadically but frequently one or the other child would get their face scrubbed - while they are doing their musical act - with a puff of white powder. It was talcum powder I noticed when I got white-faced. Later, when I asked them the meaning behind this tradition, they said it was to celebrate that person. Why it was white face received no satisfactory explanation, but it was the most communal and uplifting white-face tradition I know of.

As the school day ended, we got ready to leave. I was pulled into a men's circle by the village chief. He wanted to know where in the US I was from.

"Australia. I live in Australia", I explained.

'where in Australia?", the chief asked.

"It's a place called Townsville, between Brisbane and Cairns", I said trying to anticipate the next question.

"Townsville? Oh yes that's why my brother lives", he said. "Another in palm island".

I was quite taken aback to discover this bit of strange globalist connection. This parochial scene in a meadow by the mangroves off the southern seaport of Fiji was not where I expected a connection to my unlikely town. This wonder stayed with me for a few days.

Kiran was moved by the place, and told me he would like to donate his tablet for the school. So the next day we sent it with somebody who could take it to the school.

We then went to a waterfall near the villages edge, and then found a boatman to ferry us back to our cove. We got a good many waves from various children looking on to the jetty.Read more