Veseisei Village, West side of Viti Levu, Fiji

First of all I must thank my sweet friends for such a lovely send-off. How blessed we are, and we love and miss you!

Now, Bula!!!! We have arrived in Fiji all in one piece (each), but somehow - oops! - we accidentally lost a day in the process. It baffles me how this is possible, but on a six hour flight we somehow traveled into nearly the same time - the following day. You'd think this is something we would have known ahead of time, and ...well yes we definitely should have.... don't know what to say about that, except that we promise to try to be less clueless from here on out! But we got to the airport where a man named Jit was to be waiting for us - and he had been, for a long time yesterday! (He still had the sign with our names on it in his pocket but was laughing.. pronouncing Brian more something like 'Brain' ha ha. Luckily the first woman we talked to knew his phone number and he was nearby (small island), still willing, and the woman whose home we had arranged to stay in, named Finau, was fine about it and welcomed us to the small village where she lives, about a 15 min. ride outside of Nadi, but a small, local style village with shared garden plots and all the neighbor kids coming over to eat with them and rummage around in their fridge. They're very religious & all they do on Sunday is lay around, nap, eat, and repeat. Which was EXACTLY what we needed to do. The large bright immaculate church stands in such stark contrast to the many tiny modest houses, but everyone is beaming, and there are cats, dogs, ducks, and chickens welcoming us as well. The men are dressed up for Sunday services in dress shirts, ties, and sarongs. They've even got these handy mid-length sarongs with pockets - the ultimate in comfort and practicality! The folks here are incredibly pleasant, each person we see yelling 'Bula!' at us and waving from across yards and smiling. Also it turns out we got to spend Father's Day with them, so they made a big dinner, with parrotfish - whole - cooked in homemade coconut cream, the heads being the delicacy... we graciously declined that part, but the rest was wonderful. It's nice to see how the families support each other in the villages, local farmers walking around selling their vegetables, and each household selling a few different types of things for the neighbors to buy so they hardly have to go to a store. The neighbor kids were coming over asking for 'monkey balls' - small, red, and of a certain size that made me afraid to ask at first, but it turns out they are pickled plums :) Pictures to come sometime soon - the internet access is way too slow here.

Brian here - Api the hubby made us fried breadfruit and taro for breakfast..um um fried goodness, this homestead village we landed at is actully the first place inhabitied in Fiji, the folks as Amy has said are very nice, all the children yelling bula from across the hood, fires in the back yard or front, tomorrow we set off to the southern part to the beach house, a little resort hostel thing, i love being the two white folks on the bus!! ... packed open air bus with roll-up plastic windows :)

Love you! and Vinaka, which means 'thank you' in Fijian.