More From Fiji (1 of lots)

(I'm in Rotorua at an internet cafe that appears to have a solid connection -- last night's attempt to update the journal failed miserably -- so hopefully, I can finish up the Fiji stories and get caught up to day.)

So, after the swim, we are to get ready for the village.  Now, we'd been told we needed a locally-purchased sarong ("sulu") for the village.  This isn't entirely correct.  All we needed -- as we'd been told the night before -- is SOMETHING that covered our knees:  Sulu, trousers, really long shorts, anything would do.  We also needed a shirt that had sleeves (i.e. covered the shoulders).  We hadn't been told to pack one of those -- this was a problem for some.  I saw a few people making their way to the village wearing sulus and T-shirts that said "Captain Cook Cruises -- Fiji Islands" on them.

We'd also been told, by the way, not to wear hats to the kava ceremony or take pictures of any kind.  So I left my hat and camera on the ship.  What we HADN'T been told was that the kava ceremony was ten minutes of our trip to the village -- and that afterwards the village chief would actually be POSING for pictures with us.  Oh well.  No pic of me in front of the kava bowl.

Back to chronological order -- first thing we do upon arriving at the island is ...  no, actually, the first thing *I* do upon arriving at the island is smack my left knee against the motor when getting out of the longboat.  The bruises on that knee from the glacier were just healing along quite nicely until this, and this was not helping.