ali's african adventures

Fiji thus far has proven spectacularly uncooperative when it comes to weather. Not only has it rained every single day for the last week, but the past couple of days have been spent under the threat of a cyclone warning. The water in the river rose within a couple feet of the bottom of the bridge yesterday, so even going to town is out; there's no sense risking getting stuck on the other side if the rushing torrent, now is there? We've pushed back our trip to the island by a day (the HoJ having managed to sweet-talk both the ferry and the hotel into allowing us to fiddle with the dates) but it looks like the best laid plans are definitely ganging agley, as they say. (Well, as dear Rabbie says, anyway.)

To that end, we've been spending all our time just hanging out with the family. I am happy to announce that today I rolled out all the roti myself and managed to cook them all without burning either the bread or my fingers. We cook in bulk around here, though, so there's lots of time left over for lazing in bed, watching the wind whip through the palm trees and listening to the blessed sound of rain on the roof.

It was during one of these quiet moments today that I found myself planning what I needed to bring with me when I went back home, and I had gotten about as far as my own set of measuring cups when I realized that I was making plans for going back to the ship next September. In the next breath I also realized that we're not sure yet whether or not we'll be going back, and it didn't take me much longer to be firmly convinced that I want to.

Tooling around on Facebook just now I came across Audrey's announcement that she and her fiance are putting together their wedding registry. This apparent non sequitur makes perfect sense to me, because I never got to do one of those. Because I was going to be living on a ship. A ship that, all of a sudden, I miss so sharply that I'm not taking breathing for granted right now.

The HoJ and I had a long talk with a cousin the other day who couldn't for the life of her understand why our dreams of the future don't involve picket fences and flashy cars. And I'll be perfectly honest with you: there are days, like today, when I saw that post about the registry, that my heart lurches just a little and I wonder whether or not I might be a little crazy. There are days when a perfectly mowed lawn and a tire swing and a kitchen with brightly-coloured mixing bowls sound just about perfect.

But those days are by far the minority. Those days can't stand up against the lure of giving up my dream of the perfect kitchen in favour of a steel and chrome version, one filled with community where, if you time it just right, you can sample Nepalese, German, Ghanaian and British cooking in one afternoon. And who really wants to mow a lawn when you can have the whole ocean as your backyard? (No promises on whether or not you can actually swim in said ocean are being made here; we all know it's probably been used as a toilet somewhere pretty close to your front door if you happen to live on a ship in the third world.)

I think what I'm trying to say is that I miss the ship right now. I read blogs and scour friends' Facebook pages for photos and I just plain old miss my home. I'm excited for Peru and the promise it holds, but, more and more, my heart is being drawn back to that big, ugly ship. (Don't bother trying to defend it; we all know it's hideous, and we don't care. We love it anyway.)

If you're at a loose end in January, they're looking for people who want to come and help out for a couple weeks. You'd even get to sail around the Cape of Good Hope! Check out the website if you want more information. Just don't tell me if you go, because apparently jealousy is a sin.

I have, it turns out, the longest legs in Fiji.

Don't ask me how I know this. You'd get a long, rambling story involving too-short pants at every single shop in town, coupled with a shopkeeper, a tape measure, and a look of pure astonishment. What it all boils down to is the fact that my legs are a good two inches longer than anyone's she's measured before.

If you don't believe me, I submit this photo as proof. This is me with a collection of my new Fuas, the Hindi word for Aunties from my father's side. I am the giant in the back, the white one, and I'm actually crouching just a little, if you can believe it. (To be fair, the picture was taken after a huge meal of dal and potato curry and fresh, hot roti, and the crouching might actually have a little to do with the fact that it's hard to stand up straight after you eat that much.)

Fiji so far has been all about family. When the HoJ and I got married, I understood that we were marrying into each others' families, but because we live on a ship in Africa, that didn't seem to mean much. Having landed on this little island in the middle of the Pacific, I'm discovering a different story.

Marrying the HoJ means that there is now a whole new network of people to whom I'm connected, people I didn't grow up with, people I don't really know. It's slightly daunting, especially since, for the first time, I'm actually realizing that I've married into a different culture. In Africa, on the ship, neither of us had the luxury of being in a place that was anything like where we'd come from, so we forged our own little world. Here in Fiji, I've been dropped into the middle of a world that holds no history for me. I have no childhood memories of these new Aunties, no context in which to place them, and it's all a little disconcerting for someone who comes from a family rich in memories and rife with context.

I know I'm not unique; everyone goes through this when they get married, I'm sure. The first steps in a new family can't be easy for anyone, and I'm so blessed to have the Husband of Joy by my side. He seems bent on proving that he's worth his title, whispering translations in my ear when the conversations lapse into Hindi, reminding me yet again the name of a relative I've forgotten, and providing the background I'm lacking because I only joined this clan a year and a half ago.

All that being said, I'm going to go take advantage of one of the perks of cross-cultural marriage. I can smell the garlic wafting from the kitchen, which means that my mother-in-law is cooking up yet another incredible feast, so I'm going to sign off and try to learn some of her magic. Because the task of sorting through a hundred new relatives doesn't seem nearly so daunting with a belly full of roti and dal.

Apologies to my brother, who just wrote me an e-mail pleading with me to stop posting photos of the HoJ and I in beautiful places, but I've just got one more photo to share. This one is yanked off Google Maps, and maybe Brother will be persuaded to forgive me when he realizes that the HoJ and I aren't actually in it?

Yet.

We're hoping the weather cooperates (although it's shown no sign of doing that so far, pouring down rain on us every day that we've been here) because we're going to that little island for a couple of days next week. The HoJ and I joke that we're on this strange sort of perpetual honeymoon because we've never managed to settle down into anything resembling the widely-held notion of Real Life.

Honeymoon Stage Forty-Seven here we come!

We've arrived safely in Fiji and are ensconced in my in-law's little house in the middle of the boonies, as my father-in-law so aptly describes it. It's dark, the kind of dark you only get in a tropical night, and all I can hear is the fan stirring the thick air above me and the rain falling softly outside. There is a mug of hot chai on the desk next to me, made with love and lots of ginger, and it's no wonder I'm in a bit of a reflective mood.

I'm here with family, and yet I'm not quite sure whether I belong. The HoJ didn't grow up in this house; he's only been here twice before, and so neither of us has much claim on this place. We've got no roots here. And it got me thinking about something we saw all over the place in New Zealand. By the side of stunning aqua lakes and at the bottom of rushing waterfalls, there would be little piles of flat rocks, left by people who had passed by. I don't know what those piles mean, really, but to me they spoke just one thought over and over. I was here. I was a part of this place for this one moment, and I am leaving something behind to mark my passing. I don't have much time, but I will leave some reminder of myself.

I think we all feel it, whether we realize it or not; that needing to belong, for our presence to have significance. We want to mean something, and so we push our roots into the soil of our moments, no matter how fleeting those moments might be.

In New Zealand, people piled up rocks. In Fiji, I am learning to make chai from my mother-in-law. In Africa it was a hundred things, a thousand little rocks all balanced precariously on top of one another. I found my place in Abraham's smiles and Alfred's laugh. In a cow for Wasti's mother and a bunch of bananas from Harold's mama. When Baby Greg slipped away, I set one of the biggest rocks in place, and when Baby Hubie and Ani and O'Brien went, too, I wept as I added to that pile.

I've been halfway around the world now, getting closer and closer to the place I once called home, and I'm realizing that, when I've had my time with family, all I want to do is get back to Africa and start adding to my rock piles again.

What is it for you? How you do you mark your place in this world? Do you push down roots or build piles of rocks, decorate rooms or take photographs or train up children? What will I see to tell me that you passed by?

You have to forgive me for my silence. New Zealand is an outdoor playground the likes of which I've never experienced before, and we've been living life to it's absolute full these past two weeks. I've been reunited with my cousin, Fiona, who's turned into something closely resembling a Kiwi, and we've been going on adventures that have my heart in my throat because it's all just that epic.

Yesterday's found us climbing a fence to get onto a tiny dirt track that led us down through the bush to the base of a waterfall where we balanced on a skinny log bridge before diving off into the rushing green water. It was something like paradise, and I'm kind of dreading the thought of getting on a plane and leaving all this tomorrow. Of all the places we've been so far, this country is the one we'd most like to come back to, but Fiji and family await.

Someday...

It turns out there's not much time to blog when you're road tripping around New Zealand. Personally, I'm not complaining, but my Granny left me a comment on a Facebook photo (yes, I said Granny; she's pretty hip, that one) implying that she'd like some words from me. So here in the quiet of an early morning, before we need to get up and begin the process of packing up and checking out of our hostel, I've found the time and the free internet to write.

But how do you use words for New Zealand?

I remember how my parents came here when I was little. They left us in the care of our grandparents (the same granny that prompted this entry, if you were wondering) and went to the other side of the world. They came back with photos that even then inspired me. The sweeping mountains and bubbling mud pools and fluffy sheep stayed tucked in the back of my mind all this time, reminding me what I'd promised myself back then. One day I'll go to New Zealand, too.

I e-mailed my dad last night to send him a photo of the HoJ and I walking on a glacier, and mentioned my childhood dreams, remarking that it's rare for things to ever be as good as you imagine them, especially when the imagining has been going on for so long. It turns out that this country is putting my imagination, formidable as it may be, to shame.

I think we're doing it right; we've got a Kiwi friend, Maria, one of my cabinmates before the HoJ and I started bunking together, and she's got a car. We've got maps but no set plan, blue skies out the sunroof and Brooke Frasier on the iPod, and we're trying to discover as much of the south island as a week will allow before heading north to meet up with my cousin.

The weather has been spectacular, bent, it seems, on showing off the snow-capped mountains and the wooly sheep and the startling aqua lakes in the best light possible. Travelling with these two is a photographer's dream, because they're up for pulling off at any and every scenic lookout and even a few lay-bys that promise adventure. When we see a sign that looks intriguing, we turn off and go for an excursion. We've been rewarded with deep, cyan pools of water, waterfalls where we climbed up into the bush before stopping to drink from the crystal stream and a winding, downward path through thick jungle that spit us out onto a beach where we felt like the only people in the world, ever.

Two days ago we went paragliding over snowy mountains and yet another bluest-of-blue lake in Queenstown. That night, when we'd settled in for the night, we took torches and, bundled up against the cold, set off into a mossy forest in search of glow worms. We found them, shining like a hundred tiny lights in a little cave carved out under the trees. Yesterday we donned heavy boots and metal spikes to go traipsing around on a glacier, white with a cyan heart under yet another sapphrie sky, the rocky mountain walls rising up on either side to touch the scattered clouds. When the day drew to a close, we raced up the coast in search of a sunset at Pancake Rocks with a hot packet of fish and chips wrapped up in newspaper and waiting to be eaten when the view looked right. Every night we pull into town and show up at a hostel that promises one thing or another that catches our eye; free internet, great views, and even, as was the case in the place we're staying right now, bubble baths.

We are on an adventure, seeking out the road less travelled, and so far, here in New Zealand, I think we're doing a pretty good job finding it.

I have to go, though. Maria's been to the supermarket for some bacon and eggs, (we're splurging this morning) and when they've been cooked and eaten we're off again in search of our next random, roadside excursion. Just buckle your seatbelts, because I'm driving.


(Sorry for the lack of photos; the problem with dirt on my lens is getting worse, and I can't bear to show you these views all marred by black spots. You'll just have to wait, but it won't be so long now; we're home in just over five weeks.)

I think, in the final analysis, what I'm most afraid of is not that I'll live with this guilt forever, but that, someday in the not-so-distant future, I'll wake up without it. I'm petrified to think that I'll be able to stand in a store and honestly think it matters which one of the seventy-four yogurt flavours I choose. I'll hand over my money for something frivolous, a cup of coffee or a pair of new shoes, without once thinking about how much rice those dollars could have bought in Africa or India. I'll get caught up in first world problems and I'll think they matter; whether my internet connection is fast enough and whether my hair looks okay and whether or not this dress makes me look fat?

That would be the real tragedy. Then, I think, I will have lost the best part of myself.