Nov 5, 2017 Daliconi and Lomolomo

Daliconi, Nov 5, 2017

After several days in the Bay of Islands we decide that we should go over to the local village, check in and check the internet ant the weather.  Off we go across the bay.  About half way across to the village we pick up the wifi.  I do a quick check to be sure there are no cyclones forming and then leave it, expecting to come back to it later.  Except when we are anchored off the village we have once again lost the signal.  We go ashore to present sevusevu and ask about internet.  The village has radio and TV but no wifi.  People take the bus to town to check their email and we are assured that there is good wifi in Lomolomo.  Today is Saturday.  We will go to town on Monday.  I intended to go to church in the village but Sunday morning it was raining so we just spent the day on the boat.

The village of Daliconi is small, maybe 30 houses and a church, no shops of any kind, tucked between the bay and the base of a cliff.  Everything is very green.  It was hit badly by Cyclone Winston and the rebuilding is just getting started.   A deeply rutted track runs through the houses and up the side of the cliffs.  At the top it turns and heads down into a valley and on into Lomalona, the main town.  Most of the Lau islands were occupied by the Tongans in the 1850s and Lomolomo was the home of Ma’afu, their chief.  Their influence is obvious in the layout of the villages and the architecture of the buildings.  By most accounts, Ma’afu was a good chief and a good administrator and Vanua Bilavu escaped much of the bloodshed that devastated the eastern side of Fiji during the tribal wars before the secession.

In the morning Alan rows me ashore and I  walk over the hill to the school to wait for the truck to town.  It is a one room school with about 25 children from little ones to a young man sporting a mustache. Across the road the new school is under construction.  It is enormous compared to this one.  There will be separate classrooms for the different grades but these few children will be lost in such a big school.  Today is the first day of daylight savings and they  are a little delayed getting started but shortly everyone stands and sings the national anthem and several other songs.  Then the teacher gives a short talk on the virtue of the week, Be Prepared.  And just then the bus/truck comes.  People are seated on 2 long benches down the sides and standing in the middle.  Off we go, bouncing and rattling through the jungle.  At the top of the hill is the airport, a cleared field of grass heading straight down hill to the water below.  We have been told that there are no flights when the grass is wet because there is no traction and the planes can slide straight down into the water.

 Lomolomo, on the other side of the island, is the main town and port for the island but it is in fact a small scattering of houses. Almost everyone got off when we came to the post office.  This is the place doing the most business, people collecting their money or sending money or toping up their cell phones. When the bus driver found out that I had no specific plans he suggested that I stay on the bus until we got to the hotel at the end of the village and walk back. The hotel turned out to be just a collection of huts with a central building that was the office, dining area and home of the owner.  After a look around I wandered along the muddy road through the trees and beside wide green lawns to the main part of town. Past several churches and large meeting halls.  Despite the fairly small size of the town there were several distinct areas presumable inhabited by different clans.  There is a barge tied up to a rusting pier and supplies are being offloaded.  Once again I am struck by the fact that the harbor lies open to the westerly trade winds and is full of reefs and looks to be fairly shallow.  Obviously the traditional war canoes and the modern runabouts have very different requirements for a port than deep keel sail boats.


 The markets are not at all what I am used to.  The supplies are all behind a counter and the selection is extremely limited.  You tell the clerk what you want and someone gets it for you.  No wandering the aisles to see what looks good today.  I was hoping for a chicken or some kind of meat and also beer, since ours is long gone.  Neither was available.  The coolers were not working so no meat of any sort and no alcohol anywhere on the island.   I figured out eventually that alcohol is not available anywhere in Fiji outside of the resorts and the larger towns.  Plenty of kava but no beer. 

A lean-to at the side of one of the stores sold fuel; gas, diesel, kerosine, premix but you had to bring your own container.  A couple of ladies were sitting on the ground outside selling chop suey, which is actually ramen noodles with added carrots and cabbage in a brown gravy.  They were delighted to serve me but I had to wait while one of them finished eating her portion and took the plate home to wash it.  I guess I was supposed to have my own container for this, too.  There were no utensils, of course.  Everyone eats with their fingers
One of my main reasons for coming to town was to use the wifi but again I could not get a signal.  Part of the problem is that there are two carriers in Fiji, Digicel and Vodaphone.  I have Vodaphone but the predominate carrier in the Law Group is Digicel.  Apparently the Vodaphone tower was down.

Finally the truck arrived and everyone climbed in for the trip back to the village.  Of course, when I arrived I had no way to contact Alan since My phone was not working.  After walking around the village and knocking on doors and windows, I finally found someone with a phone only to discover that Alan’s phone was not working either.  Eventually I got his attention by jumping up and down on the beach and yelling. We definitely get too dependent on technology