At the carwash & in the ruck

Saturday morning I went to the McGoons, but noone was home. I'd stayed the night at the Raintree dorm again.

[Let me tell you, I don't like that place too much. But I haven't found another cheap place yet. I'll work on that today. Spent too much time at the internet already, but kelsey wants pictures.]

So I was regretting getting the car, even though it didn't get stolen Friday night, and I didn't know what to do. I decided to park it at the temple, but wanted the temple president's permission, so I waited an hour there reading the paper and still not feeling like eating, though I had some water. I'd finished the sandwich at the Raintree the night before and went straight to bed. It gets dark around 6 and I'm usually ready for bed by nine, and then don't get up again till 8. I don't sleep well at the raintree cause its damp and the beds smell, and the last few days there's been an old, crazy, spooky looking guy there. I know he's got the girls there nervous, and I don't blame them.

Anyway, finally, president Spenser comes out of the temple around noon. We chat for a bit, I tell him how I'm discouraged about staying in Fiji and pretty much clueless about what I should do next. He tells me there's a carwash being run my the Young Women, so I drive down there after stopping at the store to get some cash. I leave them a twenty. Hey, they vaccumed out the sandy mess the poofter left on the passenger side, so it was worth it.

I got some oranges and a Tarumba and a kit kat and drank the Tarumba while they washed the car. It stayed down, but I was still weak. Probably from not eating much.

Can someone tell me, is KitKat made by Nestle? It is here, which means that the chocolate tastes like poo which ruined it for me.

So I'm about to leave the car at the Temple and catch the bus downtown, when I think to call Sister McGoon to see what time her son Dodo's rugby game is. It's at 4:00pm, but she's leaving now. That doesn't make sense since it's only 1:00pm, but I drive up there.

Oh yeah, while I was waiting for the temple president, I took a drive through Suva, decided that I was correct in not wanting to park downtown, and then drove along Victoria Parade, which goes along the waterfront from downtown to the University of the South Pacific (USP) and then I got lost and drove around till I made it back to Princes Road and back to the temple.

So I meet Sister McGoon, find out that her older son, Christopher, is playing now, so we take a circuitious route back downtown to Albert Park, which used to be open, but now is surrounded by shipping containers so that people can't watch the games unless they pay to get in.

So we pay, $5 each, find out it's the wrong game, leave, go looking for her husband, find his car, get directions from someone else who saw him, and someone else with conflicting directions, and then notice his car (the church van -- a pickup truck, they call them "vans", and the call vans "minibusses") is gone, call him, and then he comes back.

We plan to meet up back at the village (Tamavua village is in the middle of Suva city), and end up waiting a couple hours for him; but it's all good, because that's when Kelsey calls.

When brother McGoon gets back, we all (me, bro & sis McGoon, Tua & her son Tete) pile into my rental car, and head to the national stadium where Dodo's high school team is playing. Parking $3, Tickets $5 apiece on the ground. Another game is in progress, but still interesting. We sit behind the end zone at Sister McGoon's request, so can't see much of the game, but Tete provides much entertainment tackling kids a full head taller than he (and probably half his weight) who are racing and playing mock rugby.

For Dodo (I still don't know his real name) he sits on the bench the first half, but there is no score until the last few minutes when the other team gets two tries.

I think I've got the basics of Rugby down, though there are still some rules I don't know, but I don't know the strategy yet. I'm very suspicious there isn't much of one and alot of the things people do just because that's what's done, not because it's the best strategy.

After the game, we go to see the team to see if Dodo wants to go out to eat with us, my treat. All the players are head down and crying, because they were just eliminated in the quarter finals, so I say, "Heads up, you lost a game, you're not beaten." Dodo decides to (understandably) spend the evening with the team.

So we go to dinner at a Chinese restarant, though I'm still not feeling hungry. We have Sweet Corn soup, Crab in black bean sauce (which ends up leaking in the car when we take home the leftovers), BBQ pork (the red stuff), Chicken fried rice, Mongolian beef, and Cashew Chicken. There's a spinning platter on the table. Brother & Sister McGoon both burn their throats on the hotsauce, he loves the crab, she the pork. Tete loves plain rice, and I have to plead with the waitress to bring a pitcher of water.

Tete is short for Motete, which is someone the same as Mosese, which is Fijian for Moses. Brother McGoon is also named Moses. Did I mention that Tete has a million girlfriends?