Monday, August 01, 2005

Chuki is gone

I get off the bus at the Temple, and walk up to the temple president's house to give them Brother & Sister Maxfield's greetings. Sister Spencer (the temple president's wife) is Sister Maxfield's (the councellor in the Bellevue Bishopric's wife) sister.

Nobody home, but of course there are a couple of temple grounds crew out and a man comes up to me. He tells me I just missed them. Oh well, I'll try again tomorrow (today.) That's where I'm headed after this, and lunch.

So I walk up to Tamavua village. It's threatening rain. And it's alot further than I remember. Over a mile, at least. Well, it's almost dark, the kids are out playing touch rugby, and when I get to the village everyone is friendly. It's an odd fact that the uglier a palangi is, the more attractive he is to Fijian girls. Remembering this is a dangerous place, I ask first if the house I'm heading towards is Moses McGoon's. Yes, of course it is.

I knock on the door, and there is Vili (?) aka Tua (?), Jane's sister in law who had a newborn time I was here. Of course I didn't remember her name, but luckily she remembered mine. She had seemed shy before, but now she was quite friendly. Yes, Bishop McGoon was here. He was sleeping. Should I wake him? No, he came home early from work and had to go to the doctor. An ear infection.

So I hear Jane is in New Zealand. Yes, Chuki (chuki means chicken, and is her father's pet name for Jane. Her younger brother is Dodo. Yes, the bird. Her older brother is Christopher, Vili's husband.) is gone, you just missed her. No, she didn't go to school.

Turns out Jane got married. She left last week. She married a palangi from New Zealand, a non-member. They met a while after I left, and were married at a resort in May. She'd been waiting for her visa to travel to New Zealand, which was denied before they were married. She's pregnant now and her mom will go to visit her when the baby comes.

Jane's mother comes home and she is happy to see me. Nothing is awkward, athough it might have been with Jane. She almost wanted to stay to see me instead of go to New Zealand with her husband.

So Chuki is gone. I am a little sad, but I hope she is happy. Her friend Moto is gone too, so now I don't have any friends who can play with me. Well, Jane's cousin is from Kadavu, she wants to be my tour guide. Maybe I'll meet her. I also want to play rugby with Dodo (I don't remember his real name) and his friends. I think Dodo is about 18. He was smaller than me last year, but he's bigger now. He wants to go to the US to play football.

Vili's baby is bigger now too. He is one year and nine months, fluent in Fijian and English (speaks mostly Fijian but understands both.) And big enough to pass as a four year old.

When papa McGoon wakes up, we have dinner: sausages, cucumber salad, and taro with tomato sauce. More catching up, and he offers to let me stay at their house. As long as I want. I say maybe sometime. They give me a ride to the Raintree Lodge, a backpacker place in the forest just outside the city.
When Brother

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