When we arrived in the anchorage near the village in Fulaga, Lumbaz had already been ashore and spoken to some people. They said it would be best to come back to the village at about 4pm, because during the day everyone is going to do some clean up on one of the beaches. We were glad to hear this, because we are always tired when we arrive, and this gave us some time to relax and settle in after the passage before getting dressed up and going ashore. In the meantime, Nautilus arrived, and this also gave us some time to catch up with them.
All three families went ashore together, and it was about a 20 minute walk over a hill from the anchorage to the village. There were friendly greetings from everyone we encountered, and we were soon guided to the Chief’s house to present our sevusevu. The Tauranga Ni Koro, or village headman (government, not tribal) went with us as our spokesman with the chief. Each family gave a bundle of Yaqona (dried pepper tree root from which they make kava, aka grog) to the Tauranga Ni Koro and we all sat in a circle in the chief’s house. The Tauranga Ni Koro presented our gifts to the Chief, and then an entire ceremony ensued in Fijian. There was much clapping, and I was never quite sure when were the right times for *us* to clap. Anyway, at the end we were advised that we were accepted as part of the village. Then the chief had each one of us approach him to personally introduce ourselves and tell him where we are from. The cutest was when 5 year old Nils from Lumbaz went up.
At the end of the ceremony, we were informed of the $50 per boat anchoring fee, but this was no surprise as we were well informed about this ahead of time. The $50 fee is for unlimited duration; you can stay as long as you like (within the limits of your visa, of course.) But what *did* come as somewhat of a surprise was that each of us was assigned a “host family” and it was explained that our host family is so that we always have a place to go in village when we come ashore. As the assignments were being made, I couldn’t quite tell based on the discussion in Fijian if our host family was happy or disappointed to get the Americans (the other two families are from Spain and Belgium).
Gresham Family Exodus 