Originally posted on cruisingrunner
There are hundreds of blogs explaining sevusevu and the different experiences people have had, so I’m not inclined to dwell too much on the details and variations of it. Just know that sevusevu is a Fijian tradition where visitors to a village present a gift of yaqona (dried pepper tree root) and once the gift is accepted, the visitors are then fully accepted into the village. It’s generally good form to present sevusevu to the village before engaging in any other activities in the area, including swimming, fishing, diving, hiking, and playing on the beach.
If I have to be perfectly honest, sometimes it can initially feel like a bit of a burden. You pull into an anchorage, possibly quite tired after a passage, and the first thing you have to do is dress up in your chumbas and sulus and head to shore to present sevusevu. Sometimes getting to the village is simply an easy dinghy landing, but sometimes a bit of a hike may be required as well. However, even if I leave my boat a bit grouchy over this obligation, I never leave the sevusevu feeling that way. I usually leave feeling humbled and grateful that we were “forced” to make this personal connection with the people in whose back yard we have parked our boat. Even in the few villages where the people were a bit less friendly and obviously just wanted to milk us for money, I was still happy to have connected with them, to have had the face time, and to have gotten a glimpse into their lives and stories and given them a glimpse into ours. Some cruisers grow tired of presenting sevusevu and avoid it or even dislike it, but I have come to appreciate this tradition, which intentionally takes the anonymity out of our brief presence here in their islands and opens the way to richer experiences.
Here are some photos from just a few of places where we have presented sevusevu:
Gresham Family Exodus 