Fiji

Bula, yaqona, and islands inside a reef.

Your host · Fijian

Tevita

Island host

Tevita wears a sulu in masi print and a salusalu of flowers. He greets with bula and will sit you to a tanoa before he talks about fruit bats.

Fiji is an archipelago of high islands and limestone islets. Fijian and Fiji Hindi share the towns. Kava — yaqona — is the drink of welcome, and the lagoon is the larder.

Field notes

10 fruits

Coconut
Niu
Cocos nucifera
The tree of the village. Water, cream, oil, and the cup for yaqona.
Breadfruit
Uto
Artocarpus altilis
Roasted on coals, the starch of a cyclone week.
Pineapple
Painappo
Ananas comosus
Grown in the drier west, sold in spears along the Queen's Road.
Papaya
Weleti
Carica papaya
Breakfast with lime. Trees in every compound.
Banana
Jaina
Musa
Cooking and sweet bananas, a village staple.
Mango
Maqo
Mangifera indica
November mangoes, eaten over a basin, juice to the elbow.
Soursop
Soursop
Annona muricata
Spiky green, white pulp for juice, a shade tree in the yard.
Guava
Quawa
Psidium guajava
Wild along roads, pink flesh, eaten out of hand.
Passion fruit
Passion fruit
Passiflora edulis
Vines on fences, pulp for juice after a reef day.
Malay apple
Kavika
Syzygium malaccense
Crisp, rose-water, a tree of old villages.