Bright Blue Bauan Crocs

Last Saturday we traveled to Bau Island to visit Bau village, which is the most traditional village in Fiji. I can only express gratitude and great appreciativeness to those who helped organize our trip and make it happen. The village was stunning and I felt like I was completely immersed and surrounded by traditional Fijian culture and history apart from the Bau village guardian who was our guide for the day who was ironically wearing bright blue Crocs as we walked around the island which was drenched in Fijian history and stories. This was particularly interesting because we were told by the organizers of the trip (who were Fijian) strictly not to wear shoes because traditionally they weren’t supposed to. I was also told in the hype leading up to the trip by several Fijians that I was not to wear shoes. I think the irony of the blue Crocs are a great example of the adoption of traditional paradigms by Westerners in places such as these as Katerina Teaiwa explores in her article South Asia Down Under: Popular Kinship in Oceania, 2007. I feel that because of these paradigms, which are fueling our beliefs and assumptions, we think that Bau village floats on a magical cloud of “tradition” above the all-consuming flow of capitalism, materialism and the monetary economy that we in the West so heavily depend on and are immersed in. The idea that somehow these blue Crocs made it to Bau Island is not weird or absurd at all taking into consideration the amount of travel that goes on between Bau and the mainland of Viti Levu yet the sight of those bright blue Crocs seemed out of place somehow as it didn’t fit my notion of what “traditional” encapsulates.  Apart from my fixation of the blue Crocs I found my other expectations of the village in its “traditional” sense were spot on yet I found myself questioning the other traditional Fijian formalities when I couldn’t get the sight of bright blue Crocs out of my head. As soon as we arrived on the island we had to assemble ourselves into one straight line with boys leading and girls at the back, we were not to have our bags on our backs or shoulders but by our sides held in our hands, we weren’t allowed to wear sunglasses or hats- these were the main formalities. Also the welcoming kava ceremony was different to what I had expected. I was told that the chief of Bua was only spoken to through his talking chief or spokesman and vice versa but when the formal kava ceremony was over he was talking directly to us, making jokes and asking questions and asking us to ask questions, so I was a little confused. Other than that I think the day was such a great opportunity for me as a Pacific Studies student just to be involved in a practical application of my studies and to physically be surrounded by the culture and history I often hear about (oh and getting the opportunity to wear a juba too!).