For those who can't guess what a type of time named after islands in the South Pacific might be like, Fiji Time refers to the extremely slow pace of life here on the islands.  I got a wonderful introduction to Fiji Time last week. 

I should start this story by explaining my situation right now. The first 10 weeks in the country are designated to language, technical, and cultural training.  There are 29 other people like me (called Peace Corps Trainees, or PCTs), and we are split into 6 groups.  Each group lives in a different village and each person lives with a different family.  I live in a village called Lauwaki.  My family is wonderful-I have a mother named Varo who is a tall, lanky, kindhearted woman who is determined to make me learn Fijian and how to do my laundry by hand.  My father is named Masau and works 6 days a week for the telephone company, so I don't see him too much.  I have 3 siblings aged 18, 16, and 11.  The two oldest go to boarding school in the interior of the country, but the youngest boy, Kong (as in king kong), is an energetic, animated kid.  Our house is made of concrete, we have tv, electricity, and running water.  All in all, it's pretty luxurious to waht you might think life in a third world country might be (we don't have airconditioning though...and it is missed dearly!). 

Last week in the village there was a wedding.  When tehre is a wedding in the village, everyone who lives here gets involved in the preparation and participates in teh celebration (there are 500 people living in the village).   For us PCTs in Lauwaki, it was all we could talk about all week.  Although the wedding wasn't actually until Friday morning, the we started preparing Tuesday night.  Our village is divided into 4 clans, and on Tuesday my clan, the chiefly clan, gathered our gifts together (woven mats, pillows, mosquito nets, and canisters of kerosene) and presented them to the bride and groom in a ceremony.  The next night, the other 3 clans did the same.  Each clan had a specific duty to prepare for the wedding on thursday night.  Our clan helped with the cooking (I chopped carrots), another decorated, another pounded kava root down into a powder (so it could be made into a drink), and the last clan was in charge of slaughtering animals for the feast.  With each day's activities, our group's excitement for the wedding grew. 

Finally, Friday morning came.  Our morning language lessons ended early so we could go home and dress for the 10am church service (which is then followed by a traditional service with dancing).  I showered and put on my brand new jaba (pronounced chamba) and sulu.  the jaba/sulu combo is the typical outfit for woment to wear to village events, and I had picked mine up from the seamstress the night before.  A jaba is a loose, short sleeved blouse without buttons that falls about mid-thigh.  the sulu is a skirt made of matching fabric.  My outfit is is made of a bright red fabric covered with huge hibiscous flowers, sea turtles, and surfboards.  There are small bows on each sleeve and it's got a sweetheart neck.  You can be assured that this outfit is quite the head turner...or, at least it would be at home, here it mostly turns heads because I'm a white girl wearing a jaba and sulu.  So, all dressed and ready to go at 5 after 10, I realize that Varo isn't even home from the village co-op yet, so she's clearly not ready to go.  Another one of the trainees, who lives right next door, Rhiannon, comes over and we hang out for a while.  She's dressed in her new outfit too.  We chat, have some tea, and then chat some more.  No one in the village seems to be moving yet, or going anywhere near the church yet.  It's now 12.  Varo has come home and gives us the scoop.   Apparently, rumor has it that the bride's village, which was supposed to show up at 8am, hasn't arrived yet.   We eat lunch and then leave the village for a technical training session that starts in a neighboring village at 1pm.  The wedding still hasn't started.  After training, we find out that the bride's village doesn't like to have weddings in the morning like our village does, so they didn't show up until 1:30pm, despite the 10am scheduled starting time.  the wedding didn't start until 2:45, only 4 hours and 45 minutes late.  Welcome to Fiji Time.  It wasn't all a loss though, after training we went to the president's granddaughter's birthday party and got to show off our new outfits there.