On August 24, 2010, my friend Ilimo (the leader of our village Water Committee) got married to a girl he met last year on a trip to the capital and stayed in touch with over the phone until now. Here are some pictures of their wedding:
The most important aspect of any Fijian function is food. Here is the cooking shed the village constructed for all the wedding cooking. On the right, you can see one of the guys carving up a recently slaughtered cow. Weddings and funerals are also the only occasions during which Fijians binge on meat--both beef and pork.
Akoila, one of my teeth brushing kids, and Ilimo's mom show off the tail of a cow that is on it's way to becoming lunch.
While the men carve up the animals and make the underground ovens, the women do all the chopping. I have spent hours upon hours cutting up raw meat for chop suey, stew, curry, and steak.
Here, some youth boys carry freshly-harvested Dalo (aka Taro Root) to be put in the lovo (underground oven).
These guys are preparing the lovo, an underground oven made of a woodfire at the bottom of a hole that gets covered with stones, then filled with food, and covered with leaves to hold in the smoke.
Traditional Fijian wedding presents from the groom's side (the side I'm on because Ilimo is from my village) are mats and bedding (pillows, mosquito nets, blankets, sheets, etc).
Here, Mareani and I pose with the pile of gifts given by the immediate family living in our village.
Here's an amazing kula, woven string edging along a mat, on one of Ilimo's wedding mats with his name written into it.
The day of the wedding, Ilimo's house looked like a bedding store showroom.
The wedding shed was set up for eating, dancing, and drinking yaqona (kava) right accross from my house (seen on the left).
To dress up the wood-post-and-roofing-irons shed, the women braid coconut leaves onto the posts and decorate them with colorful plants and flowers.
I had some wedding guests of my own. Sally (aka Selina) and Brian, a married couple in my closest neighboring village, came to partake in the festivities.
The groom and bride arrive in full traditional wedding outfits made of masi. Masi is a special type of fabric made from soaked and pounded leaves. It's almost like a handmade paper. Then, the off-white-colored "fabric" is painted with handmade dyes.
Inside the church, the wedding guests await the bride and groom's arrival.
...The four of them dress in traditional garmets and stand in the front of the church on top of special wedding mats with elaborate kula string along the edges.
This hand holding as the priest marries Ilimo and Sereana is the most physical contact that will ever be observed in public between the married couple. They do not kiss during the wedding, nor will they touch again for the rest of the celebration.
Because I'm taking pictures and making a big spectacle, I am able to request a rare smiling pose from Sereana and Ilimo on their wedding day.
After the ceremony, the wedding party heads to the chief's house to change into more contemporary Fijian clothing. For the rest of the day the men will wear bula shirts and pants in matching fabric (known as kala vata) with the women's sulu jiaba's.
While the wedding party is changing and celebrating privately, the village women start to serve up the feast. Here Litia and Mesi pose with a huge vat of beef chop suey.
Mareani and Sereana carry out some of the dishes to the main table.
As usual, almost all of the wedding guests will eat heaping plates of food, and they also bring takeaway containers to bring leftovers home to their families after the event. Because of this behavior, most of these women from my village will not get to eat the feast they prepared except for soupy scrapings from the bottom of the pots and leftover scraps of Dalo.
While the food is being prepared, someone revs up the generator and the dancing begins. I'd be lying if I said that us Peace Corps Volunteers didn't get it started. Notice Brian, Sally's husband, at the top of the picture dancing to a full room of spectators in usual Fijian fashion.
Here the wedding party sits up at a special table of honor and feasts on all the choicest cuts of food.
After the meal, some of the village girls perform a meke (traditional Fijian dance) and the good times continue until well after dark.
All said, I was struck by how Fijian weddings hardly differ from other Fijian special occasions such as funerals. As long as there's tons of meat and yaqona to drink, everyone's happy.
A little different from weddings in America, as I would soon find out...
Vinaka Vakalevu.
Milika
Thank u so much Mrs Milika for all the adorable pictures of the village and the people i grew up with, it has brought me back memories of my young days in Nanuca and my Primary School Kasavu Primary School where i was a Head Prefect in my last year.Thank u so much and may our good lord continue to shower blessing on u n ur family....moce(bye)
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