Christmas & New Year Celebrations in Fiji

Celebrating Christmas in the summertime is a very interesting experience.  The sun is shining, people are playing in the water, and Santa and his "little helpers" (big fierce looking warriors) arrive by boat. It's a time of large extended family get togethers and there's  always lots of food. There are presents, but those are more of a sideline, rather than the main event.

Now New Year's Eve celebrations are a whole different thing!  It's normal for a party to begin at 6pm and end at 2, 3, or 4am.  On New Year's Day, the water fights begin.  It's a week-long celebration of people running through the village with buckets or bottles of water and water cannons to soak anyone and everyone. Good time to wash away the old year and start fresh.  It's a great time for the missionaries!  This year we'll not be watching the ball drop in Times Square or thinking, "It must be midnight somewhere, so we're justified in going to bed early,". That 'somewhere' is here, near the International Dateline. Tomorrow for you is today for us.  And I must say - it's a wonderful day!  Best wishes for a great 2016.

A New Language = Brow-ese

I've often bemoaned the fact that I'm unilingual. No matter how many times I study French or Spanish, it just doesn't seem to click. I figured that the foreign language switch in my brain was stuck in the permanent "off" position. That is, until now!

I am happy to report that I can now boast an understanding of a second language - actually, it's a third if you count Pig Latin.  Now that we've been in Fiji for a full six months, I have mastered Conversational Brow-ese!

In America when someone is speaking and you want to show that you're listening or agreeing, you smile, nod your head, and/or say something like, "Yeah" "Right" or "uh-huh". Here however, a slight, quick raising of the eyebrows speaks volumes.

If both brows go up and down once, it's "Yes, go on..." or, "I see your point."  (Go ahead, give it a try. You know you want to.).   If both brows are raised and lowered multiple times, the translation is, "Absolutely!"  or "Without a doubt!"  I must admit that my first conversation, when speaking with a man fluent in this interesting Fijian language, made me wonder what on earth was going on.  However now that I'm quite fluent in Brow-ese, I understand completely.  In fact, once you start doing this, it comes quite naturally.  Don't you agree?  Hey, I saw those eyebrows twitch.  Now you're well on your way to fluency!