Over and out....

It has been good to spend time with the Kostamo family and the A Rocha team in Canada this week. The pace for me has changed from one just of holiday to beginning to get back into operational mode with time with the team here and with Markku in particular - comparing notes and learning from each other.

So today was a full day with Markku in Vancouver - leaving at 6 and getting back at 5 - meeting with other business leaders for a bible study, time with the chair of the board and one other board member, time with a web company, and lunch with a major supporter....whilst Jean caught up with herself at the house.

The evening gave us chance to catch up with much of the rest of the team at the A Rocha centre over a meal. So we just have a final visit to the coast in the morning tomorrow and then I meet with Markku and his leadership team in the afternoon before we fly back in the evening.

Thanks to all our readers for journeying with us and we look forward to seeing many of you soon. It has been a great trip for us and one we will remember for a long time to come.

Reifel Bird Reserve

A wander along the west coast to the south of Vancouver today to look at the birdlife of the area. Spring was just beginning to burst out here with trees beginning to come into leaf and birds on the move. There was a flock of around 2000 Snow Geese in one of the fields and a good mix of ducks and herons including this Night Heron and Wood Duck.

There were also a number of squirrels about including this Black Squirrel - it is apparently another race of the Grey Squirrel and was introduced to British Columbia as well with the same impact as in the UK of reducing the population of the native squirrel.

In the evening the A Rocha team assembled for a potluck supper and I spoke to them about the work of A Rocha UK.

Southpoint

We went to church with the Kostamos to their local church in Southpoint. It is a 'church plant' on a local housing estate which meets in a primary school and has grown over six years into a congregation of around 50. It was a significant day as the pastor who founded the congregation is leaving to have a period out of church ministry with one of the congregation stepping in as interim leader and it was largely a farewell and thankyou service with the regional minister there plus those from nearby churches who had helped start things.

They were having a bring and share lunch in the home of a nearby church member and it coincided with the Canada/US hockey game so folks bolted down their lunch and about 30 crowded into the TV room to watch the game. Fortunately Canada won 3-2 in extra time!

As we drove off afterwards horns were blaring and people waving flags and cheering. 'We are not usually like this said'.

It was the best weather of the trip and the mountains were finally emerging from the cloud so we went down to the beach at White Rock for the afternoon and to walk along the shore. The sun was setting over the islands in one direction and lighting the snow on Mount Baker in the other. Lovely.

Winter Olympics

We were awoken this morning by a cacophony of noise from the pond below our window and a closer inspection revealed three Canada Geese rather than two - however after a brief flurry the intruding male was chased away by the local one and the pair flew up onto the tree stump in front of the window before returning to the pool.

When we booked to fly back from Vancouver we had some difficulty finding a flight back and both we and the travel agent were puzzled. However what we subsequently realised was that the Winter Olympics were on! Getting to an event at short notice would have been difficult but we travelled into Vancouver for the day to 'feel the experience'. With the events being in diverse locations the Olympic torch had been set up on the Waterfront and parts of the city had been closed off for pedestrians only. The Canadian TV 'anchors' for the time were located on a trailer in the middle of this area and as we passed the Canadians had won yet another Gold Medal to add to there considerable haul - to much applause and cheers from the crowd who all burst into the National Anthem. Apparently there was significant oppposition to the games before they began but that has receded in the light of the success of the event. The streets were therefore packed with enthusiastic Canadians with slogans of 'Go Canada Go' everywhere - even on the buses....
We found time too to walk around the local park and found this raccoon foraging away...

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A Rocha Canada

We arrived in the darkness yesterday evening and we awoke this morning to realise that we were looking over a lovely river valley with a pond with - yes - Canada Geese in ...as well as Hooded Mergansers and a local Red tailed Hawk. Markku Kostamo who is the Director of A Rocha Canada and his wife Leah had kindly offered to have us stay in their place as the A Rocha centre was full and so we are staying about 4 miles down the road in a house which has been gifted to A Rocha Canada together with the associated land and they are just setting the plans for the future for the site which has real potential.

This is likely to mean moving from the existing site which it is hoped will be sold to sympathetic purchasers - during the course of the year. We had lunch there and wandered around the grounds which have been managed very carefully as a mix of wilderness, farming (including this Highland cow..), and vegetable plots. We were hugely impressed by what they have done.

In the evening it was the semi final of the Olympic Ice Hockey so the whole team came round to the Kostamo's for tea and to watch the game - in what in the end was a close match Canada scraped through 3-2 so folks are building up to the US game on Sunday...

Farewell Fiji

We finished our time in Fiji with a meal at the Wicked Walu - a fish restaurant on a peninsula out into the sea with a view of the setting sun - beautiful.

And a final walk along the beach the next morning. We found some creatures which look like long sticks but in fact are some sort of sea slug which can concertina themselves in and out and double their length - some small antennae on the front seem to steer them - and some beach toads !

And then a long day - we worked out the day would be 45 hours long as we have crossed the dateline and we are currently in Los Angeles and the plane to Vancouver is about to go.

Fiji thoughts

The men in Fiji all wear a skirt as part of their normal dress and so schoolchildren whether boys or girls all go to school in a skirt like this one worn by one of the doormen at the hotel. The Fiji name for it is a sulu. Formal dress is the sulu , with jacket and tie.

They also often wear a flower behind one of their ears, behind the right ear means single or available and behind the left ear means taken....

A lazy day around the hotel and on the beach today before we travel again tomorrow afternoon, a little breezy so not quite such good snorkelling as earlier in the week but still a good variety of shapes and sizes of fish about. We shared our lunch table with this mynah bird which seemed very interested in the contents of our plates - but stayed at a safe distance.

Fiji has been a pleasant surprise and having taken total pot-luck on a hotel we have been delighted with it - good facilities but with the ability to get out and about as well. It turns out incidentally that Fiji does have a High Commissioner after all - Mac Maclachlan - no prizes for guessing his country of origin! He says on his website that he is committed to encouraging democracy - so being kicked out of the Commonwealth is obviously a complex process....

Suva

When I worked in Singapore there were a series of business controls problems in our island businesses so the leadership team visited all the key ones. I went to Papua New Guinea and my Finance colleague visited Fiji where it emerged that company funds were being syphoned off to the local rugby club. Rugby is big here - every open space has rugby posts and groups of young men trot down the street passing a rugby ball to each other. When we visited Suva today a ten a side touch rugby game on the green in front of the government buildings attracted an audience of a hundred or more and when we read Wikipedia before we visited it listed eight famous people from Suva - seven of whom were professional rugby players in Australia and New Zealand.

We spent time in the museum which gave us a much better sense of the history of the island. It was never colonised or conquered in the way of many other countries but some settlers came in and then the British were invited to govern in around 1874. The population now is 50% Indian as a result of indentured labourers brought in to look after the sugar cane plantations in the 19th century and this led to the ethnic tensions which have recently led to the ethnic Fijian military take over. There is a regular changing of the guard outside the government house which is where the British High Commissioner is meant to be - but given the suspension from the Commonwealth he is presumably no longer there!

The museum had various boats from over the centuries - including a 'no come back' raft similar to the one that we had travelled part way down the river on the previous day, They are made of local bamboo and float downstream on a one way trip.

The background to the growth of Christianity in the islands was also covered in the museum. As part of an understanding between the various mission organisations the Methodist church was given free rein in Fiji and apart from the murder of an early missionary the church grew quickly, mainly through local Christians rather than missionaries, and hence why there seems to be a Methodist church in every community. The Christian faith seems to reach out to the business community as well and as we entered Suva we saw this corporate advert.

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Namuamua

We don't normally do much in the way of organised tours but we decided to go on one to an inland village, Namuamua. The journey involved a bus journey of about an hour, and then travelling on narrow speed boats for over an hour upriver through steep sided gorges and rapids to a village which was all ready to welcome us - as they did to tourists six days a week.

There had to be someone in the group who was appointed chief to take part in the cava drinking ceremony with the village chief and I somehow got appointed to that role - the main criteria seemed to be that I was not Australian.... so I was 'Ratu Steve' and Jean was 'Andi Jean'. The process was that I had to eyeball the Chief - clap my hands - say 'bula' which is the generic greeting and then down the cava (the local drink - non alcoholic they said) in a oner - before clapping my hands again three times....there were then a range of dances to welcome us.

It gave us a fascinating insight into village life and we called in on the school which had 94 pupils in years 1-8. They seemed well organised and in good order - though education is a problem in the country because it is not free and hence many children do not attend. In browsing round the churches we bumped into the Methodist minister - in most villages there is a methodist church and an RC church - and so he greeted us.

It was the evening of the firewalking ceremony at the hotel. There is an island nearby where by tradition the people walk on white hot stones as part of a traditional ceremony and so a group performed their ceremony whilst walking over what were clearly very hot stones. They put leaves on afterwards which caught fire.....

Church

There was some discussion at the hotel when we asked what time the local church service started - some said 1030 and some 1100 - so to play safe we arrived at about 1015 and waited to see what would happen. The church itself was down a rough track about a mile from the hotel and people began to appear at about 1030 - and at 1050 they banged a drum made out of a carved out treestump and things commenced.

The service itself turned out to be in Fijian but folks were pleased to have us and it was good to be there. The singing was the high spot - all led by voice - and the excitement was when the preacher ground to a halt half way through and seemed overcome. After a few minutes silence one of the elders went behind the arras to see what was happening and the cantor led into the final hymn.

The sister resort to the one that we were staying in turned out to have a Par 3 golf course so I ventured forth on that in the afternoon and Jean kept me company and acted as the official photographer.

We have had some wonderful sunsets in the evenings and as the sun sinks below the horizon the sky is full of the most wonderful reds and yellows.

The resort has a couple of artificial peninsulas which are a pleasant walk in the evenings - though when we walked down one last night and peered over the edge - a metre long black and white seasnake peered back at us and then began consuming an unsuspecting crab. Some young Fijians who were also there announced that it was not poisonous - it was the red and black ones to worry about apparently....

Fiji

Why Fiji some people said to us - well it was on the way to Canada, sort of, and we had never been there, and Jean's mum used to speak of it from her London Missionary Society days - and it seemed good to stop for a few days after travelling and spending time with friends.

And on first impressions we are delighted that we have done so. The reefs surrounding the island were visible from the air as we flew in, and we were met by a local taxi driver who gave us all the local info - stopped off at his friend's shop so we could stock up with water and other beverages at prices which were less than that at the hotel (and popped back in for his commission afterwards!).

Fiji itself is going through a difficult period politically. After tensions between native Fijians and the incoming ethnic Indians there was a military takeover a few years ago and they were expelled from the Commonwealth last September because of the lack of democracy but the people are lovely.

When we arrived there was some local singing and dancing - the video captures the former if not the latter!

Today we had a chance just to wander along the beach, to snorkel (with my head somewhat red as a result, and to read and potter which was great. The taxi driver had spoken about there not being any land snakes but just sea snakes and we watched one swimming along and then hiding in a hole for its prey with just its head sticking out.

Jean loves hermit crabs and there were plenty of those and also some reef herons eating up the fish caught in the receding tide.

Brisbane

A good day in Brisbane with Sue Smith. Sue and family were the only other non-Chinese in our church in Singapore and she and Jean in particular have kept up their friendship over the years since we left and last caught up in Scotland 18 months ago.

Sue was a great host and we wandered through the local nature reserve to look at upstream Brisbane river - and then went into town to travel on the Fast Cat - the boat which cruises down the river taking tourists and townees alike through the city. Brisbane is the fastest growing Australian city and there was plenty of construction going on particularly of infrastructure.

In the afternoon we visited the local wildlife sanctuary so a chance to reacquaint ourselves with koalas and free range kangaroos and wallabies - as well as plenty of lorikeets which came down to food.

Friends

As I filled up with petrol at a rural petrol station I got into discussion with the proprietor as to what we were doing. It's good to have friends he said - you can save a lot of money on accommodation! However it has been great to spend time with Barbara and Barry Bryett and latterly with Sue and Brian Smith.

In our first morning in Bundaberg it poured with rain - 97 mm in four hours! We had a barbecue lunch which the local Butcher Bird took a close interest in but his attempts to steal the sausages were thwarted. It was brighter in the afternoon and they showed us the sights of Bundaberg which were much greater than the Rough Guide had suggested. In the evening we went out to see the turtles - but unfortunately they were not around to be seen.. however someone claimed to have seen a possum in the men's loo and when I went along to investigate - they were right...and when we got back to the house there were several tree frogs around.

Evenings at Barbara and Barry's were hazardous, nocturnal visits to the loo had both their dogs barking the house down - even if we went on tiptoe...

A day's drive from Bundaberg found us in Brisbane with Sue and Brian - and a view over the city just as it got dark promiseed some interesting explorations for the following day.