We arrived early this morning at Wakaya Island and spent the day diving its beautiful reefs. Some of the group were fortunate to spend time with a Manta Ray as it was feeding.
After our third dive, the Nai’a moved further north to Makogai Island where we went ashore to visit a local village. We were given a tour by one of the elders as well as a brief history of the island (it used to be a leper colony.) We then participated in the kava ceremony with the entire village present which officially welcomed us into their home.
Back in 2016, Makogai Island had the misfortune to take an almost direct hit from Cyclone Winston. The nearby Koro Island took the brunt of it. Most of the buildings I remember on the island from my visit in 2015 are gone. They are still in the process of rebuilding. However, you would never know this just by looking at these amazing people. The entire time we were there, young children were running around playing. None were afraid of us and would come right up to you to say “hi”.
Afterwards, we were presented with and participated in songs and dancing by the village’s young men and women. Fijian dancing is meant to tell stories. We were told that they had even made up a dance about the cyclone they endured and overcome. But, I couldn’t tell which one it was. The dance by the young women was of course very beautiful. The dance by the young men was more of a “war dance”. They would inch closer to you as they danced, then at the last second attempt to scare you. They did this several times. I captured this photograph during the last dance with the camera in my lap.
Tomorrow is our last day of diving…