THE DAY

I woke up rather early on Thursday, as I technically went to be at 6pm on Wednesday night. (Just to clear up any potential confusion, Fiji is 17 hours ahead of the East Coast, so that basically means I am a whole day ahead of all of you). After writing some journal entries, I wandered around the city, poking in and out of record shops, which Suva has a plethora of. I bought a CD of an Indo-Fijian tabla player, and also of the first Indo-Fijian reggae band (the album is twenty years old, so it’s nothing groundbreaking but still does sound pretty neat) from a record store called Procera Music. The slogan for Procera is, “Procera Music Shop is food of love.” I mean I get it, but what?

I then started to look for music shops that sold lalis (the Fijian wooden slat drum played with sticks) and/or tablas (the Indian pair of hand drums). At a store called South Pacific Music, I found tablas; but, disappointing they were made in Mumbai, India. I asked if there were any local tabla crafters, and the woman who worked at the SPM said that they only import tablas, and never have heard of anyone who makes them locally. That was kind of a bummer, but there is nothing I can do about it. I know I will meet many tabla crafters in India. Also, it is interesting in itself that despite that large Indo-Fijian population, there is apparently an absence of tabla crafters. Being that the tabla is utilized in both the music of Hinduism and Islam (there are Muslim Indo-Fijians here too), why are there no local crafters? Perhaps there in fact are tabla crafters, just not in Suva.

I also have been having a hard time finding a genuine lali crafter. I did find lalis for sale, but it was a generic tourist handcraft center. For kicks, I bought a mini six-inch lali: it is not really playable, but I did not want to commit to buying a full-sized lali, which are about two, two-and-a-half feet long and weigh a ton. I also want to buy a lali directly from a crafter, not at some tourist trap store…

It was rainy all day here (but still very warm), so I took it easy until after dinner. See the above post for those details.

- JBH