Happy Diwali!

About a year ago at this time I spent several hours making brightly colored tissue paper lanterns for the Diwali party at FSI during language training. This year I get to see the celebrations first-hand, fireworks and all. Every night for the past week or so we've heard and/or seen fireworks around our house. Diwali is the Hindu festival of lights, the most important festival of the year for Hindus. It lasts five days (based on the lunar calendar), but it seems like it lasts at least 2-3 weeks based on the fireworks going on here. It kind of makes me feel at home after two years living in Venezuela. This weekend Alex and I attended a Diwali celebration sponsored by the Indian High Commission and the Indian Cultural Center. A co-worker offered to let me borrow the sari she bought to attend another Diwali party, so I took the opportunity to dress up.

People have asked about Hindi and the Indian culture/population in Fiji. I've been surprised at how much of the language and culture is preserved in the Indo-Fijian population. I come across at least a couple of visa applicants almost daily who do not speak English enough to carry out an interview. Even those whose English is fluent also speak mostly Hindi with other Indo-Fijians (referred to as Indians in Fiji even though they are Fiji-born). I was warned that Hindi in Fiji is nothing like Hindi in India. While I do find this to be true, I don't think it's so far off that it's very difficult for them to understand it. For one thing, Indian pop-culture has a big presence in Fiji, so the popular movies, music, and TV shows are all over the media in Fiji. I think this is part of the reason why they can generally understand my feeble attempts at Hindi. Similarly, though the language is used differently here, the base language is the same, and context gives a lot of clues which help in understanding the gist of a conversation. I've explained it like this: Hindi has conjugations of verbs that vary for gender, plurality and formality. I haven't heard Indo-Fijians use any conjugation other than the singular masculine informal regardless of the subject's gender or plurality. That kind of makes it easier for me since I don't have to worry that I'm conjugating correctly. I'll sometimes do the interview in Hindi, but will often ask a local staff to interpret, though I can usually understand most of the applicant's responses.

I also regularly use the Tongan interpreter (though almost all Tongans graduate from high school where English is taught in every grade, they tend to pretend they don't understand me until I get the interpreter--I think there is some perception that they have a better chance of having the visa approved if the interpreter is used). About 3-4 times so far I've also called upon local staff to interpret for me in Fijian. There have been times that I wished I could also speak French and Chinese. Already in 4 months I've seen passports from more countries than I did in my entire two years in Venezuela. My boss says we interviewed people from at least 50 different countries last year. It keeps work interesting and keeps me on my toes as well, always learning new things.

scouting at a village outside of Suva