Day 16: Trailing Tailevu

The mission today, on a random Wednesday, is to travel to Nadi (pronounced Nandi) for the IDC – inter district competition. The team I’m traveling with, Tailevu north, is made up of some of the guys we player soccer with, and other people who I have yet to meet.

We rendezvous at one of the guys houses. Here everyone plunks there bags down and relaxes before the three hour bus ride from Suva to Nadi. The bus we ride in is old and cranky. Its interior looks like a school bus, but with small storage overhead. There are no doors on the storage; it’s just a shelf with a metal grill affixed to the front.

The exterior looks more like a city bus, a real old one though from the nineties. This bus has windows, but it’s very common for the city buses to not be equipped with glass over the windows. There is also no door; the entrance is simply cut out and you hop on and off thus.

As per usual the bus is blasting head banging reggae and Fijian music from the moment we leave until we arrive. At first, however, the play list takes a different approach; beginning with, ‘stand by me’. The crowd is enjoyable and loud the entire trip. Everyone’s pumped for the tournament.

Sleeping conditions:

It’s late when we arrive. We’re staying in a school room for the duration of the IDC. The school rooms remind me of those from little house on the prairie. They are all single storey buildings, each housing four to five classrooms back to back. Every building surrounds a courtyard that serves as the kid’s playground. Besides grass though there is anything that can be used to play on.

With legs scratching across the floor we move the desks over to one side of the room. Everyone lays out mats across the ground. A few people actually brought tents. I find great humour in watching someone set up a tent indoors. Once all the mats are set up along the walls everyone lets out a deep breathe of relief.

Before anything else can happen however, we gather around for a prayer; a practice that will repeat itself countless times this trip and will prove to annoy me untiringly. Now I really can’t be sure whether it’s the appeal of me being a foreigner that makes them want me to lead the prayer or if it’s the appeal of me being agnostic. What is certain is that I am endlessly asked to lead the holy ceremony.

Eating Conditions:

This is probably what I’ve been most uncertain about this trip: food. Already I’m hungry and really have no idea when food is gonna happen. I brought bananas, which I finished, and green beans – also long gone. It’s late, the school looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere, and the bus that brought us here has already disappeared. It almost looks like food is a topic for another day.

I’m quite happy to find out this isn’t the case. A man that reminds me of a red label beer bottle has come along as the chef. He has long greasy black hair that’s thinning with old age. The tone of his speech is low, and even a bit slurred, but in a sober way. This man does two things: he cooks three meals a day for the team, and he drinks grog. I do three things; I support and train with the team, eat the meals which are cooked for me, and occasionally dabble in some grog.

As of yet, no one has brought up any talk of tomorrow’s game in a serious manner. We just kind of lounge around half energetically waiting for it to be late enough to turn out the lights. I play Tetris on my gameboy and challenge others to beat my high level while slow guitar melodies are played and hindi songs are sung.

After dinner – and some more prayers lead by everyone’s favourite agnostic foreigner – we turn out the lights and begin a slow decent into dreamland. In the middle of the room a coil burns, slowly poisoning the air to rid it of the less poisonous pest: mosquitoes.

Just after prayers and before lights out I’m asked to give a motivational speech, and so I tell them to dream of bright white and beautiful soccer balls bouncing across bountiful grass fields. They turn to me like I can make a difference about how they’ll perform, and I think how neither my prayer nor my words will be the difference. Nonetheless, I offer the best I can yet all the while worrying if this team will be a contender in the least.