Diwali Day - or - Why Labasa Rocks

I know some of you (probably most of you) have never heard of Diwali.  I had no idea that it existed before I came to Fiji, which is ridiculous because it’s AWESOME.  But then there are only 10 countries where this festival of lights is an official holiday.  Here in Fiji Diwali is a one-day holiday that signifies the end of the old and the beginning of the new year for Indo-Fijians, but it’s also a religious holiday in honor of Lakshmi.  Even though the holiday is based in Hinduism, in Fiji’s multi-cultural society, most people commemorate the day in some way and everyone enjoys a day off from work.

Diwali Things

 For the Peace Corps Volunteers who had invited me to Labasa, the holiday was very laid back, social and entertaining.  We got up late and struggled to wrap ourselves in sarees until we gave up and went next door to have an expert help us.  Aunti is a cheerful and motherly grade school teachers who looked lovely with her short frame wrapped tidily in a saree.  Her daughter, Jiijii , an enthusiastic teen with her heart set on becoming a doctor, quickly arranged a plate of Indian sweets for Folami and I to snack on as Greta turned and held pleats and was pinned into Indo-Fijian perfection.  I was next and found the process a little daunting.  In fact my saree was one of the most difficult parts of my Diwali as it constantly seemed to be in disarray.  While Folami was being twirled into her lovely attire, we were casually invited to return in the evening to celebrate with the family and we were delighted to add another house to our tour!

The Girls in our Getup

 All gussied up we headed out to our first stop, picking up two more Diwali dressed girls on the way.  Monica hadn’t had help with her saree and forgot the pleats making it almost impossible to walk.  Luckily the daughters at the first house were able to sort her out.  Chris was the luckiest of all wearing a shalwar kameez, a tunic and pants set that is much easier to wear but doesn’t have quite the appeal of being draped in yards upon yards of soft silk (or in this case polyester or something).  We chatted for hours with the family and ate our fill of both the sweets and savories presented.  My favorite is a savory snack  of taro leaves prepared much differently from anything in the village.  Before we could leave we were presented with lunch: potato curry, puris (a small flatbread) and rice with nutrella (a spongy soy product).  It was delicious, but I was already full from the sweets!

After Lunch

We visited four more houses of Greta’s coworkers, neighbors and friends, everywhere happily chatting away, drinking tea or juice and eating sweets and other Indian snacks.  Diwali is more than just food, though.  As the festival of lights, each house is decorated with strands of electric lights (like Christmas lights), candles and tiny oil lamps.  Many houses had rice paintings on the porches where colored rice (died with crepe paper – if you can figure that out) is arranges designs with a lovely simplicity.  In some neighborhoods each house tries to out do the next as there is a competition for the best display.  Everywhere you go the air smells of sulfur and black powder with the hundreds of fireworks going off all around. 

Lighting oil lamps

Rice Design

And the fireworks are GREAT!  There is no organized firework show like we have in the US for the fourth of July, but Fiji doesn’t have the restrictions we have in Oregon, either.  If you have the money you can buy the fireworks to make an awesome show in your own yard.  Little boys hold fireworks that sprout those large twinkly displays that you see over Disneyland and something that seems like just a little twirly thing on the street will suddenly shoot off a major display.  The cab drivers are extra cautious and ask us to roll up the windows, but I’m suddenly hit, again, with my long held secret aspiration to go to China and apprentice myself to a firework master.

Just sitting on the porch of a friendly neighbor’s house bundled up in my disastrously (by now) draped saree, snacking on halua, enchanted by the fireworks, I feel like I am exactly where I should be.  Walking home from the last house, where a newspaper photographer took our picture, I couldn’t help but thinking how much I’d love it if Diwali were everyday.  Of course if that were the case I would never get anything done, would be enormously fat with all the sweets and would always be tripping on my saree!  Still, far and away it was the most fun I’d have in Fiji in a long time – the best festival I’ve seen in my six months here.  Probably one of the best festivals I’ve been included in ANYWHERE!  So if you see me, somewhere down the line, dressed in strange clothes and peddling Indian sweets one day in late October or early November – it must be Diwali – join in and have a great time.

Our Labasa Diwali Adventure