Ura things, Large and Small

So much has been happening recently that choosing a topic for this blog was a tough decision.  Ura, though, has been an overarching theme for the past month or so.  They’ve grossed me out, intrigued me, nourished me and have been an endless source of amusement for various villagers.

Ura are Fijian indigenous freshwater prawns (Macrobrachium lar), not unlike the giant Malysian prawn commercially farmed in many parts of the globe.  I think these Fijian prawns tend to be a little redder and denser of flesh, but maybe that’s just me.  I first heard about ura from another volunteer.  I had heard that there was interest in farming freshwater prawns in the area and he informed me that there were already local prawns.  As I was in the mood for some tasty shrimp, I did some research.

Ura - Not only delicious in Fiji

Asking around the village I quickly ferreted out the best shrimp hunter in the village – a woman named Ateca who grew up in a village by the big Nasekawa river.  I have since befriended Ateca (pronounced ah-Teh-tha) and discovered that she is the best fisherwoman, the best broom maker, the fastest mat weaver, the most industrious cottage industry entrepreneur, a grower of outlandish flowers and a very good cook.  Basically she’s the closest thing to a renaissance woman there is in my village.  However, I have yet to convince Ateca to take me prawn hunting.

Ateca weaving a mat in her home

My first taste of ura did come at Ateca’s hand.  Her husband, Domoniko, another of my good friends, was having a birthday party.  In Fiji this is basically an excuse to drink a lot of kava and get your friends to bring you Bula shirts (like Hawaiian shirts, but we’re not in Hawaii, yo!).  We drank from about 3 o’clock in the afternoon until nearly ten.  It was my first experience getting really grogged.  I was sort of a guest of honor, so I served some of the grog.  It was quite a party and everyone was sad when the grog ran out (well, I wasn’t too sad – I was already feeling grog-drunk).  Ateca had packed up some dinner for me to take with me, and after stumbling home (I fell in a ditch because I was looking at the stars and not my feet) I treated myself to delicious prawns with noodles.  I instantly knew this local prawn was a lovely thing and that I had not had my last of ura.

My next ura experience came quite unexpectedly on the day we went up to the dam to clean out the silt.  We’ve had water pressure issues in the village and were trying to find a solution.  Personally my shower doesn’t do more than trickle, so I usually bath with water from a tap about two and a half feet from the ground and sometimes I don’t even get anything coming out of my tap.  The dam was in a bad way – it turned out silt and mud had covered the pipe that supplies water to the village – so we were on a mission to clear it out.  Honestly, our effort didn’t do much for my water pressure, but it was a windfall of prawns!  When about half of the water had been drained from the reservoir a bunch of guys jumped in and started grabbing prawns.  They tossed a bunch up at me that I kept in a bucket.  The things were squirming all over the place and snapping their big pincers at me.  I have no idea why, but some of these prawns have REALLY long spindly pincers on one side.  In any case, I took them home.  

Cleaning out the dam and hunting for ura

So – what do you do with LIVE prawns?  I didn’t know.  I tried calling my mom and dad, but they were in Canada.  I tried another epicure, but he was in Canada WITH my parents, so that was no help.  Finally I tried Michelle because she’s smart, but she said what the Fijians had – boil them.  I didn’t really want to do that because I was planning on pan-frying the things so she had another option – just pull their heads off.  Ick.  By the time I got around to preparing the shrimp most of them had suffocated, but two were still squirming and I got to experience the decapitation of live prawns.  It worked really well – even if I felt like I could hear them scream.  I peeled the tails, didn’t worry about deveining them and made a delicious shrimp fried rice.  (Further research has revealed that the appropriate way to kill freshwater prawns is to soak them either in ice water or chlorinated seawater.  I might try seawater next time – minus the chlorine – since there’s about an ocean’s worth a few steps from my house.)

My association with Ateca and Domoniko has led to a fair number of random and fun events.  Ateca gave me a frozen half-fish (tail half, luckily) which I turned into lovely fish tacos, Dominiko occasionally brings me seeds for my garden (bell pepper and passion fruit, among others), and the two of them accompanied me on a lumber-buying excursion to town (to build my new kitchen cabinets – my first attempt at designing and building a kitchen from scratch – possibly also my last).  Ateca had been looking forward to this Friday, though, for almost a month.  And, really, I had, too.  

It was the ura soli (fundraiser) in Nabalebale (Ateca’s home village).  We got up early and took the eight o’clock bus to the village where Ateca’s sister hosted us for breakfast before the soli.  At eleven we headed over to the village hall for the ceremonial opening of the soli, an offering of a huge heap of raw kava from the village to the chief followed by the most traditional kava ceremony I have seen – with the pounded kava root filtered through dried plant fibers rather than cloth and a religiosity to the presentation I’ve never seen.  After the ceremony and a bit of tea, the regular grog drinking started in earnest as the village head man called each man up to donate the expected FJ$50.  By the time lunch was ready they had raised $2,914.  I didn’t stay till the end, but I know they made it past $3,000.  I had chipped in ten bucks. 

Ura wasn’t the only thing on the plate for lunch.  There was giant sized eel (known as tuna), chicken curry, fish curry, fried fish and a whole heap of taro, more than most people could comfortably eat (though if any of you know Kory Rice, I bet he could have handled it).  This wasn’t my first soli, though, and I knew by then that most people take home leftovers from this sort of thing, so I’d brought a Tucker’s ice cream box for the leftovers.  Little did I know that when I left Ateca in charge of the leftovers as I roamed around taking pictures that she’d fill the box full with a whole new plate of food!  And so it was that I had dinner for both my dog and me that night.  

Ura Lunch at Nabalebale Day Soli

We left the soli before the grog was gone, so the music was still going full tilt.  Two groups of men with guitars and ukuleles were having a good-natured battle of the bands with an island lilt.  Domoniko was one of the singers, and we left him to drink grog, sing and make merry as we headed home.  It was the end of the day, but not the ura, and definitely not the fun.  Ateca has promised to take me with her to catch ura one of these days, but not before she, Domoniko and I head out again for more good food in the village and around.  Sunday I was treated to another big plate of prawns served with fried pumpkin!  It’s good to have friends.  It’s even better if they feed you prawns!