Saturday, July 21, 2007

Music in a Fijian home


from w
This guitar gets played often - not always in tune, but when we have visitors it becomes the focal point for lots of sentimetal string band songs from the islands. It was a gift from a Geelong family when one of the sons died after a motorbike accident when Peceli had been a pastor to the family, so it's a special gift. We've had other guitars, ukeleles, even a drum kit in our household, but the precious one for me is a Beale piano. We had a piano when we lived in Rakiraki and even at Dilkusha when we lived at Shantiniwas but we left it behind in Dilkusha when we moved to Labasa to live on the cane farm. I wonder where it is now?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ni sa bula vinaka. Thank you for Babasiga. It's great to read material that does not have an netirely political bent and I enjoy the many other sources you draw from.

My name is Ruci Salato Farrell and I live in Auckland. We put together a small community newspaper called the Fiji Observer.

It is humble and still at its teething stage though we hope one day to pull in as many colourful pieces about all Fiji people all over the world.

We are soon to publish our August edition and were wondering if we could use some of your images on the early Methodist mission in Labasa.

We hope to put together a piece on the Methodist Conference in Macuata. We are also running a piece on the maritime restrictions on the reefs outside Macuata.

We would be happy to provide you with some stories from our paper and we will ensure any material we sue from Babasiga will carry your details.

Perhaps you'd like to think over our request and come up with your own ideas.

Loloma levu
Ruci Salato Farrell
Fiji Observer
Phone: (09) 256-0503
PO Box 13829, Onehunga
AUckland
New Zealand

Peceli and Wendy's Blog said...

Bula vinaka Ruci,
I love Auckland - though I've only been there two days - en route to Fiji. Rev Sevati looked after us and we had a great time.
Of course, use any babasiga material you like - we actually source stuff from everywhere anyway! I sometimes write political stuff - can't help it!Peceli is going to Fiji soon for several weeks - including the conference in Macuata. Some people are critical about the conference e.g. one of the 'political' bloggers, Bubu, but we think that people need celebrations at times, something to look forward to, and to connect with distant friends.
I'll write to you by letter - as this is rather a public space.
Wendy

janet babiau said...

hi aunty ruci!great work on that!
loloma to uncle carl!hugs,janet,osnabruck,germany