Tribewanted: Vorovoro

I have always loved the song “This Time Tomorrow” by the Kinks and tend to listen to it when I’m about to travel. And yesterday, I was thinking that I would be home by this time tomorrow. Well, today is here, and I’m in Nadi. Air New Zealand apparently cancelled their Friday service to LAX, without telling passangers. But they were nice enough to book me overnight in a posh hotel here in Nadi until my flight this evening.

It’s been a very interesting stepping stone to moving from Vorovoro back to LA, and I’ve had more time to reflect than I usually do. My father and I have discussed the mind-bend of modern travel, as I grew up trotting around the globe with my intrepid parents. It used to be that you’d have weeks of travel, a rough journey by ship and maybe overland on wagons, to adjust to the time difference, the landscape, the food and faces. Now, you board in one timezone and milieu and get off just hours later in a different world. I’m not sure I’m fully reconciled to this kind of passage…

This resort is lovely, but I’m finding myself stunned at women in bikinis and the lack of Fijian being spoken. I feel alienated and not sure how to define myself in the anonymous lobby. There’s a lali, but it beats for things happening in the “Activities Bure”...and the food is far from Fijian. It just underscores my wonder that people will travel half way around the world to stay in a place that feels like it could be in the Western world around the corner from their home.

I must admit that the shower and crisp white sheets were heavenly, but I’d take the lomalagi (sky or heaven) of Vorovoro any day over this as a vacation. What is an “authentic” vacation experience anyhow? And what makes our time with TribeWanted so different? I’ll continue to ponder, and I guess I’m grateful for this unplanned twist in my journey home as it will act as a foil to my five weeks in Mali with the family I love and the new friends I’ve gained.

I’m not foolish enough to know for sure where I’ll be this time tomorrow, but I am certain that I’ll be missing our village. Moce mada, Vorovoro!