October 17 – 18
16 28.139 S – 179 01.749 E
Posting by Barb:
Our return anchorage to Nukubati was to visit the village Nasea. We waited for the school boat to pass by and then we followed them into the village. 
A little girl asked if she could ride with us and she proudly stood at the front of the dinghy as we arrived idled into the village. Nasea was a little disappointing. 
We handed the Kava and they quickly did a mock Sevu Sevu and then went straight to pounding the Kava. We did understand that it was ‘freehold’ so Sevu Sevu was not necessary. They progressed to preparing and drinking the Kava and invited Denny to participate. But they continued to talk in their native tongue making Denny feel a little unwelcome. We understand that it’s probably because they could not speak very good English. Tino, who works at the resort, was probably the only one that made a genuine effort to make us feel comfortable but he was on the way to work.
I was given a little better welcome. I was introduced to the oldest lady of the village who was 109 years old. She had a little trouble waking up from her nap and felt a little shy with me being there. The ladies who gave me a tour of the village. They had much better English Language skills so were much chattier than the men. One of the young boys scampered up the Papaya tree and they loaded me up with papayas! They showed me the Kava that they had harvested but from what I could understand very little was sold, it was mostly consumed.
Tino dropped by the boat early next morning to say good-bye. He was returning from the resort after a Kava night with the wedding guests. He was tired from the late night affair but he made the special effort to drop by and say he appreciated our visit and was sad to see us go. When we asked if we could take his picture he quickly pulled out his Bulah shirt and got dressed up for the occasion. I guess Denny should have done the same!! He was actually teary eyed when he left.