Food plays a big part in everyone's life, no matter where you go. The culture in Fiji surrounding food is beautiful and extremely important. After church on Sunday, there is always a considerable lunch; after a funeral, there is a giant meal for everyone; and even with very few resources, there will always be a big meal on birthdays.
If you go to Fiji, do not expect to be eating mac and cheese, because in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a small island you are limited to what foods are either grown or raised in Fiji or foods that have shipped from nearby countries. On the island of Beqa, I was even more limited because there wasn't a single grocery store or even a little shop. Once every three weeks, we would make a grocery run to the main island of Viti Levu and those supplies would need to last. There also weren't any refrigerators in my village, something very common in Fiji, and that limited what we could get and save for three weeks.
Something I learned while here is that in Fiji and a lot of other countries, people do not put eggs in the refrigerator. Once eggs are put in the fridge, they must stay there or they will spoil, but if they are never put in the fridge they can keep a long time outside of it. When I learned this I was shocked, to say the least. I would buy nearly 100 eggs at a time to last the three weeks. Those 100 eggs probably cost a similar price to purchasing a dozen eggs in America.
