Abuse

On a hot summer's dawn, we were woken up at 5.30 in the morning with loud yelling from next door. It slowly registered in my mind that it was Ratu (Chief) shouting at the top of his voice in Fijian. He sounded really angry and we decided to - with a baseball bat - check out the commotion.

We sat just outside the dive centre's back door and tried to listen, though not understanding a single word. Suddenly someone screamed, a female voice. I couldn't make out if that was Livvy (Ratu's wife) or Buna (Ratu's daughter), but the scream was a definite cry of pain. My hands wrapped tightly around the baseball bat and in my head I was forming images of dodging Ratu's blows (if he dared to hit me or Justin should we confront him), and thinking of how I could whack him in the head if he did.

Of course, there was nothing we could've done about it, as he was a powerful man and that was his personal family affair. However, knowing his history of violence, we were worried for whoever was receiving those punches.

The commotion stopped. Two figures walked past their garden and it was too dark to make out who exactly was hurt.

It's a shame that in the Fijian culture, domestic abuse is a common thing. Women's opinions are just not regarded and these women are subjected to abuse whenever the men feel like it. Of course nowadays, hardly anybody does that anymore, but remnants of the past still linger. For traditionalists, it is difficult to shake off that violent streak.

May Buddha bless the victims of domestic abuse.