I didn't bring a whole lot home with me from Fiji. I've got a deck of playing cards, a USP pennant, and a Fijian tapa tattoo. And I've got my sulu. I bought one and only one sulu during my time in Fiji, on my very first day in Fiji. It was purchased for something like $15 FJ in Nadi (not a great deal, what was I to know on my first day?)
My sulu is a soft blue fabric adorned with navy flowers and tasseled fringe. It was worn during every village stay. Grown women are expected to cover their legs within a village. There are different ways to wrap and tie it around your waist, and there's no specific right way to do it, but quite certainly my way was the wrong way to do it. I would just grab two bunches of fabric on the side and make a knot. Of course, this left a bit of exposed leg on one side, defeating the entire purpose, but this was how I used my sulu most of the semester.
Only at the very end of the semester did I figure out a more suitable way to wrap and secure my sulu. No knots would be tied, instead, a bit of fabric would be tucked into the already wrapped fabric on my waist and rolled up to secure it. By the end of my time in Fiji, the heat was worse than anything I'd ever felt, and I spent most days in my dorm room with the fan blasting and minimal clothing on. The sulu was great for covering up when leaving my room so as not to expose my underwear-clad self to my roommates.
During our first week in Fiji, our coordinator recommended bringing our sulu with us everywhere. It could be used as a towel, cover-up, blanket, you name it. I brought it with me on the planes home, and snuggled against it, feeling more and more attached to it the farther from Fiji I got.
And now, since I've been home, the sulu has primarily rested on the frame of the foot of my bed. It's gotten softer with every wash, and is more comfortable now than ever. I wear it to go to and from the shower, despite it being far too cold in my home to be wrapped in nothing but a thin piece of fabric. But it makes me feel a little like I'm back in Fiji, where my shoulders are still bronze and freckled and the palm fronds are still swaying in the ever-present breeze.
