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I have been learning a little bit here and there about indigenous Fijian customs while living with my Indo-Fijian host family. One of the more interesting customs is known as kerekere (approximately pronounced as "kerry-kerry").

More will be written about this custom as I either A. experience it first hand, or B. my friends here in Fiji relate their own stories to me. Essentially, anyone within one's Fijian community can, at any time, request one of your personal items.
Fijian culture being traditionally communal, it is not considered odd to ask your neighbor for a piece of their personal property (shoes, clothes, money, food, etc.)... the expectation is that eventually it will be THAT persons turn to ask for something and thus everything stays balanced.

What isn't stated about the kerekere custom is that there is no explicit onus for the borrower to return the property of the borrowee. In other words- if someone wants to kerekere my wristwatch and I let that person, I have essentially given my wristwatch away (I can however kerekere it back). This seemed to work out fine before drastic disparities in wealth began to beset the nation (i.e. people with toys).

There is no responsibility to the borrowee to actually give their property over when asked- and many volunteers forgo participation in this custom from the beginning so as not to be asked once for some sugar, twice for an iPod. One story was told of a volunteer whose sandals were constantly kerekere'd by someone in the village. At first the volunteer was pissed, but eventually became comfortable finding the person and requesting their footwear back (and no longer leaving them outside his hut).

The Indo-Fijian culture here in Fiji has no kerekere custom because their communities are not explicitly communal. It's too early for me to have an opinion about this practice- for now I've just been entertained by stories of kerekere'd items.

My favorite so far? The volunteer who returned to her site from vacation to see that the village had attempted to follow her lead and dig some nice, deep trash pits. How? They'd kerekere'd a front end loader from the road construction crew outside the village.