Tribewanted: Vorovoro

Welcome to my first blog as Chief. Firstly I would like to apologize for the delay but its been busy here on Vorovoro. I’m sitting here tonight on the grog mat outside the Grand bure and have been given permission by Tevita to write this during the session as it seems to be my only chance when I’m sitting down not doing too much, resting after an hard days work full of progress.

My first day of being Chief started on Friday 1st August. As it was the end of the week and Team Fiji would be leaving or the weekend it was decided we would just finish off any loose ends left from July. This involved continuing with the much needed extra rain catchment which was being extended from the existing one.

Then out of nowhere around 30 Fijians turned up in two groups from the church who were visiting Mali from all around Vanua Levu. They all wanted a tour of our village which had to be done in 2 groups as they arrived at different times. I then had to rush off to Mali District eating my lunch on the boat journey over.

Whilst at the school we all presented who we were and if we had gifts for the school these were also presented these. On this one of many visits to the school I presented them with the final letter of project that has been ongoing since I arrived. To give you a little background, on my first visit to the school the children played around with my camera for the majority of the time I was there and took some amazing photos. The children loved being able to see themselves on the camera after taking the pictures which then inspired me to make a photo board for them. After telling another tribe member (Emily Gilmour) about this idea she asked if she could join in as the children also took some amazing photos on her camera. Emily then suggested that we make the photo board in the shape of an M for Mali school. So off we set with this project over the next week printing photos, making the M and collage of photos and then covering it all in Perspex to protect it from becoming damaged. When we went to the school to show them what we had made Chief Tom (Tui Walu) then suggested that the project should be continued if we passed the idea on to other tribe members to continue after we had left to create the rest of the letters. As I extended my time here by a further 10 weeks I was able to personally pass on the idea and get other members involved, so Bex continued with the A, Joanna Foot with the L and Catherine Wardle with the I. After presenting the final letter I asked for all the children to com outside with the letters so the tribe could take photos of them with the completed set. We then went back to the island and said moce to Team Fiji for the weekend.

Saturday came around and was a day with lots of arrivals including another family which means we would have two on the island. So a few of us got together to clear out the fun house and make that into a second family bure for the duration of their stay. This meant hanging some curtains on the doors and putting the double mattress back in. We then moved on to clearing out the New Vale as we had a lot of departures from here so we sorted out all the mosquito nets, and cut the mattresses to fit the beds. We then cleared out all the rubbish and gave it a good sweep. Next mission was the grand bure, this got tidied, cleared out and swept, the whole place was looking amazing afterwards ready for the boat load of newbie’s. When the new tribe members arrived I met Lisa Nasari on the beach with a watermelon as this is a deal we came to on her previous visit if she was to come back whilst I was Chief and Lisa arrived with goodies for all of the staff and myself. We then got them settled in, gave them tea and then I gave them their grand tour of their new home for the duration of their stay. After dinner it was a chilling out session around the dinner until numbers slowly dwindled and everybody was in bed.

Sunday was greeted with a nice lay in and an awesome breakfast of eggy bread, cereals and cold milk. This was also the day that July Chief Mariah felt it was time to leave the Chiefs Bure, and in I moved. We also ha some late arrivals on Saturday who arrived in the dark so I gave them their tour of the island. I then spent time chilling with the tribe members including to help make bread where Floerence AKA hurricane Flo who was our youngest tribe member this week at years old decided that she would cover me in flour from the waist up. Flo also got covered in flour so we had to take a wash in the sea which was a task in itself at low tide and with Flo not agreeing to any of my suggestions for places to sit and wash. After lunch we had to team meeting which was Mariah’s last so we sat with a few treats first brought kindly by Mariah. Then onto Api hour which is a couple of hours grog session outside the Api’s island house. This then continued after dinner into the evening.

We started Monday with a few group tasks. This involved a few of us swimming out to bring the pontoon and bringing it to shore so over the next few weeks we can take off the rust and repaint it to make it last longer. Pupu saved the day by solving the problem of getting a square pontoon up the beach as “nothing is hard in this world”. Team Fiji then cleared all the dead leaves and any other rubbish from behind the family bure. Normal projects hen resumed, Pupu and Poasa on bambooing the Team Fiji bure, Liavi on gardens and Tale, Sosi and Marau on rain catchment. The posts for this were concreted in but we had no support beams so Marau found a tree trunk and worked his magic witht the chainsaw and we had our beams. After dinner we had a little informal grog session in the Team Fiji bure where they were presented with chocolate from Mariah and a photo album filled with 300 photos from the island from Adam Carter.

Tuesday was a big day, usual activities in the morning including 4 peaks, bamboo and rain catchment. As year 2 hasn’t really been filmed much we filmed a few shots of getting ready for sevu sevu which also included Chief handover from Mariah to myself. This was definitely an experience, this was when reality kicked in that I was actually going to be Chief here for a month. The day entails lots of grog, meke including the male and female meke’s this week and then outside into the cool air for more grog late into the night.

Wednesday Pupu and Poasa moved on to putting a second layer of bamboo on he funhouse. The rain catchment also finally got finished so that’s one job off the list done and dusted. Today was the first tie in weeks we’ve had a decent rain so it was all hands to deck with any container to collect as much water as possible. After seeing the guttering on the kitchen roof after the rain had finished I could see that a lot of water settled in here so myself and Ben Katz decided to take it down, wash it in the sea and move all the brackets so that the guttering slanted more. Today was also Flo’s birthday but due to late arrivals again we couldn’t have any birthday cake after dinner so this would have to be saved for Thursday. Around the grog mat we needed to make meke costumes as we were attending a wedding Thursday and promised to provide entertainment in the form of meke. This then ended up being a early morning grog session where myself and a few of Team Fiji were up till in the morning.

Thursday no projects would be getting done as the day would be spent at Nakawaga for the wedding. Here we got to sample a traditional lovo and on the menu was Pork, fish boiled and fried and also turtle along with the standard cassava. When we got back to the island we had dinner and after an exhausting few days it was off to bed for me.

Friday Team Fiji and a large amount of the tribe were up before the sun to help clear the site for the showers so that it would be easier for designs. For this we all had health in mind so all wore a band of leaves around our heads as protection. Geoff AKA jazzy G then drew up some designs with Ben and also a materials list for Saturday. Once the hill was cleared Marau emptied the tool shed, retrieved all the tolls and sorted it all out. The rest of team Fiji started work on the he pontoon taking off all the rust. We then went off to Mali district school after an early lunch to find only a quarter of the children at school but was still an enjoyable experience. When we got back to Vorovoro we had a small Moce grog session for Team Fiji which was a nice ending to the week. For the evening we had a chill out around the fire outside the sunflower hut.

And one last thing, why is my Chief name Tui flapjack, well I’m well known for being involved in the making of flapjack for the tribe with the tribe providing them with sugary goodness.

Moce until next week from Tui Flapjack.