Tribewanted: Vorovoro

Bula sia from Tui Flapjack and welcome to the second week of August.

Many of you either online or who have previously been to the island may have been involved in discussions about the showers on the island. Well, after much time the voting for location has finished and the final designs have been made. This then meant that come Saturday morning Benjamin Katz (sustainability manager) and myself could go to Labasa and order the materials needed for the project. This took a few hours as we got quotes for everything then tried to find somewhere cheaper. We then ordered the materials from two suppliers ordering the cheapest from each. Some we could take back to the island there and then, some we had to wait until Monday. Saturday night we had a carnival, this involved face painting and a few games and a show of Giles nitro meke, Katie’s hip hop dancing and a few more lessons in dancing.

Sunday I was finally able to rest a little, so off to secret beach I headed and spent a couple of hours chilling there and managed to slightly burn but nothing to bad thankfully. We then had our usual team meeting which went into the dark.

Monday was extremely productive. We welcomed Team Fiji back after their weekend away from the island. This started of with a meeting to discuss the week with them and then into an Isa Lei for those Tribe members leaving. All of Team Fiji then started work on the showers. The voting by the online community decided that the shoers should be located by the water tanks. Due to the nature of the ground up there the guys had to build a wall out of rock and cement and then fill this in with soil to provide the base. Today was also the day that out wood order would be ready to pick up. This involves going to the local saw mill FFI to walk around the whole mill visiting every office go try and find our order, try and pay for it then collect it. This went rather well Monday considering the size of our order as it has been known to take several hours to collect wood from here before. This took two journeys to collect the wood as we had so much and myself and Rich had a go at driving the boat to the mill which was an awesome experience. After the wood had been collected I helped out with the showers until the team were finished for the day. The evening was then spent around the grog bowl where the tribe was presented with a new lantern and gas bottle by Pupu who was asked to present this on behalf of Adam Carter who kindly brought this for the tribe. Adam also brought team Fiji a bundle of grog.

Tuesday we woke up early to get as much work done with the shower base as we could before we had to stop for sevu sevu.. Sevu sevu was rather quick this week as we had been invited for dinner to one of the villages on Mali island by the Chief to celebrate his 60th birthday. This was a great honour for the tribe and especially me as I got to sit at the top and eat with him. They hosted an amazing meal especially for us, built a dining area all decorated and lit and brought a while cow for the lovo which was a few hundred dollars. When we got back to the island we had some visitor’s, some villagers from Mali island some from the main land. This then meant lots and grog and also lots of amazing singing.

Wednesday saw the continuation of the showers with finishing of the base which involved completing the filling and then compacting the soil ad marking out the layout of the showers. The team also managed to clear all of the area for the new location for the stairs to the showers as the current path up the hill is extremely steep and will be dangerous in the wet season. Whilst all of this was going on Marau and myself completed building the floor in the family bure. Save also held meke classes to get everybody up to scratch. The evening was spent making meke costumes and then onto the usual late night grog session.

Thursday morning was earier than usual with the whole tribe being u by 6.30 for breakfast as 37 tribemembers, team Fiji and staff had to make it to Malau by 8.30 to catch the bus to All Saints Secondary school. This was a massive day for Tribe Wanted as we had been invited to perform the meke and the Cadets passing out parade. This meant performing in front of over a 1000 people including the Northern commissioner, the head of the nortern army, Tui Mali and many other VIP’s. As I’m Chief for the month I got to sit in the VIP pavilion with all of these and watch to tribe perform from the prime position. We left the school around 12.30 and had to wait to catch the bus and as I felt everyone performed amazingly and done the project proud I brought everyone an ice cream. We then had an interesting bus journey back as the bus full before we got on so was pretty cramped. Little by little other passengers left the bus and we eventually ended up with almost the whole bus to our selves.

Usually on a Friday we visit Mali district school, which is the local primary school but as it was the childrens last day they all go home early. So work then continued on the showers and Marau concentrated on building the middle section of the floor in the New Vale. We had the island forum in the morning and a small grog session to say Moce to Team Fiji for the week end. The tribe chilled around the fire after dinner after and exhausting week, many having an early night.

After seeing the work Team Fiji have managed to do with the showers over the week even with so many other events going on I’ve definitely seen the other side of Fiji time and am grateful to everyone for their hard week to get this project finished by the end of the month.

MOCE until next week

Tui Flapjack
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