Tribewanted: Vorovoro

As I’ve mentioned to some of you I write for felix, Imperial College’s student newspaper, as Travel Editor and have recently published an article about my time on the island. Thought I’d blog it so all of you fellow tribies get to have a read. So yeah, enjoy!

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WANTED: One tribe, one people, one dream, one eco-paradise

This is not a how-to-survive-on-a-desert-island-eco-sustainability-project guide. Dylan Lowe reports on his one-week stay on Tribewanted, and how he learnt to live life to its fullest. And greenest

Sickle as it was, the moon still dazzled the waters with a good dose of lustre. The crackle of firewood harmonised with its scent – at least when I wasn’t prodding the bonfire to revive the flames, only to be retorted with blasts of smoke. My eyes were welling, and droplets rolling down the cheeks fast. I shielded my face from view.

It wasn’t that I was eager to salvage my dignity, or prove not to be a wimp. It was because I genuinely felt like shedding a tear or two.

That moment conveniently amplified my disliking for leaving.

I sought solace in my fellow tribe members – only a week ago we were scattered beings, linked no more than some six-degree of separation. Their names are now scrawled all over this book I purchased earlier from the tribal market. This book, written by the co-founder of Tribewanted, Ben Keene, depicts the author’s personal journey in establishing the desert island community.

Final requests for songs were spent, the kava in the tanoa running thin. With electricity running scarce – we had very little sunlight for the entire weekend – we abandoned the Grand Bure and scattered for our driftwood-made beds. I never quite made it to mine – staggering towards the beach I found my spot, overlooking the third largest reef in the world, on the hammock.

They say a session on the hammock can cure anything; it was my ideal remedy for all kava-related discomforts after all. But then, can it heal a heartbreak?

I didn’t, at the time, spare a thought on that. Under the sweet, gentle sway, dawn seemed like a gazillion years away.

If the name Tribewanted rings a bell, chances are that you have seen the block letters smeared across the pages of the Metro, or numerous other newspapers, back in 2006. This tourism experiment-cum-paradise is the brainchild of two young entrepreneurs and avid travellers, Ben Keene and Mark James Bowness, who dreamt of linking an online social network with a real-life island community – people would meet online, participate with decision-making processes such as electing a monthly on-island chief, before paying to visit the island, named Vorovoro, in person and help build a sustainable village with the local indigenous community as well as having the adventure of a lifetime.

Better summed up in Ben’s own words: “MySpace with a real space, Facebook with a real face”.

Three years have passed by since negotiating a land lease deal with local chief and landowner, the revered Tui Mali. Has Tribewanted lived up to its expectations? When a devastating fire, super-cyclone, military coup and online scandals have all ravaged the island but failed to deter it from being the success story it is today, perhaps it has.

And so, as the conch sounded to mark Tribewanted’s third anniversary on Vorovoro, Tui Mali graciously bestowed his approval on a five-year extension to the original lease. What was designed as a three-year social experiment project has now a much-longer future to look forward to.

Vorovoro Island itself is located off the coast of Vanua Levu, the second largest island of Fiji and northeast of Viti Levu, the political centre of the Pacific nation. This 200-acre island is home to the indigenous Fijians, many of whom now live, work and play alongside visiting members and the management team.

And, not so coincidentally, the island I had opted to spend a week on.

One could not claim to have struggled to fit in. Even though, upon arrival, my fellow island residents and tribe members seemed to be an inner circle to infiltrate – they do know each other a lot more than I do – not knowing anyone was not a valid excuse for feeling alienated on Vorovoro.

I was swiftly reminded that, from the individuals who unloaded my rucksacks, the unfamiliar smiling faces quizzing me for names and origins, to our monthly chief Charlotte who gave us a tour around the island, and even Ben Keene himself who I had the pleasure to meet, absolutely everyone had been in my position once, daunted as I was, and gawked blankly into the great unknown.

Then interactions would spark, either by the roaring flames or with kava in your gut – or both – and your status as a complete stranger shamelessly stripped away.

This sense of community isn’t just something Tribewanted advocates: more importantly, it was the foundation stones the island ‘tribe’ was built upon.

But this community doesn’t end at the fine line in the sand, as Tui Mali put it, that separates us foreigners from the Fijians. When I could say bula (hello) and yadra sia (good morning) to every single person sauntering down the streets of Labasa – town and transit point between Vorovoro and the rest of Fiji – I had no doubt that Fijians are amongst the friendliest people on our increasingly frigid planet. But to actually belong to a family that cast aside their differences of language, skin colour, etiquettes and habits, was a privilege I hadn’t found anywhere else.

And though my patchy Fijian could use some polishing – I could always attend a culture class on-island and learn useful phrases and songs – I gradually incorporated my lifestyle with the Fijian ways of life. My sense of urgency vanished overnight, I worked as I saw fit even though I would never refuse a request for help; the line sega na lega (no worries) became my catchphrase, and I would never accept a bilo with less than a ‘high tide’ of kava brimming in the coconut shell. And I couldn’t see another way to end an evening than sensing the drum on the touch of my fingertips, rocking to the beat, and feeling belittled by the natural musical
talents of those surrounding me.

It was as though Vorovoro breathed and lived in a separate existence to the rest of the world. It was twisted logic. It was a collective bunch of people coming together, all bearing in mind that a little bit of fun is what we need to introduce to our lives, harsh and unforgiving as they are. Think Lord of the Flies, or The Beach, minus island politics, armed marijuana farmers and sexual complications.

When Chez, a fellow tribe member, had found a frog lounging in her bed, an ‘investigation’ was swiftly launched and a ‘trial’ scheduled – apparently the activity of ‘frog-bombing’ was such a rife prank-related phenomenon that Tui Mali himself outlawed it. Whatever the outcome of the trial turned out to be – unfortunately I missed the occasion as it took place on my day of departure – there wouldn’t be any serious punishment. On Vorovoro, deliverance of bureaucracy and justice could only be served with a light-hearted attitude.

Madness, did you say? You have yet to hear about the ‘string-man challenge’, where Pete the string-man had opted to spend 24-hours in a hammock; the 50-odd school children who ransacked our island with mischief and laughter; the two hours and twelve minutes record time for Amy the Iron Maiden to swim around the island and sprint across the four peaks of Vorovoro. It was this very madness that brought out the best of our personalities, our perceptions to challenges.

Meet Oliver, the five-year-old youngest of the Cahill family hailing from Indiana. He would wield a machete with more proficiency than I do, or any of my peers. He would tread, barefoot, on ground so jagged that I could only replicate such a feat with a girly squeal.

Or meet Epeli – more affectionately known as Pupu – who recently celebrated his seventieth but continued to shame thirty-year-olds with his strength and chainsaw skills. He was the man who coined the phrase that achieved legendary status on the island: “nothing [is] hard in this world”. He certainly didn’t find it hard to conceal his pain, as I discovered when the Fijian told me vividly over grog how he managed to accidentally drive several nails through the flesh of his palm.

But it wasn’t all insanity on the island – there were pressing issues that the community was attempting to address and deal with. Like the rising of sea level, or alterations in climate patterns – we had an extraordinarily wet dry season this summer – or shortages in food supplies if we persisted in our consumerist ways. All reflected vibrantly by the deterioration of the sceneries we had grown to adore, and would pain us to see destroyed and devoured by our greed.

Not only had Vorovoro converted my lifestyle, it was where my love affair for the environment had truly begun. Not the radical kind, but that of admiration for the power of nature and awareness of what we are doing to our planet.

With blades of the wind turbine swishing above our heads, solar panels basking and harvesting under the sun, biodiesel engines grinding and reeking, it wasn’t difficult to envision a community of total self-sustainability. And with the village – including the Grand Bure, dormitories, kitchen, compost toilets – entirely built by the hands of tribe members past and present, piglets and chickens raised and ready for slaughter, veg patches adorned with produce, the ‘dream’ didn’t seem the least unrealistic to me.

What about the luxury and conveniences I should have experienced when I embark on this ‘holiday package’? Well, creating convenience and moving away from traditional lifestyles aren’t necessarily advancement, or evolution; rather, we are forgetting the smidgens of wisdom that had allowed our ancestors to coexist with their environment. It is this realisation that set apart my other travel experiences from the week spent on Vorovoro.

But the dream doesn’t necessarily end on Vorovoro.

As the children descended upon the shores, they were instructed to help pick up rubbish on sections of beach where much junk had been washed up. Though it wasn’t so much about the costless manual labour – I did however suspect it was a motivation – gearing their curiosity towards recycling and waste management was the one thing we tried to achieve on the day. The future generation of Fijians were now gathered on Vorovoro, and it was our duty to inspire and educate those who would spread Tribewanted’s legacy throughout the country, if not the South Pacific or the rest of the world.

And with Vorovoro treated by many as test ground for fusing sustainability technology with the old ways of living, who knows where this legacy would take us?

Isa Lei expresses one’s remorse on the subject of departure. I had been struck by the sentimentality of the song when lined up on the beach, saying my goodbyes to the departing members. Stepping back from the scene as the final moce (goodbye) was cried out, I attempted to comprehend the poignant metaphor it represented – I had just gazed into the bridge between life and death. The tribe had been blissfully oblivious of the unknown that lie beyond those shores – but what would happen when it was time to leave?

The thought reflected bluntly on my perception of the matter: should I shun death with utmost fright, or should I treat it as yet another adventure?

And now, arousing cradled in the comforts of the hammock and morning breeze, it was time to pack and ready myself for my share of Isa Lei.

Confession: I failed. I disembarked some seven days ago with the determination to not get too involved with the island’s affairs, to save myself the heartbreak. I distanced myself from ongoing projects, sought not to engage with people or develop any intimate relationships, and concealed my true personality in order to achieve isolation. How wrong was I. Not solely for the reason that it denied all of my laws and ethics of travelling, but for so naïvely believing that my remoteness can win against the captivation that was Vorovoro Island and its inhabitants.

They say Vorovoro is one of the hardest places on Earth for goodbyes. Final words aside, all I could do was fighting back the tears. As the engines fired up, motorboat scoring a trail of foam against the waters, I took a glimpse behind my shoulder. The island had diminished into the horizon – inevitably I began to feel ‘homesick’. Vorovoro had now become the place where I had left behind a shard of my heart and – I cursed under my breath as realisation kicked in – my only pair of board shorts.

Ben uttered something about the island being my home, and that I am always welcome to return. One day perhaps?