Tribewanted: Vorovoro

This week has seen plenty of action on Vorovoro. I didn’t feel any jet lag thanks to the magic plane tablets and so managed to get straight into community life under my Fijian name of Vicar. Several water proofing projects have been happening this week, getting the island in shape for the rainy season. I started off helping Watsoni cut palm fronds down near Tanoa park, before dragging them back to the Grand Bure for a lesson in weaving with the legend that is Pupu. I am now a ‘very good weaver’. Four roof panels and one huge stick insect later and I was ready for the morning bell to signify tea and cake time. Later on work resumed and Pupu showed me how to make the walls for the side of the house by bashing and weaving bamboo. Hard work in the sunshine, but great fun and now an essential skill should I ever be stuck somewhere, Ray Mears style. By the end of the day we had earnt our rest time – a grog session with Tui Mali. The good thing about grog is that it gets better each time you drink it, so hopefully by the end of next week I’ll be a pro.

After several long term departures last week, I found myself promoted to Vale Elder and became responsible for sand and ant control… in addition, it’s been my karmic duty this week to look after the pregnant (hungry) pig and the 4 chickens, so the animals of Vorovoro are in good hands (except the ants). In between pig duty and resting in the hammocks I’ve mastered some meke moves with Save, helped Leavi sing to the vegetables in the garden to make them grow and learnt the words to Daru mai lele with Tale – apparently I’ve been talking in Fijian in my sleep so it appears that they have sunk in. Tokana showed me how to husk and grate a coconut and we made pasta from scratch with Giovani-Alfredo, so now I’ll never look at pasta or tinned coconut milk the same way again now. This week we’ve also celebrated 3 birthdays (two of them twice), eaten at least 10 cakes, had 3 Isa Lei’s, been interviewed on film for a French TV crew and had a Norwegian style party which resulted in a beach catwalk show and a rendition of Jim’ll fix it.

There’s been plenty of snorkeling time but not a single fresh water shower in sight. The closest we got to showering was during a huge storm last week where we ran around outside collecting as much water as possible – every plastic bucket we could find was laid out on the ground and we had to run between these and the storage containers to get as much into the tank as possible. Amy and I had a real gym-workout on the water pump. Hopefully I’ll be fit enough for a round-island swim soon but it’ll have to be before Jim gets back as I don’t want to be kicked out of the hammock society. At the minute, there’s even competition for hammocks as plenty of new, dedicated members have arrived. I even saw a towel laid out on one – terrible. Ha ha.

Matteo wanted to learn some Poi so I made a second set using small coconuts and woven rope and began teaching him. He claims he’s never done it before but he mastered some of the moves that took me weeks to learn in about half an hour, so I’m not convinced. In any case, he’s pretty good and will be teaching me soon. I might leave my poi behind in the sharing spirit.

Someone just walked into the internet café wearing a t-shirt that said; ‘You are unique, just like me’. Cool t-shirt. Anyway, my cheese twisties have gone, and my time at Govinda’s is up so it’s back to Vorovoro for all the fun of a new week xx