Tribewanted: Vorovoro

Bula sia tribe!

I can’t believe another week has gone by so fast. Today is August 2nd and Dan is now chief, doing an excellent job, and I’m left to enjoy my last few days and finish some pending projects. To continue from my last blog, the Team Fiji bure was finished last week (the roof and second layer of bamboo) and we had some grog to celebrate its completion. That same night Ben Keene told the story of Tribewanted over grog which was great to hear, with all the key players sitting around the bowl with us.

On Friday we had a fantastic day at Tui Mali’s. As noted in the previous blog, the punishment for the frog bombing (putting frogs in girls’ beds) as determined by Tui Mali was to put up a large pole so his power line could be attached to it, as it had fallen down recently. The entire tribe went to Tui Mali’s to help in this venture, with all of us standing in awe at Pupu Epeli’s chainsaw skills. In the end two poles were bolted in the middle and raised with half the tribe lifting the pole and the other half pulling, raising the pole and finally cementing it in place. We also moved a lot of earth from the bottom of Tui Mali’s property to a newly planted garden in his front yard. We were rewarded with lunch and a rest on his porch, and a small grog session before we left. It was a great day to be able to help Tui Mali and do some work as a tribe. Tevita told me Tui Mali was proud of Tribewanted because we are really acting like a tribe and a village, we take care of our chief and make the effort to help him with big projects, and in turn we have earned his respect. Vinaka for everyone’s hard work at Tui Mali’s!

After Tui Mali’s on Friday we went to Vuo, the village that Pupu and Leavi are from on the mainland. The village provided us with afternoon tea, welcomed us with a prayer and hymn, and we thanked them with some meke. The meke was so good that the pastor invited us to stay and meke for a week for them! I sat inside and drank grog with the men of the village and Tui Mali as chief, while folks outside enjoyed the meke with lots of laughter and shouting. We were then presented with a fantastic dinner while the choir sang for us, which was amazing. Many of the tribe at the end of the night said: ‘I can’t even believe we were able to do this today, if I tried to call home and explain what we did tonight to my family, I just wouldn’t know what to say.’ At the end of the evening before we left Tevita presented our tatou and the money we had raised through tribe member donations for the choir, who are traveling to Suva for the choir competition this Wednesday. The people were obviously very touched by the gesture and in return they presented a tabua, a whale’s tooth. For me, sitting at the top of the mat, it was a very surreal moment seeing this important presentation from where Tui Mali sits, and I couldn’t have appreciated the day any more, Vuo hosted us very well and the day was another tribe highlight! We walked from Vuo back to Malau under the stars and sat waiting for our boat on the seawall singing Bob Marley – who wouldn’t love this place?

Last week Ben Katz, Amy, and I attended a community meeting on the local marine protected areas, or tabu sites. The World Conservation Society has done surveys of the area and are proposing more protected areas based on that research. We listened to the presentations and took the information back to Tui Mali to discuss how Tribewanted can help. Tui Mali agreed that the proposed areas were good to protect, and that they problem is the enforcement of the areas. Tui Mali brought his giant torch last night and it will stay on the island so tribe members can sweep the tabu areas at night with the beam to scare off any illegal fishers. I will get a more formal blog on the sites, etc. up when I get home in a few weeks, but those are the highlights for now!

Another relaxing weekend was enjoyed by the tribe with some much deserved hammock and beach time. On Wednesday I took tribe members out snorkeling to map the bay in front of the village and Tevita, Leavi, and Marau came with us! Later Tevita, with the biggest grin on his face, confessed that it was his first time snorkeling! We had a great time in the rough water trying to measure and take measurements, with the Fijian laughter muffled only slightly by snorkels! This week Marau has finished a tall snorkeling cabinet behind Jim’s map of the village to properly store all of the gear, as I’ve brought an additional 8 masks and snorkels as a personal gift for the tribe. With the last of my budget I bought materials to increase the water catchment on the hill by the water tanks, 6 new pieces of tin are set up now with another 6 to go up in the future. Ben Katz, Rich (tribe member), and I had an adventurous day in Mali visiting all three villages getting together plans for shoreline protection (piles of rocks like seawalls) for all the villages that can hopefully be carried out by the Dream Foundation. The people in the villages were so happy to have some assistance with plans and get more information about the shorelines and that Tribewanted is getting so involved in the community. That same day we went to a community meeting with Tui Mali and all the village elders. We spoke at the end, telling the villages we are excited Tribewanted is getting more involved in the local communities, and we look forward to helping them protect their villages from storms with shoreline plans and to help police the tabu (marine protected areas) areas off the islands. Now that we are more knowledgeable about Fijian culture, we are being accepted into the community more, and being treated like a true village of Mali, and all tribe members deserve a big VINAKA for getting us to this point. The next year will be exciting to see how these relationships grow.

It is the end of my month and I couldn’t be more appreciative of the entire experience. Every team member and tribe member has added something to the month, and the success of this month is owed to all of them. It is exciting to see this project grow into something so big; we are truly making a positive impact here. Vinaka vakalevu for the opportunity to be chief, it has been amazing. I know the next two months will be fantastic as well, as Dan and Paul have both been on the island for my month and are dedicated tribe members! Beat wishes for August and September guys!