Tribewanted: Vorovoro

This time last year, Tale and Kesa’s dad, Elina’s husband and Sosi’s Uncle, Pita Buisena Tale sadly passed away. He was a very recognized and important man for Tribewanted and the Mali District and he helped out on large projects such as the water tanks and bamboo showers. His death was unexpected and rocked the Tribewanted community. In order to commemorate Pita a year on, celebrate his life and to pay respects to the Tale family, we thought it would be a good idea to have a permanent feature built on Vorovoro. We wanted something to be useful and to be placed in a beautiful part of the island near to where Pita used to work, so it was decided that a handmade bench would be made from materials that were already here.

As we have spent quite a bit of time up on the hill recently with the new shower construction taking place, we realised this was a great location for the bench overlooking the breadfruit trees and lushious vegetation, back dropped by the hill side. Up here is extremely peaceful and splashed with nature and beautiful colours so it just seemed apt. Obviously the new showers are up here too but we made sure the positioning of the bench wouldn’t overlook into them!

Whilst on the Four peaks, I spotted a perfectly benched shaped piece of drift wood on the beach leading up to Peak 4 and the ancestors of Tui Mali’s graves, so we managed to drive the boat around later at high tide and pick it up. Once it was carried up the hill, Pupu took to work with the chainsaw and with the help of Te and Sosi; they knocked up an amazing, abstract bench in an afternoon!

Whilst I was in the tool shed, I heard the rev’s of the chainsaw and raced up the hill so not to miss out on seeing the legend at work. Pupu pretty much built the Grande Bure purely with his chainsaw and incredible hand-eye coordination (no pencils or spirit levels were used during the making) so I knew it would be an awesome experience.

Paul and I watched as Pupu gently eased the chainsaw through the wood to form two indents for the back rest. He then managed to cleverly carve several other branches in record timing whilst Sosi banged in the nails. This man has skill! We weren’t quite sure what the design plan was but we knew that if Pupu was leading it, then it would be a work of art. Even Te was in awe by Pupu’s chainsaw abilities and stood with a huge grin on his face!

Random bits of wood were diagonally placed to form a support whilst extra lengths were put upright as Pupu said ‘just in case we wanted to put a shelter on it after.’ After a short time, the excess pieces had been chainsawed off and the interlocking pieces of wood were flipped over. The bench had been made. Te and Sosi securely fixed it into the sand and it stood proudly in the afternoon sunlight. Although it doesn’t take on the ‘normal’ bench appearance, it definitely had that island style ‘Pupu invention’ look. What’s normal anyway…love it!

We have yet to engrave it but Tale is coming up with a special message for his Dad. Although I never met Pita, he seemed to have made a huge impact to this place and it’s brilliant to still have his family around us each day.

I am sure Pita would be extremely proud.