Tribewanted: Vorovoro

The Dam

By the end of the day today, the filling of the Dam will be finished. We will then wait three weeks for the concrete to cure at which point the wooden box will be taken down, the pipes will be closed, and the reservoir will begin to fill. It has been a long project and many people have been involved in helping it to come about and I want to thank all of you. Tuesday marked the first day of mixing cement. It was an exciting occasion as Tui Mali came up to pour in the first bucket of concrete. We had a short grog ceremony after which everyone poured in a bucket of concrete. We had brought up a few guitars and for the next hour we worked to the sounds of Te, Save, and Uraia.

It felt like a perfect day in Fiji.

It wasn’t long before the first hiccup occurred. I realized that the ratio of cement-sand-gravel in the mix wasn’t what we had agreed upon. We had planned to use a 1-2-3 ratio. They had been measuring cement by ½ bags and the sand and gravel by shovels and after careful negotiation with Marau, it became apparent that we were using a 1-.8-1.6 ratio. This wasn’t a problem as far as strength of the dam was concerned; it just meant that we would be using significantly more cement than I had anticipated. After a short discussion with Pupu, who agreed with Marau’s 1-.8-1.6 mix, I decided to go with their knowledge and experience of working in this climate. It should be a strong dam. After the first day of working, we had finished about 18 bags of cement and over 200 bags of both sand and gravel each containing about 8 shovels. We were almost out of sand and gravel and down to 12 bags of cement. It has been an interesting few days dealing with uncertainty in a job that normally would be very specific. In the end we decided to pay one price to finish the dam that included carrying all the materials. In hindsight, this should have been the approach from the beginning. The good news is that everyone is safe, and the job will be completed by the end of today. It may have cost a bit more than initially expected, but we still came in about 2/3 under the cost of building another concrete water tank.

As many of you who have been following this project know, the 265k liters of water that this project will provide for the village will be used for watering the gardens and bathing during the dry season. With the help of our compost pile and our friends at Crest Chicken, We are hopping to start a beautiful new garden using the ideas of permaculture behind the kitchen. This will be one of the first such gardens in the country. For more information on Permaculture check out

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture

We will also be incorporating lessons on permaculture into our weekly sustainability forums.

The Green Club

The Green club is back in action and we kicked it off with a lesson on global warming to tie in with the National Teachin held in the USA. Unfortunately due to technical difficulties we weren’t able to put together a video that we had planned out, but it was a great success non the less. On Feb 2nd, the tribe sat in a circle with the Mali school kids and helped them to teach us about what happens when you put to much pollution in the atmosphere. It was a great time and the teachers said it was the best school trip yet.

For more information on Global Warming check out this site from The Union of Concerned Scientists:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/
or watch the movies
The Eleventh Hour
An Inconvenient Truth

Last week, we talked about growing your own food and how it can benefit the environment and is healthier for you too. We also made the first presentation of money raised by Kaz from the Zaishu Project and a few smaller donations from tribe members to the headmaster.

If you are interested to learn more about food sustainability check out

The True Cost of Food

This week we went in the morning to attend the prefect badge ceremony and to present some tools that we have bought for the Green Club with our funds. It was great sitting with Tui Mali drinking grog watching the kids exhaust the tribe members with their limitless energy but it didn’t leave any time for Green Club activities.

Next week we will be going back to help them clear the land around the school and to start to sow some of the seeds that we have purchased from a local vendor in the market.

Unfortunately for now, it looks like the Green Club wont be able to make it over to Vorovoro very regularly as the kids aren’t allowed off school grounds during school hours. We are trying to get the headmaster to understand the concept of a field trip, but it may take some time. In the mean time, things are moving forward and the tribe and the Mali school kids are all coming away having learned something new about the environment and having shared a bit of their culture.