Tribewanted: Vorovoro

(We joke that Oliver is about 85% Fijian now – he is most definitely in his element here on the island. From the moment his eyes open in the morning till he falls into bed exhausted each night, he is a boy on the move – fishing or catching bait, helping in the kitchen, using his machete to help weed, working in his garden, helping in the cassava patch, collecting firewood, starting a fire, off on some adventure with Poi, or helping with the many, many other projects always happening around the village. He speaks quite a lot of Fijian, and sponges up new words and phrases to add to his vocabulary everyday. I was able to catch him sitting still one day and asked him to tell a little about his island experience. Here it is as he told it to me, in his own words…)

I do a lot of fishing. I fish all the time with Poi. Poi is my friend. And I play with Poi a lot. I have caughten 2 barracuda, I have caughten a shark, and I have caughten a big eel. I have also caughten lots of fish.

For my bait, I use hermit crabs, I use eel, and I use big fish and little fish. I catch crabs by coming down to the mangroves. At night I go and catch big, giant ones. When they are big, I smash their shells to get the crab out. When they are small, I whistle into their shells to get them to come out, and then I grab them and pull them out. Francis, one of our cooks, taught me how to whistle the crabs out.

We make spears and we throw them at fish. They are really sharp. I have hit lots of fish, but whenever I grab the spear, the fish always gets off. I have hit lots of eels, and once I got it out of the water, but it got away.
Sometimes Api and Jone takes me out fishing at night in the boat. Quite a lot of times I catch a lot of fish, and sometimes I catch none.

And up in the village, I was running up to play with Poi and I found this big crab. Then me and Kini got it out because it ran under the toilets, and then we let it free out in the ocean. It wasn’t a good crab for bait.

I am off to catch the next koli levu! (big fish)

Moce!

Oliver