Tribewanted: Vorovoro

So 3 times a week, we line up on the beach, the sea is calm and a festival of blue and green, the sky is a blue so deep you feel like higher powers must have constructed it. The waves gently lap the shore line and there are a group of hastily packed rucksacks sitting there looking totally incongruous to their environment. Rarely does anything look as out of place to its surroundings on the island as a packed bag waiting in the ‘departure lounge.’

Then the clapping starts, guitars spark into life and then the harmonious crescendo of ‘Isa Isa, vulagi lasa dina’ breaks across the assembled lines. Then, the good byes. Tribe members of varying lengths of time then try and navigate the emotional gauntlet trying to keep it together. Tears are shed, promises are made, depths of friendships are suddenly realised. Then the song finishes. Whoever’s leaving is standing between the bamboo posts(‘ of doom’) not really knowing where to look, probably not really feeling their legs. Then Api rips the engine into life and ‘moce,’ the experience is over and the island and the happy faces on the beach slowly disappear into the distance and subsequently the memory.

And then it happens to you…..............

Vorovoro has this timeless quality to it. That is why leaving can feel so weird, suddenly time is over. For once Fiji Time has actual defined boundaries. It’s weird, not in a nice way.

Having had the opportunity to spend just under a year connected with the island i now look back on as a real privilege. The reality for those who live and work there is that it is practically impossible to enjoy the island in a way the Tribe do. Living in your workplace (sorry to define it so clinically) means that you can never really let yourself go in a way those around you might be able to. However that doesn’t mean you still don’t connect with it in your own way. To have met and interacted with so many fantastic people (from both sides of the cultural fence) over the last 12 months has been a mixture of so many things from exhilarating to exhausting, inspiring to emotional, from feeling like you are on top of the world to having never felt more lonely. It is a real trip, a real trip.

However for all the ups and downs of living and working there once you have gone you only ever remember the good times, of which there are countless. It’s such a surreal place where laughter and community spirit are the currency, unparalleled beauty the stage, and a profound and traditional culture the magic glue that binds it together. You tell people about it and their faces glaze over, it doesn’t sound real.

Now, sitting in the living room of my rented house on a Saturday night in the UK, it almost feels like it never happened. I only got back to the UK 10 days ago and within days found myself registering myself at Bristol Uni on a medical course. You couldn’t swing any further from one side of the spectrum to the other. People keep asking how i’m adjusting, and in truth i don’t really know. Things have changed so dramatically in the last few weeks that its practically impossible to have any real sense of perspective.

What i do know though is that whenever i think of the place i smile. Granted it’s a smile that is laced with an ‘isa,’ but it’s still a smile. To try and go into the emotional subtlety of living a place like Vorovoro after a lengthy stay is practically impossible. Words don’t really do any justice to the memories of the experience.

However the reflex reaction grin on my face is my barometer of the last year. Yes, i miss terribly the people and the friendships that came with them, but the fact i can call them friends through the experience means more than anything.

As regards to coping with reality of not being there any more, I know that I have been privileged to an experience that isn’t offered to many, and that is more than enough.