Tribewanted: Vorovoro

Up with the 6am Lali drum and after breakfast Katie, Lisa and I went to the secret bathing spot for a proper scrub down before the wedding. We had a lovely soak and girlie chat – but stayed a bit long as the conch for the morning meeting blew early. Mad dash to get covered up and get to the grande bure. After the meeting I was told that I was being filmed today to do commentary (my perspective on the days event). So even more of a mad dash to get ready and make it to the first of two boats leaving.

When we arrived we first attended a Sevu Sevu. One was to be invited to a birthday party next week and the next was from our Chief Dan – thanking our host for invitin us to the wedding – it was indeed a great honor!

We had a long wait for the wedding ceremony to get ready – remember – this is Fajian time – clocks and schedules are rarely used :)

The processional up the hill to the church was beautiful – I only hope my pictures to follow will do it justice! The wedding took about an hour – then back to Tui Mali’s house we went for some juice and a snack – was hard to tell how long before the big feast. The weather was VERY hot that day so the juice break was very much appreaciated.

As the church was packed I watched a bit from outside and spent a LOT of time with the children. So beautiful so curious! They asked my name, my mother’s name, my sisters name, how old we were all respectively, was my father still alive and so on. There is no western concept of personal space here so soon enough I was draped in children using me as a pillow – a toy and someone very new and unusual to chat with. They are all taught English in school so I’m sure they were keen to practise their skills.

Finally the feast which I believe was a Lovo (deep cooking pit in the ground to roast the pork. The menu was very interesting. Roast pork, fried fish, talo root, a sort of beef chow mein, and two types of sea turtle dished. For those on the know – these are an endangered species and banned – but apparently they do it for special occasions like weddings still. I did try a bite and it was very good! It is not their hunting that has endangered the species but our waste of plastic bags (which they think are jelly fish – eat and die!) as well as the destruction of their natural habitat (thanks to sustainable Ben here on the island for that message!). It was a great honor for us to not only be invited but to get to eat in the first sitting (there were five in all to accomodate the whole village). Needless to say we had a bit of a wait for everyone to eat before we could perform the Meke. Mats were brought outside and we all had a nice but very hot lie down for a bit. Finally were were on – we put on all our leaf decorations – went into Tui Mali’s house and waited for the formal invitation – very much is all about ceremony here.

After the Meke it was back to the boats and Vorovoro – we were all sooo tired. I was too hot to eat much at lunch so dinner was very welcome. After dinner some of us gathered in the Grande Bure to gather around a laptop and watch Kung Fu Panda – I think I lasted all of 10 minutes before falling asleep. Fortunately someone woke me up when it was all over and sent me to bed to I wouldn’t be eaten alive by the Mossies!

Well that’s it for today. Can’t believe the time is going SOOOOO fast!!!

Ciao for now!

Marie

The Meke went GREAT – we all had so much fun and the Mali people really enjoyed it!