Tribewanted: Vorovoro

No morning alarm (Lali drum) so after breakfast I gathered a shopping list from those not going in and headed for the boat to Lambasa to get supplies for the Carnival. We had two boats going in as another group was going to help the local children paint the trash bins on the main street. The bins are apparently a fairly new concept or addition to the main street and any way to encourage their use is a very good thing.

My list is as craving based as usual (everyone misses their sweets and treats) – so I’m now convinced that the market must think me a horrid junk food junkie / alcoholic. My list to day included:

2 bottles of wine
1 bottle of vodka
1 case of Fiji bitter beer
1 double liter bottle of raspberry sprint
6 bags of various types of crisps (potato chips)
1 green contrasting sulu – must look MANLY for Cocoa
1 laser memory stick – 8gb

The shopping took a few trips and by the time I was done some of the painters were done as well so we enjoyed a proper sit down lunch – burgers were the favorite choice as we don’t get a lot of meat on the island. Also salads – you would think that we would be eating only fish and veggies – but gardens are VERY hard to maintain in this climate. The rainy season drowns any garden and the dry season of course withers it all away. Our sustainable Ben and his sustainable predecessors have done an amazing job at coming up with ways to keeps the gardens happy and alive.

Back to the island just in time for afternoon tea and then we started to decorate the Grand Bure for Carnival – very difficult as we could only use things that would bio-degrade AND we could not cut down brightly colored leaves or flowers. So off to the sharing shed (the place where past tribe members have left things they don’t want to bring home). We found some lovely pieces of cloth left over from others having had dresses made so we made them into ribbons. A pile was left for head bands (our costume for the night). What we didn’t use on our heads we tied to bits of bamboo to make flags to wave. Peter brought crepe paper which went a very long way. Then he went snorkeling and brought back pretty bits of coral to hang from it – all in all very festive!

The Carnival began with a musical instrument parade lead and organized by Cocoa – it was great and got all the kids involved as well. As people trickled in we let them pick out a headdress and then myself, Mary and Katie started painting peoples faces – Lisa brought face paints and they were a great hit!! Soon everyone was painting everyone else and in short order we were ready for the activities which went something like this:

Nitro Meke – this is where Giles does all 6 Mekes in such a fast time – under 30 seconds I think! Very fun to watch!
Next Lynn did an amazing job teaching folks the Salsa – fun to watch – especially when they started going into couple and switching off.

Next was twister – we did a couple of rounds and folks had a blast – Sosi and Ben were neck and neck for quite a while but Sosi beat him on that round – a real blast to watch.

Refreshment break – I bought a case of beer for all to share.

Next – charades – two groups – one person started and who ever guessed the charade was the next to get up and perform. That was fun and I kept score and it was a UK deck of charades and I didn’t really know a lot of the references. Great fun.

We then talked Katie into teaching folks hip-hop routine – she’s training to be a dance instructor and is VERY good. It got a bit complicated so in the end we all cheered her on and convinced her to do the whole dance for us. It was amazing!!!

I thought that was the end of the agenda – but someone had thought to prepare a couple of parcels for a game of pass the parcel – this is where sweets are wrapped in a package in many layers – sort of like musical chairs – when the music stops the person holding up the parcel gets to open up that layer and get the sweet. The last in each was a bag of jelly beans – so then it was pass the jelly beans. We started to get even sillier and started passing musical instruments and doing silly bits on them.

In the end I got up to announce the end and was convinced to do a song – so since Haasan was the loudest of them – I sang a very naughty version of Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered to him.

All in all a very fun night – all ending back at the camp fire where I didn’t last long – boy did I sleep well after that long day!!!!

Ciao for now!

Marie