Tribewanted: Vorovoro

The rains have come, and with them a month of new growth and activity. This is the garden season in Fiji, the perfect time to tend and plant crops, to slash back and prune. Growth rates at this time are astonishing: everything can seemingly put on metres overnight.

Team Fiji and the Tribe have set to with a will, concentrating on the areas around the kitchen and grand bure which were becoming overgrown. Tui Mali invited Ian and myself to help with the planting of two yams, a staple of the Fijian diet. Standing in a dawn downpour behind the volleyball court, two huge molehills of soil were heaped up and the yams embedded with loving care, the long tendrils of the stems entwined around poles. Simple enough, but the harvesting will be a different matter: Tui Mali explained that if left in the ground for a few seasons a yam can grow to well over a hundred kilos…

The noticeboards are now sporting bright-green roofs, thanks to a great day weaving palm leaves with Team Fiji, and several terrifying minutes on my part until I learned that clambering about the roof and tying the leaves is best left to Nemani. The general spruced-up effect has been enhanced with new fabric door hangings and bed covers, all in traditional Fijian patterns.

I have to admit a weakness for a good construction project. A bit of hammering and sawing is good for the soul. So when I learnt that the old pontoon had been destroyed in a hurricane, and that Pupu had been patiently collecting washed-up plastic bottles for the construction of a new one, I knew that I wanted to be involved.

Going with Pupu to the Malau sawmill is an experience in itself. The man is a rockstar in all things industrial. Workers and managers drop whatever they are doing to hurry over and shake his hand, and then proudly strike a third off the bill. We go and sit on the dock (which Pupu built by sinking a ship and filling with concrete), and wait for the tractor to deliver our parcel of timber. It snorts down the hill, and drops approximately two tonnes of long planks at our feet. It takes the whole afternoon, and several trips, to ferry it back to the island. We unload the last of the wood to fire and torchlight.

Tribie and Team alike join in the construction. Tilman, 11-years old and only some 20-hours out of his Californian home, is wielding a hammer within minutes of his arrival. In three days the thing is finished. It squats on the beach, looking bombproof. We try lifting it: it takes eight Fijians to lift a corner and slide the launching runners underneath.

At this point, I have to admit to some nervousness. Yes, I know it’s Pupu-built, but that’s a lot of timber, floating solely on Labasa’s soft drink habit. There was to be no testing. It’s launch would be a grand affair, on a sevusevu Tuesday, and thus in full view of the assembled tribe.

Of course, I should have never doubted. It floated like a dream, and is now proudly moored a hundred metres from shore. On the Wednesday night we had a midnight grog session on it, all drinking and singing under the moon (the Fijians with their heads covered: the moon makes them ill), the Pacific beautiful and calm as glass.

Writing of things of beauty and vigour, the menfolk of Vorovoro have been celebrating the month of November by growing moustaches. Mo-vember, as this infamous time is known, is to promote awareness of men’s health issues around the world, and has been adopted by the Tribe with worrying enthusiasm. When somebody had the temerity to question the aesthetics of our new creations, an elder statesman of the island had the final word.

“For the woman,” explained Leavi, “kissing a man without a moustache”- a soulful pause- “is like eating bread without butter.”

Now, where’s my Gillette?