Tribewanted: Vorovoro

Bula Sia everyone,
So this has been my first week as chief and I have to say it has been great fun. We have a lot of great characters on the island at the moment. The tribe and I have been up to lots this week, including:

• Learning a new meke (Fijian dance)
• Attending a Bazaar
• Taking part in weaving palm leaves (for roofing)
• Discovering Fijian language

One of the highlights this week for us was learning the new meke. Ouria one of the members of team Fiji at the moment, created this meke and calls it the “monkey meke.” The name comes from visions he had seen of a hairy almost human like figure. It is a lot of fun to take part in and is quite a fast dance. The tribe loved taking part and the faster we went the funnier it was. The name says it all, in parts of the meke we act like monkeys with our arms arched and heads looking under our armpits. We practiced this a lot during the week in preparation for the Bazaar. This was a Fijian fundraiser event taking place on Mali Island in Ligalevu. The event was raising money for the local church, so Tribewanted were invited to take part. This was a great honour, thus we decided we would provide some entertainment in the form of our monkey meke. The rest of the day at the Bazaar was full of Fijian culture from passionate speeches when presenting the Tambua (Whales Tooth), to a big feast for the guests full of typical Fijian foods.

Also this week we had a very funny, interesting and helpful cultural class. Jone was our teacher and taught the tribe most of the Fijian sounds of letters, for example, in Fijian the letter ‘C’ makes a ‘th’ sound. This thoroughly helped us understand how to pronounce certain words. Jone taught us a lot, but probably the most useful saying was for around the grog mat, “Kere kere vaka cegu”, meaning please may I rest/go to bed.

Overall the week has been busy and full of excitement. Hopefully next week will bring the same. So until next time, Moce.