Sloggs' Travel Blog

Tribewanted's Vitika Trek November 8th - 15th, Vanua Levu, Fiji

sl0ggs — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:49:00 GMT

On Saturday 8th November the first ever Tribewanted Vitika trek began from Labasa, Vanua Levu. Vitika roughly translates as 'cut a new path into Fiji', and this was exactly what we were going to do!

Five people from the island of Vorovoro (Irina, Senga, Sarah, David and Gianalfredo) made the boat journey to Labasa in the morning, from where we met our fresh-into-Fiji Finish couple (Annu and Kalle) and our guides (Ana and Fillipe) and readied for the off.

After a debrief on our route and itinerary and collecting some kava and basic food for lunch on the second day, we were off to the bus station ready for our first leg of the journey...

The bus station is always an adventure in itself, and we made it in time to secure the last available seats on the nearly full bus. The group were split along the bus and everybody got stuck into conversations with the locals as we pulled out of the bus station... kids, parents and elders all hearing tales of travels and asking us where we were going. The response was met with some surprise and delight in every case!

After the near three hour bus trip, with the one pit stop on route, we arrived at our 'stop', a red dust track leading off into the bush from the main track. We bid farewell (moce!) to those friends on the bus and collected our bags ready for our first walk of substance. After an hour walk, mostly up hill ("this is the last hill...") we arrived at the darkened settlement which was our stop for the evening. As is typical of Fiji, things haddened gone entirely to plan, the perfect start to our adventure as far as I was concerned, and the best opportunity for the wonderful Fijian people to show the group just what they are all about. We went to the only house with a dim light on, not the one we'd planned to be staying at, and asked them if they would kindly provide us shelter for the night, which of course they did! Fijian people pretty much drop everything they're doing when a visitor arrives and we took over their evening and sat on the porch until the small hours drinking Kava and telling stories having presented a sevusevu on arrival. The elderly couple had no food for us other than heating some dalo leaves and casava for us, and we ate half of our planned lunch for tomorrow and drank lots and lots of hot tea. We slept on the floor of their main living space on our rolled camping mats and they gave us blankets and pillows, with the girls having the luxury of a seperate room in the house to crash in. Everyone slept soundly on night one of the trek.

In the morning we ate rice cooked in coconut milk and breakfast crackers, drank lots more tea and made some sandwiches to take on our jungle hike. After washing up and packing our bags we sat and performed a Tatau for the couple to say thanks for looking after us and were off on our way. The farmer came with us from the settlement to lead us through the jungle to the river and along to the coast, machete in hand and wearing his trusty rubber boots!

The jungle walk is one of the many highlights of this trip, and everyone enjoyed the trek down through the valleys which affords fantastic views of the green valley in places and yet plunges you deep into tall jungle with seemingly no way out in others. On reaching the river we took a well earned break and enjoyed the fresh cool water of the river for a while before heading off down river to the coast, hopping from giant rock to rock and finding spots to cross where needed to follow the lose trail. We took a short break when we reached a settlement near the coast and chatted to a couple of locals who were doing some clothing washing in the river. Another short track walk saw us hit the coast, which is simply breathtaking to see. Rugged, untouched coastline, fringed entirely with huge palms reaching out over the crystal clear azure blue water lapping over the coral sand beach... stunning. We walked the rest of our trek along this coast, dipping inland once to get around a large rocky outcrop before reaching our second stop over in the large village of Naboutini.

Before entering the village we stopped to teach the sevusevu etiquette to Kalle, who was going to present the sevusevu on behalf of the group to the headman of the family with which we were staying [as was demonstrated last night by Fillipe]. We all donned our Sulu's and announced ourselves at the edge of the village in traditional Fijian style... "Ho Ya" from the men... "Minavadu" from the women... and were greeted by the family and ushered into our house for the night. Kalle performed his Sevusevu with a minor slipup, telling the headman that he had "big balls"... which was taken well and met with some delighted laughter AFTER the ceremony was finished. This became THE story of the Fijian guides for the rest of the trip... great fun had from a simple slip of the tongue! Next we were invited to a neighbouring house for a spectacular lunch spread and then spent the afternoon swimming in the warm sea, exploring the village, meeting the people that live there and even sitting in the church for the sunday school where the kids sang some beautiful songs. We pounded some kava roots to take with us for the rest of our trip, everyone in the group having a go at that. After some rest we were invited back into the family home for our dinner, another great spread. We were invited to a small Kava session in the village, but everyone was pretty wiped out and we rested in our house before crashing out for another good nights sleep.

Our third day saw us start with a huge breakfast spread and then we had to wait for the tide to help us out with our boat for the day, so we sat and enjoyed the crazy local kids with their heaps of energy. We then took a boat with all our bags further along the coast before hitting the beach to walk to our next village, of Tawake. Here Gianalfredo performed our Sevusevu to the grandfather of the family we were asking to stay with and then we settled into our village home for the day. The family provided us with lots of fruit to munch and then we took a walk around the beautiful village and up into the hills behind the village to see the school with its stunning backdrop of rugged mountains and untamed jungles. In the afternoon we took a short boat ride with our captain to a local settlement along the coast where we met the family there and asked if we could bath in their freshwater creek in the hills which was very refreshing! Afternoon tea was then provided back at our house and the gang sat and relaxed and played some games together to get to know each other some more. After a fresh fish, dalo and papaya curry dinner we were invited to go down the community grog session in the village where we met the real character of Tawake, Sir Issac Newton (or Sake' to his friends). The gang really enjoyed the evening with these guys and we drank grog until well into the small hours...

The next morning required an early and somewhat groggy eyed start to hit the tide to leave and move further north along the coast. We stopped off in Vanatauli after getting around some impassable-by-land rocks and mangrove swamps. We had a short trek with our bags along the coastline from here, stopping in a settlement to meet the now legendary Rosi, who decided to come with us to Yasawa and beyond and turned out to be a great asset to the tour in this north eastern most corner of Vanua Levu. We also stopped in a local school and the teachers gave us lots of fresh picked mangos and we sat and chatted with them and met some of the kids for a while before moving on to Yasawa along the coast. Here we proceeded into the village wearing our sulu's after announcing our prescence at the village edge and then sat on the mat for David to present our Sevusevu to the headman of the family here. We ate freshly caught trigger fish for lunch and then we all took a walk along the coast to visit the Meridian line, which along the beach was under water due to the tide, so we waded there and played in the sea on the line for a while, taking it all in, a great fun moment. Later that afternoon we ate tons of fruit and then were lined up with a big dinner of more trigger fish. The evening was spent relaxing in the house and around the village, enjoying the coastal night views and sounds before slipping off to sleep before our big trek tomorrow on day five.

The next morning we had the longest walk of the trek, from Yasawa village to Udu point, the eastern most point of Vanua Levu. We left our bags in the house at Yasawa and only carried essentials on the trek. We'd organised a boat collection to take us back from Udu to the village, from where we would saddle up and walk across the point of Vanua Levu to our next village stay tonight. The walk from Yasawa to Udu is spectacular and takes in beach, rock, mangrove swamp and hills until we reach the end point and are greeted with the sight of the lighthouse on the cliff top, which we climb up to see and leave our mark in. The trek took around three hours and on route we stopped and chatted with the inhabitants of several idyllic settlements and talked with some fishermen near the point and secured ourselves a big lunch with their fresh catch at a local settlement. After lunch some of the gang went on a boat trip to a local 'shop' to try and get some ice cream (failed!) while the rest enjoyed the warm pacific off of the gently sloping beach at the settlement. We took our boat trip back to Yasawa, had a few cups of tea and then headed off to walk across the point to Nabouono with our new guide Rosi leading the way. He stopped several points along the way explaining the local fauna and flora and showing us the wonderful views over the hills, quite a different landscape to anthing else we'd seen yet on this trip!

When we reached Nabouono, we sat with the chief of the village and Irina presented the groups sevusevu. They were delighted to have us their village and they insisted that we used two seperate houses in the village to accomodate us comfortably! After the ceremony was done we went to freshen up, and under Rosi's guidance the whole group went down to the bay to wash in the sea and we enjoyed a special sunset, moon rise and fun and games in the sea together. As the moon rose, literally hundreds of fruit bats flew over head from the mainland towards the moon, a spectacular sight! After our sea bath we went to the gardens of the village and had a freshwater bucket wash en masse before drying and settling down to dinner with our hosts in the center of the village community space. Tonight we had a special Kava session with the headmen from the village, which really hit the spot, and one of the ladies performed a meke for us as several of her family sang. It was a nice moment of impromptu entertainment.

In the morning, Api the boat captain from Vorovoro, woke us for breakfast and we were soon set for the next leg of our trip under his stewardship. We left on his boat, with his friend, and our next village host, Jobe on board. Before arriving at Cawaro, we stopped outside the reef where Api and Jobe took it in turns to do some diving and spear fishing to catch dinner and some offering for the local village chief. Jobe caught a barracuda for us and also showed us a young sea turtle which he'd spotted. On arriving at Cawaro village Sarah presented our sevusevu to the chief of the village and then after some rest at Jobe's and some lunch, we took a walk up to the local school to meet some of the kids and teachers. Some of the group presented some story books and pencils that they'd brought along to the head teacher, and we chatted with her for a while about school here in the village. Unfortunately we missed out on lesson time, but lots of the kids stay here in boarding and so we spent an hour playing volleyball and chatting with them before they had their dinner. On the walk back to the village we came across a large brackish estuary where some of the school kids who live locally were playing and swimming, so some of the gang jumped in and joined the fun for a while before heading back to the village and getting ready for dinner. After eating we sat and drank kava with some random men from the village before crashing out for another well earned sleep!

Day seven and we had an early breakfast, loaded the boat with our bags and then headed off on foot to the next village along called Lagi. The walk was really nice with some different terrain and stops to eat fresh coconuts and chat at local settlements. Lagi Bay village itself is very picturesque and has great views of the coast off to the south. Api met us in the bay and we took the boat out to sea and on to our next stop on Gevo island. The sevusevu had to wait until late as the headman was away attending a funeral, so Senga performed that in the dark next to our camp that evening! In the afternoon we took in the island, build an outdoor sleeping cover, ate and rested. The evening was spent chatting and relaxing under the stars after a spectacular moon rise which some of the group managed to capture on their cameras.

Early next morning we were up for the high tide to make our journey to Vorovoro easier. We had tea and biscuits and then put the boat back into the water and loaded up for our final leg. Everyone was pretty tired after a long week and another early start and we arrived back on Vorovoro in time for breakfast with the tribe which was nice, and everyone was excited to be back and share their stories of the trip. Kalle and Annu were not going to be staying on Vorovoro after the trek, so they enjoyed a few hours on the island and met the tribe before we headed off on the boat to Labasa to wave them goodbye at the bus station as they carried on their adventures...

Vitika #1 was a success. The Fijian lifestyle and environment will always throw up some new challenges along the way, and overall the group enjoyed the trip with its various walks, differing landscapes & terrains, villages, settlements, camps, beaches, foods, and most of all the people they met along the way.

Here's to the next one and long may they continue!

Vinaka

Paul.

(Powuuuula!)

My Pics from the trek are here on Facebook... Album 1, album 2, album 3 & album 4!!!!

Since Vorovoro

sl0ggs — Tue, 7 Oct 2008 19:59:00 GMT

So, where the hell have I been...?!!

Firstly, massive apologies for not publishing this blog years ago! I wrote it after my trip in 2009, and here I am years later reliving those amazing memories and updating my blog. Shocking! Since this trip I have been to many other places, each of which I will write up soon... anyway... back in time we go to 2008 and my wonderful experience in Fiji....

Since I left Vorovoro island on 4th October, my life has been a bit different from the simple travelling thing I'd done up til then. During my last month on the island, where I was chief of the tribe, I engineered an interesting opportunity for myself with Ben Keene and his Tribewanted.com organisation.

In August I sat in on a Tribewanted initiative where we invited some young Fijian 'entrepreneurs' to come onto Vorovoro and tell us their ideas for business. As it transpired they didn't have anything other than the traditional Fijian trades as ideas, but with some input from the tribe and with Ben's direction, we steered one such entrepreneur into the area of providing a service as opposed to a product, and namely into the travel industry. When they live in such a beautiful place, why not make your business showing people around? And so the Tribewanted Fijian trek was born, and three weeks later Junior, a Fijian friend and brother of Vorovoro, lead Ben, myself and 5 other paying adventurers into Vanua Levu on a 2 night 3 day trek, which I wrote about in full here at the time (you might recall reading it).

Since then the idea has developed into something considerably bigger, which culminated in a week long Tribewanted adventure trek into the north east of Vanua Levu a couple of weeks ago.

Where do I come into all this? My suggestion to Ben Keene shortly before the end of September was that he needs someone to help manage the ambitious project of Vitika (which means 'to cut a new path through Fiji') rather than using the already very busy team on Vorovoro or leaving it in the hands of our fledgling entrepreneur, Junior. This was clearly my opportunity to get involved in a longer term capacity with Tribewanted, a brand which I see having a fantastic future on a global scale and in no short part due to the skills, drive, determination and leadership qualities of Ben and a few outstanding key members of the team already in place or connected with the project.

So Mr Keene offered me the opportunity to be involved as long as I helped him out in the mean time by promoting Tribewanted:Vorovoro here in Fiji and try to increase numbers on the island during this quiet annual period of tourism in Fiji. We shook hands on a basic agreement and then I enjoyed my last few days on the island before we got together again shortly before he left to add some more flesh to the idea and make a more formal agreement. Ben left Vorovoro a few days before me and then when it came my time to leave it was not as sad an occassion as it might have been had I been leaving to continue my travels or to come home. I gave a tatau to team Fiji on my last night, which is the traditional Fijian way of leaving a village or family home and said a few words to them there, but made it clear that this was not goodbye. We enjoyed a VERY heavy night of grog that night... I've made some amazing connections with those guys, not least of all with Tevita, the community manager and a very important part of the team here in Vorovoro. Without him being here, this place would not been quite as good as it is for sure. He and I made a big connection, to the point that he calls me his brother, and for my next two weeks I was going to stay with his family near Nadi, as their son and brother!

...and so I left Vorovoro. I had been there for exactly three months. Three amazing, wonderful, highly memorable months. I've met some fantastic people on that island, over 150 individuals by now! There are plenty that I wish to remain in touch with for as long as possible, and several of which I must now surely consider as some of my best friends... what a place! What a time! Thanks Vorovoro, I'll never ever forget what you did for me.

Having been invited to stay with Tevita's family I was set to leave with Tevita and his wife Sila and sister Marama who'd been staying on the island for a couple of months. That morning after waving goodbye to what remains my favourite sight, the Vorovoro beach line and headland, we went to Labasa where I did some things on the internet before heading over to Tui Mali's house to stay for the night. Yes. I was staying at Tui Mali's house, the chief of the Mali district, holder of a seat on the great chief council of Fiji. Having been on Vorovoro for so long, and having been chief for a month, it meant that I knew most of Tui Mali's family and his wife already and had been to his house on several occassions before. I took some food and kava as a sevusevu and when we got to the house I presented it to Tui Mali in front of his two official guests from Suva! They were impressed, and I think Tui Mali probably enjoyed having these dignified guests treated to a white mans sevusevu and tatau to the chief of the Mali district and with no prompting or direction required! (After a big 'Ho Ya' at the doorstep before entering too! ;))

That afternoon I popped down into the local village of Vuo where some of the team and tribe were attending the villages annual celebration and church fund raiser. It was nice to meet up with some of them there and share some grog with the village elders for the afternoon. As per usual I saw lots of Fijian people I knew from my time on Vorovoro and before long I was up dancing on the green in front of the crowd with one of the Fijian ladies to the live bands' music. This got the party started and lots of people joined us! After the tribe left I stayed behind with the legend that is Pupu Epeli, who has worked on Vorovoro from the very beginning and is a close personal friend of Tui Mali. Later that night I went back to the house to be greeted with dinner and then a grog session with Tui Mali and Tevita! It was to be a long night, luckily my travels tomorrow didn't begin until in the afternoon...

The following day Tevita announced that he was not travelling with us and would follow on later, I was to make the trip with his sister Marama and lots of bags in tow! We'd chosen to use the over night ferry from Savusavu on the south side of Vanua Levu to Suva, the Fijian capital on Viti Levu, which meant two bus journeys too, all of which takes about 20 hours. Our trip ended up taking 24 hours from Tui Mali's house to Tevita's house at the Garden of the Sleeping Giant near Nadi. The boat was about three hours late from Savusavu! It was very uncomfortable on the boat and after carrying my own bags and the extras given to use by Tevita to take home to the family, we arrived exhausted having had limited sleep and been waiting all that time. At the house I was introduced to Tevita's mum and brothers' wife and child as they were the only ones home at that time. We had an hour until Tevita's father finished work, at which point I would be presenting a massive sevusevu to him. Tevita had given me a tabua, which is a sperm whales tooth, the highest accolade that one can give to another in Fijian culture. It is normally a gift between chiefs, a gift between families at a wedding or given between villages when an important elder passes away. Tevita is the prophecised chief of the Raa district in Viti Levu, Fiji. It is a huge district and he is a big deal, so has access to many of these tabua. The fact that I was about to present one to his father from myself (as Tevita instructed!) was a little bit daunting to say the least.

When Tevita's father arrived we shook hands and said hello, I even got a sniff, which is something I've only ever experienced coming from female Fijians! We then prepared the mat, tanoa and seating, with me sat at the top of the mat, and I readied myself for my sevusevu. I opened by saying a line I'd learnt a few days before... 'Vaka Turaga Na Vanua Nakarotubu', which kind of(!) translates as 'head man from the village of Nakarotubu'. I presented to him my sevusevu of some bags of food (including sugar, flour, tuna, chicken, cooking oil and potatos), some mats from Vorovoro and a bundle of kava roots. I also then presented the tabua as I'd seen other chiefs hold them and told him I was very proud to be linked to his family through Tevita and that the whole of Tribewanted and Tui Mali sends this offering to him. He recieved it in traditional Fijian style and then we mixed a strong bowl of grog and drank together. It was a relief to get it over with! After that one and the sevusevu to Tui Mali, I think I can sevusevu anyone now!

Finally I could take a shower (under a hose of cold water of course) and have a rest. Marama had been kicked out of her bedroom and onto the spare bed in the rear, mozzie infested veranda... Fijians are generous to a fault! So I had a comfy bed for my stay in a private room.

In the following weeks I met and networked with various hotel, restaurant and bar owners, promoting Tribewanted and Vitika. I met a huge number of travellers both at the airport on arrival and in the various backpackers hostels, many of which were arriving with a full itinerary (of mostly island hopping and partying) or for only a short time, so it proved tricky to get people to travel to Vorovoro, even though they loved the idea of Tribewanted and what was happening up there. I did however meet enough people who had arrived without pre-booking something, and help them arrange their transport to Vorovoro and get up there, which helped fill some space on island during its quieter period. I also signed a couple of people up to the Vitika trek. I arranged promotional grog nights with Tevita's amazing brothers coming along to run the sessions, sing traditional Fijian songs and generally have a good time. Also I attended a LOT of grog sessions at home with the family, who had many many relatives and neighbours come over to see me!

I really enjoyed staying with the family near the Garden of the Sleeping Giant. Taking the bus into and out of town every morning and walking along the lanes and saying Bula to everyone on route was wonderful.

My time here flew past, and before I knew it I was heading back to Vorovoro to finalise the trek details with Junior and get going on my next adventure!

Sloggs :)

My last two weeks as Chief on Vorovoro.

sl0ggs — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:37:00 GMT

Firstly an apology, for taking so very long to write and publish my final blog from my month as Chief of Vorovoro way back in September. Life has been a little surreal for me since then, with hardly time to think, let alone sit and write my usual lengthy blogs... I'll touch on the reasons for this briefly in this and future blogs.

So, after the first two weeks of finding my feet and managing the gulf of difference between being a tribe member and a chief, and getting over the loss of team Fiji to a funeral, things were in full swing on Vorovoro again! High on the adgenda were of course the showers, the ongoing and big project started in August. Many of the gardening projects were put off due to the weather not healping and on Tuesday the four peaks challenge was cancelled after lots of rain the night before (which was welcomed of course for our water supply!). Tuesday saw a wonderful Sevusevu day with Tui Mali, where Geoff and Mary (Amy's parents) who'd been staying on Vorovoro for around 6 weeks, presented a very special Tatau to Team Fiji and Tui Mali, which I've written about seperately here. This set us up for a classic Tuesday session, with all the boys and Tui Mali on top form. The remainder of the week saw rendering on the showers take shape and the tribe helped dig trenches in the gardens in preparation for the rainy season soon apon us. On Thursday Giles returned to Vorovoro with Ben after their week in New Zealand climbing in the snow, for his last few days on Vorovoro before heading off home to England to begin his studies to become a doctor! Team Fiji had plans in place to have a big celebration with their favourite brother this Friday and the tribe were sworn to secrecy... which was funny as whilst sat at the Thursday night grog session the boys openly discussed their plans in Fijian with Giles, who speaks a LOT of Fijian sat in attendance... nice one boys! Lol. Thursday afternoon was a classic as Giles managed to finally catch the elusive trigger fish whilst on the reef trip, which I was witness to. He was buzzing after that, its been a long time coming, nice work sir!

Friday was setup to be a classic Vorovoro day. Giles was slotted onto the school trip in Mali for his last chance to see the kids for what might be a while and then Team Fiji leapt into action building a Lovo and decorating the village and grand bure ready for a celebration. Tui Mali was on island too, which gave everybody an added sense of occassion. When Giles came back from the school trip we dressed him in the traditional garments and he took pride of place at the head of the mat with Tui Mali and Ben for a powerful and emotional ceremony with speeches from Tui Mali, Ben and Giles. The tribe had been practising Meke all week so that we could perform it for Giles. We ate a magnificent Lovo and had a brilliant and long night around the Tanoa with Giles. The team were on great form producing one of my most memorable nights on Vorovoro.

The following week started off with me wondering if the reeds would ever turn up and if my months main project would happen in my month at all! The showers were still being finished off, more digging in the gardens was required to finish the trenches and various other small scale projects were underway this week. One of these was the idea to build a bench up near the new showers to commemorate the passing of Tale and Kasa's father Peta Tale one year ago. This week also saw myself and Ben Keene come to some agreement about an opportunity for me to conduct some work for Tribewanted after my Vorovoro stay, as I was keen to remain in Fiji and he needs some help here with the Vitika trek option and a bit of promotion work in Nadi. There were three key visitors to the island this week, coming to see Ben, discuss the business, and to enjoy the island again. Ulai, Tui Mali's nephew and Tribewanted Director/Lawyer was coming, Jonathan from Oceanic Marketing in Suva who has helped Ben from the early days with marketing and merchadise and Anthony Ho, Tribewanted's Fiji based accountant. This was a nice opportunity for me to meet them albeit briefly before I set myself up in Fiji for the next few months.

Monday saw the Sevusevu happen early this week as Tui Mali was due out of town on the normal Tuesday slot. After a big grog session we were up early for the sad departure of Giles from the island. Team Fiji insisted on a few Tanoa on the beach before the boat left, and we had a full singing session with grog on the beach. It was quite a moment, with Leavi sounding like I'd never heard him play and sing before, and he is always quite brilliant! It was a poignant moment, and as Giles left on the boat Tevita and Leavi were both in tears along with some tribe members swept up in the emotion. Api took Giles along towards the headland as myself and Ben marched Rejeli into the sea. When they reached the headland, Api turned back and sped back towards the buoy where Giles back flipped off of the boat (in his clean clothes for his flight!) for the crowd on the beach before holding a standing salute on the boat as Api took him off round the island the other way and away from Vorovoro... The rest of the day was a right off from that point. Team Fiji stayed on the grog mat ALL day, their way of mourning a big loss. This was something that caused a little friction on the island the following few days as Ben docked their pay for that day lost. Some new cultural lessons were made this week by Ben and the rest of us, proving that you can never fully understand something as complex as this culture, but at least we can continue to learn and build stronger links all the time.

On Wednesday the 24th September the reeds finally arrived from Nakawaga!! Team Fiji were on form and Eremoni's new roof was almost finished in one day! Pupu continued to work hard on the showers with his new assistant Jay and the whole place was flowing nicely. Thursday saw another excellent sustainability forum which was hosted this time by Ben Keene in the absence of Mr Katz and the tribe helped Team Fiji bash the mangroves to tie in the roof on Jim's house. The weekend saw some of the tribe go to church and come back with the usual glowing report.

The next week saw the start of some mat making with Francis and Va showing the tribe this skill, the showers were much nearer to completion and the chiefs bure roof would be the next one done... but before I knew it was coming, Tuesday was apon us and it was time to hand over to the new chief for October.

During the Chief handover ceremony I thanked everyone on the island and in the team for helping me through a tough month, one which saw the celebrations of the 2nd anniversary of the project [which included me being filmed making my acceptance speach by Fiji TV and that being aired a couple of weeks later around all of Fiji!], the start of the third year, the departure of the project director and the installation of a new one, the subsequent teething problems that came with that, two funerals, one massive project hangover, lots of tribe members, and lots of grog! I enjoyed the experience immensely, from fending off neighbouring villages advances for help from Vorovoro, cleaning the toilets and tidying the kitchen away after it had fed 30 people, to meeting new members and showing them around and answering tons of questions everyday. I hope I kept my energy levels high throughout the month, although I know of a few times where I faded due to the extra responsibilty!

Thanks must go to Giles and Ben for their guidance throughout, to Jim, Ben Katz, Amy and Dan for their constant support and to Ratu Tevita for always having the right words and the right advice... how I do not know, but he keeps on doing it!

Vinaka Vaka Levu Sara Tribe for having me as chief of Vorovoro for September. Apologies again for the very late blog, I've been soooo busy. Ooops!

Hopefully I can remain linked to the Tribewanted project into the future and if not at the very least I will be back to my second home some time in the near future... my heart is firmly attached to Vorovoro and all the wonderful people that make it what it is.

Moce
Ratu Paula.

Building foundations & pulling people together on Vorovoro.

sl0ggs — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:00:00 GMT

For Geoff. Sorry it has been so long coming.

On Tuesday 16th of September something very special happened on Vorovoro. Tribe Manager Amy's parents, Mary and Geoff had been on Vorovoro for some six weeks, to visit their beloved daughter and to experience this wonderful place, of which they'd heard so much, for themselves. Today was to be their last chance to express to Tui Mali and the tribe as a whole just how much Vorovoro meant to them and to present Tui Mali and Team Fiji with a special Tatau.

Geoff and Mary have lots of artistic flair and skill and during their time on Vorovoro they both got heavily involved in all aspects of village life, including Geoff having a major hand in the design and construction of the new shower project. During their stay they took every opportunity to learn about the Fijian culture and the history surrounding Vorovoro itself.

To this end Geoff began to create a carving from some very old driftwood found on the island, which he would present to Tui Mali on this day. Below is a transcript of Geoff's speech that day, and Tui Mali's response which I recorded on my camera:

Geoff: "Tui Mali. Mary and I would firstly like to present a tatau in our thanks to you, team fiji and tribewanted for our unforgettable stay here on Vorovoro.

You have all accepted us into your hearts, your culture and homes. We have experienced many excursions in our six week period in Fiji having originally booked for a two week stay. We do not want to go back but the taxman calleth! (We think you know what we mean)

We have had so many memorable times and had an open house welcome every time. We have been to the depths of your people and at times been where none other than Fijians have trod.

There have been weddings, birthdays, school trips even passing out parades, painting trips and the important 2nd anniversary celebrations all within this time. This has also been a time to work and learn from your Team Fiji on the developing projects and again they have taken us to their hearts. We take our hats off to these talented members of the tribe. Wonderful memories and some things money can't buy.

Thank you for letting us come to your beautiful island and this is only a small token of our appreciation. We also would like to thank you personally Tui Mali, and as you know we came here to enjoy some wood carving, and collecting driftwood is one of our families occupations as you may have heard. We were hoping to extend our time with yourselves and would have liked to passed on some tips from my fine furniture and woodturning experience to the team here but Fiji time has been on fast forward and the chance never came to show the tribe some of the techniques in order that they might like to take up a sport other than rugby or volleyball.

So this is a gift to you, to personally thank you for your kindness, your people and your island. I would like to tell you a story... one day in September 1824, rough seas founded a boat carrying Fijian people here on the reef and broke into pieces which drifted onto the island.

The people also came ashore and felt that this was their chosen land. As the boat was washed up onto the shore so to did this piece of driftwood (Geoff presented a large piece of driftwood planking) found on sagosago beach, which represents that day. The head man, Ratu Apinisa Bogiso, a fine young man and chief, set up his home and family here on Vorovoro, which translates into 'broken pieces'.

Tui Mali, this carving represents your great great grandfather who first came here and forms that broken bond. (Geoff presents his carving, beautifully wrapped in coconut leaves)

Today we join a new vision for your Vorovoro. The base was cut yesterday to represent that new beginning as Tevita predicted 'people will come to this island'. People have come and I would like to ask you to join me in planting the new vision with your ancestors in bonding Team Fiji firmly with Tribewanted. A gift that we hope you will treasure not only of the thoughts of past but to your future and the future of Vorovoro and Tribewanted.com. So so Ratu, may god bless you and your tribe". (Tui Mali & Geoff placed the carving into the cut base together).

Geoff then presented some tools for Team Fiji and explained to Tui Mali and everybody how he made the carving using them, including using English tea to make the stains. Tui Mali recieved the tatau in Fijian before addressing everybody in English afterwards and presenting Geoff with a chief's mat to take home with him...

Tui Mali: "The Fijians believe that some of our ancestors are still here and still around us and some times they watch and hear. This afternoon on behalf of Vorovoro and the family, you know the family here in Vorovoro is all over the world, there is a mat, from Vorovoro to be given to you. Vinaka Vaka Levu, thank you very much for raising up Vorovoro together, and we hope that Vorovoro is going up to where the world will see and I hope when you go back, you'll go and tell them the story about Vorovoro, and this is our gift to you, Vinaka Vaka Levu".

It was a touching moment indeed.

There are many things that happen on Vorovoro which one could put down to coincidence, and the timing of this could have easily been construed in such a way. The giving of this perfect gift not only represents the bringing together of the old traditions here in Fiji and the new era represented by Tui Mali and Tribewanted, but also serves as a reminder to everybody connected with the project that we must pull together and make a firm binding to each other in order to best understand one another and to be strong for our future together. This is something that Ratu Tevita himself told me the previous morning when I was low, that we would be reminded soon that we must all remain strong and pull together on Vorovoro, the chief, the team and Tui Mali together.

A fitting parting gift indeed, and a fitting sentiment for everybody connected with the project.

Thank you so much Geoff for the inspiration that this brings... every time a new tribe member sees your sculpture, the story will be told again and again... another fine legacy on Vorovoro.

Lets all keep pulling together in the same direction for a good future both on Vorovoro and around the world as one community.

Vinaka
Paul.

My second week as chief on Vorovoro, for Tribewanted

sl0ggs — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 09:18:00 GMT

This week started off with another visit to the doctors for me, which was a bit of a waste of a day on Vorovoro personally, but better news with the ear canal looking better. It's so hard to keep from swimming and snorkeling in the beautiful waters here... hopefully my efforts will pay off and I can get back out there next week, yeay!! In my absence on Monday the tribe cracked on with the usual 'karmic duties' to keep the place running smoothly and a gang helped team Fiji on the hill by the water tanks with the huge shower project. Monday night saw the usual grog session which became a blur sat at the top of the mat... I have taken to making the mat 'space' a little smaller than it seemed to have been in my previous months as part of the tribe. I prefer to be closer to the Tanoa and the tribe, and so I will continue to do that where I can, I hate missing out on the banter around the bowl! ;)

On Tuesday we didn't have a four peaks challenge in the morning due to only having one official member of the TW team on the island, who had to stay in the village for obvious reasons. Instead the tribe helped collect shells along the beach for the mosaic design that will decorate the showers and helped move some of the finer sand from the island up to the showers to make cement for the main posts in the construction. After another hot morning's work, we all got scrubbed up for the usual Tuesday visit of Tui Mali and our Sevusevu. Tui Mali was in good form today and we all had fun chatting around the mat. I Kerekere'd Tui Mali to write some words in the (Tribewanted) passport of Hassan, who was leaving the following day. This doesn't usually happen, but Hassan was such a great character and friend after his two month stay, I thought it would be a nice gesture... Tui Mali took pleasure in doing that and wrote some lovely words for Hassan. After the sevusevu Tui Mali also spoke to the tribe in English about the project and how he has found his two years stepping into the unknown with Ben, which was unusual, he doesn't normally address the tribe as a whole like that at sevusevu. He'd earlier been up to see the progress of the showers, and I sensed that he felt quite excited about the project and perhaps the permanency of the construction on this latest project is more than just a coincidence having just received an extension to the lease of Vorovoro from Tui Mali! Once again Tuesday turned into a mammoth grog session and I slept very well!

Wednesday saw five people leave, inculding some big characters. The remaining tribe helped with arranging the flooring slabs for the showers and collecting shells and glass from the beach. I lead a small group on the four peaks walk this morning, although it wasn't an official Tribewanted event. It was a good walk and I enjoyed showing the tribe the island views. The afternoon developed into something completely different... A highly respected village elder had passed away in a neighbouring village of ours (on Mali island) and we were required to give something to the village to help them with the Lovo. In a huge gesture of his generosity, Tevita presented Tui Mali with a Tabua (whales tooth) and some new mats, on behalf of Vorovoro! This was quite something, as a Tabua is the most important gift one village gives to another through their chief. After the presentation, Tui Mali and most of team Fiji left Vorovoro to go to the first part of the funeral, where all of the gifts are presented to the bereaved family.

On Thursday the island was quiet as the actual burial took place and team Fiji were there for the whole day, drinking yet more grog, until they returned and continued the session on the beach. I couldn't face grog tonight and sods law came into play as according to the few that sat and drank with them, Tui Mali was in amazing form, telling lots of stories all night... typical, the first grog session I miss in two months! :( Geoff carried on working on the showers in the heat today, determined to see it finished before he leaves next week. The gang that went on the reef trip were treated to lots of shark viewings today, so they were all buzzing when they came back.

Friday was another busy day with lots of the big slabs being carried up from the beach for the showers flooring, and the rocks being pounded and broken up to fit them all in. A couple of the girls went to help Tevita transplant some tomato seedlings into the gardens and we managed to squeeze a singing lesson into the morning with Save! After an early lunch five of us went off to the Mali District School. The children sang some different songs for us today, which I've not heard before on my previous visits, and we did some meke with them, which was great fun. The afternoon was spent playing with them all in serious afternoon heat! The rugby was brutal today, they all seemed to have personal vendettas with each other today... even I got clattered by a lad half my size, heheh! It was a fun visit as always. When we got back to Vorovoro team Fiji were ready to leave and the tribe sat in the grand bure for a short grog session with Marau who was 46 years old today... no one knew until he mentioned it late in the day! He'd spent the day working hard as always. We enjoyed some good banter with him before he left to go home to a proper party with his family... The evening was quiet with most people sloping off to bed quite early, tired after another hot and busy day. Myself and Brett stayed up with Api and Tale, sat on a mat, under the shetler of the kitchen roof from the rain, drinking grog until near midnight.

Today (Saturday) I'm picking up a few things in town and enjoying some chinese food before heading back to Vorovoro for some relaxing time...

On Monday we should be receiving the cut reeds for the Bure roofs, and we should be able to finish off the showers (all apart from the mosaic work), it should be a good week!!

Vinaka Vaka Levu
Tui Paula

Pics from Vorovoro

My first week as chief of Tribewanted.com, September 2008

sl0ggs — Sat, 6 Sep 2008 09:16:00 GMT

Looking back now, sat in the ecotricity hut on a Sunday afternoon, the week behind me is a bit of a blur!

I've been in the enviable position of being installed as chief for the first month of the third year of this unique project, and all just in time to have the official handover on the 2nd anniversary of the project, which is a huge milestone for Tribewanted.com and a very special day for myself.

Before I tell you about my week I'd like to pay tribute to the two chiefs that I've seen in action during my time as a tribe member for July and August, Mariah and Dan. They have shown me so much and shared their ideas with me from day one, which has helped a lot. I've also been lucky enough to have met Kaz this last week, chief from April and long-time supporter of the project, and her advice, support and energy has also been an inspiration for me. Not to mention the great team here on the island, and the opportunity to hang-out with, and pick the brains of, Ben Keene for my whole stay... my timing could not have been better in coming to Vorovoro!

As preparation for my month as chief, the team invited me to their monthly meeting, on the 31st August, to help me understand what happens behind the scenes on Vorovoro. Becoming chief gives a fantastic insight into the running of the island from day-to-day and month-to-month. Once you become chief, you are part of the team, so certain other responsibilities befall you... such as heading up the weekly meeting of all the team members on the island (an adventure in itself when you're thrown in at the deep end with that one!), joining the weekly rota of toilet and kitchen cleaning, shutting down the kitchen and village lighting of an evening, heading up off island visits, representing the tribe when visitors arrive and of course having some input in all of the planning and running of tribes time and activities. We talked about the continuation of Dan's mammoth project, the new showers, and about my September project of strengthening and tidying the bure roofs in the village for the rainy season and building a new bure for community manager Tevita. It's nice to have some exposure to the accountability of the business and to discover just how tricky it can be to negotiate with service providers or product suppliers in Fiji, something which isn't entirely evident as a member of the tribe. A huge amount goes on behind the scenes, which is largely unoticed, testament to the effort and good team work of the people that work here.

And so to my first week... Monday morning I awoke in my comfy bed in the old Vale to the greetings of my fellow tribe members of "yandra chief!". I'd prepared my bags the night before for the short walk to the chiefs bure, and was looking forward to moving in! I had breakfast with the tribe as usual and then started to move my things into my new pad. Emma gave me a hand to sweep it out and kindly pointed out to me the many huge spiders living in the roof, thanks Emma! Next came the blowing of the conch shell to gather the tribe in the great bure for my first meeting as chief... even after some practise blows last month, this did not go well! I had the added pressure of Moya and Emma taking photo's of me doing this, which produced much laughter as all I produced for three or four attempts was a loud wet fart of a sound! I nailed it fifth time though, and it was loud and clear... it takes a bit of puff and has a tricky technique, and left me a little light headed afterwards, lol.

I sat at the head of the mat in the great bure and everyone filed in, the tribe was quite big this week, and all of Team Fiji came in too. I'd met with the team before the meeting to make notes about the week and todays format and was ready to start the week. Talking has never been a problem for me, as many of you reading will already know(!), but today I was a little more nervous than I thought I'd be, which passed as soon as I got going and started to tell the tribe what would happening in the next two days leading up to the party. I opened by offering congratulations to Jim and Dan on their new appointments, which officially began today. The meeting went well thanks to the support of the team, and the tribe were soon splitting off into groups to help prepare the village for the 2nd birthday party on Tuesday, raking the paths and greens, collecting leaves for decorations, etc. The Karmic Duties board was also full of willing volunteers and everyone was busy today. The tribe also had two meke lessons with Save today, in preparation for the party tomorrow where we would be performing in front of our guests after the ceremony was finished.

I spent much of the day floating around between all the projects, keeping up with as many of the tribe members as I could and keeping abreast of everything happening. It felt like I didn't sit down all day! In the afternoon lots of new tribe members arrived in the boat from town, and so I took them for my first tour of the village. Afterwards I'd remembered a few things that I'd not told them, so I need to improve with that! I did manage to catch up with everyone later though and hopefully they weren't too bored or badly informed!

During Monday evening we had a mahuuusive grog session with the team, who deserved it after their efforts and were pretty excited about the party tomorrow... midnight came and went before we retired.

Tuesday was epic to say the least! I've written a seperate blog about the whole day, you can read it by clicking here...

Wednesday I had to go to Labasa to see the doctor as my ear infection was now unbearable, which was a shame and a waste of nearly a full day as chief! Ben Katz headed up the meeting in my absence, and after a tough Isa Lei, with some big characters and long-term tribe members leaving, some heavy rain clouds came in and kept the mood low, even though we needed the water. After the rain cleared the tribe took down all of the shelters built for the celebrations and set all the fronds out to dry in the sun ready to use for something else. Meanwhile in town I met with the new tribe members and after a village tour shortly after getting back on the island, we prepared for yet another monster grog session for Pupu's 69th birthday. I've bonded really well with Pupu over the last couple of months, so it was nice to have him sit as wingman (no dondo's!!) and to be able to present one of the new Tribewanted postcards with his picture on, signed by the whole tribe. Dan had made him a giant birthday flapjack which was presented in the morning along with a singsong with the whole tribe. This evening I also presented some grog to Team Fiji on behalf of everyone in the tribe for their hard graft this week in preparing the village for the party and to thank them for their support for me in my first week. I think I will give them some grog each week that I'm chief, which is something the tribe used to do some time ago, as it is a nice gesture.

Thursday was another bleary eyed start and after the morning meeting the tribe broke up the palm fronds to lay them down as a new floor in the great bure to put the mats on, it was really comfy after this!! Marau and Tale started on a new floor in Eramoni for Jim and the team worked on improving the rain catchment on the hill. We had meke class in the morning and song lessons in the afternoon with Save, singing Daru Mai Lele, which is a nice song to learn and sing around the grog bowl with the boys on an evening. The reef trip was full in the afternoon and all of the tribe mucked in with Karmic Duties and general help around the village, it really is ship-shape this week! On Thursday evening I had the most bizarre business meeting of my life... Tevita had two of the heads of the youth organisation from a local Mali village coming over to negotiate a price and do a deal for the reeds I need to get the bure roof project done. Tevita spoke to them in the Fijian village to arrange a price and then they came down to meet myself and Jim to shake hands on the deal. We met under a coconut tree, in the pitch black night, shook hands agreed on a deal (including feeding them while they work here and a grog session when they're finished) and then said goodbye before they hopped on a boat home. If I saw them in daylight tomorrow I wouldn't recognise them, lol! Anyway, we got ourselves a good deal of 300 bundles of reeds, delivery and their help installing them for $600, which I'm happy with (this won't include the great bure, as that will be a one off job afterwards, which I hope to stretch my budget too this month if possible).

Friday saw the Tribewanted giftshop open its doors (well, setup on the dining table) after the morning meeting, and lots of the tribe got stuck in buying sulu's, bags and postcards. Team Fiji split their forces as Marau and Tale were finishing installing the floor in Jim's new home, Leavi was gardening and the rest were working on the showers. The tribe all lent a hand and brought up some rock slabs for the shower flooring from the beach and an other good mornings work was done. In the afternoon we took our trip to the Mali District School, where the tribe presented themselves and some gifts to the class and enjoyed some songs from the children. We arrived a little late unfortunately, and so there wasn't much time for working in the classroom with the kids before they wanted to race outside to play. There was netball/basketball, rugby and football with the shiny new footballs that Rob and Holly kindly donated to them. The lads there from the tribe lined up against the kids for a game of full contact rugby, it was five versus twenty kids and they weren't messing around! Full head-on shoulder tackles from the crazy little guys... it was great fun and they knackered us all out in the sun and made us look silly with their skills... :) In the afternoon we had a little grog session as normal to bid Moce to team Fiji as they leave the island for the weekend, and it was nice to chat about the week and the success of the party and have a final sing-song and a laugh with them all. The tribe had a pretty quiet night with a couple of bottles of wine and a fire, which was interrupted with a decent downpour for half an hour which Emma and I stood in for a while, should've taken some soap it was that hard a rain storm! I had a little 'moment' late on in the evening where I suddenly missed my dear family and friends from home... its been a long time since I left home in January and this place is such a joy and inspiration, I'd love it if they could come and see it for themselves!

Saturday morning started out with more people leaving, including the sustainability manager, Ben Katz for a months well earned break. This is a bit of a blow as his imput is huge on the island, and he is a close personal friend now... I'm looking forward to his return already. I've waved some good friends off from this beach these last couple of weeks... good job it is easy to get so immersed in island life and that there are always good people arriving, there's no time to be depressed! ;)

Sunday was a nice day of relaxation and recuperation after a hectic week, with a meeting with the team in the afternoon to discuss the week ahead. It was also Sarah's birthday today, so we had cake, songs and a present organised by her traveling companion and friend Liz and a bit of a grog session on the beach near Api's house.

I'm looking forward to a good second week, albeit I'll miss the Monday morning meeting due to having to go back to the doctors to have the ear checked out again! Hopefully we can get the showers to a stage where they are operational and start using them, plus my project of starting on the bure roofs should kick off...

Thanks for reading, cya next week.
Vinaka
Tui Paula.

Tribewanted's 2nd Birthday!

sl0ggs — Tue, 2 Sep 2008 09:08:00 GMT

What a day! Tuesday the 2nd of September 2008 was the 2nd birthday of Tribewanted on Vorovoro, and the preparations and subsequent celebrations were fitting to say the least! We also recieved a wonderful news from Tui Mali in what was his first English penned speech given on the island, but I'll leave that to Bengazi to reveal in detail...

For me personally the day itself and the preparation couldn't have been more surreal. I had been installed as chief on Monday the 1st of September! Having been part of the tribe for two months already had readied me in a sense, I knew what the island was all about and knew all the key members of the team already, but to take over and chair my first morning meeting with a large tribe, the day before the party, and to then take part in the chief handover in front of all of the guests for the party, was NOT your average day-in-the-life! I have been very lucky and highly privileged to be here as chief for this time, and I thank everyone that gave me the chance to have this opportunity.

A few days before the celebrations, team Fiji built some shelters around the rear of the Great Bure, where we would hold the ceremony, and on Monday the tribe helped cut and collect leaves to use as cover, flooring and decoration for the posts. The posts were all wrapped in coconut leaves, weaved around them and tied off at the foot, and then flowers and decorative leaves were attached. The shelter for Tui Mali was decorated with traditional Fiji cloth with shelves either side with huge shells and ornate pieces of drift wood from around the island and lots of colourful cloth was hung all around the shelters... it looked beautiful!

The morning began with a VERY excited Ben Keene running around the village waking everyone up personally at 6am. He slid running into the chiefs bure with music blaring out of the speakers in his hand and busted out some typical 'pointy-elbowed' Ben Keene moves whilst shouting happy birthday at the top of his voice! I was genuinely excited to be here for this time, for Ben and for everyone that has worked on the project, as the work they have done in taking Tribewanted this far is always so understated to the outside world. Ben and his team have worked immensely hard to make this work, and so they should be congratulated. Congratulations!! :)

I got myself up, and after a pretty hefty grog session the previous evening (my first as chief) had to blow a few cobwebs out of the head to get started. I had also woken with what felt like another ear infection starting (this was to be my third on the island!). The day ahead was huge though, and I wasn't going to let that detract any enjoyment from the celebrations. [The rest of my day was fueled by pain killers, antiinflammatories and grog! ;)]

By the time the tribe were up and about, team Fiji had a huge fire pit ablaze behind the kitchen area, filled with large rocks, heating up ready for the Lovo. In what often provides a contentious discussion, the killing and preparation of the pigs for the lovo, I found it to be very educative and interesting to observe. This is an age old tradition of cooking in an oven dug into the ground, with hot rocks put inside the pig to help cook evenly. The pigs were here for this purpose, after being given to the tribe by Tui Mali some time ago, and they were killed quickly and cleanly with the minimum of noise or fuss. The process of wrapping all of the fish, pig and veg is quite an artform, all neatly and tightly tied into palm leaf baskets for cooking in the lovo. This is all then piled into the 'oven' and covered with huge leaves and then soil and left to cook for a few hours.

The tribe split up into teams to help with the final preparations, helping descale the huge fish that Marau had caught the day before, grinding the coconuts to make the sauces and preparing the veg. All three kitchens on the island were in full flow, with team Fiji, their family members and the tribe all helping. The newly constructed table and original dining tables were decorated and laid and a final sweep up of the paths around the front of the village was done.

Once everyone had eaten a bit of breakfast and completed most tasks, we all gathered in the Great Bure for a quick meeting about the day and then had a sing-song with team Fiji, singing Isa Lei to say goodbye to the last year and happy birthday for the special day on the island. The boys got carried away and we had a few more songs and lots of dancing, whooping and laughing, it was a wonderful moment, as a tribe, before all the guests arrived.

Through the rest of the morning the tribe readied themselves washing in the sea, dressing up and helping to guide guests around the island and village as they arrived. [Hassan is a legendary Vorovoro tour guide!] We had a cameraman from Fiji 1 TV, local villages and organisation representatives and VIP guests all over the village. Just before twelve thirty, myself, Tevita, Ben, Jim and Dan walked down to the Fijian village to address Tui Mali and tell him that we were ready to recieve him. We presented him with some grog and a bula shirt to match those of team Fiji and the TW team members, these were brought from my budget as chief as a gift to the gang so that we can all look smart in the same colours when we attend events or host visitors.

Everyone in the village had readied themselves and Tui Mali and his guests were the last to be seated after approaching to the sound of the Lali drum being beaten to announce his arrival. There were five sat in the head position, Tui Mali, his wingman who is a chief from a neighbouring village on Mali, a pastor from Mali, the head master of the All Saints Secondary School, and the Mali Sharks rugby team captain. I sat as wingman to August chief Dan in a seperate shelter to the side, which was shared by Giles (project director until this day), Jim (the new project director), Ben Keene and Pupu. The rest of the tribe and some guests were sat opposite Tui Mali under a large shelter and more guests were seated off to one side under the trees. Team Fiji and Ben Katz were sat off to one side of the central mat, ready and dressed in the traditional costumes for the Kava ceremony, with Kimbo being back on the island for the anniversary in the full dress as server for the day (he did a superb job!).

The formal part of the day consisted of a speech from a Tribewanted village elder, Leavi, for Tui Mali and his wingman receiving the kava. Tevita, the Vorovoro community manager, then spoke for several minutes about the project and the island was utterly silent for this, he also presented a Tabua (whales tooth) to Tui Mali. I have no idea what exactly Te said, but everyone could feel the emotion and passion from the man, who is "a force of nature", to coin a Ben Keene phrase. The grog was then brought forward and mixed for Tui Mali and his guests to drink. After this came the chief handover, and the heart started racing a bit more! Dan went up to have the Salusalu* removed from around his neck by one of Tui Mali's guests and then sat to speak to the tribe (and guests) about his time as chief, and then it was my turn to approach Tui Mali... the etiquette is to clap three times for Tui Mali and then I went along to the guest and he shook my hand and offered some advice and asked me to carry on the good work of previous chiefs and continue to educate the world about the Fijian culture, he then put the Salusalu around my neck and I turned to address Tui Mali and the tribe. I thanked everyone involved in the project for allowing me this opportunity to be chief and expressed my desire to take the project forward as best I could into the third year, and thanked the previous two chiefs for their good example during my 2 month stay.

After the handover and formalities were finished, Giles gave a speech to Tui Mali and Team Fiji in Fijian, which was very moving for everyone, even though we only understood a few words. His demeanour and body language said it all. He then went on to tell us his thoughts in English and after working on Vorovoro for a long time and having close personal bonds with everyone on the island he will be leaving in a happy mindset thanks to the experience and lessons learnt here. Ben Keene spoke next and talked about the project from its beginning and how it has evolved and developed with the hard work and leadership of the team. He presented some gifts to Tui Mali, Giles (receiving on behalf of the island) and Tevita (on behalf of Fiji). Tui Mali then spoke of his pride and admiration for those who brought the project to life and worked hard to make it work, of his own personal pride in being involved in something so special and of the future for Vorovoro.

Next came our entertainment for the guests... the tribe left the mat and went to put on our grass decorations and paints ready to perform our meke. I led the tribe back to the mat and the men seated with their backs to the assembled crowd for the Vuki Malua. It was met with the usual joy and enthusiasm and we were 'hit' with the normal talc, sulu's, sweets and kisses routine designed to put us off, always great fun! The girls of the tribe then joined us and we performed the six meke's individually and then a complete runthrough of one to six and then the girls performed their own meke for the crowd. Giles and Ben then stitched up a few members of Team Fiji after Kerekere-ing Tui Mali, and had them up to perform the girls meke, which was hilarious! Tale and Sosi are naturals... Fafaas, heheh.

We then went and enjoyed the wonderful Lovo feast and sat on the dining tables and beach to eat with our guests. The food was amazing, its incredible how they manage to make so much and such good stuff with such limited resources.

After the Lovo we went back to the mats, which were now out from under the shelters after the midday sun had passed, and got stuck into some grog. I asked Will, one of the new tribe members, to come up and sit with me on my mat near the top, partly for selfish reasons (company at the head of the mat!) but also to give one of the tribe a different view of the whole thing. It was nice to sit and get to know him and help fill in some blanks for him about the day and its formalities.

The ladies had baked a large birthday cake for Tribewanted, with the 'X' logo on the top and lots of icing, and so this was presented and then the candles (all two of them) were lit. Tui Mali offered the blowing out of the candles to me, but I suggested that we both did it, and so we both leaned in and blew them out together, which was quite a nice moment! During the late afternoon hours the guests began to leave a boat at a time, until it was dark and just the Tribewaned tribe remained. Most were tired, as the night before was quite full on and late, but I was determined to enjoy the full day to the max, as much for Ben as anyone else, it was his baby's second birthday after all!

Early evening Va brought out a second birthday cake, this time it was for Emma who turned twenty two today, what a birthday party she had! We sang the usual 'happy birthday' and 'happy longlife' songs for her and then I installed her as 'wing-chick' for the rest of the night... which was to be long! A core group of us carried on into the early hours, including Leavi, Pupu, Save and Sosi and we had a good singing session and lots of grog. [Emma got to the point of seeing things that weren't there, quite an amusing side effect of late nights and lots of grog! ;)]

We closed the day and said a final happy birthday to Ben as we all went off to a well earned sleep. It was going to be short as the next day we had a huge amount of people leaving early and Pupu's birthday to celebrate... making it a three day-long 'session'!

What a great honour, and great privilege it is to have been installed as chief for this time. It was a very special day, in the company of some very special people, and I will never ever forget it.

If you get the chance, be here for the third birthday, you won't regret it! ;)

Pics from the day are here!!!

Vinaka Vaka Levu for reading...
Moce
Tui Paula.

* The Salusalu is a colourful traditional Fijian woven piece worn around the neck of the chief for official formalities.

Tribewanted's Virgin Footsteps, a Trek in Vanua Levu

sl0ggs — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:01:00 GMT

On Friday the 22nd of August 2008 a group of tribe members and a certain mister Ben Keene left Vorovoro for a mini-adventure, trekking into the interior of the northern Fijian mainland island of Vanua Levu.

We didn't just decide we'd go and do this on the spur of the moment, it was all part of a fledgling business idea of Save's brother, Junior. This came about after the recent initiative from Ben to help local entrepreneurs with their business ideas in order to win a government grant to help start-up.

Ben, myself, Sue, Moya, Hassan, Geoff, Ed and Kristin all boarded the boat on Friday afternoon with our small back packs and set off for Labasa and into the unknown...

Our guide for the weekend, Junior, met us at the Grand Eastern hotel and we had half an hour to kill before we needed to be on the bus which would take us to our first stop, somewhere in the interior of Vanua Levu. Most of us took the opportunity to pop into town (downtown LA) to fetch some munchies for the long bus ride ahead and (Hassan) to visit the internet cafe to check emails.

Whilst waiting for the Best Dressed Man on Vorovoro to come back from the internet cafe, the rest of us walked to the bus station to save some seats on the bus, which was leaving at 3pm. This was an interesting spot to sit for twenty minutes, as the bus was near full, with confused patrons clambering on and off of a host of buses trying to find their route, meanwhile a (literally) crooked peanut salesmen wandered around in the smog of the bus fumes selling bags of monkey nuts for 50 cents. Moya and I obliged him and the nuts were good! (Phew! ;))

Shortly before 3pm and with a near full bus, Hassan arrived with Junior and Ben and we were all seated and underway before the scheduled departure time! This generally does not happen in Fiji, hence the phrase 'Fiji time', however having just pulled out of the bus station, the bus was abruptly brought to a standstill by several pairs of hands thumping on its sides and the last few passengers loaded their casava roots underneath the bus and climbed aboard, putting the bus journey bang on schedule! The buses here have open holes where the windows would normally live, so we had good air conditioning and lots of dust for the near three hour journey after leaving the tarmac of Labasa behind after only a few miles of travel. We amused ourselves on the bus with snacks, conversation and the usual sprinkling of humour that is traditionally associated with anything 'tribewanted'. Jazzy Geoff (off of painting Api's house fame) was on form and struck up a lengthy conversation with an elderly Fijian chap for much of the journey. On route we saw yaqorna trees growing along the green road sides, which produce the Kava root that the whole of Fiji drinks (the now infamous 'grog'). Partway through the trip the bus stopped outside a little shop for a five minute stretch of the legs and a cigarette break, which was appreciated by a couple of our group. There were also several stops along the way to let passengers off, some of them with no obvious destination in sight, literally being set down in the middle of nowhere. The people that live out here in the sticks do a LOT of walking!

Somewhere between five thirty and six we arrived at our stop, a junction called Coacoa Road. There wasn't much to see, apart from dense green bush and the red muddy tracks splitting at this point. We waved farewell to those left on the bus and picked up our bags ready to walk... somewhere. Junior had organised an evening meal and accomodation for us, but had not told us quite how far we'd be walking to get there. He did suggest that torches were a good idea! I'd estimate a 4-5 kilometer walk along a battered pick-up truck smashed track through the jungle, with "this is the last hill" being uttered several times over! It was soon dark, and a few of the group were in their thongs (flip-flops!) and were starting to feel the strain underfoot. If you ask a Fijian "how far to go" or "how much longer left", you'll be greeted with the answer "not far/much" regardless of how we might perceive it and so the beach footware remained for those wearing them for the rest of the walk. Rain helped us stay refreshed for some of the night walk, which was actually quite welcomed.

We arrived at our destination around seven thirty, not knowing where we were or in what environment, only that we'd gone up hill much of the way. As is customary in any Fijian home, we were made to feel very welcomed and were introduced to the men who were sitting around the grog bowl on their breezy porch, and the women who were busy inside the house preparing our feast in their tiny kitchen. The ladies went to freshen up inside as the guys sat down around the bowl and presented a sevusevu and sunk a few bilo's. The ladies joined us and after a quick freshen up we were invited to go inside to eat in the kitchen. The dining table was full of taro in various guises and some casava. We tucked in and took in our new environment in the kitchen with its walls covered in posters from what looked like a typical western style sunday supplement with pictures of gourmet menu items including steaks, cheesecakes and other delicious looking fare! Ben did point at one item and request it from the kitchen, which was met with plenty of hearty laughter by the ladies. After we'd all filled up on the delicious food, we took more grog on board before settling down for the night in the spacious rooms inside the large house. We literally slept on the mats on the wooden floor, with blankets and pillows. I slept surprisingly well, no mean feat considering the added disruption of pretty much everyone snoring thanks to the nasal canals being full of dust from our bus journey earlier in the day! [Junior won the snore-off by the way, its a family trait to be good at snoring I think! ;)]

Early next morning we woke one by one and walked out onto the porch to be greeted with our first sighting of where exactly we were in the world. The house was atop one side of a huge valley, which was as green as you could ever imagine... in the distance were large impressive hills and peaks with a green textured blanket as far as the eye could see. In the beautiful gardens surrounding the house several dogs and one large pig pottered around sniffing for scraps. We were in a small settlement of only a few homes, called Ba-Acu, which literally translates as 'wooden gate', and we'd been graciously put-up at Semi's home for the night, even though he wasn't actually there (his brother had played host). After a seriously strong and sweet coffee and some casava cake (its pretty good actually) we took ourselves down into a stream nearby for a 'shower' under a running tap into a huge water butt and brushed our teeth here too. It was very refreshing and had everyone suitably awake to prepare themselves for a day of walking.

We took a few pics and took our time to say goodbye to everyone at the house before leaving and walking into the green hillside. The walk was headed up by our host from the evening before, who also carried lunch and Junior brang up the rear of the group. The pace was steady and pretty relaxed, with a view to taking everything in and enjoying the walk, and not drenching ourselves in unnecessary sweat. The first part of the walk was on a similar track to last nights effort, although it was a track less travelled by vehicles and was a little more overgrown. Two of the young Fijian men we drank with the previous evening caught us up equipped with boots, head cover and machete's, taking a short cut behind us to go ahead and help cut an easier path through the overgrown and rarely trekked jungle ahead of us. We reached our junction along the track (which goes on to the local school) and took five minutes to drink some water and rest, before heading off down hill into the jungle proper.

The pace remained sensible and Junior filled us in with some info about the species we were seeing on route. The jungle was dense in places and it was a fairly typical jungle walk, stepping over fallen trees, brushing aside vines and treading carefully on mud and slippery roots. Some of the steeper downhill sections were slightly more precarious, but everyone faired well and enjoyed the walk (including 'slippery Sue' who introduced the jungle floor to her backside in style just the once!). We could hear wild parrots shouting at each other in the hills, but unfortunately weren't able to sight them during the walk. We were also afforded some amazing views when a suitable gap in the trees allowed so before descending too far down the hillside into the valley, including seeing the ocean on the south side of the island. At the bottom of the hill we came across a wide river, low due to the dry season and this was our stop for lunch and a well earned rest. The bed of the river was rock with some huge rounded bolders lining the banks. It was nice to get the shoes off and dip the feet in the cold water and have a little splash around here. We ate sandwiches prepared by the ladies at the house this morning and rested and reflected here for a while. This was where we were told that no white men have taken this path or walked this river, which gave me an inflated sense of pride and made us feel slightly more adventurous than we already did. The next part of the walk was along the river itself, which was quite good fun hoping from rock to rock until we came to a track alongside the river and got back into the greenery.

The group were pleasantly surprised when we reached the outskirts of the Nakura Settlement near to the coast, as some of Juniors extended family were waiting for us with a mat, lots of packs of biscuits and some fresh cooled juice. We sat in a wonderful setting, on the grassy banks of the river where it opens out into a large pool which is used by the settlement for washing and fun and games. There was a huge tree on the opposite bank to where we sat with the thickest rope I'd ever seen, hanging from it as a swing over the pool. The water was too low for us to easily swim here though, and after the break we walked on down into the settlement with an ever growing entourage of Fijianas across a field housing their cattle and stepped out onto the most fantastic piece of coastline I've ever stepped on to. We lingered here for a while and spoke with the family whos house was literally right on the beach edge and took photos with the excited collection of kids.

Beach walking has never been so pleasurable... we walked with lots of the family from the settlement with more joining us from along the beach at our destination village, on beautiful fine warm golden sands being lapped by a warm high tide, the entire coast fringed with palms, reaching out over the water as far as they could possibly stretch. We stopped before our destination village, something which we later learned (days after the trek) that wasn't the best etiquette on our part, instead we should have arrived, presented sevusevu and THEN gone back along the beach to play. I guess we thought it better to bath in the sea and play games with the kids out of sight of the village in case we upset anyone accidentally in doing so. Anyway, it turns out that no one in the village was upset by this, but we have learnt for future trips! We took the opportunity to swim in the sea, relax and play some games with the kids on the beach. Ben started them off, playing rugby with a coconut and then having races and running gym-style circuits with them, much to their amusement. More and more kids arrived, news filtering through that we were there, and we played French style boules with coconuts, had a three legged race, sprinted along the beach and generally had a blast with them, taking lots of pictures along the way (which of course added to the entertainment as they got to see the pictures of themselves doing all these things too).

Naboudini Village was our destination for the evening, and after the fun and games we made our way down there. We were staying in Junior's deceased grandfathers house, which has prime spot over looking the ocean at the front of the village. One of the lead chefs from Vorovoro, the wonderful Va, hails from this village and her house is right behind the one we stayed in (in fact, the girls from our group slept at Va's house in the end). We relaxed here for a short time and had a little venture into other parts of the village to have a look around before we were invited to one of Juniors Aunts house for a late lunch. The room was clear and clean and they had laid out lunch on beautiful cloths on the floor. We ate a huge lunch of traditional Fijian food and then headed down to some benches on the beach to relax and take it all in. When we got back to our accomodation there were several men from the village in there with Junior, mixing a bowl of grog to welcome us [instead of the more traditional carved wooden tanoa, they had an old sea buoy with its top cut off and used as a stand for their tanoa]. The chief of the village arrived and we all sat, drank and chatted and told stories for hours, although the time simply flew by. It grew dark outside and only 3-4 hours after eating a huge feast for our late lunch we were informed that dinner was ready! We went back to the house we ate in earlier, although not entirely enthusiastically, and were greeted with another huge spread. They'd made a dish which we eat a lot on Vorovoro, papaya curry, but this one was pretty spicy, there was also a delicious mash potato with garlic and chilli in and a very tasty coconut soup with onions and chillis, plus some nice crisp crunchy salad. Suddenly everyone was into eating again, as it was all so nice! We rested and nattered by the sea after tearing ourselves away from the Shrek movie which the kids put on while we were finishing up our meal, and then wandered back to our accomodation to join the grog session.

We had to hunt for the grog session, as they had vacated our room by the time we got back. After a walk through the village and a quick chat with a few familes along the way we found the gang. They'd holed up in what we later found out was called the glass bar, or something similar. There were a lot more men from the village in on this session, and they welcomed us on to the mat and started filling the glass(!) bilo for us to drink. This was odd in two ways from what I've seen so far during my time in Fiji, firstly you could see the colour and amount of the grog all too vividly inside, as opposed to just seeing the light shining off of the top of it in a coconut bilo, secondly, the bowl was always wet on the outisde as it didn't have the natural drop-off on the bottom like the coconut bilo, so grog went everywhere, dripping down the arms and onto the sulu. It was messy, lol. It was also messy as it was bloody strong! They mix it a little differently in this place, I guess they are a tad more flippant with the vast supply of grog they tend to in this part of the country! Each round was broken with a song and a new amount of ground kava being mixed into the huge bowl with a few more bilo's of water... it seemed to keep getting stronger all night! We sat there in a grog-enduced daze for the night before the Fijians themselves gave up and pronounced the session over.

After a much better (grogged?!) nights sleep we arose to wash and ready for our departure. I took a freshwater shower (trickle) in the house bathroom but the girls got the inside scoop from Junior and wandered off to a local river and creek to wash in that! From what they tell me it was like something out of a TV advert for a tropical hair shampoo, yes, that scene in your head right now... With the guys not-at-all-jealous, we all headed over to the Aunt's house for a breakfast of freshly baked scone 'slabs' and caramelised coconut rolled cake, both of which were amazing! Washed down with lots of cocoa and tea meaning we all had to reach for the tooth brushes again before leaving.

Our send off was wonderful, even with the church running a kids club that Sunday morning, we had a lot of the village stood watching us board the pickup truck and waving us off. The pickup truck was driven by a blinged up Indian lad and had some great welding 'scars' in the floor of the back (where we had our feet), which would fail in an annual Motor Ordinance Test in the UK in a second flat! He drove very considerately of his live-stock though, which was no mean feat considering the dirt tracks we took. Junior suggested we took a different route back to Malau, via the south coast and an interior dissecting 'short-cut' where we could see more of the countryside and some more settlements on route. The views of the coast and the interior were stunning, and even though we got our bums bashed on the hard wooden bench for some three hours, we enjoyed the journey taking several breaks, and stopping to talk to a few random people out in the middle-of-nowhere too, all of whom were delighted to see us. Junior enjoyed showing us (approximately) where we were on his new map of the island, which made me laugh at one point as we all poured over it on the bonnet of the pickup at one stop, seemingly studying the map to work out our route... we were on a single mud track, that went straight through the middle of the island, heheh.

Just before we got back to Malau we stopped at a shop and Moya treated us to ice creams and we took a break. Ben called to arrange our boat transfer back to Vorovoro and we were in the strange place of ending our adventure, but looking forward to getting back 'home'. Johny was waiting for us down at the dock in Malau and before we got off of the pickup Hassan collected a donation from us all as a tip for Junior. It was his first trek, and his costs pretty much ate up all the money we gave him to go on it in the first place... a harsh learning curve, but it only needs to happen that once. He was touched by the gesture and we all had hugs for the man and left him waving us off on the dock after a very good two days in his company.

The whole trek went very well from beginning to end and everyone enjoyed it, even Junior who had a look of concern for much of the weekend what with it being his maiden voyage. Every person we met on route was warm welcoming and freindly, and genuinely interested in meeting us. Junior learnt a lot about how to run this kind of event and should hopefully go on to develop the idea into a decent little business for himself with Bens expert assistance. Since the trek some of us met with Junior on a recent town trip to provide feedback about the two days and he has some more ideas himself about routes and activities too... I'm sure I speak for everybody that has met the man when I wish him the best of luck in his venture!

Here's to the next 'Juniors Trek', I'll be there for sure as long as I'm still in Fiji...

Pics are over on facebook, here and here!

Vinaka Vaka Levu
Sloggs

Happy days... but tears today.

sl0ggs — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:52:00 GMT

Life is good. I sit on the beach, surrounded by friends most days wondering how I can keep this thing going... everyday is good.

But today I received the news I'd dreaded for some months. One of my best friends died this week, and a big part of me is lost. My Bullmastiff/Boxer cross, called Chester finally lost his battle with cancer this week, after a long and happy life with myself and Sarah, and this amazing woman had to deal with this without me there. Thanks for being so strong, for doing the right thing and for the words to let me know. Perfect as always! x

I will be taking the time to say goodbye myself this week from Vorovoro. Tears are rolling, and I fear random outbreaks today and for some days to come!!!!

Thanks for your thoughts... look out for more blogs soon!

Sloggs

Tribewanted Meke to ~1000 people!!!

sl0ggs — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:04:00 GMT

On the 14th of August 2008 Vorovoro was left empty* as the entire tribe made the trip to the All Saints Secondary School after being invited to meke for the crowd at the Cadets passing out parade.

The day began with an early breakfast at 6:30 and after loading up on porridge and banana's (good Meke fuel!) everyone put on their colourful outfits ready to represent the tribe at a big district event.

After the first two boats arrived in Malau we entertained ourselves whilst waiting for the next two loads by practising some meke and eating poisonous packaged foods(!) from the little blue shop at the port**. As usual there were some people waiting for the Malau bus at this stop, but I think by now they are used the mad-house that is Tribewanted arriving and behaving in a strange manner! The bus arrived just as the last two boats were racing into the port and we were soon crammed into a near full Malau bus and on our way. [What a dangerous thing the Malau Bus can be in another context! ;)]. Once underway there was a shout of "Meke practise", which was met with some embarrased laughter and a few random hand waves. Tui Mali (the chief of the whole Mali district, including Vorovoro) joined us from the next stop and after twenty minutes or so we were alighting at All Saints which was busy with students entering under the glare (and chastising) of the teachers on duty on the gate.

The enormity of the day dawned on me at this point as there were hundreds of school kids, cadets, parents and staff members swarming the school and in a front-row position in front of the playing fields sat a VIP guest seating area, shaded from the hot sun. This months tribewanted chief, Tui Taniela (known as Daniel Mason to his friends & family) had one such seat next to Tui Mali and a MAHUUUUSIVE big-wig from the army, who made everyone at the event look small. The rest of us were provided with old-skool style wooden benches to sit along side the VIP section as the announcer blared out over the tannoy that we were here and would provide entertainment... yikes!

The parade began and the hundreds of cadets put on a superb marching display with accompanied drums under an intense sun. Some of the tribewanted team Fiji staff had family in the parade, one of Leavi's daughters was out there and also Tale & Kassa's younger brother was leading one of the units through the parade. I took some photos of him to print for them as they don't possess a camera. Some of the marching was impressive as they held a rather awkward looking body angle through some of it! Once the parade was finished and some awards for the top students were given, we were ushered off to change into our costumes for the performance. Some of the tribe members had made the leaf wrist bands and necklaces the previous evening and the men had the obligatory black paint adornment on the face, arms and chest and we were off onto the field after a small group of school kids had finished their national anthem combined with flag dance. Team Fiji positioned themselves behind us with the Lali drum and the men lined up ready with our backs to the crowd to perform the Viki Malua Meke. I wasn't aware that the boys were going to be amplified until they started singing with Tevita hogging the mic as he was the only one I could hear to begin with! (That man belts out the songs with so much heart!!) The Meke started well, and with Jim sat in front of me, at the head of the line, I was confident that the timing of the turn would be spot on... that was until we did the second turn, the one where we end up facing the crowd, to find that we were three or four seconds ahead of the rest (and the majority) of the line!! Oops! We held it together and waited for the rest to turn before joining in for the finale... lol!

The crowd received us well and then the girls joined the line ready for the run through of the six meke's which we'd been practising like mad all week in preparation. Jale, Jim and Save sat out front, for the line to follow, but also to take the brunt of the inevitable challenge from the onlooking crowd, which was now looming large in front of us! I was thrilled to be there for such a big crowd, but partly as I've become pretty confident with the meke now after 5 weeks of practising! After the last meke we did for a tourist student group visiting us on Vorovoro where my 'challenge' during meke number 5 was accepted by a group of them who came and sat on/next to me, putting me off the rest of the meke succesfully, I was only nervous about who to point at in the crowd! As it happened the whole line were targeted anyway, especially Jale in front with his wonderfully over exaggerated meke style ("it's all in the shoulders!"). The boys got given HUGE pieces of cake covered in icing (gutted!) and the girls got sweets that tasted like hospital floor cleaner (heheh!). They gave Rich a piece of cake bigger than his head, superb! The meke went well, and everyone involved enjoyed the experience. As we left the field we were thanked by many of the crowd, which was estimated by all there to have been in the region of a thousand people!

We were provided with delicious ice cold orange squash, tea and lots of food before we were invited to sit with some of the top army men under their make-shift sun shade, for a quick grog session. We said hello to them and sat and watched as the school staff presented them with lots of different coloured sulu's complete with the school name on them during a sevusevu, had some grog and then bid the school farewell to go and catch the bus back to Malau.

At the bus-stop chief (Dan) bought us all ice creams and we chatted about the great day we'd had whilst watching two full buses go past. [Save and I played a game of hitting the face of the opposite kerb with stones, and of course he was brilliant at it... grrr! ;)]. We had to take the third bus that came through, which was nearly full, and half of us ended up stood in the aisle, much to the amusement of those already seated. When the first bell rang to stop and let someone off, we (the tribe) let out a big "ooooh noooo", which was met with much laughter (maybe you had to be there!) and this then followed for the myriad of stops until we all had seats. When we got the final stop (the wood yard at the Malau port) Dan asked the driver if we could have a photo of everyone hanging out of the bus, which he was happy to facilitate and we did exactly that (picture to follow soon hopefully!).

The boats back to Vorovoro were subdued as everyone was day dreaming about the day and we were soon rounding the island and going home...

That evening we had a grog session with team Fiji down at their old grog site along the beach between the two villages, and after many bowls and hours a well earned sleep was reward at the end of yet another fantastic day-in-the-life of Tribewanted!

Vinaka Vaka Levu for reading...
Sloggs :)

*Vorovoro is never left completely empty of course... but today saw one of the biggest leaving parties, leaving literally only a few of team Fiji behind to enjoy the tranquility that an empty Vorovoro offers.

**The little blue shop had a shiny new, bright-red facade when we left later that day... a fact which was missed by all apart from myself I think! (Told you porridge was good fuel! ;))

My new postal address...

sl0ggs — Sat, 9 Aug 2008 08:42:00 GMT

[Postal address at the bottom of this blog! ;)]

So, here I am, on Vorovoro, thousands of miles away from home and from most people I know. My family is growing by the week and I am calling this home. When we pass around the headland coming home from a day trip, I look longingly at my beach and village hidden in the trees, a warm feeling inside making me feel glad to be back... Leaving is going to hurt!

The Fijians make everyone so welcome, not only on Vorovoro but also in the villages we visit on Mali and the mainland. They open their hearts and homes to us and we become part of their families almost instantly! Respect goes a long way, and in what the Tribewanted project is doing here, this is gained straight away. Who could want for more... it is perhaps lucky that I don't have a bottomless pit of money, and that the TW team have put a maximum stay on the time a visitor can spend here, else I'd be tricky to remove...

Life has been good, and as the first month has passed each new day proves to be as good as the last. During the first month there have been some moments that have really stood out of course, but there are no bad days here, unless you choose to make one yourself! We've had a murder mystery party, brilliantly organised by Jo and Cathy for Dan's birthday, and the whole frogbombing incident which culminated in a ("Mickey Mouse") court hearing and punishment being metered out by Tui Mali himself (myself, an innocent bystander being 'gifted' a place on the workforce in the absence of one of the criminals, lol!). I was here for the Vorovoro Session, where the Mali choir came to Vorovoro to sing for us and to be professionally recorded for a TW download, along with the songs usually heard during the week on the island. I've visited village elder Leavi's farm and helped him dig and plant yams and now I've been to Api the boat captain's home on the mainland and helped him paint it. These are unique opportunitys in life, and I'm very happy to be here and have this chance to improve myself as a person. Long may it continue. Maybe I can magic some way up of staying here or returning... it's certainly in my heart and mind!

We also have countless small moments that are golden... too many to recall as I sit here in the ecotricity hut typing on my laptop, best to use my photos and comments to recall those where possible. Some things that have stood out these recent weeks and days... Emma leaving (sad day!), Greek ladys, Chewbacca, Bean Toes, My name is Jenniiiii, Oh my god (oh your god!), amaaaaazzin, many many grog sessions, songs, meke, Jim becoming project director for next year (ammmmaaaazzzzzin!), the guys arriving and realising Jales' dream of building a gym on the beach, it's called the Jim-nasium lol, walking the four peaks and running parts of it (fun!), reef snorkeling trips and encountering a MAHUUUUSIVE sturgeon with Emma and Benj whilst we were being followed by a small school of yellow fish, playing bad chess!, reading books!! (suddenly after many years of not reading, I'm a book eating machine. I've read Dice Man by Luke Rienhart, The Bourne Legacy and now reading Keith Allens autobiography, which is laugh-out-loud funny!) and not forgetting countless firepit talks and hammock wrestling... who needs television! This is real life and I love it. I'm making lots of new friends, and some of these friendships will hopefully continue on for some years to come.

I miss certain people who have been and left during my time, not least of all Emma, who arrived on the same day as me... hopefully she is having the time of her life now teaching kids hockey near to Nadi!

One bad day I had here, was when my ipod had an accidental wash in the sea... I've been so careful with my gadgets so far this year, and to lose it now is a hefty blow! It was only purchased to bring with me on this trip, and having used it countless evenings to get to sleep in noisy dorms and on flights and just to enjoy my favourite tunes, it is a big loss. Having only bought my laptop in Australia and of course, not backing any of my 1500 tunes up to it since buying it, it means I only have a few albums with me that I purchased online in New Zealand... bah! At least I did insure the thing, so hopefully I can get that cost back and try and pick another one up.

So, umm... check out my pics over on facebook. They are a sod to upload from the connection in Labasa when I get there, and there are lots more on my PC, but they give a good indication as to life here...

I've written a blog about a day out where a group of the tribe went the Api the boat captains house to paint it for him, as a way of saying thank you for the two years of excellent service he has provided to the project... it's over on the tribewanted site, so please click and read it and have a look around on the site. Joining is free and you can get involved on the forum with discussions about the island and how it is run and keep up to date on me, the project and even check out the profiles of those people staying on the island with me... go go go! Vinaka!

Laters
Sloggs :)

P.S. I found out today, on my visit to the mainland to upload this post, that my blog is the 28th most read on this site... a fact I find astonishing personally, but thanks to everyone for reading!!!

I'd love to know who you are, what you think of my blog or even how you came to find it... It would be great to hear from you in a comment on here or via email sl0ggs@gmail.com. I might not be able to reply to everyone very quickly as I only have a couple of hours online per week currently, but it would be great to hear your thoughts and find out who is reading... cheers! :)

P.P.S. My postal address is as follows... if you want to make a future chief happy, send sweets! But anything is welcome... heheheh! Thanks! Love ya!

Paul Sloggett
Tribewanted
PO Box 2760
Labasa
Fiji

Big Decisions

sl0ggs — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:57:00 GMT

This year I've been looking for somewhere that would leave a big impression on me, and somewhere I could maybe stay for a while longer than my original itinerary was fixed for. I've found it. The traveling thing, in a traditional sense is great, and I've really enjoyed it. Even having taken so much from this year already, and making changes and improvement in myself, I have still been looking for something else. Pretty much from the first day her on Vorovoro I've felt like I could stay here, and the longer I stay the more that feeling grows. I've now taken the bull by the horns and extended to stay here in a big way! I've booked until the middle of september, and I'm applying to be the TW chief for the whole month of September, which would mean if I get it, I would be here until mid October! I really very excited about this, and so pleased I've done it. I want to get to know the TW team and Team Fiji really well as they are all wonderful people, and I really want to get the most out of the cultural and ecological side of things while I'm here. I can see some big changes being made in myself from this place, and all for the good. This of course means that my whole trip has been extended indefinitely as I still have to go to the west coast of Australia and to South Africa! I'll update once I've got a firm date...

This might be my last blog entry for a while, as life on Vorovoro will be pretty much the same from day to day from here on in, apart from of course, meeting loads of great new people and the odd special day when the come along. With the internet being so hard to get to, I'll limit the time I spend online anyway... so expect the occassional update, enjoy rereading some of my other entries and lookout for a new pictures now and then!

Vinaka Vaka Levu!
Sloggs

Life on Vorovoro...

sl0ggs — Wed, 9 Jul 2008 09:46:00 GMT

I woke up early on Saturday the 5th of July after a better nights sleep and met up with a chap I met the night before who was taking the same flight as me to Labasa to share a taxi (a mercedes saloon, which the driver managed to fit Dales surf & wake board inside with us!). Checkin was amusing as the tickets are all hand written for each passenger and Dale had to take the hint from the checkin clerk to 'bribe' him because of the extra weight he was checking in! This was acheived with the spare $8 in his pocket 'for lunch', lol.

Whilst waiting for the flight I had some breakfast and shopped for a few cheapo tshirts to ruin on the island and stuffed them into my already bursting hand luggage pack. When we were called for the flight we walked into the security check point to find their xray machine was not working, so I had to empty my bag for a lady to check the contents on the desk! This took about ten minutes to get done and repack... I was sat near the back of the plane, and we waited on the runway for the last passenger, a certain Mr Ben Keene, the founder of the tribewanted project, who I could see strolling across the tarmac to the waiting plane.

Once safely in Labasa's tiny airport and waiting for our bags to be lifted off of the plane I got chatting to Ben and we met the only other person on the plane today who was going to the island, Emma. Shortly we were off in the taxi with the driver and female staff member who usually greets new arrivals in excited and giggly form as Ben was here after a 5 month absence. We drove to the Grand Eastern Hotel where we met with 8 other girls who were joining the island today having stayed in Labasa for one night. What a terrible day to join a desert island in Fiji!! ;)

The group of newbies went into town with one of the staff members to buy grog to present to the Island chief in the week and to buy Sulu's to wear for ceremonies etc. The market was how I expected it, bright, colourful, busy and smelly, especially near the grog stall we went to, where the lovely open concrete toilet block stood! We received lots of looks from the locals, although I suspect only because they don't usually see such large groups of arrivals at one time. The town was extremely busy, and I later learnt that is because all of the farmers come into town to trade on a saturday, and most shops close at 1pm, hence the rush of people. The paths were teeming and there was a big social thing going on as people that obviously live quite far from each other all meet here on a saturday for some gossip.

After a short wait back at the hotel we lined our bags up along the jetty and some of Vorovoro's 'Team Fiji' loaded the boats up ready to set off. The tide was extremely low because of the new moon, so the trip out to the island was slow as we went through the river mouth and channel between the mainland and the island, but this enabled us to pick the brains of Giles, the island manager about life on the island and some of the landscape we were getting a good look at. The boat was buzzing as we rounded the island and saw the beach in front of the village. Only a few things give away the location of the village, the floating pontoon out in the sea, the roof of the grand bure and a glimpse of colour from one of the buildings in amongst the trees. As we slowed the boat, people began appearing from the trees all the way along the beach, it was quite surreal! We were greeted and given a hand taking our bags up the beach to the grand bure and introduced to the current tribewanted chief on the island, Mariah who took us on a tour of the village.

The village is extremely well established having been here for nearly two years now, and the array and build quality of the buildings is really good. After the tour we went of the claim a bed, and I went for the 'funhouse' which has three beds and backs onto the ocean. So far only Jo was staying here and I didn't fancy sharing with lots of people right at the start, especially after the lack of sleep the last few days! I tried to rattle through everyones names again during a walk around, as I'd forgotten almost everyone's already!

The Village
The Grand Bure is an amazing sight in the middle of the TW (tribewanted) village, and the focal point of most activities and the tribes gathering place for formal ceremony. There is even space to sleep in there on raised platforms at either end, but since the new sleeping Vale was build they won't see much use and are now mostly home to rats from what I gather. The village is very much an outdoor thing, with none of the buildings having doors. They have been well constructed and have bamboo leaf wall panels and roofing with large tarpoling window covers which are rolled down when it rains to protect the beds. The Chiefs bure is very nice and alone with the funhouse and two sleeping Vales there is a family Vale for the few families that do stay or for groups traveling together to use should it be free. There are changing cubicles behind a washing line drying area, an 'ecotricty' which uses power generated by a solar panel and wind turbine on the hill behind the village to supply power to the hut where you can charge batteries etc. The kitchen is large and mainly open under a tin roof, with one hut where the food is stored and prepared. It has a wood fired oven outside a large (sea) water butt for washing up, a big cupboard for dishes and tools and an ice-fridge. It is a very busy part of the village and central to the daily life of everyone here, especially with five bell rings a day for food and tea breaks. Beyond this is an alfresco eating area which is shared by everyone at eating times and is used for socialing and games around these times. Beach front is a large firepit surrounded by ultra comfy logs (sourced through Ikea I believe) and one huge hammock and nearby is an area with lots of hammocks for relaxing with beach, village and ocean horizon views! The resident 'gaper', Jim, heads the 'Hammock Society', whos ethos is to enjoy Fiji life at a slow relaxed pace, those who exercise will be ejected from the society forthwith! I have joined the society, but only really as a favour to Jim who likes to be able to expel people occassionally, which I should be able to help him out with once I start using the peaks walk for running, although he will have to catch me excercising before he can issue the red card, it'll give him something to do! ;) Also along the beach is the entry point through the trees to the village, which is use to greet people and to sing farwell to those that leave the island. Beyond this into the ocean is the pontoon moored about 100 meters off shore secured by an anchor and rope to the island, along which the TW boats are kept when they are here. The beach has a beautiful resident reef with the first few meters under water (which become exposed when the tide goes out) are rocks and broken coral, which can be uncomfortable to walk on, so I'm glad I invested in some rubber water shoes to wear out there! The beach is coral sand, so again has some rough pieces, but the feet will get used to it fairly quickly hopefully. All the paths around the village have been landscaped in and filled with sand from the beach, and there is a volley ball court and netball basket to play with, plus a 'farm-acy' garden which the Fijians grow useful plants in. Out the back of the kitchen area is a large compost area and huge garden where Benj (the islands sustainability manager) is growing lots of food items to help the island supply. Out here you can find the freshwater shower bays, which employ a bucket with a tap system, there is also a chicken coop and pig sty for the resident animals. Follow the path through the gardens and you will come across Tanoa Park, complete with football goals with nets for recreational use!

During the week there are lots of Fijian staff in the village who cook meals for us all day except for a sunday when the village is just full of TW members, and Team Fiji who continually work around the village on improving facilities and new projects. They also take care of grog sessions and driving the boats and teach tribe members Fijian language and Mekes (the traditional dance/theatre of Fijian culture). Work and projects take place all week, with saturdays slowing down and sundays being called 'naked sundays' as no Fijians are in the village so the TW members can sun bath and swim in front of the village in bikinis rather than covering up like they do the rest of the week. Jim has produced a brilliant map of the village which stands proud on the entrance path from the beach, so if I get lost I can check that out!

The first evening on VorovoroMy first evening was going to be a bit of a blur as it was quite special. Ben Keene arriving had sent all the staff here into an excited frenzy as he's been away for so long and is so popular. When he arrived later in the day after resolving some business in Labasa the place was really buzzing. We had a formal ceremony in the grand bure and ended up drinking grog until the small hours. The first part of the ceremony is used to present the chief with some grog and request permission to stay and be protected by the land, chief and spirits during your stay, and the chief, their wingman, the TW chief & wingman and key guests all drink first, before the rest of the tribe receive any. After the formal part is done the session becomes more relaxed and quite a lot of fun. THe Fijians all play guitar and sing really well and you spend your time getting to know your fellow tribe members and chatting. The rules about the grog bowl and positions on the mat are easy enough to pick up too. The Kava (grog) makes the mouth go numb and after a few bowls makes the brain a bit numb too! It is tricky to explain exactly what it is like really, but I like it and will be bringing some powdered version home for some mates to try for sure! After a few large bowls I was sat putting the world to rights with Giles... lol!

Later on in the evening we played a name game which helped get some names stuck in my head. There were 26 tribe members, 5 TW team members and 8 or 9 Team Fiji members on site tonight! A really cool couple currently on the island, called Dave and Georgie came up with a 'sounds' quiz which we split into teams for and all played in the grand bure for a few hours, it was superb fun! We had a round of spotting sounds from around the island (which we obviously needed mixed teams for as the newbs had only been here for a few hours! The second round was spot the tune (& artist) from snippets of songs and the last round involved creating a meke of our own to dance along with words and music from Disney films... these turned out to be great! My team came joint first which was nice and there was even a chocolate bar as a prize which was shared around the whole tribe. The rest of the night was spent chatting in the bure and drinking grog. I had a great chat with Ben for a while which was nice to get to know him a bit and find out about where this all came from, where its going and some good stories about how it came to be during the early (tough) days. He is running this project in a highly transparent way and really trying to find ways to make people more aware of the ecological impact we have day to day and trying to find ways to better communicate this and come up with solutions to help, quite an inspiration fella and sound as a pound to boot. I have no doubt in my mind that the TW 'brand' will be a success and continue to grow, and that Ben will go on to acheive great things. I finished off the night sat in the dark around the embers of the firepit chatting with Seth and Kirsti before climbing into the mozzy net to sleep for my first night on the island.

Naked sundayLuckily I didn't run into camp naked, as this is obviously not meant literally (it just means the girls can show more skin when they swim etc)! The day was very lazy and spent relaxing in hammocks, snorkeling (three times today!) and a few of us took a walk around the perimeter of the island at the lowest tide to check it out, which was fun and involved a bit of wading around the back of the island! There are plenty of interesting looking caves around the other side which I will have to take a better look at when I get the chance. The island also has long sections of mangrove growing around it and lots of weird rock formations around the outside.

On a sunday the tribe fends for itself in the kitchen with the staff all off the island (and mostly attending their church on the mainland or nearby island of Mali), so for breakfast some of the tribe cooked up eggy bread and beans which was nice with a big mug of tea. 'Little' Ben (too many Bens here at the moment!), Jim and myself had some fun coordinating a sea cucumber attack on the girls on the pontoon this morning which was quite amusing. Jim and Ben took us down to the Fijian village along the island a bit in the afternoon to check out the sperm whale skeleton they have put back together in their village and to have afternoon tea with Tui Mali's brother, where he told us some interesting stories about the family and the history of the island. In the evening after snorkeling with Emma we all enjoyed a meal courtsey of the Paradox family (the parents changed their name before they had the kids!) and then lit the fire and sat chatting and watching shooting stars amongst the millions of other stars you can see from here, it really is an amazing place to be!

Around midnight a group of us went for a swim to experience the phosphorescence in the ocean. It is quite a sight! If you distrub the water on a clear night, tiny little creature living on the alge and plankton glow a bright blue/white, so swimming out on mass to the pontoon was stunning, especially under a black sky full of stars, it was like swimming in a 3d world of stars, and the water was really warm too... amazing! I pulled myself in on the anchor rope which glowed blue as I slid my hands along it...! We dried off by the fire before all retiring for the night.

Weekdays on VorovoroAs soon as my head hit my pillow lastnight I was asleep, only to awaken when it was very light and seconds before the breakfast bell was rung! After breakfast we all gathered on the beach to say farewell to those that were leaving the island today. We sing a traditional Fijian farewell song (Isa Lei) and everybody lines up to say goodbye, which is a really nice touch. As the boat turns to leave we lined up and did a big mexican wave and shouted a Fijian goodbye to them. Shortly after this I introduced myself to the Team Fiji members I hadn't met yet and we all gathered in the bure for the morning meeting. This is where the TW chief tells us what is going on today, recruits helpers and where Jim adds people's names to the 'Karmic Duties' board which gets lots of the little tasks around camp done on a daily basis, such as cleaning the fire pit, collecting fire wood, cleaning the sleeping vales and bure floor, feeding chickens & pigs, etc etc. I took the fire pit and tidying the toolshed duties from the karmic duties.

After midmorning tea I sat in on a Fijian language lesson with lots of the new girls. It was good fun and we learnt some useful phrases and words, including how to thank the kitchen staff for a tasty meal! In the afternoon we started to learn the six Meke's that the TW tribe do, which was pretty tricky considering the different moves for each! They are a lot of fun to do though, and some really cool moves will definitely transfer to the dancefloor back home, lol! Giles and Ben are amazing at the meke, as they've had so long to learn them off by heart, they can add their own personal style to them. I am going to make it my mission to get that good at them while I'm here! Today I tried a hammock out for the first time, and I could certainly get used to lying in one of those bad boys, swaying in the breeze on the beach... brill! Lying there I began to notice much more detail as I gazed at the village, like the beautifully landscaped gardens all along side the paths which I didn't really notice immediately. They guys that have been working here have done an amazing job in the two years. I also found my favourite place to wash this afternoon, the pontoon out in the sea is perfect to swim out to, lather up on and then dive in... I prefer it to the bucket shower. The evening was spent where I'm sure many will be, around the fire chatting and laughing with the tribe and team Fiji.

On Wednesday we had a talk held by Ben the sustainability manager about the project from an ecological stand point. I've spent much of my life ignoring these issues, but now I can see what these guys are doing here and learn from it, I think things will change!

Sevusevu for Tui MaliToday Tui Mali was coming to the island. He is the Fijian chief of this island and another 3 villages, 2 on Mali our neighbouring island and one on the mainland (Malau I think it's called). This is where we (the new tribe members) must present Tui Mali with some Kava and request to stay under his protection for our stay. As there were so many new arrivals, and some people on the island who had not yet been here for a tuesday ceremony, there was only going to be a few people who got to do this. I was desperate to have a go and luckily plenty of people really did not fancy it. We did some training this morning, on where to sit and how the ceremony works and then on how to approach Tui Mali and what sort of thing to say whilst presenting the Kava to him.

After lunch everybody put on their bright 'Bula shirts' and sulu's, and the girls were all wearing Sulu chumbas, which are bright flowery dresses. Jim loaned me a bright pink/purple Bula shirt which was cool, lol! When Tui Mali comes on to the island, the Lali drum is banged to signal his prescence, and then again when he is entering the village. On the second beating we all gathered into position in the grand bure and sat near to the front, with the chiefs door to my immediate right, listening to the drum and anticipating his arrival, I started feeling quite nervous! I ran over the words in my head again and Emma sat next to me, set to go first, was doing the same! Myself, Emma, Lauren and fourteen year old Reece were going to make the presentation. When Tui Mali came in, him and his wingman took their seats and the ceremony started. It began with six drinks mixed with the roots rather than the powdered form, which went to the chief and his wingman, the TW chief and her wingman (Dan) and the first two guests, myself and Emma. Then Emma crawled over and made her presentation, fluffing the ending by clapping be fore saying her last line, which she quickly redeemed! Then it was my turn. I crawled over, placed the kava root bundle on the edge of the mat infront of Tui Mali's wingman, pointing the end at Tui Mali and clapped three times. Then (touching the kava to emphasise the gift) I said "Tui Mali, I present my sevusevu to you on behalf of myself and my friends. Thank you very much for allowing us to stay on the beautiful Vorovoro and thank you for sharing your culture and wisdom with us. So so Ratu" and then clapped three times. He was smiling at me and thanked me as I crawled back to my space. Phew... no messing it up! Once we had all been up, Tui Mali went along the line of all the new tribe members to thank them and meet and shake everybodies hands. After this the formalities were done and the room became a bit louder and the grog began to flow! A bit later we did the Meke for Tui Mali and his guests, which I managed to balls up every one of, lol! At least the sevusevu went ok! The chief had a good chuckle at our meke, the Fijians love it that we try to do it, but love it even more when we get it wrong, lol. After a few hours Tui Mali made his exit and we broke for dinner. After dinner most of the tribe were sat outside around the fire and table, but I decided to go and sit in the bure where only the Fijians were. They were still necking grog and singing songs. Johny welcomed me in and sat my in the chiefs spot and we sat chatting about Fijian tribal culture, which was a great insight. After a few bowls a few of the tribe came and joined us thank goodness, as these guys were firing it down! I sat at the top as Mariah's wingman for a while and the hours rolled past singing and laughing, another great night on the island! Later still a few of us sat around the fire and I had another good chat with Ben and bored him to tears with my tale of why I'm here... yawn! I'm seriously tempted to stay here for a while to get to know the team better and really soak up the culture.

Vorovoro Landmarks...Not only had I already been lucky enough to meet Ben Keene during my visit here on Vorovoro, but his returning full of ideas and drive had prompted a lot of activity and energy amongst his TW team and the Fijians that work here and Tuesday the 10th July became a rather special day in the history of Vorovoro and the Tribewanted.com project.

After the customary breakfast, where everybody starts the day with a smile and an entertaining recap on the previous nights activities, a group of us donned our shoes (yes, enclosed shoes), applied some sunblock and boarded the boat for a landmark trip out to the mainland to go and help Leavi (one of the valuable and long standing members of Team Fiji) on his own farm. This had never happened before, and may not again, so it was great to be a part of it.

Leavi is a crucial part of the team and an infectious character to have around, always happy and smiling and he always has something to say to everybody, a great guy. So it was nice to go and see his home and his farm and lend a hand. We landed at the port in Malau on the mainland after about a twenty minute boat trip and went to the local store where a few food items were picked up for lunch. We then got on the Malau bus for a five minute ride up to Leavis village. I was quite surprised to see Tui Mali sat on the front row of the bus! Leavi's home is built on the site of the old mainlands' hospital, so he has a few nice features from that legacy like concrete water containers and nice foundations for his own buildings. He owns a huge amount of land here from his family ties, which is basically shared by everyone in the community to farm on, and then they all share the yield too. Fiji has such an incredible community spirit, they all pull together to survive.

We were going to help plant some yam today and after our welcome and meeting his family we went up to the fields which had been recently cleared of trees to dig holes. We split into digging and soil preparing/planting teams and got stuck in. It was quite nice to do some manual labour! We worked alongside the guys that work his farm on a daily basis, so it was good to meet those guys and learn a bit more from them. The yam is normally cut into small pieces and then planted, which produces a decent sized yam in a few months, but I got to plant a full grown yam this afternoon after digging a BIG hole for it, which in 6-7 months will produce a whopper (not a burger!). We sat and had a sevusevu and a huge lunch after a couple of hours of work, using some of his last yield of yam as the basis of the meal. The offering of sevusevu to Leavi from Ben reduced him to tears as he was so touched to have people from so far across the world here on his farm in Fiji helping him dig! It was a great moment and we all shared some afternoon grog. After catching the bus back to the port Adam and Philipa bought us some ice lollies from the little shop which was a nice treat and we climbed back aboard to speed back to Vorovoro...

Meanwhile back in the village, the rest of the tribe had been preparing the bure and lots of food as Vorovoro was set to hold a big dinner with everyone together, and then later in the evening the Mali choir was coming over to perform for us as part of Vorovoro's first ever music gig, which was going to be recorded for an album! By the time we got back from the farm, most things were ready and we got cleaned up and dressed up ready for a huge night. All the girls were in their bright chumbas and the guys in sulus and bula shirts and the bure was lined with two long eating mats, laid out with plates and dishes and lots of fairy lights were in place ready for the gig later.

The meal was beautiful, and plentiful! Lots of fresh fish and soups with veg and the obligatory yams and rice. It was nice sitting down to eat with so many TW tribe members and the Fijian gang too, although a few of the kitchen girls did stay out to wash up the cooking utensils and then join us later... tut tut!

After the meal the stage was readied with decorative plants, shells and lighting and we waited for the choir to walk down from the Fijian village along the beach where they'd landed earlier. We made a pathway through the crowd and lined it with our head torches for them to walk along, a bit the emergency lighting in a plane hey Cathy?! ;) A few of the team from our village were members of the chior so it was nice to hear them sing. Dave had them sing a bit to set his levels for the recording and they blew us away with just the warm up!! They were so powerful and the melodies were fantastic, everyone was left impressed. After those guys left Georgie organised members of the tribe on stage to record us singing 'Vorovoro' in different keys for the song that her and Dave are composing about the island. She did so well getting a crowd of people that don't sing much to get the sound they wanted, but it was a lot of fun to be involved in, especially in the boys section where we secretly masterminded to sing a silly Fijian phrase used by one of the team here for the first run though... it made us laugh the most, but Georgie had a good giggle too! Once we'd vacated the stage, Sustainability Ben was next up with his ukelele and four of his own songs which are really cool and if you stay on the island while he is here, you WILL be walking around during the day whistling or singing them, lol! He performed them very well and the atmosphere in the bure was growing nicely which should come through on the recordings. Georgie performed after Ben, with a small guitar and her own song about peace and stopping the violence in the world. The room fell stoney silent as she started, she plays the guitar sooooo well, and her voice is beautiful. She certainly took my breath away with a superbly written song, and judging by talking to the others later, the same was true for them! After this we'd reached the 'headliners' for the gig, Team Fiji and a handful of the songs they rattle off on a daily basis. The atmosphere really picked up here, with Leavi singing and acting up for the camera being wielded expertly by Jim and getting the crowd going with some clapping and I could hear singing from the back of the bure, lol.

The night was a total success and Dave and Georgie got all the recordings they needed too. Look out for news of the music being put together! It might take a little while to get mastered, but it will be worth waiting for along with Dave and Georgie's song about the island... I can't wait to hear it!!

As usual with a good night on Vorovoro, the grog kept being stired until the small hours, to cap of a spectacular day out here for Tribewanted.

Vinaka Vaka Levu
Sloggs :)

Off to Vorovoro for two weeks!

sl0ggs — Fri, 4 Jul 2008 19:40:00 GMT

Today I am leaving to fly to Labasa, the largest town on the second biggest island of Fiji, from where I will be met by someone from www.tribewanted.com and I will then make my way to my home for the next two weeks, on the remote island of Vorovoro (try and find it on a map!), where I will become part of the tribe there! Yeay! Please visit the website and make yourself familiar with the project. You can create an account and join for free to take part in online discussion about the direction of the project and you can even have a say in how the island is run from the comfort of your armchair (or office chair...ahem...). I'll be writing blogs whilst there, in my note book or on the laptop if I get long enough stints with power out there. So a FULL blog will appear after the two weeks is up (unless I can get to an internet connection during my stay). Needless to say (and as those who know me best can testify) I will be making the absolute most of my time on the island and will get involved in as much as I can and try to get to know everyone there during my time. Hopefully I can leave my stamp on the place, even if it is just a fond memory for some of the remaining tribe members. I met someone last night in my hostel who has just come back from there and they loved it, and they tell me that the founder of the whole project will be arriving with me tomorrow... pretty cool!

Wish me luck! Please feel free to comment on any of my blogs, or to drop me a line at sl0ggs@gmail.com if you want to get in touch. I'll be back online soon!

Vinaka!

Sloggs

Island cruise and snorkeling

sl0ggs — Fri, 4 Jul 2008 19:37:00 GMT

After a second successive bad nights sleep (hopefully not a feature of my Fiji visit!), I was off to the main port in Nadi to take a cruise out to an island for the day. The island was very nice, apart from the big digger moving sand on one side of it, and the handy men banging nails into the new Buri they were making in the middle of the island, lol! We were greeted on the beach with a song from the staff which was cool. I spent the day swimming, snorkeling (in very poor visibility waters), kayaking and generally getting into 'Fiji time' pace of life! It was seriously hot in the morning, but a cloud cover made the afternoon a little easier on the skin. Tonight I ate at the hostel, a great curry for a few quid and packed ready for my flight tomorrow...

Fiji time... Aaaaaaahhhhh

sl0ggs — Thu, 3 Jul 2008 19:32:00 GMT

I was treated to an amazing sunset above the clouds on the way out of New Zealand, one of the best I've seen on the whole the trip! The top surface of the total cloud cover was dark red with the little cloud specks in the distance glowing the brightest gold, it was awesome! The air wasn't as warm as I expected when I got out of the airport after collecting my bags and passing through customs with no hitch. I sat and waited for my pick up, with driver Vijay from the Horizon Beach back packers resort near town. His paperwork did not have my name on, but he was still hapy to take me there. On arrival I found that even after making a reservation online, and then confirming it a day later, I had NO reservation. Good start people! Lol. 'Fiji Time' I was soon to learn, was probably the reason. It's a bit like 'Thai time' huh! They had plenty of room anyway, and I was soon sat eating a lovely curry in the restaurant having dumped my bags in the room!

Needing a good nights sleep, I did not appreciate the 6:30am wake up from two cleaners chatting loudly outside my room this morning! I did have some earplugs with me though, and was soon back to sleep... yeay! After getting up and having a solitary piece of toast and a cup of tea from the 'free breakfast' at the hostel I met a lad from Watford called Mel who has done some interesting travel so far, including spending a couple of months traveling on his own in China (big Kudos for that from me!). We got to chatting and I ended up sharing a cab with him and a young American girl from the hostel into Nadi town to explore, and where I could pick up some shorts and some kind of suitable (but cheap) island footwear. First impression of Nadi is much the same as the South east Asian cities, where the population is large and completely tuned into the art of extracting money from fresh faced tourists who don't have a clue. I am plum in the middle of the group that DO have a clue by now however, and have mastered the art of weeding out those who want to befriend you for their own financial gain, in these kind of situations. My time and experience in Thailand and Cambodia has been invaluable. ;-) We looked around a few shops and were then approached by a Fijian gentleman who got chatting to Mel and wanted to show us some arts and crafts being made by 'real' village people, that were not on the main streets or selling from the bigs shops here. To my mind, this was scamsville Tennessee, but I was happy to go along and see their setup in this instance. a/ I was in a group with some others and b/ I was curious to see how these guys 'do it'. We were led to a back street, where a little workshop was setup in the upstairs at the back of some small shops. We went up and were happily met by two chaps who began their spiel, confirming to me that this indeed would be the usual scam kind of outfit. They guys were nice enough (of course) and showed us some of the things they'd been making, masks and other wooden carvings and the usual range of jewellery, pretty much exactly the same stuff as we'd been looking at in town for the last half hour. They invited us to sit and have kava with them, in a 'welcome ceremony'. At this point is became clear to me that my companions were oblivious to what was happening here, but I remained relaxed enough. Luckily I had been doing some reading up on Fijian culture the last few days, and nothing they told us did whilst preparing the Kava was out of sorts. One thing that annoyed me about their efforts to seduce us was their use of bloody rough guide books to substantiate their claims and stories about their culture! Seriously guys, if you're going to have a crack at us, at least prepare some of your own literature, don't use the very book that got us here and told us exactly what you're telling us now! The Kava was not what I expected, perhaps because I was in a slightly more 'heightened' sense of awareness due to the circumstances right now, or maybe they didn't waste their good fresh gear on their targets? Either way it only served to make my tongue numb, but I don't really think it did much else noticable. The taste is quite nice though, it is basically a 'tea'. I'm certainly looking forward to doing this properly once on Vorovoro. As 'we' (the royal we) were being polite, this facade took some time, and then we were invited to view the shop again which is where we were subjected to the much less subtle art of sales seduction. The lowered voices and use of calculators to show you the wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime, only-cos-I-like-you, price for the bundles they pushed on to you were right out of the school of Bangkok marketing class I tell thee! I used my now perfected skills of deflection to explain that I did not want to put all these wonderful items into my already cramped back pack only to risk damaging them whilst island hopping, and that I would come back in three weeks, just before I fly out of Fiji, and gladly buy some art from these geniune craftsmen... Haha! I laugh in the face of their pathetic attempts to seduce me... My companions made some purchases and I made mental note of the prices. Within fifteen minutes of being back out on the street we'd found everything the workshop could offer, but at a quarter of the cost without even bartering! My money was still in my wallet, and the lad back at the workshop didn't seem to have believed me when I left telling him I'd come back... I wonder why?

In the afternoon I played some pool back at the hostel with Mel and then we went out on to the beach with an Irish lad and spent a couple of hours throwing the rugby ball around on the sand and in the sea (yes, I am easily pleased, and hours spent throwing a rugby ball with mates is not only great fun, but I also find it quite therapeutic. So ner.). We then sat on the beach chatting to other backpakers and relaxing in the HOT sunshine. Ahhhh... jealous? You should be! Happy? Hell yeah!

I've booked a day trip out on a boat tomorrow, to go to South Sea Island 30 minutes out from Nadi where I will be snorkeling like a madman ALL DAY! Yeay! I'm so happy to be back in this climate... heheheh. Hahaha. You're not going to read my blog any more if I keep that up are you? ;-) Seriously, I'll grow out of laughing at the fact I am here soon... honest. I'm just really excited to be here! :-D

Pics from the island trip are on Facebook.

Life since Queenstown (the last two weeks of my NZ adventure)

sl0ggs — Wed, 2 Jul 2008 18:53:00 GMT

So, Queenstown was a very exciting part of my trip this year... and since then I've been doing all the kind of things that lead me there; meeting new people, hanging out, hiking, swimming, driving, sightseeing, etc etc... but since the serious activities in Queenstown, this stuff seems a little dull! This is the reason why I haven't updated my blog for a couple of weeks. I kind of wanted to leave all the exciting stuff there for return visitors to absorb! ;-)

This entry is a catch up, without the usual ton of detail fo each and every movement (well, apart from maybe the rugby weekend!).

13th June. I woke up early, packed my bags and checked out of the hostel in Queenstown, heading out for one last big walk in the area, the Fernhill Loop which covers some ground on the mountains behind the town and goes across the saddle between two of them. It was a nice walk, with some tricky sections due to the rain the night before, and I got to meet some wild mountain goats who were not really that interested in a chat? They did however, demonstrate their ability to run up very steep slopes when I said 'hello', lol! After a tough three hour walk, I headed back to the hostel and sneaked in the side door to use their showers to clean up and change before I drove back north to Wanaka, where I had already spent a couple of quality nights hanging out with Chris. I booked in at the purple cow hostel and pretty much just chilled there for the night.

14th June. This morning I took the east coast lake walk up to a place called waterfall creek (creeks are soooo boring now!) and then spent the afternoon chilling and doing laundry. That evening I went to the pub to watch the first England test against the All Blacks, which was disappointing and left me wondering exactly what sort of performance I was going to be watching in Christchurch next weekend!

15th June. Today I drove further north to Mt Cook, the big un! I took a walk into the valley from the little town, along the Kea Point, and then ran back to the town after a break at the end. From here I drove on further north (making my way back towards Christchurch) and stopped of at Lake Tekapo to camp for the night.

16th June. From the campsite I took a walk up to the summit of Mt John this morning, which was a steep forty minute walk. I took in the views at the top, which included a huge observatory on the next peak, and then ran the whole way down, which is the first time I've run one of these hills without stopping at all... got down in fourteen minutes, and was completey fucked! I'm really enjoying the running down hills thing since I started it, and this one felt good, although I was clearly going to be sore in the calves and thighs tomorrow! Before leaving to drive for Timaru on the east coast, I checked out the popular tourist spots at the lake of the olde church on the banks and the statue of a collie overlooking the lake. Lazily I didn't read the story behind this bizarre statue, but I'm guessing it is a famous Collie? ;-)

17th June. After a lengthy, walking/running enduced lie-in, I drove a little further down the coast to see the Elephant Rocks at Danseys Pass. I read about these way back at the start of my trip, and the drive through crappy weather was worth it, as they are a pretty odd sight. The rocks are formed from age old compressed sand stone and stand in a field looking like giant sleeping animals. The visit was seriously cold though, with the winter well and truly set-in and it being a high open space. I did sit and hang around for a little while, as there was an American chap climbing on top of one of the biggest rocks here, even though they were wet and covered in VERY slippery algae. I was kind of hoping the moron would take a fall, hence hanging around. Not sure what I'd have done had he actually fallen off, apart from laugh hard of course. Some people are so stupid! Anyway, after being disappointed by the stupid person not falling, I drove north along the coast to Akaroa, which is the principle town on the Banks' Peninsular, jutting out on the east coast next to Christchurch. I got there very late, and in the dark and rain I forgot to check how much fuel I had and got a very long way out along the country roads before realising I was seriously low on the stuff! Luckily I made it into town and to the camp site by around 8pm and with just enough fumes in the tank to get me to the petrol station in the little town the next day. Phew! The pitch black winding roads were fun to drive, even in the driving rain and with the threat of breakdown hanging over me.

18th June. After breakfast I took a walk into town (20 mins from the camp site) and got some maps for local hikes from the info center. I set off on a walk which took me all the way up into the hills behind the town and back for a couple of hours, with good views over the town and bay. I had lunch in the harbour and then jumped onto a boat cruise out into the bay to spot dolphins and other wild life. The trip was a complete success, with the skipper finding several pods of Hectors dolphins who were willing to play along side the boat, and we also saw penguins swimming out there and fur seals hanging out on the rocks along the coast, plus of course the obligatory southern hemisphere treat of the huge albatross that fly around these parts.

19th June. Today I took on the much more serious hike around the mountains behind town, which took about five hours including walking into town and back to the camp site afterwards. The views from this walk were loads better, especially from the Stoney Peak summit, which was a savage seperate 40 minute climb up a very steep hillside with no visible track most of the way up! It was proper 'tramping' through the bushes and ferns to get up there. When I got down from the peak side track I met seemingly the only other person doing that walk today, a Danish girl on holiday here for a few weeks. She was nice and we had a good chat before I said farewell and set off to storm down the mountain! That's the first Dane I've met on my trip, exciting or what! ;-)

20th June. I took a very long 'tourist route' drive out of the Banks Peninsular this morning and made my way into Christchurch where I was staying for the weekend to watch the rugby, get exceedingly drunk and then try and recover in time to do something useful with my last two days on the south island! I got checked into a private double room at a hostel near town and walked into town through the seemingly in the 'dodgy' part of town judging by the number of squatter in the boarded up houses alongside the road! I was glad I'd be walking past here at night in a seriously drunken state, they should be more scared of me than the other way around by then! ;-) I like Christchurch town, it is very laid back and has a great vibe. Today as workers sat around in the center eating their take away lunches, a good live band were playing (amplified) next to the giant chess board in front of the cathedral, where two old boys were having a batle royal! It seems that there is a live band every weekday lunch time, as the sign up near the little stage had tomorrows act listed too. Its a great touch. I walked down to the townhall to collect my match ticket and while there I spotted that the England team were staging a press conference here today! I made a mental note of the room name and sloped up the stairs to find it... Obviously when I pushed the door open to see the assembled media all sat waiting I was asked for my pass... hehe! Can't believe I forgot it!! ;-) Ah well, worth a try... I walked down to the mega pub, the holy grail, were I sat and watched some of the catch up highlights from Euro 2008 with a couple of pints. It was disappointing to watch Germany beat Portugal, I hope they don't go on to win the tournament! That evening when I left the pub I spotted Steve Borthwick near the pub, having his photo taken in front of the 'champions of the world' rugby store (which makes me laugh every time I see one!). He was with what looked like his parents and already had a trail of people after him (and he wasn't looking all that chuffed!), so I decided to turn down the chance to meet the current England captain, and left him to it...

21st June, All Blacks V England rugby fixture! I went for a stroll this morning to kill time in town by looking around the art galleries and museums before the game tonight. As I walked past the massive posh hotel behind the cathedral, right in the middle of town, I saw some of the New Zealand rugby team putting bags into a few cars right outside, so I stopped to stare along with an elderly couple of ladies, who got very excited when the All Blacks captain (and absolute rugby legend!) Richie Mckaw came out... they shouted 'morning Richie' and got a wave from him... I thought 'screw it' and brazenly walked over to say hello, it wasn't like he was being mobbed or anything, so I didn't think it would do any harm. He was more than happy to say hello, and as I shook his hand I gave him a wink and wished his team 'good luck' for the match tonight... sometimes I am too funny!! He found it quite amusing and laughed at me before I left him to it. Nice fella. I bloody knew I should have taken my camera out with me today! Rubbish. After checking out the art galleries I wandered over to the college (Christ's College) where I could here the noise of sport being played with a crowd, and sat and joined them to watch some under 19 college rugby, which was excellent! The pace of their game and the skill levels are superb, as you would really expect here in rugby mad New Zealand! I got changed into my newly aquired England kit (bloody expensive!) and went down the the holy grail to get 'watered' before walking down to the stadium with a couple of guys from Bath to see the game. By the time I'd taken my seats up in the gods, I was pretty well inebriated and wearing a very thick 'beer coat'. I was completely surrounded by Kiwis, which was brilliant as the banter was fantastic with them as the pathetic England were tamely demolished in front of us! I was quite nervous about singing the national anthem, I'd never been to an international 'away' fixture before, nor had to sing it surrounded by 'the enemy', but it went smoothly and provided me with the only bit of pride that evening! The number of people who said 'you're brave' for being there decked out in England gear and holding my flag aloft was surprising, couldn't they see how much 'brave juice' I'd been drinking from the wobble?! ;-) After the game I went back to the awesome holy grail and proceeded to get utterly utterly wasted, with success! I did let myself down tonight though regrettably. I had planned on getting messy tonight, for some weeks previous, but I did not plan on a rather pretty young kiwi thing lining me up for herself (yes, she must have been blind drunk, or just blind, or had some other terrible mind altering affliction). I was completely bladdered and talking utter bollocks by this time, but for some reason she liked me and was grinding all over me on the dance floor. Perhaps it was because I was still proudly (drunkenly) wearing my England shirt in a pub full of Kiwi's, or because of my awesome moves on the dance floor, but I definitely blew it big time with all out drunkeness! It's the most guttedI can remember being over loosing out on a situation like that, as through the drunken haze and forgotten few hours from later that night, I do remember that she really really hit the spot in the 'looks' department for me. Damn it! Stupid drunken bloke. After all these years of experience, you'd think that I would have remembered that increasing the amount of alcoholic intake the drunker I get is BAD. But noooooooo, same old trick got played and I went home alone. I don't actually know how I got back to my hostel room, but I woke up face down on my bed, fully clothed with the door key still in my hand at 9:30am! I was not in a healthy state! After going to bed properly I eventually got up at around 4pm (seriously!), rueing the balls-up last night. I also had to 'have a word with myself' for loosing a few hours completely from the night, which unfortunately included sending some utterly ridiculous (and incomprehensible) text messages to people at home, for which I apologise for once again...! I did plan on getting that drunk of course, hence the carefully selected private room, which included a full recovery night after, close to town. I won't say I'll never drink again, cos I know that I won't be able to stick to that, and the new me doesn't lie to myself! ;-) But I must begin to realise that I need to slow down as the night wears on... sheesh!

22nd June. The day after... ouch! I went down to town once finally awake and forced a chicken burger down my neck (it didn't want to stay down there, but I wasn't having any back-chat!). I went down to the holy grail, hoping that if I offended any staff members during the hours I 'lost', that they weren't there, and had a coke and watched some more Euro 2008 footy. The rest of the day was a lazy right-off... you know the deal. Leave me alone... ;-p

23rd June. Today I drove north to Kaikoura, I was bloody determined to see some whales!! Grrr. The weather was shit, lol, so it didn't look good! I booked on to a tour tomorrow morning, and just hoped that there would be a break in the weather to get us out there.

24th June, successful whale watching! The weather was ok this morning, and the tour was on! It turned out to be a complete success on this visit, and we got alongside two Sperm whales, one of which delighted us with a full breach, which only people sat on my side of the boat were lucky enough to see! (Full breach is when the whale jumps out of the water! Awesome!) We also chased and eventually spotted a Humpback whale, which to the surprise of the guide, showed us its tail as it dive, a rare sight according to him. A complete success! The captain took us to see some fur seals, but judging by the reaction of most on board (who'd obviously seen lots of fur seals thanks very much), and the fact that half the boat were not feeling too good, we didn't stay there long. After some lunch I drove as far back towards Christchurch as I could be bothered before dark and ended up camping in a backwards little campe site in a weird village on the coast just north of Christchurch. The people in the reception were both covered in red food colouring having been decorating a bizarre looking cake (seriously, it looked like a blood bath on first glance) and the only other guest on the site, an elderly lady, turned off her blaring R&B to sit ourside her caravan and watch me setup camp... It was the first time on my trip that I was scared for my life! I locked myself in the van and packed all my kit as best I could ready for my flight tomorrow and got a good nights sleep... luckily no one wielding any sharp edged instruments attacked the van overnight... phew! ;-)

25th June. Travel day! I drove to the rental place to drop the van off, where they did their visual inspection of the van and missed the scraped up bumper from the bovine related 'incident' which seems like so long ago now! I booked a little cheapo hire car through them to collect once I landed up in Auclkand, which I could use for my last week in NZ to explore the north island a little bit more and then got a lift to the airport. I was early for my flight, but luckily they had a TV in the lounge which was showing a recent Moto GP from Donnington which kept me amused for a while. The flight was trouble free, and I was soon at the rental place picking up a clone of the little red sports car that Chris had been driving around in when we were touring together down in the south. The clutch travel on the thing was about 7 inches and the biting point was right at the top of the baggy clutched thing! In light of this evidence I'd have to say that Chris did a superb job in his for the two weeks considering that he hasn't driven for a very long time (and only sporadically before that). I drove south in the pouring rain and dark to Hamilton, where I could not for the life of me find the hostel I planned on staying at in town, so I settled for a motel, which was loads more expensive than I wanted to be paying, but by then I was fed up and just wanted to stop! It turned out to be extremely comfortable and came with free interent hook up which kept me up until the wee hours chatting to people back home on msn...

26th June. Bored yet? Seriously, if you're still reading this, you either need a more exciting day job, or an actual life! ;-p Thanks for reading though... I love you. x Today I drove down the west coast of the north island to New Plymouth which is in the Taranaki region, dominated by the huge Taranaki Mountain, which resembles Mt Fuji in Japan, which I actually saw when I did the Tongariro crossing it was such a clear day. Today was not a clear day though, far from it! It rained, hard, all day long. I found a great little hostel here, near to town though, which had some great owners who I happily killed some time chatting too before taking a walk in the rain into town to check it out and go to the info center for details of the walks on the mountain. I spent the rest of the day chillaxing at the hostel.

27th June. I drove to the foot of Mt Taranaki today, into a town called Egmont, from where I could not actually see the mountain, at all! The wind was blowing hard and the rain coming on strong. No walks for me today, at least not on these slopes! (not even with my new found prowess!) I went into town and went to a large gym/swimming pool place I'd spotted on the map and did a gym session, my first for a loooooong time, including lifting some weights, which I used to do A LOT! It felt great, and I really enjoyed it, including a swim and spa/steam room session afterwards, prompting a little bit of reminiscing in my head about my old regular gym days (sad). I actually had wobbly arms driving back to the hostel, brill! :-D That evening I sat and watched the Bourne trilogy in the comfy lounge at the hostel in front of an open log fire and chatted with a couple of Italians, which was hard going what with their broken English and my non-existant Italian!

28th June. I was going back to Taupo today, where I have already been but liked it so much that I planned on going back. I drove along the 'forgotten highway' for a few hours, which is a brilliant winding and twisting road cutting through some odd landscapes across the country. I stopped off at the township of Whangamomona, which is an independant republic after the locals had dispute with the local councils! It is a weird little town, with pretty much just a handful of houses, a hotel and a post office. Thats it. When I got to Taupo I checked into the YHA hostel, which is extremely disappointing and highlights a problem with the Lonely Planet guides as they really paint a different picture of this place! It was very uncomfortable and far too small for the number of people there. I went into to town (in the perpetual downpour) and watched the Kung Fu Panda which is very amusing indeed (cheers Rob for the recommendation, yarrrrrr!). The rest of the day was spent killing time... getting bored now and REALLY looking forward to Fiji and the tribewanted.com experience!

29th June. I switched to a single room for tonight after another shit nights sleep and spent the day killing time (still raining hard!) by reading up online about the Vorovoro island and what to expect/what to take. This just served to make me more excited about going there... doh!
#30th June. No rain! Woohoo! I took the opportunity to hike, and drove out of town to tackle Mt Tauhara, which was bittersweet. It was touted as a good two hour climb, but took only one to get to the top, even with the VERY wet mud and root paths up there after the glorious recent weather. This was good, cos my fitness is better, but it meant I had more of the day left afterwards to kill! I met a nice couple from Chichester at the summit, having their lunch, and we chatted travel (old news now huh! ;-)), before I headed off down the mountain in front of them at pace. It was a good climb, and was to be my last in New Zealand... This afternoon I went shopping and got a bit carried away buying gifts for the Vorovoro island, including biodegradable multi-use soaps, anti septic wipes and plasters, some games for tribe members to play, a rugger ball (and pump for that and their footy ball) and some scrap books and crayons for the kids at the school on the island. Hopefully this stuff will be ok!

1st July! This morning I packaged up all my wet weather and winter gear (which I had to buy for New Zealand) and maps and books that I no longer need to cart around with me, and sent them home. Even with the added cost of sending this stuff home, I've got some decent wet weather gear for home, which I don't have there, and it was much cheaper to buy out here anyway. I drove to Hamilton and checked into a cheaper motel than last time for a comfy last night here before I fly to Fiji tomorrow.

2nd July. Bye bye New Zealand. It's been awesome! Sweet as! Su-fluppin-perb! I'll never forget my visit, and WILL be back. But for now, I'm excited to be off to my next new country... Fiji! I dropped off the hire car, got a lift to the airport, checked in my bag and sat to relax and wait for the flight...

Pics from the last two weeks in NZ are over on Facebook. I've added some into existing folders too, but they should appear as new additions if you have an account.

Gallery: Fiji

sl0ggs — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 09:21:00 GMT

Shotover Canyon Swing!!

sl0ggs — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:37:00 GMT

This morning I was booked to do the last crazy thing not yet done in this town... namely the Shotover Canyon Swing. Pretty simple... big canyon, lots of wires, two ropes and a victim... it is a 60 meter freefall into the 109 meter deep canyon and once the rope catches you a 200 meter swing across the canyon! Sounds easy enough... bring it on attitude was firmly installed at breakfast and I walked into town for the pickup. This office also had a DVD playing of the exploits of the staff at the jump, and there seems to be much more of a fun and games attitude with this company. Marius, the German lad I met skydiving walked in and was booked on the same trip, so we had a good old chin wag about falling and the like and waited for the bus. There were not many people on this trip, and the company was doing an offer on the second jump (normally $49) for just $10 which gets donated to a local charity, this year it was for an albatross conservation fund. I knew I'd want to a second jump, so this was a bargain.

The driver started with the comedy right from the off, replacing words like 'safe' and 'professional' in his sentences with 'bloody dangerous' and 'mental'! It turned out that he was going to be assisting us with our jumps (or them throwing us off) through the day too, which is a nice touch. This place is only a ten minute drive from town and runs along a similarly precarious gravel road up into the canyon as the Nevis bungy. The station is a wooden building on the side of the canyon, with a little path leading down to the jumping platform below. The canyon is an other impressive one, and the drop looks awesome from the office. As we arrived a girl was hanging upside down over the canyon waving her arms above her head when one of the staff reached out and pulled the cord and she disappeared from sight over the edge in a flash! We got signed in and they took note of the colourful marker pen drawings that the girl who weighed us in the office in town had drawn on our hands, and then sent us through and down to the jump platform to meet the team. The whole buzz here is one of fun, each of the guys working here has tons of gags and jump/fall related jokes to make you a little more uneasy, all the while their setup is as slick and professional as the AJ Hackett venues, with safety obviously paramount. We got kitted out with the full harness and then put into a jump order and asked what styles of jumps we would like to do. This place has a 'menu' of jumps, from the standard throw yourself off to the insane blind folded and thrown off option. Check out their website to see the choices and their rather unique 'pants' rating, from one pair of pants needed (easy) to five pairs of pants needed (mental). I opted for one called the 'pin drop' where you stand side on the to the edge of the platform, feet together and arms behind your back, lean forward slightly and then simply 'hop' off over the edge to the left... and fall like a lead weight! I was third to go and watched as the young lad on the trip (with his dad watching from the viewing platform) was first up and he chose to go off backwards with his hands behind his head. The guys held him out leaning over the edge with his feet on the platform while they took his photo, and then they counted him down... 5...4... and let him go! He disappeared with a huge look of surprise on his face, lol! Up next was the crazy European girl who I hadn't had a chance to chat with yet, and she chose the 'chair', where they sit you and seat belt you into a plastic garden chair and you tip yourself up backwards until you tip too far and go over the edge backwards, spinning all the way down strapped into the chair! She was squealing and wriggling around in the chair as the two guys put more pressure on with their antics, tipping her back over the edge and pulling her back on after counting her down... she then tipped herself over and with a huge scream disappeared from sight! Me next... huzzah! I strolled through and was already feeling nervous, much more so than with either bungy... not because of the fall, but because of the shenanigans of the clowns (staff). I told them my prefered method of dispatch, which was well recieved. I was then told that doing this jump I must lean forward as I might hit my head on the rocks behind, which were pointed out to me (lol), so would I like a crash helmet 'just in case?'. I turned the helmet down and they kept up with the serious faces asking me why I was laughing? One of the guys wore the helmet as it made him 'feel safer for your jump', lol! The guy that originally came over to offer the helmet grabbed my arm from behind whilst I was stood on the edge, making me jump of course, to ask me if I wanted it, lol! So, after the games were finished (for now) I was ready to go, stood on the side and simply hopped off to the left...

The fall here is fucking awesome! It rates for me personally as loads better than a bungy, and heres why... you are in a chest harness and roped from the middle, so both legs and arms are free to flail about as much as you like (or don't like!). You basically feel like you ARE NOT attached to anything, until 60 meters down the rope grabs you and you accelerate out into the swing over the canyon. It is a superb jump. If you are only going to do one jump whilst in Queenstown, either bungy or this, pick this! I implore you! The whole package of the jump feeling and the quality staff, make this the best by some way in my opinion.

The winch back up made the required (and expected thanks to the briefing) clunks and bangs and I was soon laughing with the nutters at the top about just how good that fall is! They clipped me back onto the safety line on the platform and then unclipped me from the rope and were ready setting up for the next jump.

Marius went next, and was planning on jumping off forwards for his first jump. It definitely takes a bit more balls to jump off yourself, rather than have the staff hang you out there and pull the ripcord, or kick you off the platform should you choose! I went up to the viewing station to take some snaps of Marius's jump, which turned out great... he was still running in through the air when he was falling, it was a very funny jump! The shot of him coming back up on the winch is class... mahuuuusive smile on his face, lol!

We warmed up in the office for ten minutes while the others jumped and checked out our DVD's of the first jump, which were ace.

For the second jump I chose to go off backwards, and the guys suggested that I hold the rope in one hand and put the other hand above my head in a 'John Travolta' disco stylie and push myself off backwards and keep looking at them to get the full rush of the platform disappearing! Ok, deal. I stood with my heels on the edge of the platform and one of them held my harness and told me to lean back for my photo, which I did but I looked down at the moment of the click. I asked them to take another fearing that I'd just be let go of! As I grabbed the rope in front of me and leaned back the guy holding on to me shouted "don't pull that rope!" which instantly mad me laugh for some reason! After the pic was taken he stood me on the edge and I had to jump off backwards myself... kind of disappointing in a way, lol! Anyway, the rush jumping off like that and keeping my eyes fixed on them on the platform is fucked up insane! I screamed like a bitch I tells thee... lol! Halfway through the fall I'd forgotten all that and had turned round to see the river coming up fast... the swing is superb when it grabs you, you really feel the acceleration for that big swing across the canyon... great great fun! I watched a couple more jumps before thanking the guys for a great time and heading in out of the blistering cold of the canyon wall!

Once again I had DVD's and photo's to buy, but they are really good, and capture the fun and games nicely. (It's expensive, falling!!) On the drive back into town they showed us a DVD on the bus of what they do to staff members that are stupid enough to quit and leave the job, one poor girl was strapped to a sacktruck and rolled over the edge! Then when they winched her back up they left her hanging, strapped to this thing and poured all sorts of horrible stuff over her, hilarious!

Once back in town, Marius and I went to Fergburger (LOL!) for a celebratory feed and a good chat about our travels. This afternoon I took a 2 hour walk/run along the lake bank near to the hostel which was quite nice, and sat here tonight writting this it is now hammering down with rain out there. From what I hear in the hostel, this is how its going to be for a few days, so perfect timing to get all the madness in when I did!

My time in Queenstown is over now... tomorrow morning I am going to take one last hill climb here before driving off back up to Wanaka where there are a few more things I want to see there (including the first England v All Blacks test on saturday night!) and then I'll be heading up to Mt Cook and Lake Tekapo. I might brave sleeping in the van again for a few nights, I don't think it is going to be as cold now for a few days.

Thats all for now, all the jumps are done and I loved them all... falling is such good fun, lol! (In fact it is such good fun that my back is actually aching a bit tonight... lol)

Pics from the Canyon Swing are over on facebook for you to check out...

Ciao!
Sloggs :-)

I Almost forgot! I've now BOOKED my time on Vorovoro as part of www.tribewanted.com !!! I'll be there from Saturday July 5th for two weeks, as a 'hunter' member of the tribe, lol! Really looking forward to that, I'll post more details soon, with links to my profile on the site etc... :-)

Nevis Bungy!!

sl0ggs — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:32:00 GMT

The Nevis bungy before today was something that I still held some fear for. The bridge bungy was a lot of fun, and there were no big dramas making the jump, but this one is 134 meters from a pod suspended by cables over a massive canyon and river. It is a bit more of a hand full shall we say! I was not put off of course, as the best bit about the first bungy for me was the fall, so this must surely be better as the fall is for 8.5 seconds!

The centre in town made us wait for quite a while past the pickup time, and I was bored of watching the looping video of all four of the AJ Hackett bungies on the wall of TV's in the pickup office by the time we got going. I was on the bus with eleven other people and we were about 40 minutes away from the bungy site. Once again the bus was silent! I Wish I took my ipod along...

Obviously we had to do some off road driving to get to the jump site, as it was at the top of a canyon, and the bus ride up the steep and thin gravel path was pretty hairy in itself. At the top we were presented with the main office, which looked pretty old stood next to the spanking new complex which is being roofed at the moment right next to it. They are installing a huge canyon swing on this site too, which will make them some serious dosh!

AJ HAckett sites are extremely professionally run to the point of making the whole thing 'too' easy to do. The guys there swiftly had us weighed and harnessed and I was in the first group out to the pod in the cool little cable car. The pod is a loooooong way out in the middle of the canyon. The scale of this thing doesn't really be come apparent until you're safely clipped into the car and halfway across to the pod suspended over the huge canyon below. This place is massively impressive. Once into the pod it is revealed that they jump people in order of weight, heaviest first... so yup, chubbs here was first jump of the fluppin day! I was actually quite pleased about that, as any extra 'edge' I could gain to make the experience all the better, was fine by me. I was slap bang in the middle of a 'bring it the fuck on' mood right now!

With the pod swaying in the breeze, I sat up on the glass shelf to have my ankles wrapped, which was done very differently to the bridge jump, and it all felt alot tighter and more 'modern' here. [That's not a bad reflection on the bridge jump of course, where you are extremely well looked after and they only use top kit].

Once the harness is tightened around you for a second time and the ankles strapped, you are taken through the gate into the jump area, and seated in what I can only describe as a dentists chair, where they sit you down and take three teeth out without using anaesthetic... obviously they don't do that, although I suspect some people would opt for it once sat here with the prospect of the jump behind them! As you jump into the chair, you get a wonderful glimpse of the canyon and the drop you're dealing with. Now I was taking a few deeps breaths! They strap you into the rope here and explain how the patented retrieval system works. Once you've bounced a couple of times, at the top of the next bounce you have to reach up and pull a cord away from your ankle which releases your feet(!) and swings you up the other way leaving you sat in your harness. They then winch you back up the pod, pull you in and hook you back onto the safety rail. Ok, got it... fall, bounce, ankle rope, winch. We're ready to go, first jump of the day and the lads I came over on the cable car with (one of whom is literally shaking with nerves!) start shouting encouraging words as I hop confidentally to the edge. The trick with these things is to not think about it too much, take a deep breath and just jump as far as you can. I think the guy got to '2' in his countdown and I was gone... big push out and there was that superb falling feeling once again! I can't remember what I shouted this time, but some noise came out for sure! The drop is amazing here, and the ground rush (the sensation of the ground coming up very very fast) is unbelievable! After a few bounces I gave a tuck on the cord on my ankle and it wouldn't budge, it needed a few goes and I caught it at the bottom of the next bounce, which gave me a nice jolt as it flipped me up, still a looooong way above the canyon floor. I looked up to the viewing platform, with the sun behind it to see the silhouettes of some people waiting to come over on the car and gave them a wave and got some cheers back, lol! The winch up is quite nice and you get a good relaxed view of things from here, which include a good look at the bungy cord itself as you are hoisted past it and asked to pull it in with you when you get to the top. It is literally hundreds of tiny strands of white rubber, wound together with more rubber. I'd never seen it before. Think of a rubber band ball you'd have made when you were a kid (or when bored at work ;-)), the surface kind of looked like that.

I was buzzing once again, and to be honest, this really didn't feel any different for me than the bridge jump, apart from a moment of realising it is further when you first see the canyon. These things are so safe and you constantly have the feeling of control what with your legs tied tightly together and the feeling of the cord slowing you down near the bottom of the fall.

I took snaps of the lads going after me, and one quick vid of one jump, which give some nice scale to the thing again for future reference. The guy that went after me was sooooo scared, fair play though, he jumped first time and had an insane smile on his face for the rest of the trip.

Once again I was shelling out for the DVD and photos, but what the hell, I might never come back here, or get a chance to do such a cool jump again, so purchase I shall!

I went to the now customary celebration venue, Fergburger for another monster burger and chips and had a short walk around town in the afternoon. I took some snaps of a cool little dog playing in the lake near town, who's owner clearly had some issues! Firstly the poor dog was called 'Tuesday'... I mean, come on! If you're going to name a dog a day of the week, at least make it a friday or saturday?! Secondly the dog had a huge thick studded collar on... I mean 3 inches wide, on a big staffy sized dog! It looked decidedly gay, and frankly I don't think it is fair on the dog to cast aspersions about its sexuality without asking it for an opinion! Granted, most dogs have gay tendencies, and will stick their nose pretty much anywhere, but even the gay ones themselves may not want to dress in this fashion! Did he think he was making his dog look 'hard' with this collar on? Perhaps so, until he meekly squeels 'Tuuuuuuesday' down the beach at it... Lol! Poor dog! Anyway, he looked like he was having fun running around in the wash of the lake with his stick, regardless of the stigmas inflicted on him by his stupid owner... ;-)

I also went to the cinema and watched the Indian Jones movie, which was a serious waste of cash! What a load of crap, it almost but me to sleep, and I can see the next spin off coming a mile off, which I'll be avoiding for certain! $12 for that nonsense! It was a good job I hadn't spent ~$280 on a 8.5 second freefall, a few bounces and a DVD earlier in the day huh! ;-p

Pics of the crazy bungy are over on my facebook pages for you to check out!!! (The cute dog pics are in another folder over there)