what is it about you that justifies the use of Earth's diminishing resources to sustain you?

Ok not much time so this is going to be brief. The other day i was given the news that i could stay here as long as i like, so i had to decide how much longer i would stay. I have chosen to come home on the 13th of jan, so i will have some more time here in paradise and also some time in NZ before uni begins again (late feb).

Over the xmas period we all went round the local vilages on a be-tinsled boat [link] , dressed as santa and helpers to do a program for the children. we gave them a trees and decorations, sang carols, handed out lollies and generally spread xmas cheer!

On xmas day itself we went down to the chiefs house for an all-cake breakfast [link] , then again later for a huge lunch and to give out secret santa presents.... heres us [link] afterwards. [link]

Chris and Toni (and american couple) arrived last week, and on he first day Chris proposed to her. When i asked him when they thought they would get maried chris replied "oh, next teusday...." I have never heard of someone so casual about a wedding. So yesterday we had the ceremony on the beach, with the chief Tui Mali saying a few words for them and the bride and groom exchanging vows. it was a very happy day all together, with lots of music [link] and at the end we had a great meal made of the fish chris had caught at his boat-borne bacheor party the night before... delicious! heres me with the groom [link]

In between all the celebrations i managed another four peaks attempt, although not in very good conditions: the sun was high and there were no clouds, i had just had a large breakfast, and hadn't had anything to drink except tea and coffee. Anyway i managed to break the previous record of 38 minutes with a 33 minutes and 56 second run, so i was pretty stoked. Just a reminder of the kind of terrain this run covers:[link] so you can understand why im happy about it

other than that i have just been working on various things, such as: the chicken catcher [link] (first catch within 5 minutes of setting it)
a compost aeration system [link]
and of course the jetty, now nearing completion of the walkway [link]

random pics:
[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]

and a necklace i made [link]

anyway i gotta jet, see you soon

yep, im better again. I recovered exactly when the doc said i would.... probably the first time thats ever happened.
since last time i have basically been working solely on the jetty.... heres what it looked like three days ago [link] the rock in the foreground is part of the causeway we are making for access across the rock ledge, which will be about 50 m long, and the columns are for holding the pontoon (they are full of concrete, not just a stack of drums) which are about 4 m high.
On thursday we found a 5 foot sea snake trapped in the sea cave behind the walkway, with the tide going out. I didnt want to let it die so i climbed down to the water and waited for it to come past then grabbed it and carried it over to the sea.... it was a massive rush holding a suprised snake in one hand although just for a few seconds.

for the previous three nights, each time the first person went to bed they have found a giant land crab rummaging through my gear; it seems to have moved in under the floor boards and comes out from the hole next to my bags at night. The third time i managed to catch it before it could scuttle away and carried it off down the beach.. since then it hasnt come back

I thought living in fiji would mean a healthier diet..... oh how wrong i was. Every meal comes with slices of cake or pancakes, and everything is cooked with loads of sugar. in the kitchen there are three barrels: one of rice, one of flour and one of sugar, so you can imagine how much it is used. If i have one chance to get fat in my whole life, this is probably it. On top of the cake with meals there is morning tea (with cake) and afternoon tea (with more cake).

heres my bit of nature photography for this update [link] the thing is about ten inch long

thats all for now
ciao

Hi guys, hope you are all well.
Things are going really nicely here still despite the coup, which hasn’t had any impact out here. The main worry because of it is the affect it will have on the economy, which could cause problems for Tribewanted in the long term.
Yesterday I had my first bad day on the island. The night before I developed some chronic tooth-ache which kept me awake all night…. now im used to missing sleep but not after a full day of moving boulders by man power (we are building mini causeway to the jetty) so yesterday all my muscles were stiff and sore. This came on top of the fact that it rained as well so I was freezing all morning, which didn’t help the cold I have had for the last 5 days.
Being inflexible, cold, in pain, wet, sniffeling, tired and working waist-deep sea water didn’t make for much fun really, so I gave up on that job at lunch and did smaller things for the afternoon.

That evening I got a painkiller off a tribe member and got some sleep. Just now I went to the dentist and found out I have sinusitis, which is low enough in my cheek to reach the roots of my top left teeth; hence the cold and the toothache. Im not sure which was more harrowing…. The painful jaw or the visit to a third world dentist. This is what his clinic looks like: [link] and inside its not much better. Luckily the surgery itself is pretty tidy, and I didn’t require any operations. On the upside I was given 8 painkillers, 6 sleeping tabs and a course of antibiotics for just $8.50 NZ – wicked, I just hope they work.

Over the last few days we have been building a 44 m walkway to the jetty site, which has been a pretty fun job until yesterday. We (me and 3 fijians) made two 3 m high concrete pillars on Monday and since then we have been swimming around in the sea with the pontoon for the jetty, diving for rocks and boulders, which we then paddle back and use to fill the gaping holes in the rock ledge between the jetty site and the village. At one point a sea snake swam between us as we waded which was fairly exciting.

There has been a bit of fuss over the jetty because the engineer/builder we hired for the project seems to be making it up as he goes along rather than sorting out a plan first, which is costing the compay and the tribe money each day. It doesn’t help that our “chief” this month happens to be a woman and the Fijians aren’t used to taking direction from or having their actions questioned by a female. So when she has gone to talk to them about the plan she has been ignored sometimes or they have refused to talk to her : (

Other than that I just have some photos of our village:
The central Bure - [link]

And from the back - [link]

The kitchen - [link]

My commute to work - [link]


And some misc. ones of things I thought were cool:
Some tree roots - [link]

From this tree - [link]

An eel I found in a rock pool - [link]

Some mangroves - [link]

The road to Mordor I mean peek three - [link]

a shot of about a quarter of the island - [link]

and me wearing a sulu for the school visit -
[link]

Till next time see you later

Ok first up two bits of news: they hired me!! woooooot so i get to stay at least till jan. second, the deadline set by the military for the government was reached yesterday but the "cleanup campaign" was postponed because the military were having a rugby match against the police (and lost). Any i feel really safe in terms of the political instability since Vorovoro is miles away from anywhere, and all the locals say its senga n'lenga - sweet as. whenever you mention Bainemarama they just laugh and say hes stupid so they certainly aren't worried anyway.

Life here is going great. i basically spend half my time working here and there on things like the garden and the other half snoozing in hammocks or snorkelling the reef. The coral is amazing, coming in bright blue and pastel pink with rainbow coloured fish absolutelly everywhere. Its great waking up in the morning and looking out of the Bure window straight onto the beach with fish jumping and nothing but clear blue water to the horizon.... it looks something like this: [link]

The food is excellent, we have this remarkable lady who works in the kitchen, and after dinner she just walks straight into the ocean and swims home to her village on the next island - classic.

On tuesday i had a preliminary go at the four peaks challenge. This is a foot race to the top of each peak on the island and back to the village, covering many types of terrain. Peak one is dry scrub and rocky outcrops with a small cliff to climb on the way up. Peak two is the highest, with a length of mangrove and driftwood covered ground to reach the lower slopes, then up along ash bed from the fire a month or so ago.
Peak three requires a scramble up a narrow (about 1 m wide) volcanic rock ridge with a sheer drop on one side at least 100 m high, and a slightly less steep cliff on the other side all the way to the top.
Peak four is dense forest most of the way up and down, with vines and logs everywhere. Then its a run through a dry river bed full of bamboo, driftwood and coconuts then the final dash along the beach.
I managed in about 40 mins which is fairly close to the fastest time, so if i gave it a proper go when i know the route better i think i have a good chance of doing quite well.

On wednesday we went to the kids school for their annual prizegiving ceremony.
After about half an hour of being mobbed by children trying to get me to play paper-scissors-rocks and clapping games we managed to get inside and listened to some speeches from the chief Tui Mali and a very stirring and at times very strong one from the headmaster about how the parents need to start encouraging their children to go to school, and to start creating a home environment more conducive to their learning.
before prizes were given out the children all sang their songs; they are amazingly talented for their age, being perfectly in tune and in time, not like i was at school choir. Seeing the meagre resources available to them and the effort they all put in to get to school each day despite the lack of support made me feel really lucky to have had the opportunities i have had in terms of education.

On thursday a couple f others and I got up at 4.30 am to go fishing. This was wicked fun, we basically just tow around a plastic spinner on a ridiculously heavy piece of cord with lead pinched onto it. I cought 3 fish, one of which was an 8kg Walu > [link] , putting me firmly in the lead for fishing (the next closest is 6kg). Walu is A-grade fish as well, and fetches quite a high price in the local markets, so that was an added bonus. We ate it the next day for our cheif handover feast, celebrating the exchange from the november cheif to december chief ("cheif" is just an elected representative of he online tribe). The highlight of the fishing trip was not the record fish however, but the two massive turtles we saw within about 3 meters of the boat (didnt have my camera sorry). I never thought i would see such a rare creature in the wild, let alone two reallly beautiful ones at once.
Later that day i managed to catch a chicken and about 5 chicks for the coop as well, so pretty productive all together.

Working in this environment is really intense, with 30 degree C heat most of the day and well into the night, and extreme humidity. The sea is full of microbes, which when combined with the constant dampness means even tiny cuts and scratches never heal, so im gradually collecting scrapes and blisters despite treating everything with antiseptic and plasters..... oh well. Our little village is coming along nicely, all we really need is rain. Despite it being the rainy season, we are still extremely short of water because the island is in its own little microclimate, with the clouds blowing straight over it untill they reah th mainland. the only time we get rain is when the wind is low enough and the clouds numerous enough so that they pile up and completely fill the harbour right out to Vorovoro. This is wicked from a holidaying perspective, but not great news for the project. It should be ok because we arent expecting many people over the next few weeks because of the political situation, so not to great a water demand.
This weeks project is building a walkway across the rocks to the pontoon jetty we just had built and towed out to the island. This is so we can park boats and load/unload on the mainland side of the island (saving petrol) and stop damaging the coral by driving across it and throwing anchors in it every time we drop people/things off.

Im really happy to be staying on, i dont really feel like i have had time to experience everything and contribute all that i can in the week ive been here, and there wont be many people here meaning everything should be pretty chilled out. I also get to have christmas here, marking the start of the fijian's celebration part of the year, which should be wicked fun having seen the ceremonies and feasts so far

Unfortunately i forgot to put the memore card back in my camera after my last trip to town, so i only have old photos to show you, i'll have to wait till i get back to upload my pics from the last couple days plus some sound clips of the locals busting out a few songs in the Bure.

Heres me starting to look a bit feral after a few days living here [link]

heres a bit of the Labasa main street (where i am now), unfortunately not the market which is really amazing, coz i didnt really want to flash my camera there [link] its really funny sitting in this internet cafe listening to 60s indian music

heres one of my roommates [link]

and a reef denizen [link]