In the 1960s there was one household with two children at the Vatuadova reserve land west of Labasa. Ten years later there were four households there, all from the Nadogo mataqali. Today there are eight households, a church, fresh water from a bore, electricity, several sugar cane contracts, extra blocks of land, and scores of children. Here are some of the children - all home this week I guess because of the floods in Labasa disrupting schools in the district.
What gorgeous photos - they epitomise Fiji.
ReplyDeleteGreat photos. I think the more appropriate title should have been "The Innocence of Fiji"! What do you think?
ReplyDeleteHi folks, this is to let you know that I posted a link to your post about Survivor Fiji on MetaFilter. There was one question I had about Survivor production in Vunivutu. Maybe you can help me out with it. Who owns the land of filming locations? Did anybody lease the land to the production company? I don't know anything about indigenous land law in Fiji, and the article you posted was not clear on the matter of compensation or rent.
ReplyDeleteNzm and anonymous, yeah, they are beaut photos - taken by a friend who recently visited our village of Vatuadova. The pictures are of some of the children of our nieces and nephews.
ReplyDeleteInnocent? Yeah, at this stage. Let's pray for them that when they are twenty they are still fresh but smart! The older teenagers from the village often leave for study e.g. two girls are at FIT in Suva studying Hospitality and stay with our eldest son.
The women in our village are strong and often when one of them marries, she doesn't go to live in the guy's place, but brings him to our village to contribute to the life of the farms, etc. Way to go!
Ryans - good luck with your studies. Now we are not from Vunivutu but some relatives are from the land-owning unit who received rent from the Survivor production team. It is native land and owned by one tribe (mataqali) from Vunivutu village. Perhaps they even quarrelled a bit over who was entitled to the payout given to them in the making of the TV series because everyone wants a bit of pocket money, hey?
The villagers from Vunivutu and nearby areas did well out of the production, not only re lease money for three or more months, but as workers at $5 an hour.
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