Stories from the Small Islands

Some aid has reached Labasa today to be given out, but I don't think the small islands are getting much so far as they are remote and airstrips are damaged.
from w
One by one, the stories come out from the small islands in the eastern part of Fiji, and they are the ones who don't have the roads and shopping malls to be able to jump in the car and drive downtown to fill up the cupboards. Two examples are Cikobia north of the eastern tip of Vanua Levu, and the island of Cicia in Lau. One thing though, since a previous hurricane, houses were built on Cikobia Island which were designed to withstand cyclones, and they did stand the test.

Cikobia
Village nurse describes ordeal (from Fiji Village)
Publish date/time: 18/03/2010 [15:01]
An emotional 41 year old village nurse, Melaia Cagituievei reveals of how her 4 year old son, Jona openly cried to her expressing his fear about the strong winds which blew off the roof of their kitchen at the village of Nalele in Cikobia. Cagituievei said her son, husband and 2 other children with their mother were all in the living room because the 2 bedrooms were wet. She added that she had to take Jona to one of the rooms, spread a tarpaulin on the wet floor under the bed and used a dry mattress for Jona to lie on so he could sleep.

Meanwhile Cagituievei said as a village nurse she had advised the families in the 4 villages of Cikobia namely Nalele, Vuninuku, Nautauvatu and Vatulele to boil the drinking water that were kept in the water tank.

Cicia (from Fiji Times)
Cicia hit twice in 12 hours
Thursday, March 18, 2010
HURRICANE Tomas roared one way across Cicia and changed direction before wreaking havoc from the opposite direction. Tui Mabula, Lemeki Rasalato, said hey were hit twice within 12 hours. "We were hit from Monday night until 5.30am on Tuesday morning, the wind was coming from inland," he said. Mr Rasalato said that on Tuesday morning, the wind changed direction and hit them again."It uprooted houses and threw the materials about a kilometre away from the village," he said. The 83-year-old chief said that he had never seen a hurricane with that intensity. "We have about 20 houses damaged in this village," he said. That did not include the other four villages on the island.

Mr Rasalato said they were trying to get details of destruction in other nearby villages.He said that their village school and their district secondary school were not spared from the wrath of Tomas.The former school teacher requested the villages not to wait for assistance, but to start replanting."They can start planting kumala," he said. He said they had begun cleaning up the debris left by the hurricane.
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From Koro Island (courtesy stuff website in New Zealand)

Villagers on the cyclone-battered Fijian island of Koro had their chainsaws, shovels and assorted tools out today clearing roads, rebuilding homes and dealing with damage from winds which gusted to 240kmh.

Koro, to the northeast of the main island of Viti Levu, was badly damaged by Cyclone Tomas in the last two days, with many homes among the island's 14 villages badly damaged or destroyed.

However, the islanders were resourceful and independent and had already started rebuilding, a spokesman for the Dere Bay Resort on the western side of the island, Julian Hennings told NZPA. He said during the cyclone, when winds gusted to 240kmh, islanders helped each other. "They depend on each other. That is the way they have been living for hundreds of years. They are quite self-sufficient."

A really wirrying (?) time in Cikobia

fromw
Okay, it's not funny about the lack of medical care on an island but the typo is a bit funny. And resorting to herbal medicine isn't always the best. Every village needs someone with a first-aid certificate perhaps, and some para-medical people in each small island.
Island has no nurse
Theresa Ralogaivau (from Fiji Times)
Wednesday, December 02, 2009

ISLANDERS of Cikobia are wirried about how they will cope with a medical emergency because they are without a nurse. Village elder Sanaila Cagituevei said the island had been without a nurse for the past two months since the serving nurse went on maternity leave. Mr Cagituevei said islanders had resorted to using herbal medicine.

"These are for illnesses that we can easily treat like fevers and common colds," Mr Cagituevei said. "There have been more serious cases that could be aggravated by a medical condition like like high blood pressure.

"Last month one of the village elders was really sick because she suffers from high blood pressure and it was a coincidence that a boat from Labasa was here at that time."

Cikobia is a six-hour boat ride from Labasa and Mr Cagituevei said most islanders could not afford the $60 for the fuel for a one-way trip to Labasa. "We worry when our young ones fall sick because all the medicine is locked up at the health centre," he said.

The health centre is at Vuninuku Village and serves the three other villages on the island Nautovatu, Vatulele and Nalele.

Divisional medical officer northern Dr Samuela Korovou said they were aware of the villagers' plight. "We have a nurse ready to go to the island and we are just waiting for a boat to take her across as soon as there is one available," Dr Korovou said.