Latest news from Fiji

In the last few days I have had an update on how things are going in Fiji, and on Yadua in particular.

First about the coup:

There doesn't appear to be much on news sites like the BBC on recent events, and in general nothing major has changed. The Army Commander (aka the Interim Prime Minister) is still in charge and has set no real plans for a return to democracy. Though the old President was returned to office his position is widely seen as only ceremonial, and he has no real powers.

Those who dissent, in public and in private, have been subjected to intimidation, including physical violence, by the Army. If you are interested in hearing some of the dissent then search for "Resist Frank's Coup" on the internet, and read some of the blogs.

Internationally, the EU has threatened to withdraw aid and other countries have warned against travel to the islands.

Within Fiji daily life, away from the threats of the Army, has remained largely unaffected, though the poorest families have suffered. Wage cuts, redundancies, rising costs and a general downturn in commerce hitting them most.

Secondly on Yadua:

The coup hasn't really had a big effect out there, and meanwhile the funds I raised have been put to good use.

The Development Committee has used it's 2,000FJD (and a 500FJD donation from Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia) to build a solar power generation and storage system for the Church and Community Hall. This paid for batteries, wiring systems, the switchboards and the lights, whilst the solar cells had originally been installed on the island for a different (and redundant) project.

Jone Niukula from the National Trust transported all the gear, his cousin designed the system and the actual set up work was done by a researcher working on Yadua Taba. Not forgetting of course the labour being paid for in donuts cooked by the Elesi!

The system was finished between last Christmas and New Years, with the lights first used in the Church for the New Years' Service. Apparently this was met with quite a lot of amusement, since the villagers were not used to silent electricity!

This is really good news, because now the village does not need to buy fuel from the mainland.

Meanwhile the Environment Committee are working on a couple of projects.

300FJD has been spent on 6 long range walkie talkies, to improve safety on crossings to the mainland. This was initiated when Anare's (the head of the Warrior Clan) boat sank, and the plan in future is for each village boat crossing to Bua to take one with them, with a second one in the village. Both would be switched on for the whole crossing.

In the meantime another family out fishing got into trouble, and, whilst I don't know the specifics, this stresses how important these will be for safety.

An incinerator has been approved by the village, though it has not been constructed yet. I am not sure how much this will cost.

Around 500FJD has been earmarked for environmental education for the children. All of the topics are actually covered in class, but due to a lack of time on the curriculum it was felt the children could learn more from extra-curricular activities.

One saturday a month, from April to November, the children of classes 5-8 will take part in short classes, excursions across the island and in the sea, talks with their elders and other activities, with the emphasis being on getting the children to report back on what they have done and learnt. They aim to cover topics from traditional wildlife knowledge through to simple biology and natural disasters.

The village and teachers are very supportive of these classes, so much so, in fact, that even some of the older villagers have expressed an interest in attending them!

On other news from Denimanu, government engineers are working on digging a borehole to supply the village with fresh water.

Hunting crabs

With the sea on one side of our camp and areas of saltwater swamp on most other sides we would regularly get inundated by crabs. Active at night they would scuttle over our sand paths, sometimes finding their way into our sleeping bure to wake us up and chew big holes through all of our clothes

Unfortunately, for them, they were also often on the menu for our local Fijians (boiled up and served in a delicious sauce made from coconut and onion), and sometimes big bags of them would be taken over to the mainland to be sold

About halfway through our time on the island some of the locals came and spent a few days with us at Nawaisevu. One night, after playing numerous rounds of "El Presidente" (a card game) with them, they invited me to go off into the darkness. Not really sure what was going on I grabbed a torch, and we all disappeared off down the beach towards the mangrove swamp

The tide was out, so the it was mostly sandy, with the occasional pool and the twisted roots and trunks of the trees reaching out from the darkness. Between the tidal part of this swamp and the land was a thin strip where no trees grew, and we walked through this (elsewhere it was almost impossible to make your way through the tangled mass of mangrove trees)

Hiding behind roots and in the pools of water the locals spied crabs, and carefully plucked them off the ground and into a large sack. Walking barefoot it was a little disconcerting as they scuttled past in a bid for safety, but the Fijians were very adept at either picking them up by the rear of their body, where they cannot use their pinchers on you, or by a leg, risking the occasional squashed finger

Having filled a sack with crabs we headed back past camp to the mangroves on the other side, and on the way I got a few of the other volunteers to tag along. More of the same ensued, with us foreigners even successfully bagging a few ourselves

Crabs and other shellfish have to be eaten fresh, so, perhaps rather cruelly, instead of killing them there and then, the bags were left tied up by our kitchen until the following afternoon, the occasional claw sticking snapping at anyone who got too close

Hermit crab racing

Hermit crabs were some of the most fascinating creatures we had on Yadua. Not because of any complex social behaviours, but probably more because they were one of the few animals we could really watch close up

Unlike most crabs they don't have their own shell, and so they will find and acquire one from a dead animal, or even anything remotely shell-like, instead. As a hermit crab grows bigger it therefore also has to find new, larger shells to house itself. All this can lead to a rather comical arrangement of shapes and sizes: some with pretty boring round shells; others that have an array of fantastic spikes on them; the smallest little crabs struggling to get around in oversized shells; and the giant crabs badly in need of a new home

From our point of view there were two different sorts of hermit crabs, those that lived on land, and those in the sea, especially on the reefs and in the shallows

We rarely got to pay too much attention to the marine version unless in the unlikely event of there not being much else on the reef to capture our attention, though sometimes you could sit by the shallows and watch a couple wrestling over a new shell they had found. I particularly remember a big and a little crab having a disagreement over an empty cone shell (cone shells are a particularly venomous mollusc, and so this would have been a useful shell to own). Both obviously wanted it, but the little one couldn't get near for fear of the bigger crab, which in turn was never going to fit into this little shell, though it kept trying

The land hermit crabs were much more a feature of our camp, though, and if you looked hard enough there would always be a few around. Any sudden movement close by and the crab would instantaneously suck itself back inside its shell, bulky claws and all. However, if you were patient you could pick one up and watch as it slowly decided the outside world might be safe again and emerged limb by limb

One of our pastimes in camp, which I hope isn't seen as being at all cruel, was to race hermit crabs. Pretty simply this involved putting a handful of crabs in the middle of a circle, choosing your "horse" and then waiting for the first to cross the outer line of the circle. Bit by bit each crab would emerge from its shell and slowly wander off, though without warning any of them might decide it was safer inside, leaving your apparently winning steed sitting curled up right before the finish line

Katie, Gordon and his father and brother (who came to visit) even developed an improved version of this, with the crabs instead inside a piece of bamboo, meaning that with nowhere else to go they would actually move in a roughly straight line (or do a U-turn and head back the way they started)

Unfortunately, I don't seem to have any good pictures of hermit crabs from the island, but I'm sure if you want to see what they look like you could easily find pictures somewhere on the internet

Cats

I know I'm not particularly good at keeping this blog up to date, but I'm going to try a bit harder over the next few weeks (as I can't go out and enjoy myself because I'm on crutches!)

I don't know the latest news from Fiji, beyond increasing concerns of human rights violations by the military. I will endeavour to find out what I can and state that here, but I am a little cautious about endangering friends over there.

In the meantime, on a brighter note, I thought I'd recount some more memories of Yadua:

At our camp in Nawaisevu Bay we had a couple of cats, Robbie and Chivers, whose intended purpose was to keep away rats. In actual fact that didn't seem particularly effective at this, since a lot of our food, particularly anything chocolate, seemed to get regularly ravished

The two, peculiarly named after makes of jam (Robertsons and Chivers), were definite characters though. They were sisters, and so bore quite a close resemblance, though had very different characters. Robbie was probably the braver of the two, and certainly the most human-friendly, whilst Chivers was much more reserved.

Whenever tuna cans were opened both quickly appeared on the scene, but other than that their hunting prowess didn't exactly impress. One morning I managed to spear a small fish (a banded grunter) from the waters edge, and threw it to Chivers, waiting patiently by the shore. She looked down at it, then up at me and meowed expectantly. I waited for her to eat it, but instead she cautiously extended a paw, then jumped back as the still living fish wriggled and eventually flopped its way back into the surf and swam away

The one thing I found most interesting about the two cats was how much they loved coconut. I never even thought cats would eat coconut, but as soon as we opened one they would appear and gobble up any small piece they were offered. Below is a picture I took just before leaving of the two of them and some coconut (apologies for the bad colours, I dropped my camera in the sea just afterwards!)



Unfortunately, there were feral cats on the island too, and at the time we were there no one had seen fit to spay our cats (perhaps understandably because the closest vet was maybe a 24 hour journey away). This meant that they both became pregnant during our time there, and that created quite a lot of disagreement in camp. Some people looked forward to having kittens around, whilst others (including me) were worried about the impact on the local wildlife of more feral cats

Cats are generally pretty good at eating anything, and not being indigenous on these islands they are a serious threat to local wildlife. Though there were objections it was decided we would have to kill the kittens

Except Greg, none of us had done anything like that before, though Rosie reluctantly volunteered herself. However, in the end Rosie was visiting another island when Robbie gave birth, and after a couple of days Mike and I took action ourselves. It was not particularly pleasant, and caused a temporary rift in our group

In the end Chivers' kittens were left alive, though I don't know what happened to them after we left

Latest news on the coup

This information is entirely taken from the BBC news website, because I haven't heard from my friends in Fiji for a while. I hope everything is fine, and assume that they probably have more pressing concerns than trying to contact me
Early in January members of the new government were officially sworn in. The leader of the coup, Commander Bainimarama, took up the position of "temporary" Prime Minister and promised that his administration would return the country to democracy, but did not set any date for new elections
The deposed Fijian President, Ratu Josefa Iloilo, was recently returned to office, but his position is mostly ceremonial, with the actual governmental ministers, many of whom are ex-military, being selected by the Prime Minister
A major goal of this new government is to restore links with neighbouring countries, who have condemned the actions of Commander Bainimarama and called for sanctions
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much coverage of this, so that's all I can say for now

News from Fiji

I've just received a little bit of news from friends in Fiji
First a bit more info on the coup:
It seems the new PM has declared that there will not be new elections for at least 2 years, and a friend tells me he doesn't see this happening for many years without the action of Fijian citizens and international assistance. Dissenters are already being arrested, and the press being censored. As a direct result the economy is already feeling the effect, as the islands' huge tourist industry (400,000 visitors per annum) is a major wage earner.
Another friend has informed me that though he agrees with many of the concerns of the Commander of the Military Forces he recognises that this is definitely not the way to solve any problems. Already the islands are feeling isolation from the international community, with sanctions imposed by New Zealand, and others to follow.
The concerns seem to centre on corruption within the inner circle of the deposed government and the presence of people involved in the last coup (2000) in parliament. These people were still under investigation, and there is the feeling that many of the Bills being proposed followed the demands of these people. Commander Bainimarama had been passively raising these issues for the last few years, but it seems he has now tired of this approach, and taken more direct, and extreme, action.

And secondly an update on Yadua:
So far none of the money has been spent, but the Development Committee hope to be using some of this to set up the lights for the Village Hall and Church before Christmas. An Australian scientist, who has been working on nearby Taba, is due back on the 18th, bringing with him some of the materials needed (the rest can be bought in Fiji). The Environment Committee hope to start their activities next year.
Life on Yadua has continued pretty much unaffected by the coup so far, probably as a result of it's remoteness, and at least some of the National Trust activities are going ahead as normal.

Finally I wish everyone in Fiji well, and hope the problems are solved quickly and peacefully. Best wishes also to my friend at the National Trust, who was recently injured in a car accident, get well soon Jone.

Fijian Military Coup d'Etat

Apologies as it's has been so long since I posted anything here, hopefully I will get round to updating this a bit more regularly. However, in the meantime I wanted to write something briefly on the current events in Fiji.
Under the command of Commodore Frank Bainimarama the Fijian military has deposed the Prime Minister, dissolved parliament and sacked the police chief. These moves have been criticised by the international community, and it is likely that Fiji will, as a result, be suspended from the Commonwealth.
These events are not unsurprising given the racial tensions (50% of the population being ethnic Fijians and 44% ethnic Indians (originally brought to the country to work on the plantations)) and recent history (there was a coup in 2000), but, as with anything of this nature, it will likely have serious implications for the future. Hopefully the transition back to a democratic government will be peaceful and will not take long.
I do not know what effect this may have had on the villagers of Denimanu, or the workers of the National Trust. For now it is most likely that there may be some travel restrictions around the country which would effect the National Trust, but not really Yadua. When I hear news I will post it here, but I am sure everyone there has a bit more on their minds than replying to my emails!
For more information on this I recommend the coverage on the BBC News Website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6212364.stm

Taba, the Iguana sanctuary

Lying next to Yadua is the little island of Yadua Taba. Though uninhabited it is the only home to a particular species of crested iguana (Brachylophus vitiensis), and thus lies under the protection of the National Trust of Fiji.
The National Trust Ranger looking after Taba was our main contact and friend in the village, Pita Biciloa, though another villager, Sepu, had recently become a ranger too. As Nawaisevu bay lay on the way from the village to Taba we would often be visited by both, and they were very much part of our camp.
Pita driving his boat, the Vokai Warrior:


We were lucky enough to visit Taba during our time there (setting foot on the island is controlled to protect the iguanas), some of us even twice! It was a very rugged island covered in a thick forest, whose cliffs and slopes soared up out of the sea. The only major fauna was the iguanas (goats had invaded the island at some point, but it was believed they had all been killed off (to protect the iguanas)), which to the untrained eye were pretty hard to spot, camouflaged high up in the canopy.
A sheltered valley on the little island:


Jone, from the National Trust, plucks an Iguana from the canopy to show us:


Around the island lay extensive reefs, with some deep walls and large fish, including many sharks. The first time I visited a few of us went snorkelling round these and got a bit spooked as a small group of black-tip reef sharks started showing a little too much interest.
The main beach on Taba:


Unfortunately we never had much time there, and together with Yadua itself I would have loved to have the chance to really explore.