Fiji

Dawasamu Hub Achievement Report

December 2015

Sharing culture and sharing fun!

Over the past three years GVI has been made to feel at home by the community of Silana Village. The project has
a unique and treasured relationship with the village, and other communities in the Dawasamu district. The
foundation of this relationship is a desire to learn about and take part in village life, both socially and culturally.
Volunteers learn about all aspects of the cultural life in the village throughout their time on project and are
privileged to gain a unique insight into Fijian life. On arrival volunteers are welcomed into the community through
a Sevusevu, a ceremony in which Kava is presented to the chief and elders to announce their intentions to stay as
part of the village. Kava, which is a non-alcoholic drink made from the pounded root of a plant, is central to the
ceremonial and social life of the village, and many volunteers find sitting and telling stories a great way to get to
know the community and find out more about Silana life.

Figure 1 Kava ceremony in Silana

Every volunteer becomes a member of a family in the village and are welcome with open doors any time to have
tea, eat dinner, learn to cook or weave, or just sit and share stories. Volunteers are often invited to take part in
engagement parties, weddings and other rites of passage. In this way we not only learn a great deal from the
community we live in, but make friends and memories for life.
While observing and taking part in Fijian cultural customs is both an important and enriching part of our
programme, we also have an opportunity to share some of our traditions and way of life with the village. There is
no better time to share customs than Christmas, and since GVI has a number of English staff in the team this year
GVI decided to host a British-style Christmas fete in the Silana Community hall.

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Figure 2 GVI volunteers and community members enjoying the celebrations

There was a Great Silana Bake off, with categories for doughnuts, pies, and cassava cake, and a competition for
the longest Cassava (a local root crop). The hall was decked with Christmas decorations, with the children helping
to make these decorations and cards in the craft corner, as well as getting festive face paints. There were no
shortage of games and prizes to be won, including whack-a-rat, a coconut shy, and a lucky dip. All of these
however were overshadowed by the hoopla, in which the whole village competed fiercely to win corned beef and
coffee. This was followed by a Glamorous Granny Catwalk competition, judged by GVI staff member Jack and the
day was rounded off with a vidividi (Fijian board game) tournament, of course accompanied by Kava and dancing.
A great deal of hard work by the GVI volunteers and staff made the day a huge success and it was clear that
members of the community not only had great fun, but found it very interesting to gain an insight into some of
the GVI teams cultural backgrounds.
Over the coming year, the GVI team intends to share more events like this and further enrich the relationship
through mutual learning. Nothing sums this sums this up better than the following:
"Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it
can introduce the idea that if we try to understand each other, we may even become friends." Maya Angelou.