Bula Sia!

Well what a week! After spending a couple of nights in the boring Nadi we made our way to the tiny island Vorovoro where we became members of the Mali tribe for a week. In case you don't already know about Tribewanted, the online community thing we signed up to before we left, check out the website www.tribewanted.com for a clear explanation as to what it's all about. Basically its about joining an online community together in the real world to create a sustainable community on a small Fijian island in the South pacific, in harmony with its indigenous tribal owners. It's quite likely you'll get to see what we've been up to on TV as the BBC are filming a documentary - to be aired sometime later next year!

Anyway, to get to the Island we had to take an hours flight in a little 15 seater plane to the bustling town of Labasa, where we were met by Sarah-Jane and Mark, two of the tribewanted team. After spending the day around Labasa, we finally got to the island by a bumpy boat ride in the early evening and were greeted by all of our fellow tribe members upon our arrival. The team have done a great job of making the island inhabitable, complete with composting toilets (that don't smell!), a kitchen, bucket showers, accommodation shelter, and the incredible 'Great Bure' - a big meeting place. Unfortunately combined with the lack of building materials, that meant there wasn't a whole lot for us to do! But we found a way of making our mark - we created 'Giant Kerplunk' using bamboo sticks and coconuts, you'll understand everything when we get our pictures up on the website!

Whilst on the island we got up to some pretty cool activities, including an amazing snorkeling trip to the outer reef, dolphins and sharks included for just $15 FJD (5 quid - a bit cheaper than our Whitsunday trip!!). But the absolute highlight of our time on the island was our sunrise fishing trip, where Jus caught a gigantic 6kg Yellow-Finned Tunafish! We then continued to clean, gut, fillet and cook it in banana leaves for dinner - it was the tastiest fish we, or any of the tribe, had ever had before - no joke! The whole process was caught on camera so hopefully you'll get to see it sometime next year!

Evening entertainment was in the form of fire! Most nights we all sat around a camp fire right on the beach front, with the full moon making it almost as bright as day! The fire pois were occasionally brought out, and we even made a bamboo cannon, to guzzle up a bit more kerosene! We made some great friends on the island, hopefully we'll get to see again one day.

On our last day we visited the local primary school consisting of only around 80 kids. It was an amazing day, the kids are so happy and good-natured and boy can they sing - harmonising and everything, brought a tear to your eye! We played with them in the blazing heat - including their favourite dance, "Shaky Shaky" - where you basically have to shake your arse around for a minute in front of everyone (also likely to be on National TV!!!).