Antipodal Living: Mission: Clean Up

Camp overview

Makeshift kitchen using the walls of the former house

Now that we've finally arrived on Uoleva and settled in a bit, we can get to work. It was hard to know where to start and it seems it's a constant battle against nature. Finau and Talanoa had planted some baby coconut trees and put some bedding in a lean-to to keep it dry, but the sea had washed the trees away and seeped into the lean-to making wet all the things that had survived the cyclone. The kitchen was completely destroyed, all that remained was a concrete slab full of debris. Their parents house had fallen apart and everything blown or floated everywhere. Since the cyclone, they had reassembled the walls of the house to act as a temporary shelter and kitchen, but it still had some holes in the roof and a lot of work to be done.

Drying mattresses

While P and Talanoa worked on drying out all the mattresses, mats and blankets, Finau and I filled at least 8 wheel barrow trips full of rubbish to take to the burn pile at the very back of camp. I managed to salvage a coconut bowl, some clothes pins, a gum boot (still looking for it's mate though) and a few other things. I had to throw away books, playing cards, games, broken glass, cups, shoes and much more. It was really sad, and I didn't even have a clue what it was like before the cyclone. I can't imagine how the clean up would be if it were your own home.

Lean-to and concrete slab of former kitchen (day two, after clean up efforts on day one)

After a short coconut drink break, we teamed up to start sorting through the first of five collapsed fales. It seemed like it wouldn't take long to move the debris to the burn pile and salvage anything we could, but everything was tangled or buried in sand. It took all our energy for 3 days to sort through this pile. We moved the in-tact wood to the back of camp in hopes that high tide wouldn't wash it away and sorted it by type. Timber is expensive, so they wanted to salvage anything they could. We carted the leaf roof to the back and added it to the top of the bonfire, to double as a mosquito repellant and a clean up aid. It looked as though we weren't going to manage, but by the end of the last day, we finally found the sand and had completely cleaned up one fale. And we even managed to save a hammock and some mats too!