Pacific Climate Justice TREK

Hello Everybody! We have just finished our 6th day in Fiji and what a day it was. Today was all about traditional sailing methods used by Pacific Islanders. We started off the day with a lecture from a representative of the Uto Ni Yalo Trust, Penioni Kuinikoro. The Uto Ni Yalo Trust is an organization focused on preserving and practicing traditional sailing using volunteers. The most important artifact in the history and culture of the Pacific is the canoe, and the knowledge of how to make and sail them was almost lost. The organization was formed in 2009 upon the donation of the boat that would become their namesake to the sailing club of Suva. The boat is an astonishing 22 meters, or 72 feet with a double fiberglass hull. While using modern materials such as nylon rope, fiberglass shells and more, the boat itself is lashed together and arranged the way that it has been done for thousands of years; there is not a single screw of nail on the boat. There are now people in this organization, as well as other organizations across the pacific, that use these indigenous sailing methods to go between islands and even as far as Hawaii and California using no modern instruments such as GPS, a motor, or even a compass.

After the lecture, we drove down to the sailing club and were given a demonstration of how the boats worked. Rather than having a front end and a back end like most boats, the mast can be shifted and re-anchored from one end to the other to change the orientation of the ship. This is done to change direction and removes the turning radius that other ships have to deal with before going in the other direction. The person showing us, Kaiafa Ledua, also showed us how navigation was done on the open water. Navigators would use the sun, the moon, the wind, the currents and the stars to help them know where to go. This is made even more difficult for the navigator because Fiji does not sit on the equator, and thus the sun rises at different times throughout the year and the constellations that are in the sky change with the seasons. After going over the boat, we were shown how to open and process coconuts. This started with learning to take the husks off. The husks are well adhered to the coconut so we had to use a sharp end of a wooden plank (held at an angle) and hit the fruit on it enough to break through. Then, you had to twist it and tear the husk away, part by part. Next we were shown how to crack a coconut with a single strike of a rock and drank the sweet, fresh coconut water within. Finally we were shown how to make coconut milk by using another tool to scrape the coconut flesh and then squeeze the liquid out. 

After this was done, we met up with someone who used to work for the College of Wooster who had reached out upon learning we were doing this trek. Her name is Sangeeta Asre and she worked in the office for international students until 2010. Now she works for the government of Australia running scholarship programs for Fijians who want to study for a master’s degree. The program subsidizes Fijians to go to Australia to study with the caveat that they must spend a certain number of years back in Fiji using that knowledge to help the country. This is a positive program that helps combat the “brain drain” that often occurs in smaller countries, and is another example of how Australia is currying favor within the pacific to try and contain China’s influence over the region. It was nice to have a taste of home as well as compare what the college looked like then versus now. Anyways, I have said too much. Follow the Wooster sustainability instagram for more updates and tune back in tomorrow!

Peace,

Kieran Tobin

Class of ’27