Page 9 - Bulletin #67 - November 2020

As the walls rose I began picking up the pieces from some of the former bures. I cut 2x4s
down into custom window frames which I nailed together, and inserted them within the
adobe walls. The walls rose higher to the level of bond beam and were plastered before
all our interns went back to the US before Christmas.

Then it was only Simeli Ratu, our farm manager, and myself left to add the roof (helped
by some of the village teens). After I split and wove the bamboo into a giant domed basket
atop the adobe walls, we picked up the metal fencing from a former pigpen to cover the
bamboo basket. Then we added layers of woolo as a base for the layers of adobe plaster,
forming a lovely adobe dome.

Some small hurricanes came that season but there was no damage at all to this round
building. Boldly I made my way to Suva, Fiji’s capital city, to present our success to the
acting Prime Minister. She asked that we use these techniques to build a Women’s
Resource Centre (WRC). Our reinvigorated educational organization, Fiji Institute of
Sustainable Habitats (FISH), has committed to training local women to build the WRC—as
well as their own homes—themselves, and to make the buildings strongly hurricane-
resistant. Now we are gathering some of our old ecovillage supporters into an
educational team to return to Fiji again in May 2020 to train the builders of that first WRC
at the Provincial Headquarters in Sigatoka town.

Since building this first cottage, I’ve been able to recruit more of our original members
(including the cofounder Paulo) back to the farm to restore what we had created so
lovingly together (see “Building an Ecovillage in the Friendly Islands,” Communities #171, 9
pp. 56-60). We are still picking up the pieces. We are planting a lot more mangrove to
protect our eroding beach, replanting our banana and papaya groves, and weeding out
the vai vai (small invasive trees that threatened the whole farm). I’ve already personally
eliminated ALL the goatheads, what we call “bad grass,” that also threatened to fully
invade our lovely parklike grounds, digging them up one patch at a time.
By plastering the adobe bure in December 2019 with its final exterior plaster, and adding
storm windows and bamboo eyebrows over the windows and doors to divert torrential
rains, we have completed the cottage. I am still paying Simeli and Kuini, our farm and
kitchen managers, to stay on the land and keep going. They are very hard workers,
committed to the ecovillage, and need a small income to stay there. They have children
now themselves. Hurricane Sarai (December 2019) did no real damage, but fortunately
knocked down 20 huge bagfuls of coconuts we collected and sold at the produce market
in Lautoka, bringing in income for the extended family.

With my recent return and the solidity of the new bure, the ecovillage members are now
suggesting to me we build two more cottages and get our homestay going again. We still
need to rebuild our plumbing system for the bathhouse as well, but now the momentum
has picked up greatly, and overseas friends are planning their visits. We will host them as
our guests as a thank you for supporting the ecovillage, including some friends, such as
Buddhi, who were firm supporters from the outset in 2006.