'A lot of work still' in Fiji

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33083, 25 November 1972, Page 23

'A lot of work still' in Fiji

“The Indian woman put her child down and pointed over the footless walls to the trees outside, saying that there lay some of the housing material off their home. Impaled about three feet on to a jagged stump was a twisted sheet of corrugated iron roofing.”

“I’m still drying out clothes and bedding,” she said. “But there’s nowhere to put the bed if it rains.” These are the opening lines of the report of an interview by Mrs Peggy Bur-

ton, an associate of C.0.R.5.0., with an Indian woman in Ba, Fiji, recently. “Mrs Narian is typical of thousands of mothers clearing up after the hurricane which hit Fiji at the end of last month,” writes Mrs Burton. “In spite of poverty and her present difficulties, she was dressed in a spotless blouse and cotton sari and she was smiling.” “She took me into one of the two still usable rooms of the old wooden house. Cloithes for a family of nine were stacked or still drying heaps of furniture, books, crockery and oddments salved from the torrential rain which came with the hurricane.”

Outside the door was stacked some of the blowndown timber, pot plants, a pile of coconuts and more bedding spread to dry. Because there is no room for the family to sleep there, they go to the nearby schoolhouse at night. “Their vegetable garden was beaten down, with the remains of tomato, lettuce, long beans and kohlrabi plants flattended among the weeds which had started to grow after the hurricane. "In spite of their courage, it is going to take a lot of rebuilding,” said Mrs Burton. VITAL BOATS LOST In Ba, as in other villages on the Rewa River delta,

boats are essential for many of the scattered settlements among the network of waterways in the mangrove swamps.

Nearly every village has lost one or two boats in the hurricane and flood. They are flat-bottomed craft which can carry 16 plus children, but need a 20-30 h.p. outboard to tackle the strong current.

A careful check is made by Fijian welfare officers on claims for relief and the allocation of supplies. In the photograph, one of the welfare officers leaves a delta village after completing his inspection.