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To cut
an amazing drama short (that soon gained the
titled of the ‘Cama Drama’) our happy and
excited ‘Motley Crew’ was soon to discover on
arrival in Suva that the ‘Katika’ was
behind schedule due to very bad weather on her way
down from Kiribati. We were assured we shouldn’t
worry too much as the ship was already within Fiji
waters just off Rotuma. As each day passed and the
ship was still reported struggling in heavy seas now
with engine problems, we decided to try and keep up
to our original schedule, by getting up to Rabi
ahead of Katika’s arrival. With the
wonderful help of Justin Smith from local shipping
company - Consort Shipping we received discounted
passage on the local inter-island ferry
"SOFE" for an overnight trip up to
Savusavu. After an epic bus trip, and 3 boats across
to Rabi, our original 4 day stay ended up being a
full wonderful week. (Please look to our Feature
Stories commencing page 6 for more details).
During our stay on
Rabi we learned that the ‘Katika’ was
now fully adrift in the Pacific and heading north
west towards Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu. One of our
Australian crew members had already taken bets on
Katika’s arrival date, (they say Australians
would bet on two flies crawling up a wall) and
Michael Laritz was to win the prize money with his
estimation of ‘NOT COMING AT ALL’.
Bye
bye Rabi...
After Michael’s
joy at his winning the ‘Cama Drama’ Sweepstakes,
depression and panic began to set in as we realised
the rest of our trip was now in jeopardy. It was
soon decided that nothing would stop us trying to
get to Banaba and for once luck seemed to be going
our way when we discovered that ‘Air Nauru’ just
happened to have a cheap fare to Tarawa. Another
miracle was about to unfold when Justin Smith from
Consort came to our rescue again by offering to
bring the SOFE direct into Rabi and also sponsoring
the fares of our 25 Rabi dancers.
Now with the great
help and assistance of all our Banaban friends we
bade a sad ‘Farewell’ to Rabi and headed south
again for the capital city of Suva. In Suva luck was
again with us with the lovely Fiji manageress at
Tropic Towers coming to the rescue to accommodate
our Matang contingent within our budget and Rev Eri
from the Banaban Methodist Church looking after our
Banaban contingent.
In a hectic few
days of setting up media interviews, Banaban Dancing
fund-raisers, hours spent with the wonderful help of
Colin Hinchcliffe, Bure, and David Christopher
sending out fax after fax trying to get our money
back from Captain Cama, a new drama was unfolding...
The big problem
facing us was the fact that we were short $6,000 to
sponsor the rest of our Rabi Dancers for the air
fares. An urgent Council meeting was called and I
was asked to attend to address the issue of sending
the dancers back to Rabi - a thought that upset me
greatly. All Colin and Richard’s PR work
miraculously paid off when I received an
unbelievable phone call from a Japanese man willing
to help. And help is just what he did... in a big
way by financing the dancers’ fares. (Look to
page 7 for the full story)
Yes, ‘Air
Nauru’ came to the rescue with a very special fare
but unfortunately due to over booking on their usual
weekly flight, we would have to split our group into
two and one would have to wait back in Suva. This
led me to one of the hardest decisions I had to
make, but again, after much discussion with the Rabi
Councillors and Office, I was assured our Banaban
contingent should wait for the second flight due to
the tight connecting flight schedules of many of the
Matangs and the fact that most of the Banabans had
never traveled overseas before and wanted to travel
together as one group.
Tarawa
Unfortunately,
three of our members, Christine, Richard and Nicola
decided not to proceed any further on the trip while
Guy decided to proceed to Tuvalu where he had many
old friends to catch up with. We had to bid them and
our Banaban contingent ‘Farewell’ as we made our
way via bus to Nadi to finally board a very over
booked Air Nauru flight with two of our Rabi
Councillors - Nei Makin Kororo (and her husband and
son) and Bureia Fiamalosi.
After the flight
was delayed for more than an hour trying to get all
our group aboard (3 seats had disappeared during
check-in), which again miraculously we finally
did, we jetted off into the wild blue yonder. Fellow
Society member David McDonald who was waiting for us
in Tarawa with his wife Sue. Luckily for us David
had relatives and business connections in Tarawa and
was busy trying to secure charter vessels to get all
our party across to Banaba. I knew that my in-laws
Tom & Temare Awira would be waiting for us, and
hoped and prayed that they’d be able to help us.
Also patiently waiting in Tarawa were Manabu &
Noriko and the Japanese contingent who were on very
tight schedules, my Mum - Annie and her friend
Margaret, Nei Aii (Kaiea’s Mother from Rabi) and
Jeremy and Alan from the BBC, London.
After near chaos
and mutiny when our group saw the first suggested
‘charter vessel’ David & Sue McDonald were
quick to offer a solution by negotiating a deal with
our very limited remaining funds to charter not one
but four separate vessels to take us across to
Banaba. This was also necessary because we were
already 2 days behind our original schedule by this
stage, and our Japanese contingent and that of the
McDonalds could not be altered.
Our first vessel
was a small catamaran that could carry only 13
people, and set sail a day later. Meanwhile the rest
of us were accommodated in Tom & Temare’s home
- an amazing feat when you consider over 20 people
moving in to a house with only 3 rooms. Bodies were
everywhere, strung up in hammocks, strewn across the
tradition ‘kiakia’ (small traditional day
sleep out), and covering every inch of spare
floor space. We were not only comfortable, but Tom
& Temare’s hospitality was second to none.
Our group finally
set sail on the Friday afternoon aboard the larger
catamaran out towards a wonderful Pacific sunset.
Look to Garry Hawkins ‘Feature Story’ page 19
for more details or our boat journey and Marion
Laritz’s ‘Feature Story’ page 17 for details
on our wonderful Banaba stay.
Banaba
at last!
Unfortunately for
the McDonalds and our Japanese contingent they only
ended up with a 3 day stay on Banaba, while our
group had a full 7 day stay waiting for the Banaban
contingent to arrive. A few of us stayed behind to
return with the Banaban contingent - Natalie, Ken
Sigrah, Nei Aii, Nei Makin Corrie, Buria Fiamalosi
and myself. This allowed us a two week stay on the
island, before we all reluctantly headed back for
the long trip home to Tarawa, Fiji and beyond.
We arrived back in
Tarawa on the Sunday and flew out for Fiji on the
Tuesday. Another mad rush in Nadi sourcing and
organising cheap overnight accommodation for our
group so we could give a ‘Farewell & Thank
You’ Concert for our generous Japanese sponsors
Masa & Fumi and friends. It was great to see
familiar smiling faces waiting for us at Nadi
airport - Colin, Clive, David Corrie, Masa &
Fumi.
The following day
we attended the concert for Masa & Fumi at their
development project in Nadi and what a concert it
was! One filled with joy and sadness as we all
realised that this would be our final ‘Good
bye!’
A trip to the
homeland is always an emotional experience but the
‘Homecoming’ trip seemed to have left us all in
an exhausted state of ‘emotional over load’ . So
many wonderful experiences shared amongst a group of
people from so many diverse cultural backgrounds.
Memories that will last a lifetime!
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