Transcript
RUEBEN GRANDON: Hopefully we'll be able to help curb or eliminate a lot of the open defecation that was prevalent on the island before, or people going into the sea or into the bush. A lot of toilet ratios were upwards of thirty towards forty or fifty in some areas. So we came in here kind of the emergency phase you could say. So our structures are very temporary by nature, probably six months maximum. It's good seeing Red Cross here and Oxfam with more supplies it's I guess comforting in a lot of ways to see that the next phase is arriving and ready to hit the ground.
ALEX PERROTTET: And you've been here all this time I suppose just witnessing how people live because they don't have homes, they've been living in tents, just like you are. I mean the empathy is easy because you're living just like them. But for them it's their permanent home, how have you seen them affected by that?
RG: Oh yeah, that's been tough. You don't see a lot of the effects I think because the Fijian people seem to be so resilient and so happy, but I could say that the tarps are getting worn, the wind damage, some of the tents are getting leaky so they're getting wet. They tarps and tents are kind of at their end, it's been about six months or so since they came in so it's good that Red Cross has more tarps to distribute and it's really good to see more permanent building structures coming in. We can't really imagine what the cyclone was like and what people went through and how it could affect them but you wouldn't necessarily know it, talking to people, they've welcomed us into their village like family.
AP: And then what do you do for food, because obviously you're very conscious that there's a limit in the supply here and thankfully people were saying that the ground has given them that temporary crop of pumpkins and cucumbers and watermelons but how have you been living and how have you seen the others live?
RG: You're right we did want to be very conscious of that before we came in so we procured all our food and dry goods from Suva and brought it all here to the island so we wouldn't have to be reliant on some of the smaller grocery stores and markets or taking from the food rations or the food supplies that they had that are quite limited. Over the time that we've been here though, there's been more families and people who are the beneficiaries for the toilets and they've been inviting the volunteers in and saying, hi, come eat with us, come and have tea. I think some of these crops that they've planted, I think they might have got seeds from somewhere early after the cyclone, some of these crops are starting to bear fruit and there's a lot of pumpkins right now and people are giving away a lot of pumpkins to say thank you and that kind of thing. So the food seems to be coming back but we were very conscious about that and to try not to take away from any of the local resources.
AP: So I suppose many of your volunteers might even be sad to leave?
RG: That's so true, there's been a lot of jokes flying around lately that some of the people who have been here for a while, they're Fijian now, or Fijiana for the girls, and sometimes you might wonder if maybe that's more important than the toilet in the big picture. So it is going to be hard for people to leave and the Fijian culture is just amazing, that's what makes people extend their stay here and want to be a part of it.
