Fijian Ladder

The other day I mentioned to the Turaga ni Koro that there was a leak in the roof right above my bed and that it dripped on me when it rained at night.  This was actually a problem for me; though I could put buckets under the other leaks, I couldn’t really put a bucket on my bed while I was sleeping on it.  I was a little leery of telling the TK because the previous times they’d “fixed” my roof it had either (1) not done anything to fix the problem or (2) had actually made the problem worse.  But it was really annoying to get rained on while I tried to sleep – so there I was.

The next day while it was raining and I was drinking ginger tea to warm up after having been drenched working in the garden, the TK came by with Ramasi, one of the oldest men in the village – possibly the oldest that still gets out of the house.  They looked at the roof and had me poke a piece of bamboo through where it was dripping so they could better see the problem.  A little later village youth (age of village youth: 18-35) arrived one or two at a time, some with long pieces of bamboo, others with pieces of fiber stripped from shrubs, others with bush knives (think: machetes) still others just looking on as they built a ramshackle ladder to climb up to the roof.

Sovui Making the Ladder

The crooked ladder

I had to watch, because, well, in the states if you need to climb up something and don’t have a ladder you either (1) borrow one or (2) go buy one at the store.  In Fiji apparently you just gather some materials and make one.  It doesn’t take long, but it does take a committee of older villagers coaching the youths.  There wasn’t enough of the fiber to tie all the rungs, so they decided (instead of going to get more fiber) to cut holes in one of the bamboo sides and stick the rungs through while tying them on the other side. 

After some initial maneuvers, it went a bit like this:

·      Cut holes in one bamboo pole (two per rung – on either side of the pole)

·      Tie the rungs to the other bamboo pole

·      Line the rungs up with the holes on the other bamboo pole

·      Jam the rungs through the holes

There were some problems with this method as the rungs didn’t line up straight across and it was hard to jam all the rungs in the holes at the same time and the rungs were different lengths.  And there was the problem that no one thought to make the ends of the bamboo poles even when they started so one leg was much longer than the other.  Like I said, I had to watch.

Climbing the Ladder

Fixing the Roof

Up went the ladder, a difficult task in of itself as it was nearly 30 feet tall, and down it came again for adjustment as they realized there were some construction issues.  But it went up again, and so did three or four youths and one older guy and they proceeded to do more repairs on the ladder while it was up there, people on the ground tossing items like bush knives up to the people on the roof.  They fixed my roof fairly well this time and everyone made it down the ladder safely, well, almost.  After two guys climbed down the ladder was having some issues and one of the bamboo poles (the tied on one) came off altogether leaving one pole with rungs stuck through.  Another guy opted just to jump off the roof (a twelve foot jump) and another guy used the now defunct ladder to climb down slowly doing some final repairs on the way down.  Just as he finished the bamboo pole snapped in half and he had just enough time to jump to safety before it completely collapsed.

The guys that built the ladder and did the repairs were laughing the whole time, as were all the spectators.  This is really the most popular kind of entertainment in the village: guys doing something and putting on a show for everyone else, especially me, probably.  But I felt like I was the only one who was afraid someone was going to fall and break a back.  One of the guys said to me, “Fijian Ladder, sometimes good, sometimes bad.  Sometimes work, sometimes not.”  Everyone laughed, even me, but – seriously – if they have to work on my roof again, I’m not going to be there; I’m going to town to have a drink and calm my nerves!