visit to Waikete village! – Pacific Outreach

Posted June 5th

Shelly at kava welcoming ceremony

Recently we drove with 2 vehicles to bring clothes to the community of Waikete in Tailevu district, north of Suva. As is often the case with our distributions, we needed to leave the main road & follow a much rougher track through the interior. We seemed to enjoy the ride more than the taxi driver though, who was complaining about the condition of the road in order to try to up the price, ha!

After much bumping around, we finally arrived at a very isolated village that felt like the end of the world. We were warmly welcomed at the village community hall, where we placed all the bags of clothes.

Soon, we found out that in the next room a big feast was waiting for us, with fresh crabs & lobsters on the menu! During the time we ate, the person in charge of the community had divided all the clothes into 43 equal piles for the 43 households in the area – an unusual display of diligence that we don’t often see in the capital!

43 piles of clothes!

After our big meal, we were shown around the village; it was nice to be reminded that the best life is a simple one with every village member living a healthy lifestyle & doing their part to help their family & the larger community!

children happy with new clothes & toothpaste!