About that village visit!
Makogai Island was a Leper Colony from just after the turn of the 20th Century until the 1960’s. Everyone living there when they turned it into the Leper Colony was forced to leave the island and look for homes elsewhere. Our host for our visit was the current Chief, Chief Watson, and his family relocated to Suva where he went to school and lived for many years.
The Leper Colony had a very large hospital, a cinema and a jail as well as housing for the doctors and nurses and then cottages for the lepers, segregated by race, Fijian, Indo-Fijians, & Tongans.
When the colony was closed in the 1960’s, the local villagers were allowed to return to Makogai and resume their lives there. After a rousing welcome by the whole village at the shore, we had a tour of the grounds with Chief Watson, saw the cinema and could look at the jail, but because of the cyclone damage, couldn’t get close enough for a guided tour. The generator powering the village dates back to 1911 and was one of two that was left when they closed the Colony and is still providing electricity to the local villagers! For all these years they’ve been using spare parts from the second one to keep the first one operating!
After the tour, we were invited into their community house where we were “officially” welcomed by the chief and our Nai’a chief, Eddie, gave a greeting on behalf of the Nai’a and her guests and presented the village with a gift of kava. We then participated in their kava ceremony and watched several groups of school children perform local dances and songs for us. One of Chief Watson’s main concerns is not allowing the local culture, songs & traditions die out so the children are schooled by the elders in Fijian culture & traditions as well as regular schooling. Everyone speaks English since English is the official language of Fiji, but all children are raised speaking their own dialect of Fijian.
After the school children finished their dancing and singing, all of us were gathered up by individuals and we all performed several dances together! After we were worn out from all the dancing, the whole village sang us the Isa Lei (farewell) song and escorted us back to our waiting tenders and back to the Nai’a. It was a lovely visit and so wonderful to see the culture being handed down to the next generations.
Makogai Island was a Leper Colony from just after the turn of the 20th Century until the 1960’s. Everyone living there when they turned it into the Leper Colony was forced to leave the island and look for homes elsewhere. Our host for our visit was the current Chief, Chief Watson, and his family relocated to Suva where he went to school and lived for many years.
The Leper Colony had a very large hospital, a cinema and a jail as well as housing for the doctors and nurses and then cottages for the lepers, segregated by race, Fijian, Indo-Fijians, & Tongans.
When the colony was closed in the 1960’s, the local villagers were allowed to return to Makogai and resume their lives there. After a rousing welcome by the whole village at the shore, we had a tour of the grounds with Chief Watson, saw the cinema and could look at the jail, but because of the cyclone damage, couldn’t get close enough for a guided tour. The generator powering the village dates back to 1911 and was one of two that was left when they closed the Colony and is still providing electricity to the local villagers! For all these years they’ve been using spare parts from the second one to keep the first one operating!
After the tour, we were invited into their community house where we were “officially” welcomed by the chief and our Nai’a chief, Eddie, gave a greeting on behalf of the Nai’a and her guests and presented the village with a gift of kava. We then participated in their kava ceremony and watched several groups of school children perform local dances and songs for us. One of Chief Watson’s main concerns is not allowing the local culture, songs & traditions die out so the children are schooled by the elders in Fijian culture & traditions as well as regular schooling. Everyone speaks English since English is the official language of Fiji, but all children are raised speaking their own dialect of Fijian.
After the school children finished their dancing and singing, all of us were gathered up by individuals and we all performed several dances together! After we were worn out from all the dancing, the whole village sang us the Isa Lei (farewell) song and escorted us back to our waiting tenders and back to the Nai’a. It was a lovely visit and so wonderful to see the culture being handed down to the next generations.
1 comment:
Is there any information on a Canadian Doctor & family that were in charge of the Island, as well as the Central Leper hospital, in the late 1920's & early 30's. The Doctors name was Dr. E.A. Neff?
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