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| From Mark Vaurasi in Washington, D.C. (26 March 2006) [Mark is employed at the New Zealand Defence Staff, New Zealand Embassy in Washington D.C.] We live in Georgetown, Washington DC, approximately two miles from work at the New Zealand Embassy. We used to walk from our apartment (which is opposite the back gate of the Russian Embassy) to work. We have just bought a car and it's a challenge driving on the right hand side of the road and in snow/ice. The NZ Embassy is located next door to the British Embassy and directly opposite The Naval Observatory Base, and Vice-President Dick Cheney’s residence. Apparently there are approximately 200 Embassies in Washington DC. We have made contact with some of my old Delainavesi Rotuman friends in San Francisco (David Samson & Curleen Langman) and as a result we will be attending the Rotuman Helava Charity Ball in San Francisco on 29 April, in support of Project Rotuma. We are planning to fly to San Francisco via Salt Lake City and returning to Washington DC via Minneapolis. To keep us occupied in the weekends, Tina plays netball for Novatel and I am still enjoying playing rugby for the Washington team on Saturdays. We also play touch rugby with the Australians on Thursdays. During our spare time we did the "tourist type" trips to The Capitol, The Washington Monument, Union Station, Lincoln Memorial, National Cathedral, Pentagon, and the White House. We also went snow skiing at Liberty Mountain in Pennsylvania -- YES, we have mastered the art of skiing, well almost. It was also interesting to travel on the Metro (bus & train) to various places like Pentagon City, Potomac Mill, and the Franconia-Springfield Malls. We also enjoy shopping in the nearby states of Virginia and Maryland and the walks along the Potomac River on the weekends. The other places in our "places to visit list" include, Dakota, New York, Canada, and Hawaii. This said, I will be visiting our Defence Staff in Texas and Alabama. We visited the Fijian Ambassador, Jesoni Vitusagavulu (who is ex-old boy from my old schools, Queen Victoria School and Marist Brothers). We had a lot to catch up about our old school days in Matavatucou. There is also a lady at the Fijian Embassy who is married to a Rotuman guy by the name of Irava; we have yet to meet them. Despite all the above, we really miss our great Wellington and Kiwi lifestyle: Watching Super 14 rugby and sevens rugby, organised children's sports activities, Rotuman/island food such as taro & corn beef, Keresi's koua/fekei, Sela's special fish in lolo and most of all close family like Sela & Keresi Manueli, Fay & Sidney Viki, Tony Fullman, Win and Bruce, Karen, our children Kirsty Henderson & Danny, Ravai-Jesse, Jason-Craig-Lana Vaurasi, Stacy and our two lovely mapigas, Bev/Gabe Penjueli, Tarani Hickling, Torika/Rahoul, Sue/Sef and our Auckland supporters Vama/Lillyann, Visoni & the two other guys that came down for our farewell in Wellington. We also miss our families that we spent Christmas 2005/New Year 2006 with in Fiji; from Vatukoula -- Oni/Munivai, Mua/Tivaknoa (mum/dad), Sela/Garsau, Ieli/Jone; from Suva -- Doris/Pene, Aunty Rejieli & family (Ian/Lorna), Aunty Jiurie/Viki Katafono family. We finally got our home phone and Internet connected last weekend (mtvaurasi@verizon.net); you can also contact us at my work e-mail (mark.vaurasi@nzdf.mil.nz). Hanisiof to all our families and friends From Mika Taito in Big Sur California (21 March 2006)
Our purotu for the tautoga this
year will again be Mrs. Marieta Samisoni from Pacifica, California
and our next dance practice will be this coming Saturday, 25 March
at 2pm in Fremont.
Faiaksia ma Fu'uomus
From Dan and Maggie Smith in Fairview, Michigan (20March
2006)
From Jeannette Hereniko in Honolulu (12 March 2006) There will be a free screening of The Land Has Eyes in Seattle on Thursday, 6 April, at the University of Washington. This will be part of the 5th Annual Native Voices Film Festival and Showcase of Native Scholarship, entitled "Transcending Boundries." Vilsoni Hereniko will be on hand to introduce the film and to answer questions. The screening will be at 7:30 in the ECC Theater. It will be preceded by a reception from 6-7 pm in the ECC Lobby. The Land Has Eyes has also been selected to screen at the 2006 Indianapolis International Film Festival, April 26 to May 4, 2006. The film is entered in the Grand Jury Prize Feature Film Competition. Press Release: Openair Cinemas Open-Air Cinema Ltd., Bluewater and Heart of Auckland City have teamed up for an exciting new project: outdoor movies at the historic Britomart Precinct. The organisers took up the theme of co-existence and put a very interesting programme together including the Oscar winner for the Best Film 'Crash' and nominees 'Munich' by Steven Spielberg as well as 'Joyeux Noel' for best foreign language film. While thousands of Aucklanders and tourists enjoyed the grass surface covering the car park in the historic Britomart Precinct during February, Openair Cinema director Urs Bauer took the opportunity to setup a temporary movie theatre creating a festival of recent 'co-existence' type films. "The films we've chosen all cover some different aspects of living together in a very diverse universe. I think it's a great way of seeing movies, which will definitely touch the spectators' hearts under the open sky." The ten night extravaganza starts this Friday with 'Mr. Batignole', a French Drama by Jérard Jugnot which takes up the refuge-story of two Jewish families during 2nd world war, followed by the heart-warming story 'The Land has Eyes' on Saturday. This first Fijian feature film is built around the story of a young woman attempting to escape the stifling conformity of island culture. Inspired by the myth of a Warrior Woman, she recovers from the death of her father and fights for justice and freedom. From Fijitimes Online (4 March 2006) Youths win Commonwealth award The initiatives of youths towards community-based activities are the qualities that should be nurtured and encouraged.
Speaking as the chief guest at the presentation of the 2005 Commonwealth Youth Silver Award, Minister for Information, Communications and Media Relations, Marieta Rigamoto said she supported the participation of youths in programs that instilled leadership qualities and had a community-minded approach towards activities that require team effort, planning and co-operation. "Youths who demonstrate such qualities go on to become good leaders; leaders who are capable of motivating others in creating awareness of national goals and activities that positively impact on the communities they serve," she said. She made the remarks before presenting the award to the Laje Rotuma Youth members at a special ceremony at Churchwood Chapel Hall in Suva. The Commonwealth Youth Programme Silver Award focuses on the contributions made by young people to the development of their community. For an additional story regarding LäjeRotuma click here From Fijilive (3
March 2006) Ray Chhat Dam (reportedly a Thai national with US citizenship)--alongside other individuals --was linked to an entity called the Consolidated Credit Bank Limited, which is said to have originally obtained a mail order bank licence over the Internet from the Australian-based Dominion of Melchizedek. The Dominion of Melchizedek is a so-called micronation with its own legislation and flag and is listed as being located in various parts of the Pacific Ocean islands and parts of Antarctica, and lays claim to a small island off Rotuma called Solkope. The Dominion of Melchizedek was implicated in trying to separate Rotuma from Fiji in early 2000 after its leader David Korem visited Rotuma and had drafted a constitution and was planning to help it gain independence. From Maa Emerite Littlewood in Suva (3 March 2006)
On Thursday 12th of January we had an early celebration of the 60th
birthdays of my mum, Anne Vilsoni and her twin sister Faga Albert.
These women are the daughters of 'Atu and Raki of Haroa, Motusa. Celebrations
were held at the home of 'Emele Tivao in Tamavua. From Fijitimes Online (1 March 2006) Fuata's drive is his vision by Amelia Vunileba MOST of our sporting teams and athletes are looking forward to the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia, later this month.
Many of them have been training hard for the Games — in most cases preparations started a good year or two ago. Not exempt from these are people with disabilities who have a different competition, allowing them to compete against others similar ilk. Fuata Faktaufon is one such athlete and will leave with Team Fiji in a fortnight. He has won medals in past disabled games in the 100 and 200 metres sprints and in long jump. Fuata is actually short-sighted or low vision (as it is referred to) and can't see anything beyond two metres. He works as a teacher aide at the Fiji Society for the Blind in Vatuwaqa, Suva, "I teach Class Eight students and computers studies as well but I will be leaving for the Commonwealth Games in two weeks," he said. "I only have two students in my class and even though school has just started, I want to prepare them well for the Fiji Eighth Year Examination," he said. Fuata attended Veiuto Primary School from Class One to Six before moving to Suva Grammar School for forms one to six, finishing off in 1996. "When my father died in 1997, I was supposed to have gone back for Form Seven but after the funeral, I had missed out on three weeks of school and knew it would be hard for me to try and catch up. "For the rest of the year, I stayed home and the following year, I joined the United Blind People's Association, helping out in its activities," he said. "I started taking up swimming quite seriously and in 1999, I went for my first international competition in Bangkok for the Far East Asia South Pacific Games." He didn't win any medals in swimming at that competition and was pencilled in for the 100m, 200m and long jump in the same meet. "I competed in those three events in athletics and managed to win bronze medals in all three," said Fuata. "I didn't know much about running, you know seriously, for that kind of competition but I have since learnt a lot and have gotten serious about it," he said. "After winning the bronze medals, I was able to qualify for the Para-Olympics in Sydney in 2000 and it was quite an exposure for me. "It was the first time for me to compete in a world event and I was nervous because of the huge crowd but it was a good experience." He said since it was a world meet, he only managed to qualify for the Games and the times he clocked at the 2000 Para-Olympics allowed him to qualify for the Far East Asia SPG in South Korea in 2002. He has since been actively taking part in local and regional competitions and through such competitions, he was able to qualify for this year's Commonwealth Games. "The only thing that is lacking for disabled people's sports is competition because there aren't many of us to compete against each other," he said. Fuata says even competition from able-bodied athletes can't be wrangled because most are often hesitant to have training runs with him. "Since there isn't any competition, we aren't pushed to limits that can make us reach higher goals in our events and it affects our performance," he said. The man from Motusa, Rotuma, is quietly hoping some disabled events will be included in next year's South Pacific Games in Samoa because it wasn't included in the 2003 Games. Apart from the 2007 SPG, Fuata aims to qualify for the 2008 Para-Olympics in Beijing. Having competed in so many Games, a lot of people will think he has always been involved in sports since his young days. Well, that is just not so. Many people who know Fuata from primary and secondary school will agree he is an active and very artistic person. But because of his short sightedness, he wasn't allowed to take part in any sports and the only games he played was with friends during recess and lunch breaks. One thing that I remember about Fuata from primary school is that he was always looking up when talking to you, making you wonder what he was looking at, when was simply looking at you. An injury to his eyes when he was a class one student led to his short sightedness, killing his dream of becoming a soldier. After receiving treatment, he continued to attend VPS and SGS until Form Six and considers himself lucky because his school friends never treated him differently. "I was really lucky because my friends, while not treating me differently, would always help when they thought that I needed it," he said. That statement had me nodding in agreement because I remembered there were many a times when I would see this same Fuata playing rugby or touch rugby in the fields in Veiuto and if you were to stand from a far, you would never guess that something was amiss. "My best years in school were 1995 and 1996 because our form was one of the notorious forms in school as the majority of students were boys," he said. "That was one of the fun times, you know, being in the senior forms made us think we ruled the school," he said laughingly. "Apart from my friends, teachers were understanding of my situation and were quite helpful and one teacher I will always remember is my English teacher Mrs Lewaravu." Fuata did manage to attain some formal qualifications and in 2003 he studied for a teaching certificate in special education after securing a Public Service Commission scholarship. "After completing that certificate, I have been working here at the Blind School as a teacher aide and like some other graduates, am still waiting for an appointment from the Ministry of Education," he said. He started off on a voluntary basis but is receiving some payment from the Blind Society. Although Fuata wanted to be a soldier, he now says teaching visually impaired students made him feel he was in the right place. "I feel like this was the job that was chosen for me and I like working with the children because I understand the frustrations they go through as a result of their limited vision or the lack of it," he said. "Working with the children here requires patience because we have to do a lot of explaining and describing, especially to those who are completely blind." Fuata is the vice president of the UBP and encourages other visually impaired people to have faith in themselves and not to let their disability hinder their progress. "I have managed to reach this far and I know there are others out there who can do the same but it doesn't necessarily have to be in sports, it can be in employment or studies for that matter," he said. Apart from wanting to be a soldier, he always wanted to drive — something he feels can never be achieved because people need to see beyond six metres to be able to take a driving test, whereas he can only see two metres. Because he was limited (at first) with his disabilities and wasn't able to achieve a few of his dreams, Fuata is now making use of it through other talents — a lesson indeed for all of us, don't you think? |
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