Katelyn Parady, 2013 Arizona State University Fiji program teaching assistant, writes:

Standing unsteadily on a steep Fijian hillside, I watch as our friend and host from Votua Village demonstrates how to graft a citrus tree. Citrus trees are familiar to these Arizona State University students, but grafting is not. Junior splices a deep v-shape in the wood, explaining that the trees we will plant today have mandarin roots but will grow both mandarins and limes. He and our other host Oscar have a great amount of knowledge about how to grow both hybrids and wild trees. The plants we hold in our hands, however, were donated to them by the local agricultural ministry upon hearing we would be completing a farming service project.

After staying overnight in their indigenous Fijian village and dancing, drinking kava, conducting ethnohydrology surveys, and learning about medical and environmental issues facing the community, we are ready to give back. Over the course of the morning our group plants over 100 banana, coconut, citrus, and breadfruit trees on four plantations, or Fijian family farms. Students learn how to dig using both spades and a traditional Fijian digging tool that Junior says has a very specific name—a big stick. They sprinkle cassava, capsicum, cucumber, and cabbage seeds while being mercilessly teased by our work partners from the village, who love to joke.

Oscar tells us that plants have eyes and ears and that taro in particular is a jealous plant that requires the farmer to come visit every day. The conversation turns also to climate change. Though we are visiting during the dry season, we are planting in mud and rain. While the readings we gave our students emphasize ocean acidification and sea level rise, villagers are just as concerned with lengthening rainy seasons and subsequent decreases in mangos, guava, and avocados. The food produced on these plantations is used almost entirely to feed the village, and so these conditions may endanger community food security and cultural dietary practices. For students who are used to thinking of climate change as something happening elsewhere or in the future, these realizations are sobering.

In the afternoon, we walk back to the village to clean up and don our sulus. After devouring a lunch of parrotfish, curried chicken, steamed rice, eggplant stewed in coconut cream, deviled eggs, wild banana, and juice made of tang and guava, we sit together cross-legged in a large circle for a farewell ceremony. After the village leaders and elders are served their kava and we have each had a bowl, our faculty leader Frank expresses how grateful we are for the knowledge they have shared with us and for their generous hospitality. Then, one of our students delivers our final goodbye. Jennifer is a member of the Ak-chin tribe in the United States and she tells them that while her tribal community at home is strong and people tend to each other, villagers in Votua have shown her that community ties can be even stronger than she knew. “What you’re doing here is a good thing, and there’s not enough of it in the world,” she says. “That’s what we’ll take with us back home.”