Food Storage

Phoenix, Arizona, USA

In 1962, while growing up in Nasova, Suva, my dad, (a Policeman), every morning would send me to the store, Hop Ty, to buy fresh hot baked bread for breakfast.

If they ran out, then Bulou Store, Nasese, would be my next stop. In those days, that one store in the Police compound, Hop Ty, is what all families depended on as well three stores at the Nasese civilian residential area outside the compound.

During hurricanes we never had any extra food in the house. Fortunately the storms only lasted two to four days and everything was back to normal.

In 1965 my dad became District Administrator for Wainibuka District after serving 20 years in the Royal Fiji Police Force and we lived in the interior of the biggest island in Fiji. During a hurricane, the large Wainibuka River flooded and moved down stream like a roaring train and we lived on a hill next to Wailotua District School, above a smaller river. It connected to the fast moving larger river.

The smaller river became stagnant so the river water that was blocked by the rapid moving larger river rose up to 90 feet in the valley and it became like a lake. It stayed that way for three to four weeks before it subsided. Again during this period of time, just like Nasova Police Compound, we didn’t have extra food in the house to prepare our family for a natural disaster.

Fortunately Wainibuka, a thick jungle terrain of Fiji, had a lot of wild yams and other vegetables to survive on. We took advantage of this. When the storm calmed down, we still had this large “lake” of water in front of our house to deal with. Fortunately my dad was also a great farmer, like his grandfather, Luke Senigasau, who fed many in Bau Island with his crops during disasters.

His farm was right across the lake on a hill. Thankfully the lake was stagnant with no undercurrent. So we loaded crops on a bamboo raft. My stepmother from Nawamagi Village, Nadroga, grew up by the Sigatoka River so she knew how to maneuver a raft in flooded rivers.

When growing up in times of natural disasters in Fiji, food was always the last thing on our family’s mind. Until we all started getting hungry.

When I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in May 1971, that was when I found out that one of the teachings and policies of the church was that all families were required to have a food storage in their house to prepare in times of natural disasters. Just like in today’s case of the coronavirus pandemic here in America.

When watching the news, I noticed long lines of cars and people waiting to pick up free food from Michigan to Florida and even here in Arizona, but not in the state of Utah. The main reason is that 90 per cent of Utah are Mormons or LDS church-goers and they followed the church policy on food storage. That’s why they are self-sufficient during this pandemic.

We all need to start a food storage in our homes for our families to prepare us for the next disaster, myself included. I hold the world record in procrastination.

The coronavirus pandemic is causing devastating effects on all families across the world. Today they have reached more than one million who tested positive for the virus and more than 58,300 deaths across the USA. This passes the total number of deaths in the Vietnam War. In Arizona, 6954 test positive, with 250 deaths.

With this, climate change, natural disasters are becoming more frequent. To add on top of that, we have AIDS, Zika, cancer, diabetes and this virus. We need to be prepared more than ever, not only with food storages, but with a medical cabinet full of supplies like first-aid equipment – bandages, anti-biotic cream, multivitamin pills, flu medicines – flashlights, candles and match boxes to light fires for cooking when the electric power goes off.