Water source found
ASLEEPY little village in Yasawa with no water source of its own suddenly found itself “rich” when a hidden water supply was discovered.
According to a report in The Fiji Times on May 23, 1983, Yasawa-i-rara — which is one of five villages on Yasawa Island — had a population of about 120 people.
The story of the water source went back to 1943 when a young American soldier was stationed on the island for two-and-ahalf years.
Nate Goldman was a retired member of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and was stationed on the island from 1942 to 1944.
He said the village had no water then but at the top of the mountain where a radar had been placed, the grass and trees used to be greener even during a drought.
“Nobody believed it but I knew there was water,” he said.
“Even the Public Works Department had a report that there was no water but I proved them wrong.”
Mr Goldman said when he returned in 1980, he saw children had water-borne eye infections.
He decided to make another trip in 1982 to confirm the water source.
With the help of three villagers, Maikeli Vukuwale who used to work for the Public Works Department, Taniela Momolevu and Taniela Rokomulo, he went to the mountain top.
A dig with a stick resulted in water welling up.
Mr Goldman contacted the US Peace Corps which sent down two specialist volunteers, Jack McNeil and Chuck Hickerson, to confirm the water source.
So he and the village applied for American aid and after about 10 months, they received $14,000 which supplemented the money collected by the villagers.
They bought building material which was transported to the island aboard the government barge Katavatu.
No outside labour was used and apart from the very old or very young, all the villagers were up in the mountains from 10’oclock in the morning until it was dark.
Women carried sand, gravel and pipes while the men carried bags of cement and cement blocks up the one-mile climb to the top of the mountain.
The women mixed cement and cooked food, the elderly men broke rocks into gravel-sized chips and the younger men built the dam.
In about a month, the villagers with the help of two picks, one crowbar and eight to 10 shovels, completed the dam.
Mr Goldman said they had also worked on a reservoir about 150 yards further down to store the water and were digging trenches for the pipes.
He said there were thousands of gallons of water and despite the drought, the water level continued to rise.
Mr Goldman said one main pipe would run through the village with several pipes leading off.
He said that the dam site was called Maniqila, but the villagers were thinking of renaming it after his daughter Zelda who was supposed to come to Fiji with him but died of a brain tumour.
The then American ambassador, Fred Eckert, travelled to the Yasawa and gave a brass plaque for the water scheme.