Nalatu builds ‘smart’ bure
THE Nalatu residence in the Sigatoka Valley is easy to find, although it is not a numbered house in a named street.
It was a building in the old Fijian style, but with such 20th century distinctions like louvre windows, said an article published by
The Fiji Times on January 31, 1976.
You drive up the valley road with one eye open for what judgment will tell you must be the biggest, nicest bure in the district, and that is the Nalatus.
The article said it was superior in function and visual appeal to any other house built in the Sigatoka district at a cost of $3500.
With the housing authority reckoning in 1976 that it cost $6000 to build a normal two-bedroom house, plus $2500 for site works, the $3500 Nalatu House was something of note.
The report stated that Filimone Nalatu, 54, was born at Nakalavo in Sigatoka and retired in 1975 after 33 years with the Education Department.
He had leased 40 acres of land near his village. He farmed yields of melons, maize, broom corn, rice, dalo and potatoes.
He also invested $900 in hiring bulldozers to clear 10 acres of guava.
The report stated in the first season, the cleared land yielded nearly eight tonnes of melons which earned $2500.
The family got their meat and milk from their own cattle, eggs from their own hens and grew their own vegetables. It was practically as self-sufficient as a family could be.
The article stated they had built themselves a model home.
Before deciding the kind of house he wanted, Mr Nalatu had looked around the valley and did not like what he saw. Instead of neat bure, many houses were concrete or wooden rectangle-topped with rusted, corrugated-iron sheets. Some were ramshackle lean-to buildings which may as well be a cow shed.
It said Mr Nalatu opted for the old style of building, but he admitted there were difficulties.
Thatch wears out quickly and to re-thatch a big bure was a laborious business, especially when it must be done every couple of years.
“Bure are going out of fashion because no one can afford to build them in the old way now,” Mr Nalatu said.
“In the days when the Fijian regulations existed, all work was done communally. People were fined for not turning up to work because 30 or 40 more people would work to build a bure. Now the regulations are gone, every individual has his own house. It’s not possible.
“It’s easier to build a European house. The traditional atmosphere is being lost.”
But it was a bure he wanted – one with the Nadroga type of structure. He set out to preserve tradition with Western perspectives.
The bure he built stood on concrete foundations. The posts were treated vesi with anti-rot chemicals.
“Tradition, yes, but not the blind kind that ignores the fact that bure thatch and timber supports are not very durable when used in the traditional way.”