ESEROMA THE THIEF
Warning! Do not stay at Eseroma's Home stay!
Some of my biggest regrets and frustrations of my time in Gunu was seeing my efforts to raise the living standards of everyone constantly being waylaid. One of the biggest and first efforts was to bring sewing machines and an overlocker to the village. Sandy Vakalala Vunibola mentioned she wanted a sewing machine so that "the village ladies could start a business sewing school uniforms to earn extra money."
I found and brought 2 sewing machines and the overlocker here in Australia. Then I shipped them over to Fiji at some cost for the freight, documentation, customs fee and other fees. When I brought them to the village, I took them to Sandy's house. She then said "Thank you for MY sewing machine." The emphasis on MY as very strong. I tried to explain that the sewing machine as for use for the village ladies to make uniform to earn money.
Then, the other sewing machine was grabbed by Reiapi who announced she would take it with her to Vanua Levu. I explained no, it was for the village use. They started up with the not very subtle hints about me being a guest in the village, how they could cause problems for my house and so on.
Reiapi had asked me to pay about $1400 for 3 Tabua for our engagement "So Vava will give us a big plot of land" and later another $3,200 (And initial $2,000 payment, then another 2 $700 payments, all of which I have records of) for the land where my house was. I later found out that was a scam and despite asking for years, Reiapi never gave me a land title, because as I later found out, you can't sell village land. Especially to a Palangi.
I saw a dream to improve the lives of the village destroyed in a moment by people I would later realise were just plain greedy. I know Reiapi took 1 sewing machine to Vaua Levu, and the following year I asked Sandy about the other one. She said it "Has been taken to the mainland". As far as I know, neither machine ever was used to help the women of the village to earn an income.
Similarly I brought bread tins so bread could be baked fresh in the village for everyone. I'd heard that some times by the time bread came from the mainland to Gunu it went mouldy. So the plan was to bring enough tins to bake bread locally. I brought about 10 professional bread tins and 4 smaller ones. Again that got hijacked. I have no idea where those tins are today, but I know they are not helping the village.
When I installed solar on my house I saw Eseroma get a chest freezer. I was quite keen to see the village get access to free chilled water for the hot days. Instead I saw them sell ice blocks. Naomi told me later she was telling people hey had to make money because I was charging them money for the electricity. That angered me, because no, I never charged them money for electricity, or anything else.
Quite the opposite. Tua used emotional blackmail to constantly demand money from me. He demanded money for:
I need to buy diapers for my kids.
We are only eating rice and tea, we are so hungry.
I need to recharge my phone.
I dropped my phone in the sea so I can't call you.(I paid for 2 phones for him over the years)
I paid him for materials and labour for my house repeatedly for work that did not get done.
He also stole materials from me repeatedly. The ceiling wood on his tin house was all stolen from me. I had planned to ship a lot of snorkelling gear to Gunu, and would regularly go to second hand stores to buy it. At one point I had at least 20 pairs of fins, and 7 sets of snorkels and goggles. I was trying to arrange with Tua to ship it over. But by that stage they had been regularly stealing things from my house, and when I asked him to fundraise to help pay for the customs fees and transport from the mainland he said "No, you will pay for that." So he expected me to pay for the fins, pay for and build a box to ship them, drive them to Sydney, pay for the documentation and shipping (all of which I was happy to pay for), and then to also pay for the customs in Fiji and the village boat transport.
Sadly Tua has often diverted my money intended for village boat transport to his own personal use. I recall one time I sent $300 for transport of freight only to fnd Tua and Reiapi used it to pay for fuel to go to the mainland for a "Business meeting" with a man who wanted to buy land at LikuLiku. Tua is quite keen on getting that land so he can run a homestay and lock the village out of using it. Be careful not to let him. He does not have the best interest of the village at heart. The number of time he sent me messages on Facebook writing things like "These villages are stupid and uneducated."
He does not respect you. I do have screenshots of those conversations.
Even last year in 2023 when I came I brought hundreds of little stick on plastic gems for the children of the village. Just decorative things to bring some joy to the kids. I was going to share them around. There was enough for every kid to get a few. Instead Naomi stole them out of my bags and gave them to her kids who used them all up in a few hours while I was away. She stuck some to her phone as well.
Last year I also brought an electric hair trimmer and men's manicure kit with nail trimmers. Several times I asked for assistance to give that to someone who could do free haircuts for the village. Last week I found the hair trimmer in my cupboard. Instead of giving it away, they kept it and didn't even use it, just let it go to waste.
So, again, I apologise for not lifting the standards of living for the whole village as much as I wanted to. I tried hard to. I wish I had found this group years ago so I could have communicated my plans with the whole village, so one family could not have dominated the things I brought over.