In the interior of Viti Levu, Ratu Nabobuco District School serves six villages and 209 students from Classes One to Six.
An article published in The Fiji Times article on July 1, 1998, stated that during a school assembly, three students stood out from the other rugged, well-muscled, bare- foot, darker ones.
The three were fairer, more approachable but obviously knew the lyrics of the Fijian hymn the children were singing.
Put them together with other students in another room and you could not tell who was Rotuman and who was from Naqelewai (a village 10 minutes away from Monsavu).
Priscilla, 8, and Hanisi, 11, are the children of Wailoa Power Station electrical supervisor Tupou Semisi.
Their cousin Algino Semisi, 10, had just started school at Monasavu that year but, like his cousins, he had mastered the different dialects in the area.
For lunch, they ate bele cassava, and noodles. Anything but sandwiches.
“I try and make a lunch which will be similar to the ones the other children bring, never bread,” said their mother, Vika.
“But I have something cooking when they get home in the afternoon.
“The other children may look at them differently if their lunches were different so they take what other students usually take,” she said.
“I feel living here is good for them because at least they see first hand how some people have to struggle to get by.”
The Semisi family would travel to Suva every fortnight for their shopping but since the arrival of baby William, who’s then five months old, the trips had been Tupou’s responsibility.
Also on their previous shopping trips, the children used to complain about wanting to go home back to Monasavu as soon as possible.
So now, to avoid the whole routine, they stopped coming to Suva. Their father talked more on how he started with a young family but had reached this far because, he believed he had become a born-again Christian.
“We struggled as a young couple with a son. I also had to look after my brother who was then still at FIT (Fiji Institute of Technology),” Tupou said.
“Getting this position was a blessing in disguise. My family and I became closer to God and now the children do not have to go through seeing a drunken father.
“The environment is also a good learning environment for them. There were no distraction like television or video games.”
Vika said the one thing in abundance at Wailoa was time.
“I get to spend more time with my children. I watch their every move when they return from school. They also have more time for their studies,”
That year was Hanisi’s last at primary school. Her father decided which boarding school to send her to following year.
