HE is 89 years old.
He still drinks yaqona.
And he still goes to his farm.
His name is Vilimoni Batinisavu.
It was 9am April 25, 2017 and the team from this newspaper was about to leave Dravuwalu Village to head to Muanisolo Village, when we met Vilimoni Batinisavu returning from his farm.
We had been accommodated at his house for a couple of days when touring the island of Kadavu.
With him that particular morning was a bag of root crops (dalo) uprooted from his farm. In fact that was not the only thing he did. He had already planted about 50 yaqona plants before he uprooted the dalo which was to be for lunch and dinner.
With him were his two great-grandsons Anare and Bai who quite often accompany him to his farm. The following morning I visited him at his farm and beside him were his same two great-grandsons helping plant some dalo.
Like every other person on this earth, everyone has their own stories of life, everyone has their own fair share of challenges and everyone has had their own mountains to climb, while some have reached the top, others are still climbing.
Such is the life that Tutu Vilimoni (as he is commonly called) has gone through
The year was 1940 and he was a mere 12-year-old lad from Dravuwalu Village in the district of Naceva on Kadavu.
He had plans to be successful and saw education as the pathway to success, but there were other plans in store for him.
Every given situation is allowed to occur either to make us or to break us, for Tutu Vilimoni, every situation, everything that occurred in his life he did not allow to get the best of him. In fact it helped shape him to become the man he could be and to reach his full potential.
He was still in Class Six at the Soso District School in 1940, when his father passed away. His late mother Mereia Wati asked him to stay home to be the man of the house and to help look after his younger brother Peniasi.
“Na tinai keirau o Mereia Wati marama ni Waiqanake. Keirau qaravi keirau tu mai na gauna me yacova saraga na gauna keirau lai cauravou, keirau sa lai vakawati ruarua.” (Our mother Mereia Wati was originally from Waiqanake. When my father passed away we looked after each other until the day and my brother and I were married and had families on our own.)
It was this moment that he started his own plantation. His driving force and inspiration was his late mother.
“Noqu teitei vukei au ga noqu nau, noqu nau tukuna vei au noqu itavi ga na teitei koya qai samaka. (My mother helped me when I started my own farm, she told me that my duty was to plant and she would do the clearing.)
“Ia au mino ni tei yaqona sara valevu baleta gauna ecei se sau baci saraga na yaqona, se lima na sede dua na kilo. Ka, na gauna ni matanitu va koloni ka. (I did not really plant a lot of yaqona because at that time during the colonial government the price of yaqona was very bad at five cents a kilogram.)
Apart from working on the farm, he also worked for Chinese farmers who at that time were based on the island.
His income was used to help meet the family’s basic needs.
At the age of 17, he was asked to look after his elder brother’s family who had been enlisted in the Fiji Infantry Regiment for the Malayan campaign.
“He was a young man and still single when he left the village to come to Lami and look after Ta levu (paternal uncle) Rakaso’s family,” said Sakeasi Mateboto his son.
According to Mr Mateboto, his father remained there until after the Malaya campaign and return of his father’s elder brother.
“He is a real hard worker and it’s really hard for him to rest, he will always have to be doing something,” he said of his father.
“In my life, only once I have seen him succumb to sickness,” added the 62-year-old Mr Mateboto.
Tutu Vilimoni later worked in several places in Suva, he was one of the pioneering elders who helped move Lami Village from the old village site, now the Wailada industrial subdivision.
He later went to Beqa where he spent some time on shipbuilding before returning to Dravuwalu to continue his farm and start his new family.
This time the price of yaqona was at $5 a kilogram.
The family started from a traditional Fijian house, a bure. When his yaqona plants matured, he upgraded their house to a wooden one before further upgrading to a concrete house.
“Not once were we lacked anything, there was always food on the table,” added Mr Mateboto.
The 89-year-old farmer added what kept him going was time management, consuming things moderately with certain boundaries that could not be crossed.
With his wife of more than 60 years, Tutu Vilimoni is the proud father of four children, grandfather to 16 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
Through his farm, he managed to send his children to school all of whom are working today in Fiji and one daughter is in New Zealand.
Despite reaching his full potential, achieving his goals he still goes to the farm.
“Au na qai cegu ga na teitei niu sa mate. Gauna ka, sara cakacaka taucoko na luvequ ia au teitei tiko qo baleti ira na makubuqu. (There is no time for me to rest because while my children are working, I have to farm for grandchildren, and I will only rest the day I die.)
“Vei kemuni na i tabagone, kua na somi yaqona vakasivia, me vakayagataki vakavuku na gauna.” (To the youths of today, please do not abuse the consumption of yaqona, use your time wisely.)
